Jerome Kern-Astaire film Song: As the founding father of the Great American Songbook, Jerome Kern's earliest songs were rooted in more of a European or Vienna operatta style, well -crafted but not paricularly American in style. Songs like " Look For The Silver Lining" ' Wild Rose" or "How'd You Like To Spoon With Me ?" could just as easily be writen by a European or Viennese composer.
In his film composing, Kern had to write for an American audience .By the 1930's, his compositions began to take on the freshness with what Alec Wilder has called " The Way You Look Tonight " a song that " Flows with style and grace" and one that would not have been composed by a non-American.
Written for the 1936 film " Swing Time" , with lyrics by Doroth Fields, the song was featured in a wonderful dance sequence with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The first version features Bernadette Peters in a live concert setting. A fine singing actress, Peters is supported by a marvellous piano accompaniment that serves as almost an orchestral backdrop for the singer. The interplay between voice and piano is actualy a duet rather than just an instrumentalist backing up a singer.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://youtu.be/Azq46m46UfA
Tony Bennett provides an equally fine version performing with a small jazz group.
He has a fetchng way with the Dorothy Fields lyrics and manages to inject a gentle swing feeling to the song that is evident but not intrusive. Bennet hs always been able to inject honest emotion in his singing without relying on the bombastic style being heard today by contestants on " American Idol."
PERFORMANCE LINK
http://youtu.be/6N_cv4X5gVY
EDITORIAL NOTE: Both Bennett and Peters are Italian Americans like Sinatra, Vic Damone, Dean Martin, Perry Como and quite a few others. The importance and love of singing seems to be imbedded in the Italian culture and we are the better for it.
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
COLE PORTER: 2 THOUGHTS ABOUT LOVE
Cole Porter: Two Thoughts of Love: Cole Porter, that purveyor of urban sophistication and langour, wrote on a number of different aspects of what Alison Moyet, another songwriter called ," That Ole Devil Called Love." Porter could be witty or sardonic, sad or remorseful, captivated by the very thought of love or downright angry as in " Get Out Of Town."
In " Down in the Depths ( Of the Nineteith floor)" a wealthy Manhattan lady sadly admits that her love now only has eyes for another. And there she sits" In My Pet Paillated Gown, Down in the Depths of the Ninetieth Floor." She laments that while other urbane Manhattanites are enjoying the delights of an evening in The Big Apple, she sits alone in her " Regal Eagle's Nest while even the Janitor's wife, has a perfectly good life etc." The song is sung by Helen Carr a relatively unknown jazz influenced singer who sounds like a little bit of Jeri Southern and also Lee Wiley( not bad influences by any means.) She is accompanied by a small jazz combo that creates some vocal freedom that is quite endearing despite the sadness conveyed by the lyrics.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j8yVvCPLEA
A contrasting Porter song is " I Concentrate on You." has Sinatra demonstrating his unshakeable faith in the power of his love that will enable him even " When Fortune Cries Nay Nay to Me and people declare we're through. To Prove that even wise men can be wrong, I concentrate on you"
Quite a contrast with the glum and dispirited lady on the Ninetieth floor.
This song carries the pulsating bossa nova beat arranged by Claus Ogerman with the great Brazilian composer Antonio Carlo Jobim playing guitar as well as serving as vocal backup for Sinatra,
Here we have an Italian American singer, doing a song by an Upper Class midwestern protestant with a song arranged by a native German and a Brazilian musical giant playing as well as singing. If nothing else, this is proof positive that music, especially that of the Great American Songbook, transcends language and cultural barriers .
