You Took Advantage Of Me

I'm a sentimental sap, that's all

What's the use of trying not to fall?

I have no will, you've made your kill

'Cause you took advantage of me!

 

I'm just like an apple on a bough

And you're gonna shake me down somehow

So, what's the use

You've cooked my goose

'Cause you took advantage of me!

In 1928, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote the song You Took Advantage of Me for the musical Present Arms. Since then, there have been countless jazz versions of the song. We should start in 1928 when the song emerged and was soon picked up by different bands. Here is the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in April that year with Bix Beiderbecke,  and Frankie Trumbauer (doing an 'answer' and 'reply' sequence), Bing Crosby and others.

 

Richard Rodgers is quoted as describing the song as a "sassy and unregretful number" which audiences liked far more than traditional contemporary love songs, and apparently the song was a particular favourite of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) who once asked singer Morton Downey to sing it eleven times during a show at the Cafe de Paris in London.

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Of all the 1928 recordings of the song, our first 'take' is an instrumental from Miff Mole and his Little Molers with a recording made in New York that July. Here are: Red Nichols (cornet); Leo McConville (trumpet); Miff Mole (trombone); Dudley Fosdick (mellophone); Fud Livingston (clarinet, tenor sax); Arthur Schutt (piano); Carl Kress (guitar); Joe Tarto (brass bass) and  Stan King (drums):

It is almost a hundred years since the song was first written and recorded and in that time it has been recorded over the decades by countless jazz singers and bands.

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For our second take here is French saxophonist Xavier Richardeau in 2013 with Daïki Yasukagawa (bass) and  Philippe Soirat (drums) from their album Back To The Present: