" THAT'S ALL" -THE SONG NOT THE BLOG

"That's All" -The Song but not the blog:  Another example of just one  single great song . It was written in 1952. " That's All" with music by Bob Haymes ( brother of the fine baritone singer Dick Haymes) and words by Alan Brandt .Written as a stand alone pop song, it became an immediate standard sung by Nat " King" Cole with Nelson Riddle as his new arranger.
Alec Wilder has lauded it as " one of the last free-flowing, native and natural melodies in the grand pop style. It's one of the warmest, most natural, and least " studied" songs" that Wilder said that he knew. Quite a compliment from Wilder who looked at more than 17,000 popular songs when writing his encyclopedic analysis of American Popular Song in 1973.

Nat Cole's version made an instant standard of the song which will already be familiar to most adult listeners. However, there is a different version by Sinatra that is more contemplative and less certain than what Cole conveyed with his warm, easy conversational style. Again, it proves the point that a great song can be treated in a number of different ways and styles and will always be able to atract new performances and ensure that the " torch" is based down from generation to generation of both singers and instrumentalist.
Nat Cole with Riddle and Sinatra with a superior Don Costa arangement-They're both great performances and worth attentive listening.

LINK SINATRA: http://youtu.be/SINfqtCq0lY

LINK COLE  http://youtu.be/sooSaQpGnMM

FISCHER & LAINE--WE'LL BE TOGETHER AGAIN

Fischer & Laine-  not recognizable as teams like Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner  & Loewe etc. In fact, Carl Fischer, Pianist and Frankie Laine, an irrepressible pop singer , only wrote one song but  it is splendid. In 1945, Fischer & Laine, while working together, wrote a torch song " We'll Be Together Again "  It sings of a hopeful reunion of two lovers who, for whatever reason, have to part but believe that " Some Day, Some Way, we Both have a Lifetime before us, So try thinking with your heart, We'll Be Together again."  The melody, although strictly speaking is not a blues but it has some of the bone-weary sadness often associated with classic blues songs , The arrangement is by NelsonRiddle who has a muted trumpet played by Harry " Sweets" Edison intersperesed with Frankn Sinatra's singing. But one can easily imagine a saloon where a singer is backed by a small combo playing into the early hours of the morning.
The song is from the remarkable Capitol Records LP record of 1954 " Songs For Swinging Lovers" . This album helped vault Sinatra back into public prominenec after a fallow period in his career. Capitol was started by Johnny Mercer among others and became home to many of the finest pop singers in the 1950's & 60's.
Sinatra's voice became deeper having lost the youthful, sweet sound of his earlier Columbia records era and as a band singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Listen to Frank singing on an earlier blog post raising the roof with the classic " I've Got You UnderMy Skin " . The mature, confident and the " "Now I'm in charge" Sinatra has finally arrived and for another 40 years he would define how to sing Americ'as popular songs.


LINK: http://youtu.be/Cht_8zpSSfA

HAROLD ARLEN : 2 VERY DIFFERENT FEMALE VIEWS ABOUT LOVE & MEN

H arold Arlen: 2 Very Different Female Views About  Love and Men:   Any survey of the songs associated with The Great American Songbook would indicate that affairs of the heart, in all ot heir complexity and contradictions are a central theme of this repertoire. Whether it's about seeking love. finding love, losing love or regaining a lost relationship, hundreds of artfully crafted songs have focused on these eternal emotional matters. Harold Arlen and  his collaborators have written a number of classic songs that examine, very poignantly, how females can express in song contradictory feelings about the men in their lives. For example, in 1954, Arlen and Ira Gershwin wrote a wonderful torch song in " A Star is Born.'"  Judy Garland sang her lament for " The Man That Got Away" in has become an iconic moment in movie history. Gershwin had Garland  singing " The Night is Bitter, The Stars Have Lost Their Glitter , With Hopes You Burn Up, Tomorrow He May Turn Up up etc" It ends with the belief that there is nothing sadder than  " A One Man Woman Looking for the Man that Got Away." One can hear the real heartbreak when Garland and other dramatic singers perform that song.

