A Night in Tunisia / Interlude (Leveen)

'A Night in Tunisia' is an instrumental jazz standard written by Dizzy Gillespie in and around 1941/42 while he was playing with the Benny Carter Band. Frank Paparelli got co-writer credit in compensation for some unrelated transcription work, but he actually had nothing to do with the song. Gillespie himself called it 'Interlude', under which title it is sometimes recorded.

Lyrics were soon added by Raymond LEVEEN as 'Interlude':

I lived in a dream for a moment, we loved in a moonlight solitude
When I never knew at the moment, love was just an interlude

I thrill as your arms would unfold me, a kiss of surrender set the mood
Then heaven fell down when you told me, love was a passin' interlude

The magic, was unsurpassed, too good to last
The magic, my heart once knew, was drenched/dressed in blue

The shadow of night all around me, I walk in a moonlight solitude
When I thought romance really found me, love was just an interlude


Recordings exist by Sarah Vaughan (1945), Anita O'Day, Jamie Cullum, Ann Hampton Callaway, etc.