Cole Porter wrote approximately 800 songs, according to Robert Kimball, who compiled their lyrics in a hefty tome. How many of Porter’s titles are widely remembered today? Thirty? Fifty? 

Yes, the American Songbook is filled with also-rans from Porter and other major songwriters. Undoubtedly, there are still “hidden gems” to be found in such songwriters’ catalogues, and it often falls to enterprising singers to lead the expedition to unearth them. (Michael Feinstein became famous in large part because of such musical excavations.) There are also songs from less-well-known composers and lyricists—songs that might have gotten air play in the golden era of the Songbook but didn’t make the cut when it came to posterity.

If you’ve read my Bistro Bits columns before, you know that I like the element of surprise in a cabaret show or jazz set. And nothing says surprise like a song that makes you perk up and ask, “Where have you been all my life?” Today, I’m sharing the experiences of singers who’ve recently had success performing such resurrected songs. How did they discover the unfamiliar material? How did they go about bringing it back to life?

Perhaps you, too, will want to venture near the dust-covered tune stacks when assembling your next set or show. Who knows what’s there to be found?

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“A Sinner Kissed an Angel,” performed by Briana Swann

This spring, I heard jazz singer Briana Swann perform a set as part of a Sunday jazz brunch series at the North Square restaurant at the Washington Square Hotel (soon before the restaurant was closed temporarily). Young, affable, thoughtful, and maintaining a straightforward, easygoing approach, Swann performed a charming rendition of “A Sinner Kissed an Angel,” a ballad with music by Ray Joseph and lyric by Mack David (older brother of lyricist Hal David). Mack David is, perhaps, most famous for his litigation against Jerry Herman over an allegedly plagiarized melody for the song “Hello, Dolly!” 

“A Sinner…” was introduced as part of the 1941 film Hold Back the Dawn and was first released that year as a recording by Harry James, with vocals by Dick Haymes. According to the invaluable SecondHandSongs website, the number was later recorded by some biggies: Frank Sinatra (1941), Sarah Vaughn (1956), and Louis Armstrong (1957). However, after Armstrong’s recording, the song seems to have been neglected for decades, at least in so far as recordings are concerned.

It’s a song with a strong narrative, in the vein of such memorable story-songs as “Makin’ Whoopee” and “Ode to Billie Joe.” And Mack’s lyric is rather ingeniously crafted: it’s full of nuanced ambiguities. 

The song’s “sinner” is a guy who would possibly have been called a “wolf” in 1941 and tagged as a “player” today. On a romantic night, he tries to seduce a young “angel” with his sweet words. Assuming a third-person voice, the singer sums up the relationship: “He wanted thrills, she wanted love.” But then, in a reversal befitting an O. Henry short story, the sinner realizes that he actually believes the spiel he has been feeding the angelic object of his pursuit. He recognizes that he has true feelings for her, not just urges. (It’s pretty much the plot of The Music Man, but in miniature.)

In the latter part of the song, the lyricist switches to a first-person perspective, allowing the singer to make the declaration, “That was the night I fell in love.” This gives the song a sharply different coloring depending on whether it’s sung by a man or a woman. If by a man, we hear a fella fess up to being a “sinner”— one who’s surprised by feelings he didn’t know he had. If by a woman, we get a confession from a self-described “angel” who apparently believes she has somehow transformed her seducer into a loyal, loving partner. (Whether the bad boy’s newfound sincerity will last is, of course, an open question.) In any case, Swann feels the song can be equally effective when sung by a male or a female vocalist.

She was introduced to “Sinner” by pianist Sean Fitzpatrick, who often suggests lesser-known tunes for her to learn:

“What immediately drew me to this song was its storytelling—there’s a complete narrative woven into the music. So often, songs capture just a feeling or a moment, but this one tells the whole story….”

“A Sinner…” has a rarely used introductory verse that has not been included in major recordings, perhaps because it spoils the surprise of the sinner’s epiphany:

This is an age-old story.

It’s happened many times before.

And I was there, that night of nights, 

When heaven opened up its door.

Swann likes that verse:

“It’s enchanting. It sets up the story. I visualize a book opening on the last line: ‘When heaven opened up its door.’ It feels like we’re all being drawn in, transported into a world, and invited to journey deeper.”