Earlier, in a 1937 film, Hooray for What" Arlen and E.Y.Harburg wrote a defiant, to -hell -with-you song for a woman who was finished with a man and expressing it very vividly in  "Down With Love."
In this Arlen/,Harburg song, the woman is fed up with all the romantic mush that she once might have believed. It ends with "  Down with Eyes Romantic and Stupid, Down with Sighs, Down with Cupid  Brother lets suff that Dove, Down with Love !" Compared with the despair expressed in " "The Man That Got Away"  this woman is ready to move on with a vengeance.
Both songs are performed by a remarkable singer/actress Audra McDonald who has conquered Broadway as well as the concert stage. In the Arlen/Gershwin song, she is able to convey the genuine hearbreak over the one who got away leaving one with the thought that she might never recover from that loss. In " Down With Love",  Audra McDonald is downright passionate as she denounces the illusory appeal of the  conventional sentiments of romantic love. At the end , she even cynically inserts some examples of songs that perpetuate the  love "mystique." Both performances are magical

LINK  THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY; http://youtu.be/cvBD1_Y77LU

LINK: DOWN  WITH LOVE; http://youtu.be/nYE-gSTwB20

LUSH LIFE -A STRAYHORN MASTERPIECE

LUSH LIFE- A BILLY STRAYHORN MASTERPIECE:  Billy Strayhorn was a gifted arranger and composer whose musical life was largely spent in the shadow cast by the giant who was Duke Ellington. He did much of the arranging for Ellington and would fill in as conductor and pianist and generally support  much of Ellington's musical undertakings. He also wrote " Take the A Train" which is often mistakenly attributed to the Duke.
In 1949, at the tender age of 21, Strayhorn ( nickname " Sweet Pea) wrote the words and music for " Lush Life". It tells a sad , late night " in your cups" tale of alcoholic despair. In a way it is similar in tone to " One For My Baby" ,  the classic Arlen Mercer song immortalized by Frank Sinatra ( and the subject of an earlier post on my blog.)
The lengthy verse introduces the main chorus that begins with " Life is Lonely " and then carries on with lyrics that strive for intellectual effect but are somewhat stilted as in the phrase " Life is awful again/a troughful of hearts could only be a bore." However, the melody is fascinating and effective even as an instrumental piece.
Frank Sinatra confessed that he could not record the song because he could not figure out a way to perform it to his satisfaction.
The version you will hear is by Queen Latifah done with a full studio orchestra. To some she may be a surprise presence in a blog devoted to classic American popular song given her pop sensibilities. She does help prove a point that if musical material is strong and of high quality, a wide array of artists can find their own way through the music just as Queen Latifah has done. Her diction and phrasing capture  the right mood of the song . Her performance meets the high performance standards set earlier by Fitzgerald, Garland,Sinatra, Bennett and Torme as heretical as these comments might be for those wishing to see no advancement in performances of the " standards."
Given the growing recording of Great American Songbook material by younger artists, the Songbook legacy is now being both preserved and broadened at the same time. Reminds me of the expression "   "Everything Old is New Again" and that is as it should be!

LINK: http://youtu.be/mub-gyuPFlw
 

JOHNNY MANDEL & JOHNNY MERCER= "EMILY"

Johnny Mandel & Johnny Mercer= EMILY:  A number of songs have been written using female names in their titles. Along  with David Raksin's " Laura", one of the finest is a 1964 movie song from " The Americanization of Emily." It starred Julie Andrews as a British wartime driver and James Garner as and James Garner as a Naval officer who could get anything for anybody, especially his admiral played by Melvin Douglas.
It is a perfect marriage of an exquiste melody and lyrics by Mercer that gently link the words "family, dreamily and Emily with Mandel's repeated main melodic motif centered on the word " Emily."
Johnny Mandel continues to write quality songs like " Where Do You Start?", & " You Are There" in addition to earlier film songs like " The Shadow of Your Smile"  and " A Time For Love". Jenness & Velsey have stated that Mandel has " A melodic gift, while controlled, is so stunning that one takes for granted the sophistication of the harmony-until one thinks of how many another composer might have squandered the first by failing at the second." (David Jenness and Don Velsey " Classic American Popular Song. The Second Half Century 1950-2000)

The version you will hear is with Tony Bennett in an arrangement that is also conducted by Johnny Mandel, the composer of the song.

LINK: http://youtu.be/3H00RUW9PI8

Jerome Kern-Created a " SURE THING" with Ira Gershwin

Jerome Kern-Created a Sure Thing with Ira Gershwin:  After the untimely death of George Gershwin in 1938, His lyricist brother went on to write lyrics with Kurt Weill Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen. In 1944, Kern and Gershwin collaborated on a song called " Sure aThing" for a Rita Heyworth musical film called " Cover Girl."  Actually they had written the song earlier in 1939 and Gershwin suggested using the number with new words. Kern had forgotten the tune and had no manuscript. He had to rely on his daughter Betty who remembered the tune and hummed it to him. With her help, he rewrote that original melody that has a horse racing analogy about the favorite always winning the race.
I t has a very simple but straightforward set of lyrics including a clever phrase " And Whatever Comes Up, You're Thumbs Up With Me" and ends with " If love can figure out a sure thing, that sure thing is you." It is considered to be the most purely American sounding song Kern had ever created, a far departure from the European influenced songs with which he began his theatrical career.
It is sung By Dianne Schuur, a blind pianist and singer with a bell like clarity in her voice and a jazz influenced style. Some 30 years ago, I was travelling in my car in downtown Toronto when this song came over the radio. I immediately pulled over so transfixed was I by the unique, unforced power of Diane Schuurs' voice and a Kern song that I had never heard before.
I hope you have the same reaction as I did more than 30 years ago.

