Which one is your favorite? - XXXIV -

This week we lost a great drummer, a true pioneer of Afrobeat sound, Tonny Allen passed away in Paris. Therefore I would like to dedicate this post to him. He was the drummer and musical director of Fela Kuti's band Africa '70 from 1968 to 1979. He was described by Brian Eno as "perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived."

The piece I chose for this week is a musical composition by Bobby Timmons, first recorded by Art Blakey's band on the 1958 album of the same title.

Here is the song for this week;

"Moanin'"

The piece has a call and response melody. One account of its creation was given by Benny Golson, the tenor saxophonist in Blakey's band: Timmons had the opening eight bars, which he often played between tunes, but formed the complete song only after Golson encouraged him to add a bridge. It is played in F minor.

"Moanin'" has been recorded numerous times and has become a jazz standard.

Here are the 3 versions I picked for you;

• Tony Allen - "Moanin"

• José James - "Moanin"

• Sarah Vaughan - "Moanin"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers.