THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU- Englishman masters Classic American Popular Song

Ray Noble was an English composer, arranger and Bandleader who worked in American on radio  as a musician and actor on the Edgar Bergen and Burns and Allan shows usually playing a silly-ass British twit. He also wrote a number of songs that were very much in the Great American Songbook tradition. Most famous is the tender The Very Thought of You.
I discovered a lovely version sing by Zoe Francis, an American now based in England. She does include the seldom heard verse or introductory segment that sets the
stage for the main chorus that follows.  Noble's words express  a deeply felt love  such as " I see your face before me" I'm living in a kind of daydream"    and "Crazy though I may be, to me, you're everything ! "                                      https://youtu.be/TMfHsrPvITo

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES TIMELESS jEROME kERN mELODY

Jerome Kern is often considered a master of the seamless melody. Stephan Sondheim referred to him as America's Schubert.  The song was written in 1933    but in the 1950's , The Platters, a pop vocal group had a hit with the song although Kern would not have appreciated that version. He did not like any changes from the way it has written. Lyricist Otto Harbach used some arcane expressions such as " chaffed" "forsooth" " sequestered days ." These are not terms that are part of normal discourse but they were accepted at the time.

This version is sung by Connee Boswell  who sang with her sisters in the 1930's. Ella Fitzgerald said that her singing was influenced by listening to Connee Boswell and her natural, un forced vocal style.

https://youtu.be/7_m1b8BYmhA

nOBODY eLSE BUT ME jEROME kERN GETS GROOVY

Nobody Else But Me       Some  Twenty years after his original Showboat, Jerome Kern wrote a new song for a revival of  his famous Showboat creation.  Nobody Else But me is so American in style with the confident swagger of Broadway and the Jazz world.    He discarded his earlier European influenced operetta style and fully adopted the modernity in popular music that evolved in the 1930's and forties.

Tony Bennett demonstrates his own affinity for the Jazz tradition with a relaxed yet compelling rhythmic  pulse provided by a small combo.    https://youtu.be/LAEI8iRUepw