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlpmFc_Uo6c
BONUS TRACK. This is Sinatra singing (three years earlier) the same song but with a Nelson Riddle arrangement more upbeat and swinging in a Big Band manner. Both versions prove the versatility that superior songs can accomodate.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnWkcHG6RbA
:
In " Down in the Depths ( Of the Nineteith floor)" a wealthy Manhattan lady sadly admits that her love now only has eyes for another. And there she sits" In My Pet Paillated Gown, Down in the Depths of the Ninetieth Floor." She laments that while other urbane Manhattanites are enjoying the delights of an evening in The Big Apple, she sits alone in her " Regal Eagle's Nest while even the Janitor's wife, has a perfectly good life etc." The song is sung by Helen Carr a relatively unknown jazz influenced singer who sounds like a little bit of Jeri Southern and also Lee Wiley( not bad influences by any means.) She is accompanied by a small jazz combo that creates some vocal freedom that is quite endearing despite the sadness conveyed by the lyrics.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j8yVvCPLEA
A contrasting Porter song is " I Concentrate on You." has Sinatra demonstrating his unshakeable faith in the power of his love that will enable him even " When Fortune Cries Nay Nay to Me and people declare we're through. To Prove that even wise men can be wrong, I concentrate on you"
Quite a contrast with the glum and dispirited lady on the Ninetieth floor.
This song carries the pulsating bossa nova beat arranged by Claus Ogerman with the great Brazilian composer Antonio Carlo Jobim playing guitar as well as serving as vocal backup for Sinatra,
Here we have an Italian American singer, doing a song by an Upper Class midwestern protestant with a song arranged by a native German and a Brazilian musical giant playing as well as singing. If nothing else, this is proof positive that music, especially that of the Great American Songbook, transcends language and cultural barriers .
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlpmFc_Uo6c
BONUS TRACK. This is Sinatra singing (three years earlier) the same song but with a Nelson Riddle arrangement more upbeat and swinging in a Big Band manner. Both versions prove the versatility that superior songs can accomodate.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnWkcHG6RbA
:
Monday, 7 January 2013
IRVING BERLIN - SOME TENDER BALLADS
Irving Berlin-Some Tender Ballads: Early in his career, Irving Berlin made his reputation with up-tempo numbers like " Alexander's Ragtime Band" " I Love A Piano" " " Shaking The Blues Away" (already featured earler on this blog ) ' Putting On The Ritz" etc. However, given his effortless versatility, Berlin also fashioned some very tender and compelling ballads.
" How Deep Is The Ocean" is a superb example of what can be accomplished within the confines of a popular song as it poses an imponderable question.
It is sung with the appropriate emotional solemnity by Ann Hampton Callaway, a polished cabaret performer who honours the depth of Irving Berlin's own lyrics. She makes you believe in the despair so evident in the lyrics and yet they never become maudlin or over stated.
PERFORMANCE LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJtquj1FNk
An equally evocative ballad is " What I'll do ?" It is one of a number of songs that deal with the emotional consequences of a romantic break up. It starts with a verse that introduces the matter of something that has ended . The main refrain then asks a series of questions that try to answer how the partners will deal with that now irrevocable fact. Linda Ronstadt, a former rock/pop performer had teamed up with the great Nelson Riddle to gravitate to more adult songs form the Geat American Songbook. She was able also to introduce her more youthful fans to a more lasting repertoire than a Motown song like " Heat Wave." Riddle provides a cushion of delicate strings and instrumental solo excerpts from brass and woodwinds.
PERFORMANCE LINK
http://youtu.be/8B1oIcTh604:
" How Deep Is The Ocean" is a superb example of what can be accomplished within the confines of a popular song as it poses an imponderable question.
It is sung with the appropriate emotional solemnity by Ann Hampton Callaway, a polished cabaret performer who honours the depth of Irving Berlin's own lyrics. She makes you believe in the despair so evident in the lyrics and yet they never become maudlin or over stated.
PERFORMANCE LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hJtquj1FNk
An equally evocative ballad is " What I'll do ?" It is one of a number of songs that deal with the emotional consequences of a romantic break up. It starts with a verse that introduces the matter of something that has ended . The main refrain then asks a series of questions that try to answer how the partners will deal with that now irrevocable fact. Linda Ronstadt, a former rock/pop performer had teamed up with the great Nelson Riddle to gravitate to more adult songs form the Geat American Songbook. She was able also to introduce her more youthful fans to a more lasting repertoire than a Motown song like " Heat Wave." Riddle provides a cushion of delicate strings and instrumental solo excerpts from brass and woodwinds.
