In the late 1920s, Carmichael played the piano and sang with bands led by
Don Redman
and
Jean Goldkette
, and recorded with jazz greats such as Beiderbecke, Jimmy and
Tommy Dorsey
, and
Jack Teagarden
. One night in 1927, while Carmichael was thinking about a girl he had once loved and lost, a haunting melody suddenly came to him. With the later addition of lyrics by Mitchell Parish, this became the song “Stardust,
” popular music's quintessential expression of...