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The Imaginary Woman

If you love digging into the backstories of jazz tunes as much as I do, here’s a fun one!

I’ve been reading The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire by Ted Gioia, and his take on “Dinah” is too good not to share.

“Dinah” was written by Harry Akst, with lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young. It almost didn’t make it into the Broadway show Kid Boots. Akst was working for Irving Berlin and was trying to pitch one of Berlin’s songs to the show’s star, Eddie Cantor. When Cantor wasn’t interested, Akst casually sat at the piano and improvised his own melody. Cantor loved it — and basically said, “I’ll take the plugger’s tune instead!”

The lyrics? Completely corny and totally unforgettable. “No one is finer in Carolina than Dinah…” and on and on with the rhymes. It was perfect for Cantor’s comedic style — but hardly something you’d predict would become a jazz standard.

Enter Ethel Waters. In 1925, she recorded “Dinah” and transformed it. She toned down the comedy and brought real feeling — even a touch of sensuality — to the song. According to Gioia, she’s the one who truly turned this novelty number into a flexible jazz vehicle. Her version was also an early showcase of new electronic recording technology, which makes it historically important too.

After that, “Dinah” took off in jazz circles. Fletcher Henderson recorded it (with a young Coleman Hawkins featured on bass sax), and it became one of his most popular sides. During the Depression, the song stayed hot — Bing Crosby recorded it with The Mills Brothers in 1932, and it was a huge hit.

The mid-’30s brought even more great takes: The Boswell Sisters, and especially Fats Waller, who squeezed every ounce of humor out of those delightfully absurd lyrics. Not surprisingly, the tune fit entertainers like Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway perfectly — artists who could balance musicianship with showmanship.

Then there’s Django Reinhardt, who recorded “Dinah” at the very first session of the Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. That performance helped prove that an all-strings jazz band could really swing. He even revisited it later in a wild violin “duel” between Stéphane Grappelli and Eddie South.

What’s amazing is how wide the range of interpretations is. Yet today, “Dinah” mostly lives on as a jaunty, old-school favorite — the kind of tune you might assume floated up from New Orleans or a Mississippi riverboat. Even Thelonious Monk couldn’t quite pull it into the modernist camp when he recorded it decades later.

According to Gioia, “Dinah” survives because it’s irresistible to jazz entertainers — especially in Dixieland and stride circles. It may have started as a Broadway novelty, but jazz musicians claimed it and never let go.

If you want to explore it yourself, check out these classic versions:

Ethel Waters (1925)

Fletcher Henderson with Coleman Hawkins (1926)

Louis Armstrong (1930)

Cab Calloway (1932)

Django Reinhardt (1934)

Fats Waller (1935)

Pee Wee Russell (1938)

Thelonious Monk – Solo Monk (1964)

Amazing how a “throwaway” Broadway tune turned into a jazz evergreen. That’s the magic of this music.