PERFORMANCE LINK
http://youtu.be/8B1oIcTh604:
Sunday, 6 January 2013
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
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
Friday, 4 January 2013
Frank & Ella-Who Else?
Frank & Ella-Who Else? This blog is focused on the people who created the songs that we cherish as the so-called " Standards" of the Great American Songbook. It all starts with composers and lyricists who conjure up the melodies and words that create memorable songs. However, let us not forget that the notes and words are just ink on paper until someone breathes life into those creations.
There are a great number of performers, young and old, who have done justice to the songs that represent good taste and lasting emotional appeal.
However, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald have done more than any other artists to perform a broad spectrum of the hundreds of songs that are part of classic American popular songbook. Ella has covered most of the maor composers in a series of recordings of the songwriters who have a significant body of work . Throughout his lengthy career, Sinatra has always featured the work of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, Jeome Kern and Irving Berlin and often mentions the composers name during his performances.
What is it that makes these two giants of popular song create so extraordinary an impact on millions of dedicated listeners ? With them there is always clarity, naturalness, control, originality and honesty.They both honour the melody and words as written but also find ways of changing a tempo , bending a note, or substituting a note that sometimes sounds better than what was originally written. These qualities are also true of other established performers but it is the sheer volume and consistant quality of their recordings that has created their lasting legacy..
In this video, Frank and Ella sing a duet version of " Moonlight in Vermont" by Suessdorf and Blackburn, two unheralded collaborators who created this poetic ballad sung in a very natural , respectful and unforced manner.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://youtu.be/cyyRi3l7E_k
There are a great number of performers, young and old, who have done justice to the songs that represent good taste and lasting emotional appeal.
However, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald have done more than any other artists to perform a broad spectrum of the hundreds of songs that are part of classic American popular songbook. Ella has covered most of the maor composers in a series of recordings of the songwriters who have a significant body of work . Throughout his lengthy career, Sinatra has always featured the work of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, Jeome Kern and Irving Berlin and often mentions the composers name during his performances.
What is it that makes these two giants of popular song create so extraordinary an impact on millions of dedicated listeners ? With them there is always clarity, naturalness, control, originality and honesty.They both honour the melody and words as written but also find ways of changing a tempo , bending a note, or substituting a note that sometimes sounds better than what was originally written. These qualities are also true of other established performers but it is the sheer volume and consistant quality of their recordings that has created their lasting legacy..
In this video, Frank and Ella sing a duet version of " Moonlight in Vermont" by Suessdorf and Blackburn, two unheralded collaborators who created this poetic ballad sung in a very natural , respectful and unforced manner.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://youtu.be/cyyRi3l7E_k
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Burton Lane-He Should Be Better Known
Burton Lane: He Should be Better Known: For many years, Burton Lane moved between Hollywood and Broadway writing individual songs for the movies and whole scores for Broadway Musicals like " Finian's Rainbow" AND " On A Clear Day You Can See Forever." Songs like "Everything I have Is Yours" The Lady's In Love With You" and " I Hear Music" are fairly popular but not associated in the public's mind as written by Burton Lane.
The first song I've chosen is " Too Late Now." It's from a 1951 movie " Royal Wedding " which starred Fred Astaire and Jane Powell as a brother and sister musical act.( Just like Fred and Adele Astaire as real life siblings featured on an earlier post on George Gershwin's " I Got Rhythm.")
It is sung by Audra McDonald, a reigning Broadway diva with lovely lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner of " My Fair Lady " fame.
PERFORMANCE LINK:
http://youtu.be/sxgebW1f7ss
The other Burton Lane song is " Old Devil Moon" a sinuous romantic ballad writen for the musical " Finians Rainbow." The lyrics were by E.Y Harburg and the version presented is from the movie version of the musical. directed by a young Francis Ford Coppola before his Godfather trilogy.