While she hasn’t yet performed the song an a frequent basis, “every time I do, someone…asks about it—where they can find it and which version they should listen to…. There aren’t many versions out there, so I usually just tell them to listen to whatever they can find. My personal favorite is always Sarah Vaughan.” Hear Vaughan’s version here.

Swann believes the song may be ready for a resurgence. “Singers are always looking for a tune that is equal parts beautiful and rare.” 

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“I’ll Be Easy to Find,” performed by both Frank Dain and Jane Scheckter

After Frank Dain sang his second song at his recent Don’t Tell Mama show, A Celebration (24 years in the making), buzz erupted near my table—and enthusiastic buzz at that:

What was that song? Who wrote it? What’s it from?

The answers to those whispered queries are, respectively: “I’ll Be Easy to Find,” Bart Howard, and the 1959 Johnny Mathis album called Heavenly.

The song also appears on Dain’s recently released album, I’ve Had a Love. But Dain first sang it publicly as part of his 2012 Mathis tribute show. Back then, he and his musical director, Kathleen Landis, had sought lesser-known songs from the star’s repertoire to balance out the inclusion of big Mathis hits such as “Chances Are” and “Misty.” 

“I’ll Be Easy to Find” was definitely lesser known, and Dain found it an attractive piece. But it had to meet another of his criteria:

With any song I choose to explore, I must have an immediate, visceral reaction. I had that with this song and felt it would be a good addition to the show. Also, as I was doing research about Johnny, I learned of his relationship with the songwriter Bart Howard, who became Johnny’s mentor when he first moved to New York. Bart was the MC/pianist at the Blue Angel, where Johnny performed. I read that he helped Johnny find songs, and as a songwriter, he was more than happy to include his own songs among them. (Howard’s biggest songwriting success was “In Other Words” (aka “Fly Me to the Moon”), which Mathis had sung on his debut album.)

“I’ll Be Easy to Find” has an entrancing melody and a rather offbeat theme. It’s about the search for love, but it’s not about pining for love, bemoaning the lack of love, or being aggressive in pursuing love. Its message is absolutely contrary to the idea of playing hard to get. The opening lines perhaps best express the key message: 

I’ll be easy to find

When love comes looking for me.

I’ll stand there with my arms out

So that I’ll be easy to see.

I asked Dain whether he felt the song went unrecorded by singing stars of the American Songbook from the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond (Sinatra, Tony Bennett, etc.) because something about its lyric may have seemed too passive. Does the “you-come-find-me” attitude of the protagonist signify ambivalence about romance? Dain thinks not:

“…It is a declaration of being ready for love. To be that open is a strong, secure, confident position to take, and one that I think would be appealing to anyone.”

There’s perhaps a simpler explanation of the song’s neglect? Dain notes that it may have been overshadowed by other titles on the Heavenly album—especially “Misty.”

“The album…was on the charts for 295 weeks,” Dain noted, “so the song was heard a lot. It’s also the penultimate track on side 2, which starts with ‘Misty.’ It’s possible that, after hearing ‘Misty,’ most listeners treated the rest of the album as background music.”

He says the song will always be part of his repertoire. He has used a variety of musical arrangements over the years—and the song has taken on new perspectives as Dain navigated significant life changes: most obviously, the loss of his husband to COVID four years ago. 

“The person singing “I’ll Be Easy to Find” in 2025 isn’t the same one who sang it in 2012,” he added.  Here’s the cut from Dain’s album:

Dain isn’t the only New York cabaret singer who recorded this song recently. It can be heard in a lovely rendition on 2025 Bistro Award recipient Jane Scheckter’s album I’ll Take Romance (2024). Listen here.

Scheckter, who has been “hearing standards since birth” and recalls singing them at age 4 with her father (a member of a well-known harmonica band in the 1930s), admitted to having had a schoolgirl crush on Johnny Mathis when Heavenly was first released. But she loved (and loves) “I’ll Be Easy to Find” in particular: “The lyrics are so openly romantic…and the melody is so warm and flowing.”

