All God's Chillun Got Rhythm is a 1937 jazz standard written by Bronislaw Kaper, Walter Jurmann and Gus Kahn for Ivie Anderson to sing in the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races, where it opened the movie. The lyric celebrates that all God’s children have rhythm and swing, even if they may not have money or shoes. The tune’s inspiration comes from a traditional Negro spiritual often linked to All God’s Chillun Got Wings or All God’s Children Got Shoes, which also connects to a 1924 Eugene O’Neill play. Its chord changes have inspired later jazz contrafacts, including Miles Davis’s Little Willie Leaps and Benny Harris’s Reets and I. Since 1937 it has been recorded by many artists, from Bunny Berigan and Duke Ellington to Judy Garland and Artie Shaw, and a notable modern version is Tony Bennett’s 1998 recording on The Playground.
