" JUST FRIENDS" MEL TORME SWINGS WITH THE BOSS BRASS

" Just Friends"  Mel Torme Swings With The Boss Brass.  In 1932, John Klenner, a German born, classicly rained musician wrote a song that is still played, especially by jazz musicians and singers. The lyrics were provided  by Sam Lewis and their short, intensive nature are well-matched  with the rhythmic thrust of the melody.
In this version, Melt Torme teams up with 21 piece Canadian jazz band created and master minded by Rob McConnell. McConnell was a spirited and inventive valve trombonist who was slated to replace Bob Brookmeyer in Gerry Mulligan's Quartet. Other considerations prevailed and McConnell built up a very extensive book of original songs and highly imaginative arrangement of jazz and popular song standards. McConnell's hard-driving arrangement, played by the cream of Toronto's jazz musicians, creates a dynamic interplay between the band and Torme whose timing, articulation and improvisational flights of fancy are compelling. McConnell's valve trombone solo is very reflective of the man himself, dynamic, cranky and humorous all at once. The recording has a free-flowing feel of a small group so well-rehearsed and integrated are the singer and the musicians.Other things to listen to are the tight, unison section playing, some exuberant scat singing with Torme and McConnell trading solos and the tempo slows to a strolling tempo only to finish in a bravura, up-tempo finale. Torme and The Boss Brass made two records together   showcasing the remarkable collaboration  of a singer, an arranger/trombonist and McConnell's own band of dedicated  musicians.





LINK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhFW2Rj1qR0

"TRY TO REMEMBER" THE POWER OF MUSIC MEMORIES

"  Try To Remember"   The Power of Music Memories.  In 1962, " The Fantastiks" a small scale musical began a twenty year run, The song " Try To Remember" became a very popular song. It's message was that when we have a favorite song memory, it reminds us of who we are, where we've been and how our sense of self is shaped. Such familiar music becomes the soundtrack for a movie that starts playing in our head. The concluding lyric line states  "  Try to remember, And if you remember than follow, follow, follow." The song suggest that it's important and psychologically healthy to reflect on the memories evoked by music . Jerry Orbach was the leading man in the original 1962 production. Twenty years later, he performs the song on a television program He also become well known as a regular on the original Law AND Order series.

LINK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEW1F9kZ-UE

"CRAZY WORLD"- A HENRY MANCINI HIDDEN GEM

" Crazy World"- A Henry Mancini hidden gem. As a major film composer, Henry Mancini has a long list of hit songs that were first introduced in movies. "Two For The Road" ", Dear Heart", "Charade", and " Moon River" are just a few of his lasting song credits. In VICTOR  VICTORIA , starring Julie Andrews with Robert Preston and James Garner, Julie introduced "Crazy World" an elegiacand rueful commentary on the vagaries of love. Unlike many of Mancini's pure melodic creations, Crazy World does not adhere to the classic A A B A song structure. Instead the lengthy melody continues with little repetition of themes and more complex and entrancing harmonic treatment. It is  not an easy song to sing  but  Julie Andrews performed it beautifully in the film and in a subsequent stage version. Leslie Bricusse created the insightful lyrics for the Mancini melody. They fit like a glove.

The version heard here is by K.T.Sullivan, a classicly trained singer who has made the world of Cabaret her personal domain. She is also the Artistic Director of the Mabel Mercer Foundation whose mandate is to continue the rich artistic tradition of the legendary cabaret performer, Mabel Mercer. There is a vibrant and innovative cabaret tradition in NYC and other major US cities with new performers continuing to advance the pursuit of literate song performance.
K.T.Sullivan sings with the restrained passion that the song requires  supported by a wonderfully rhapsodic piano accompaniment.

LINK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8N5tiwdzs

PEARL BAILEY SINGS " DON'T LIKE GOODBYES " FROM " HOUSE OF FLOWERS"

Pearl Bailey Sings " Don't Like Goodbyes" from " House of Flowers."  As Pearl Bailey did in an earlier Arlen/ Mercer show " St. Louis Woman ", she portrayed a somewhat domineering yet comic presence on stage. Portraying a Madam of a bordello, she had a  commercial interest in her " ladies" as well as a certain rough-hewn affection for her "flowers" which is portrayed in a tender ballad " Don't Like Goodbyes."  Originally written for Otillie, the young girl in love with Royal, Pearl Bailey appropriated the song for herself. it is a gentle goodbye song that uses everyday speech patterns but as Jenness & Velsey report " The song has the familiar upward glide. on words that convey yearning like the last syllables of " Don't like goodbyes, tears or sighs,,"--- and a stunning  employing repeated notes on,first, the lowered 7, then the pure 7, before ending on the octave (note.)

