Jimmy Van Heusen-Wrote for Crosby & Sinatra

Jimmy Van Heusen-Wrote for Crosby & Sinatra:  Jimmy Van Heusen was a wonderful piano  player who wrote film sings for both Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, His real name was Chester Babcock but at 16 he opted for a tie in with the famous men's shirt maker.
He was a batchelor who flew his own plane and Angie Dickenson said he never left a party alone after seducing women pianistically. Sinatra's last wife also complained that Van Heusen was a bad influence on Frank's nocturnal activities. None of this interfered with the creation of great songs. The first is " Like Someone in Love" a pure melody written for a 1944 film "  Belle of the Yukon."
Who better than Ella Fitzgerald to sing a pure melodic line since she is able to invest any song with unforced phrasing and an inevitable sense of what such a song requires.

PERFORMANCE LINK:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehyMLzL1DZE

Another version features Sinatra in his first collaboration with Nelson Riddle who was very instrumental in making so many fine recordings with Sinatra.

PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1wdTf3igAg

Van Heusen and Johnny Burke wrote a spendid ballad for the musical " Carnival in Flanders".
The song is called " Here's That Rainy Day"  It is a very difficult song to sing because of its harmonic structure. In the opinion of Alec Wilder " It is a great illustration of absolute honesty, quite irrespective of its extremely inventive character and melody.
This performance is by Vic Damone . another Italian crooner who has had a lengthy career singing tastefully with a light ,clear  sound, precise aticulation and impeccable phrasing. In many ways, he sounds like the pure sound of the younger Sinatra in his Columbia recording years when he was known as " The Voice."

PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJiTBjeeD0