How High the Moon is a jazz standard with lyrics by Nancy Hamilton and music by Morgan Lewis, published in 1940. It was first featured that year in the Broadway revue Two for the Show, conceived by John Murray Anderson, where Alfred Drake and Frances Comstock sang it. The earliest hit recording was made by Benny Goodman & His Orchestra with vocalist Helen Forrest on 7 February 1940 for Columbia. Stan Kenton with June Christy reached Billboard's Best Seller chart in 1948, and Les Paul and Mary Ford recorded it for Capitol in 1951, spending nine weeks at number one on Billboard. Ella Fitzgerald made it her signature tune from 1947, and her 1960 version recorded in Berlin is widely celebrated. The song became a gypsy jazz standard and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1979. It is in the key of G. It appeared on the soundtrack of the 2023 film Asteroid City, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it in its Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll list.
