In Your Own Sweet Way is a 1955 jazz standard composed by Dave Brubeck. Written around 1952 and copyrighted in 1955, it became one of Brubeck’s best known tunes. The piece is a 32-bar jazz ballad in B-flat major with an eight-bar interlude between choruses, and Brubeck reportedly wrote it in one night after Paul Desmond urged him to provide more material. It first appeared on the studio album Brubeck Plays Brubeck (1956), with an earlier live version on Dave Brubeck and Jay & Kai at Newport (1956); an orchestral arrangement by Howard Brubeck was later featured on Brandenburg Gate: Revisited (1963). Brubeck’s wife Iola later added lyrics, opening the door to vocal versions such as Carmen McRae’s; a 2019 release by Norma Winstone with Margaret Busby used a remastered August 1988 performance. Miles Davis helped popularize the tune in 1956 by recording it twice with his quintet, sometimes ending the A theme on E natural instead of Brubeck’s F. The tune has been widely covered by artists such as Wes Montgomery, Clare Fischer, the Keith Jarrett Trio, John Etheridge, Art Farmer and Lee Konitz, Robert Glasper, and Jacky Terrasson with Stephane Belmondo. The title also inspired a 2010 documentary about Brubeck, Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way.
