Up Jumped Spring is a jazz tune composed by Freddie Hubbard with lyrics by Abbey Lincoln. It was first recorded and released in 1962 by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, marking its debut as a jazz standard. The song gained wider fame with Abbey Lincoln's 1991 recording featuring Stan Getz on the album You Gotta Pay the Band, where Lincoln’s English lyrics are sung against a luminous sax trio. The piece has been widely covered and adapted, including a 1983 English lyric version by Ben Sidran. Genre wise, it sits in jazz and hard bop circles and is sometimes listed in catalogs as R&B Jazz. The lyrics tell a spring time romance story, opening with a promenade and the sudden burst of love as spring arrives, with the tune’s mood shaping moments of warmth, promise, and a carefree, free-spirited feel.
