Hampton conceived the melody while playing in the
Benny Goodman band. While waiting for a plane to travel from
Los Angeles to
Atlantic City, on what would be Hampton's first flight, he began whistling a tune to relieve his nerves. Goodman asked for the tune's name and Hampton replied; "I don't know. We can call it 'Flying Home,' I guess." The Goodman Quartet played it for the first time that evening, and later recorded the first version of the full song, with a guitar solo by
Charlie Christian. Hampton subsequently adopted the song as his musical signature.[2][3]
It was first recorded by the Benny Goodman Sextet on November 6, 1939, featuring solos by Hampton and Charlie Christian. Several other groups recorded the tune:
Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra recorded the song on May 8, 1940, released on
Bluebird Records B-10794 as the B-side of "Tangleweed 'Round My Heart".
In 1942, Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra recorded the song with an epic-length
tenor saxophone solo by nineteen-year-old
Illinois Jacquet. The song became the climax for live shows, with Jacquet expected to repeat his famous solo, note-by-note.
Harry James recorded a version in 1965 on his album New Versions of Down Beat Favorites (
MGM).
Ella Fitzgerald recorded a seven-minute-plus version for the album Digital III at Montreux (1979). Lullabies of Birdland includes another version by Fitzgerald that The New York Times called "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade... Where other singers, most notably
Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."[4]
There is a 2:30-minute version of the song in the 1992 film A League of Their Own and on the movie score album by
Hans Zimmer. Performers were not credited.