LINK;  http://youtu.be/6TmFRuRlNKk

" MY HEART STOOD STILL" A POSITIVE SONG OF ROMANCE

"My Heart Stood Still" A Positive Song of Romance:  Affairs of the heart are subjects that many of the finest songwriters have created over the years. Some recent posts of this blog have dwelt on the more unsuccessful romantic relationships , many are some of the finest songs in the Great American Songbook catalogue. " Blues in the Hight" " One More For My Baby"  But Not For Me" " Glad To Be Unhappy" " I Wish I Were In Love Again" " The Man That got Away" Nobody' s Heart" and " When Your Lover Has Gone " to name just a few.
Rodgers and Hart were able to cover the broad spectrum of love's found and lost and then regained. One example of their positive take on instant infatuation is the song  "  My Heart Stood Still." and  written for " A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court" in 1927. It is an example of step-wise writing moving very gradually with the melody and ending in the upper register with the words"  I never lived at all. Until the thrill of that moment when my heart stood still."
Frank Sinatra sings with  gradually building intensity in the final section ending with a very dramatic conclusion. He was supported by yet another marvellous Nelson Riddle arrangement with his usual mastery of writing for the string section.
Many people may also have been instantly bewitched by a powerful instant infatuation. Some may have led to a life long connection, others just a brief moment in time becoming " Just One of Those Things." as Cole Porter has acknowledged.

LINK: http://youtu.be/wDjPYO5ZNnk

Tommy Wolf -Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

Tommy Wolf-Spring Can Realy Hang You Up The Most. In the `1950's, Tommy Wolf and lyricist Fran Landesman made St. Louis an important club locale. Their songs are often favoured by more sophisticated singers wanting to avoid the tried and true song selections from the Great American Songbook." Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" ( 1955) , like so many classic songs dealing with lost loves, does so in a very hip fashion combining the usual poetic invocation of flowers and trees and  and the use of colloquial terms like " Hang you  up" and deciding " That Spring is a bore."
The verse  sets the mood in the lyrics before the chorus which contines with both music and words of a decidely downbeat character.
The song is a great example of what Harold Arlen once proclaimed in describing the synergy created when both elements of a song are artfully combined. He said that " " Words make you think a thought, and music makes you feel a feeling, but a song makes you feel a thought." Words engage the thinking component of the brain while music activates the feeling or emotional dimension. Together they can create magical moments for the listener.

Near the end of the song, there is a long downward chromatic melodic passage accompanied by the words " Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most." If the song is really about romantic despair, ending on a downard path musically and verbally makes for compelling musical drama.
Barbra Streisand gives a sensitive and remorseful performance of a very unique song that deserves a wider audience.
LINK:   http://youtu.be/6l0EQ3Uzzb0

TWO BY WEILL SO STAY A WHILE

Two by Weill -so Stay a While: Kurt Weill and his wife Lotte Lenya fled Germany in the late 1930's. He had great succes with the Three Penny Opera in Germany as well as other politically oriented works with playwright Berthold Brecht.  Once in America, he began to work with a number of Broadawy lyricists like Allan Jay Lerner, Maxwell Anderson, Ogden Nash and Ira Gershwin. Despite his non -native background, his theatrical output featured historical American characters like Peter Stuyvesant in ' Knickerbocker Holiday " ( including the well known Septemeber Song, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson) and a Moss Hart original libretto for " Lady In The Dark" . This was based on Hart's own experience with American style psychoanalytic practices. Lyrics were by Ira Gershwin.
From Weill's " Knickerbocker Holiday" there is a lovely but lesser known ballad called " It Never Was You".
From " Lady in the Dark" the song " My Ship" reflects the longing of the Lady,still in the dark wanting to know if , metaphorically her ship will ever come in and " Bring my own true love to me."

Both songs are sung by Julie Andrews whose vocal and acting talents are sometimes overlooked given her " Mary Poppins" Sound of Music" Goody Goody type roles.
She has the good fortune to be accompanied by Andre Previn on solo piano. Both he and Kurt Weill came from Berlin and he obviously has  an affinity for Weill's music. Listen to how he elegantly supports and augments both the music itself and Julie Andrews convincing performances.

LINK: http://youtu.be/XmAEMyLIdxc