A Child is Born: Thad Jones & Alec Wilder Masterpiece. Thad Jones was a highly regarded Jazz trumpet player, composer and co leader of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band that played for a number of years in the NYC area. Jones wrote a pure ballad as an instrumental. Alec Wilder, himself an accomplished composer and avid student of American Popular Song, added poignant lyrics to the song. It has been cherished as an instrumental number by any number of jazz artists as well as vocal performances by singers of American popular song. Alec Wilder was a dedicated lifelong bachelor with no children of his own.but he did capture the miracle of birth and which some speculate was related to the birth of Jesus since Wilder referred to a boy child in his lyrics. Regardless of any specific reference as to the subject mentioned in the song, this is a wonderful example of the synergy that has always existed between the jazz community and the broader arena of American Popular Song. Jazz musicians often require more advanced musical knowledge and training in order to perform their particular musical alchemy and they have long supported the best of the Great American Songbook tradition.
In this instance, the music is what Wilder has described as wonderful " singing line" or pure melody and Wilder's own words that Jenness and Velsey have described that use " sounds that chime in a slightly oblique way, for example, now and new, and later, warm and more, and only a few vowel sounds,all of them relaxed."
The vocal version is by Tony Bennet who echoes the reverence of the birth experience and he is accompanied by the sensitive piano arrangement of Bill Evans, the inflential jazz paianist who previously had recorded American popular songs with Bennett, Their great musical compatibility is very much in evidence.
LINK: http://youtu.be/qnIjND_R7IY
I have added an instrumental jazz version by Bill Evans to demonstrate the jazz player's ability to both respect the essential nature and form of the classic popular song while adding the improvisational elements that make jazz such an endlessly creative art form.
LINK: http://youtu.be/nVtdhPkDopQ
In the two volume Tony Bennett/Bill Evans there are 3 takes of “A child is born”. In the first, which is what comes up on streaming sites, etc. He has the lyric wrong - specifically one word. He sings, “Soft as the dawn” instead of “new as the dawn” which clashes with the repeated “soft as a fawn” that follows. It should be “new as the dawn” and “soft as a fawn”. That error now appears almost everywhere the lyrics are listed and in the Musicnotes score, for example. It apparently was corrected on takes 2 and 7 on the combined Bennett/Evans album. Interesting how a simple lyric error can be perpetuated if made by as influential a singer as Tony Bennett.
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