It features Petula Clark and Don Franks, a talented Canadian performer in his first and only film appearance. The scene shows how a song is acted out in the context of an actual story related to actual characters as opposed to a straight forward song recital. The two young lovers in the film really demonstrate how important effective acting is to bring to life both a film or stage version of a musical srory.
PERFORMANCE LINK:
http://youtu.be/anB6GoH9mpM
The first song I've chosen is " Too Late Now." It's from a 1951 movie " Royal Wedding " which starred Fred Astaire and Jane Powell as a brother and sister musical act.( Just like Fred and Adele Astaire as real life siblings featured on an earlier post on George Gershwin's " I Got Rhythm.")
It is sung by Audra McDonald, a reigning Broadway diva with lovely lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner of " My Fair Lady " fame.
PERFORMANCE LINK:
http://youtu.be/sxgebW1f7ss
The other Burton Lane song is " Old Devil Moon" a sinuous romantic ballad writen for the musical " Finians Rainbow." The lyrics were by E.Y Harburg and the version presented is from the movie version of the musical. directed by a young Francis Ford Coppola before his Godfather trilogy.
It features Petula Clark and Don Franks, a talented Canadian performer in his first and only film appearance. The scene shows how a song is acted out in the context of an actual story related to actual characters as opposed to a straight forward song recital. The two young lovers in the film really demonstrate how important effective acting is to bring to life both a film or stage version of a musical srory.
PERFORMANCE LINK:
http://youtu.be/anB6GoH9mpM
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Hoagy Carmichael-The Romantic Side
Hoagy Carmichael-The Romantic Side: Hoagy Carmichael was a constant movie presence in the 1940' and fifties. He usually played a pianist in a bar or nightclub, smoking a cigarette and singing many of his own songs like " Old Buttermilk Sky" " Skylark" Lazybones" and " Georgia on My Mind." Like lyricist Johnny Mercer, there is a small town, rural country feel about many of his songs like " Memphis in June. He was also immersed in the jazz world where he had played with some of the early jazz legends like Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer.
There was another side to his talents which he displayed in a song called " I Get Along WithoutYou Very Well" ( except sometimes). He had read a poem by a Jane Brown Thompson and set the words to a slightly melancholic tune that perfectly matched the sentiments contained in her poem.
The version you will see and hear is by Frank Sinatra in a 1971 London Charity concert. Princess Grace Kelly acted as MC . Sinatra was most respectful and charming in her presence since they had become friends while working together on the film " High Society " with Bing Crosby.
I have listend to hundreds of Sinatra performances but I have never heard him sing with such consummate sincerity and tenderness as he did on this song. Accompanied by a large orchestra and what sounds like a typically symphonic Nelson Riddle arrangement, this is Sinatra at the height of his interpretive powers performing a classic Hoagy Carmichael song, one quite different than many of his more well known popular songs.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcRZ2i_C6zo&feature=share&list=PLF2AE30649693E959
There was another side to his talents which he displayed in a song called " I Get Along WithoutYou Very Well" ( except sometimes). He had read a poem by a Jane Brown Thompson and set the words to a slightly melancholic tune that perfectly matched the sentiments contained in her poem.
The version you will see and hear is by Frank Sinatra in a 1971 London Charity concert. Princess Grace Kelly acted as MC . Sinatra was most respectful and charming in her presence since they had become friends while working together on the film " High Society " with Bing Crosby.
I have listend to hundreds of Sinatra performances but I have never heard him sing with such consummate sincerity and tenderness as he did on this song. Accompanied by a large orchestra and what sounds like a typically symphonic Nelson Riddle arrangement, this is Sinatra at the height of his interpretive powers performing a classic Hoagy Carmichael song, one quite different than many of his more well known popular songs.
PERFORMANCE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcRZ2i_C6zo&feature=share&list=PLF2AE30649693E959
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)