- 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 in the Broadway revue Two for the Show, sung by Alfred Drake and Frances Comstock.
- The earliest hit recording was Benny Goodman & His Orchestra with Helen Forrest in 1940, released by Columbia.
- A famous 1951 version by Les Paul and Mary Ford was recorded January 4, 1951 and released March 26, 1951 on Capitol Records 1451; Paul played all guitars and Ford sang, with a multi layer arrangement that reportedly used 12 guitar parts and 12 vocal parts. The record spent 25 weeks on the Billboard chart, 9 weeks at number 1, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1979; it also appears on the soundtrack of Wes Anderson's Asteroid City (2023).
- Ella Fitzgerald helped make it a signature piece, performing it at Carnegie Hall in 1947 and recording a celebrated version on the 1960 album Ella in Berlin; her version, like many others, contributed to its enduring fame and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.
- The tune is a gypsy jazz standard, widely covered across genres, and its chord changes have inspired contrafacts such as Ornithology and Satellite; it follows a 32-bar AABA structure.