 Bailey does manage to convey her genuine regret at Ottilie leaving her " House" and is an affecting and memorable performance of a song that should be a standard, especially since saying goodbye is such a universal and poignant experience.


LINK: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVM61ntxN90








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" YOU''LL NEVER KNOW"-- EVOKES FOND MEMORIES OF THE WAR YEARS (WW 11)

" You'll Never Know"  --Evokes fond memories of the War Years ( WW 11)

                                      This is the final song post for this blog

For those of you old enough to remember the war years, a number of memorable songs are forever linked to those difficult and challenging times. " I'll Be Seeing You"   " We'll Meet Again" come to mind as well as "You'll Never Know. That song was featured in a 1943 20th Century Fox movie " Hello Frisco" starring Alice Faye and Tyrone Power. There is a poignant aspect to the song since it was based on a poem written by a young war bride hoping that her beloved husband would return safely from the war. Adopted by lyricist Mack Gordon and composer Harry Warren, IT was sung very tenderly by Alice Faye, the blond movie girl-next-door in movies of the '30's and '40's.
As she sings" You went away  and my heart went with you" it is hard not to recall the anxious moments that millions of families endured while they waited and prayed for the return of their loved ones.
                                        
Since this is the final post for this blog ,which started just a year ago, I wanted to thank the many people who took an interest in the Great American Songbook  and the 100 unique songs that I was able to send your way.
Since the Songbook can be considered America's classical music, these songs will still be sung many years from now just as Mozart and Schubert songs are still being performed today.
 Longevity is what defines a classic song and , to paraphrase an Ira Gershwin lyric, " It's very clear, Our songs are here to stay\Not for a year but forever and a day."
And perhaps ,we will meet again via the miracle of digital technology and the love of timeless, popular music

Max Weissengruber

LINK 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXv9yderPxc

" DUKE ELLINGTON'S " SOPHISTICATED LADY"

Duke Ellington's " Sophisticated Lady"  In 1933, Duke Ellington and lyric writer Mitchell Parish combined to write Sophisticated Lady an unusually constructed song that began as an instrumental showcase of Elligton's band. The lyrics, as was often the case with this prolific composer, arranger and pianist, were added after the melody was written and may have suffered from not having the music and words worked on together as in the case of so many effective song writing teams closely collaborating from beginning to end of the song creation.
 As David Raksin, composer of Laura once told me, Director Otto Preminger wanted to use Sophisticated Lady as the main theme for the movie. Raksin argued that there too many memories already associated with the tune written 11 years before the movie was being finished. Preminger gave Raksin the weekend to come up with something he could accept or he would have used the Ellington/Parish song. Despite the fact Raksin just learned that weekend that his wife was leaving him, he managed to stumble through a number of melodic ideas before he hit on the essential tune which is the much cherished " Laura."
Ella Fitzgerald sings with a mature woman's understanding of the follies of so-called sophisticated lifestyles and ending of a love that flickered and died."

LINK  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMig_hV1se8

" ALONE TOGETHER" --- POIGNANT LOVE SONG BY SCHWARTZ & DIETZ

"Alone Together"  --Poignant Love Song by Schwartz & Dietz. For a 1932 show " Flying Colors"  Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz wrote what Author Alec Wilder described as " Remarkable ,brooding ballad" and stating that he was " Simply surprised that the state of being together suggests such melancholy and that the aloneness is made more of in the melody than the togetherness, nor do I say that flippantly."
Nonetheless, it is a compelling song that more optimistically states in the bridge that " Our love, is as deep as the sea, our love, is as deep as a love can be" and concluding " And we can weather the great unknown, if we're alone.....together."

The dramatic structure and melody of the song is offset by the  declaration of a sincere and undying love.
In this performance, Ella Fitzgeral teams with arranger Nelson Riddle in a driving, up-tempo version that does justice to the intense nature of the melody while stressing the nature of the singer's undying love. The rhythmic thrust maintains the tension created by both the words and the music. This is mature song writing craftsmanship. 


Link:
                                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U84GERCaJic