Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo' Bye): A Song History

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Leo Feist of New York published “Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo’ Bye)” in 1922, crediting the words and music jointly to Gus Kahn, Ernie Erdman and Dan Russo, with a photograph of Al Jolson on the cover.[1] The Morgan Library catalogs its copy under Bombo,[2] and the Santa Cruz Public Library’s sheet-music catalog describes the song as coming from that 1921 Broadway musical, with Jolson as its performer.[3] Another Feist printing pictured the Oriole Terrace Orchestra instead,[4] a band that Russo, a violinist and songwriter, had formed in Chicago in the early 1920s; it played an engagement at the Oriole Terrace in Detroit, and he led it jointly with the pianist Ted Fiorito.[5] That orchestra recorded the number for Brunswick around September 1922.[6]

Etching of passengers in hats and coats seated in a dim railway carriage at night, one reading a newspaper.

Pierre Georges Jeanniot, Evening Train (Le Train du Soir), etching, 1897. Passengers on an evening train, shown for the song's railway farewell; the etching has no connection to the song.

Other recordings came fast: the Frank Westphal Orchestra made a fox-trot version for Columbia in Chicago on August 15, 1922,[7] and Jolson sang it for the same label in New York on September 9, issued as Columbia A3705.[8] Victor sessions over the next few months included the Benson Orchestra of Chicago, the American Quartet, and Billy Murray with Ed Smalle.[5] Jolson carried the song into film history in The Jazz Singer (1927), singing it in the Coffee Dan’s sequence right after the picture’s first spoken lines.[9] A library record for a 1999 reprint lists later screen appearances in Rose of Washington Square (1939), The Jolson Story (1946) and Jolson Sings Again (1949).[10]

Dana Gruber’s Speakeasy And Tin Pan Alley Tunes For Chromatic Dulcimer, a Fingers Of Steel book of ragtime- and jazz-era solos set in DAD tuning, includes it alongside three other songs carrying Kahn’s name.[11]

Our book that contains the song "Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo' Bye)"

Sources

  1. Johns Hopkins University, Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection: "Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye)".
  2. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Toot, toot, tootsie! (Goo' bye)" (Jolson cover).
  3. Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Sheet Music Catalog: "Toot Toot Tootsie : Good Bye".
  4. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Toot, toot, tootsie! (Goo' bye)" (Oriole Terrace Orchestra cover).
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Dan A. Russo".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Brunswick 2337 (10-in. double-faced)".
  7. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix 80478. Toot, toot, Tootsie! (Goo'bye) / Frank Westphal Orchestra".
  8. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix 80532. Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goo'bye) / Al Jolson".
  9. AFI Catalog of Feature Films: "The Jazz Singer" (1927).
  10. University of North Texas Libraries: "Toot, toot, tootsie! goodbye" (Sheet Music Magazine, 1999).
  11. Fingers Of Steel: "Dana Gruber, Speakeasy And Tin Pan Alley Tunes For Chromatic Dulcimer".
  12. Image: Pierre Georges Jeanniot, Evening Train (Le Train du Soir), etching, 1897. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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