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I was checking out the lyrics of Johnny Mercer today - so many masterpieces. One of the best writers in the Great American Songbook.
And I came to "Days of Wine and Roses". You need to see the film to understand how sad and poignant the words are. So that's what you'd expect from a great singer, yes?
No - Sinatra tosses it off like any Las Vegas after-dinner ditty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHkaCAt9vM
No - Ella Fitzgerald, who was never one for words, is even worse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETWe7pMVnwo
Frankly - I can't listen to a song with no feeling for the words - what's the point?
But Nancy Wilson gets it - check her out and hear the difference.
Follow Ups:
I've never liked the swinging version by Frankie, and he's famous for it. It's a love song, not a dance tune, IMO.Nat King Cole does it for me.
Edits: 08/07/23
You're quite right. When you slow particular songs right down they reveal their true beauty. Fly Me To The Moon is one - I've played it many times, but if you sing it, song it SLOW!
Ray Charles was another who understood that, with his versions of Georgia and Every Time We Say Goodbye, for instance.
Lester Young learned the lyrics to a song before he would play it.
Erroll Garner was recording a solo album once, and he's laying down a terrific take on some tune, and suddenly he just stops playing. The producer rushes out of the control room and shouts at him, "Why'd you stop playing, that was gonna be a great take?". Garner replies, "I forgot the words".
Lack of skill dictates economy of style. - Joey Ramone
Supposedly Bean did the same thing. But he didn't read music, whereas I would have to believe that Errol Garner did.
I know what you mean. It's like up-tempo versions of Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise. Regina Carter and Kenny Barron for instance. Both masters of their crafts. Both playing really good. But that tempo is just weird. Makes no sense to me. This is not a happy peppy song.
Ciao,
"Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it." - Yogi Berra.
Cpwill
This is probably the worst rendition of that piece.
They way it should be played. Sad and tragic. The melody and the guitarist.
Ciao,
"Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it." - Yogi Berra.
Cpwill
I have the album, it's beautiful. Another favorite of mine is Kelly's rendition:
Yes, that's true. Jazz musicians have used standards just as chord progressions and very little more. The tune you mention, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise, has pretty mediocre lyrics so you might say it isn't worth saving....
But how could you think of destroying great lyrics like Moon River, Lush Life or some of the Kurt Weill songs like September Song or Speak Low?
Not commenting on the quality of the lyrics, just the meaning thereof. It's a sad song and upbeat tempo does it no justice. BTW, IMNSHO, I think the melody is great.
As for Lush Life, most singers need to have lived a great deal of life to give it justice. Although Strayhorn was only 17 when he wrote it. Amazing. And a 16-year-old Anais Reno does a commendable job on her debut album.
Ciao,
"Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it." - Yogi Berra.
Cpwill
Nice singer - new to me. I think she sings
"The girls I knew had sad and sullen grey faces,
With distant grey traces...."
You need to speak French to understand the original lyrics, then it makes more sense.....
The girls I knew had sad and sullen grey faces,
With distingué traces,
That used to be there.
You could see where,
They'd been washed away,
By too many through the day.
Twelve o'clock tales.
It's a remarkable lyric, especially for a teenager! How could he know so much about life?
... Twelve O'clocktails
Great words, great tune.
nt
The histories I have read state that Strayhorn's father was a steelworker or other laborer and an angry drunk who was so outraged at his son's early signs of being gay that young Billy had to go live with his grandmother.
I have read that Strayhorn's father "tied to beat the fag" out of him.
But there's at least one other very precocious teenage lyricist, even though as far as I am concerned, nothing compares to "distingué" (accent).
That song is "The Letter" (1954) which includes the made-up word "Puppetutes," which that overpraised frat boy Mondegreened into "Pompatus."
"Puppetutes" meant the Vernon Green, at age 14, wanted a girl to be his puppet "for all things." Puppet-toutes.
Song at the link.
"Lush Life" is the only "11-Tone" song in the Great American Songbook.
john
I'm a forever fan of Kurt Weill - Alabama Song is maybe the best of his masterpieces, but there are many more, and one of them is Speak Low.
The Lotte Lenya version is incomparable - after all she was married to the guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4vce_ZYi4Y
There's also a recording of Kurt Weill singing his own tune - poignant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgQJvNhuiAE
There's a good version by Norah Jones and Tony Bennett with very sympathetic accompaniment. Discreet and in the mood.
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