Despite the love and attention Dain and Scheckter have given the number, it remains a partially hidden gem: 

“I just looked at Bart Howard’s Wikipedia page,” Dain revealed, “and among the songs listed, ‘I’ll Be Easy to Find’ is nowhere in sight!”

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“All That’s Left Is to Say Goodbye,” performed by Marianne Solivan

On the same night I attended Frank Dain’s DTM show, I was lucky enough to catch Marianne Solivan’s late-night gig at The Jazz Club at Aman on West 56^th Street. JazzTimes has heralded Solivan as “a vital part of the Manhattan jazz scene,” and this upscale club provided a fine showcase for her talents.

Late in her second set, this strong-voiced, exuberant singer gave us a rollicking version of a Brazilian song called “All That’s Left Is to Say Goodbye,” by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Ray Gilbert (based on “É preciso dizer adeus,” a Jobim composition with a Portuguese lyric by Vinicius de Moraes). The Portuguese iteration of the song was introduced by Silvia Telles in 1958, but it was a bit later—as part of Astrud Gilberto’s debut solo collection, 1965’s The Astrud Gilberto Album—that the English-language edition became known. (Gilberto had recently come off her colossally successful teaming with Stan Getz on the Jobim tune “The Girl from Ipanema.”)

“All That’s Left…” is about the end of a love affair, but while the Telles version in Portuguese was slow and contemplative, Gilberto sang the number with the kind of upbeat feeling that many of her bossa/samba recordings contain. The English lyric cited “all the beauty of love that was our love,” then summed up the lost relationship as being “like a day full of sun.” This is no dirge mourning a defunct romance. It’s a celebration of fond memories.

The song was the eleventh and final track on the Gilberto album (sample it here) and seems to have been overshadowed by some of the disc’s other Jobim selections, including “Agua de Beber,” “Dindi,” and “How Insensitive.” (Shades of what may have happened with Mathis and “I’ll Be Easy to Find” on Heavenly….) While “É preciso dizer adeus” has been covered extensively, its English-language counterpart has been recorded by only a handful of singers over the decades, according to SecondHandSongs.

The circumstances that led Solivan to perform this song were bittersweet ones.

In August of 2024 a musician friend of hers passed away, quite suddenly. A barrage of phone calls from mutual acquaintances left her feeling agitated, overwhelmed. She finally switched her phone off and went to her piano, reaching for a song anthology she had recently purchased: the definitive collection of Jobim. She flipped through the first two songs, which she already knew. The third title was new to her: “All That’s Left Is to Say Goodbye.”

“It felt like a sign,” she said. “I couldn’t believe the title and how it seemed meant for me and this moment. One thing my friend and I did for years was try to best each other on how many songs we knew. It was always a challenge to see if he knew all the odd songs I loved unearthing.” 

Only two weeks earlier, they had had one of these long-distance competitions. Then, he was gone.

“So, here I was sitting in front of a song I’d never heard of and hearing his voice [say], ‘Here’s one more for you.’ So, I learned it, and it was so beautiful and [expressed] exactly how I felt. I started playing it with the band immediately, and we haven’t stopped playing it since.”

Solivan is unsure exactly why this song isn’t better known, but she has one theory: “It seems that, back in the early days of radio, there were money and incentives to push one song over another, and I feel like that plays a part in how we still know and choose repertoire.”

She didn’t spend much time listening to Astrud Gilberto’s version, which she calls “pretty straight from the page,” and she didn’t check out the Silvia Telles version at all. “My goal is to deliver the song in a way that is meaningful to me and that the audience can understand and connect to. No one will ever sing it like Astrud and Silvia, but no one will ever sing it like me, either.”

Solivan is struck by the mix of melancholy and elation found in songs from the bossa/samba tradition. “Many of the great bossa and samba songs that we sing all the time [have] the most jolly rhythms, with sad and mournful lyrics. There’s something really beautiful to me about that, and I think it’s what attracts many to this music.”

NOTE: Since the night I heard Solivan sing at The Jazz Club, she and her bandmates have recorded “All That’s Left Is to Say Goodbye.” I’ll let you know, in a future Bistro Bits column, when this recording becomes available. 

Meanwhile, best of luck in the search for your own hidden musical gems!

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