Lullaby of Birdland is a 1952 jazz standard composed by George Shearing with lyrics by George David Weiss (credited under the pseudonym B. Y. Forster). It was written for Morris Levy, the owner of the New York jazz club Birdland, to be played every hour on Levy’s Birdland show; Shearing reportedly wrote the whole thing in about ten minutes, with chord changes partly borrowed from Walter Donaldson’s Love Me Or Leave Me. The tune is a 32-bar piece that moves between minor and major, originally in F minor (or A flat major). The first release was a single by the George Shearing Quintet in 1952 (MGM 11354). Lyrics were added later by Weiss, and a hit recording by Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown helped popularize it in 1954. Since then it has appeared on numerous albums and been recorded by many artists, becoming a enduring jazz standard. The title and its associations nod to Birdland and to Charlie Parker, underscoring its place in jazz history.
