The Shadow of Your Smile

The Sandpiper is a 1965 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, directed by Vincente Minnelli. The character Laura Reynolds (Taylor) nurses a sandpiper with a broken wing, as Edward Hewitt (Burton) looks on. The bird lives in her home until it is healed and then flies free, though it comes back occasionally. This sandpiper is used as a central symbol in the movie, illustrating the themes of growth and freedom.

The Shadow of Your Smile

The Sandpiper won the 1965 Best Original Song Academy Award for "The Shadow Of Your Smile". The song was introduced with a trumpet solo by Jack Sheldon.

Sandpiper

The music was written by Johnny Mandel with the lyrics written by Paul Francis Webster.

Johnny Mandel (born November 23, 1925) is one of the few writers around who is capable of writing standards that can be recorded and performed by a wide variety of jazz musicians and singer. Mandel starting writing arrangements when he was 13 but he made his living during the 1940's as a trombonist and trumpeter, generally playing in sections of big bands.

He picked up experience playing trumpet with Joe Venuti (1943) and Billie Rogers, switching to trombone for such famous orchestras as those led by Count Basie, Woody Herman, and Buddy Rich, but soon his arrangements and compositions started to get more attention.

Mandel's most famous compositions include "Suicide Is Painless" (theme from the movie and TV series M*A*S*H), "Close Enough for Love", "Emily" and "A Time for Love".

Johnny Mandel

Mandel was not used to writing songs as such; he composed instrumental pieces for bands and was interested in symphonic composition as well, attending Juilliard to study "serious" music mid-career.

“'The Shadow of Your Smile' started off as the instrumental theme for The Sandpiper -- Paul Webster said -- 'Y'know, this song should have a verse,' and we wrote it right then and there on the phone." The lyric is quite clearly influenced by the film.

Paul Francis Webster was born December 20, 1907, in New York City. After dropping out of NYU, he set sail for Asia as a merchant seaman, and upon returning to the U.S. worked as an Arthur Murray dance instructor; in 1932, Webster teamed with composer John Jacob Loeb to score his first hit, "Masquerade".

Paul Francis Webster

He won his first Academy Award in 1953 for "Secret Love," written with Sammy Fain for the film Calamity Jane. Perhaps the most famous fruits of their partnership was the title theme to 1955's Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, which earned Webster a second Oscar. Elected into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, Webster died in Beverly Hills on March 18, 1984.

Within a couple years of the release of The Sandpiper, there were dozens of recordings of "The Shadow of Your Smile," including those by Barbra Streisand, from My Name Is Barbra (1965); Lou Rawls, from >i>Live!

(1966); and Bennett, on Movie Song Album (1965). Mandel's original version is on the soundtrack The Sandpiper (1965).

Astrud Gilberto's recording treats it like a bossa nova, the singer phrasing it in her unadorned, straightforward style. Bobby Darin also accents the Latin flavor of the tune, his full-throated vocals seem to take their cue from Boots Randolph's tenor sax tone on his 1966 recording.

Astrud Gilberto - The Shadow of Your Smile, okładka

Jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris recorded it in 1965. Saxophonist Dave Koz recorded two versions from his standards album, At the Movies. The first song featured Johnny Mathis on vocals, and Chris Botti on trumpet. The second, an instrumental, features Botti again and guitarist Norman Brown.

The Shadow Of Your Smile, lyrics (Tony Bennett)

One day we walked along the sand
One day in early spring
You held a piper in your hand
To mend its broken wing
Now I'll remember many a day
And many a lonely mile
The echo of a piper's song
The shadow of a smile

The shadow of your smile
When you are gone
Will color all my dreams
And light the dawn
Look into my eyes
My love and see
All the lovely things
You are to me

Our wistful little star
Was far too high
A teardrop kissed your lips
And so did I
Now when I remember spring
All the joy that love can bring
I will be remembering
The shadow of your smile

Shadow of Your Smile