The Big Easy List: Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

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Your patience is rewarded. You let me have songs you’ve never heard by people you’ve never heard of because you know sooner or later I’ll come back around. From yesterday’s country music we head back to the Big Easy with two of the most legendary names in music…never mind “jazz.” Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans - Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong This was written and originally recorded for a movie in 1947 called New Orleans. I haven’t seen it, but the synopsis makes it seem to be an unusual rom-com. Unusual, in that, in addition to the “stars” being romantic leads, it also featured two Black performers having romantic parts. In this case, “Lady Day” Billie Holiday and “Satchmo” Louis Armstrong. Now, that might now sound unusual now, but remember, this was Jim Crow, segregated 1947!! The really cool thing about the “soundtrack” (not actually released in 1947 but compiled after the fact) is that you get a number of different versions of the song, include Holiday singing it with just a piano accompaniment and Armstrong singing it. Since then, it’s been recorded a number of times by acts as diverse as Frankie Laine, Harry Connick Jr., Ricky Nelson, Fats Domino, and Alison Krauss. It’s a standard of jazz, and of the joy of New Orleans. Do You Know What It Means to New Orleans Written by Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter Recorded by Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong From New Orleans (soundtrack), 1947 NEW ORLEANS LYRICS: title I dream of oleander in June: