Small Fry

Vocal: Mildred Bailey, Music: Hoagy Carmichael, Lyrics: Frank Loesser

With a wink at the boy who’d rather “see the world” than sit at a desk in a schoolroom, I offer you this classic jazzy little tune, “Small Fry,” by the rightly-famed Hoagy Carmichael. Carmichael belonged to a group of American song writers associated with what was called Tin Pan Alley in New York at the end of the 19th and early part of the 20th century. American music was coming into its own at that time, with the emergence of Parlor Music, Ragtime, and Jazz, all paving the way for the tremendous Big Bands at the mid-century. In addition to the high musical art that this group of songwriters produced, Tin Pan Alley gave the public some charming novelty songs, written to make people smile by poking gentle fun at ordinary aspects of life that everyone would recognize — such as “playing hooky” from school. Sometimes novelty songs were written for Vaudeville-influenced Broadway comedies which were popular during the Great Depression. Carmichael wrote “Small Fry” for a musical c…