Which one is your favorite? - LVI -

Here is another song from the 30s written by Harry Warren with lyrics by Al Dubin. It was a big hit in 1933.  Deane Janis with Hal Kemp's Orchestra recorded the original version on October 31, 1933, in Chicago, which was issued by Brunswick Records.

Here is the song for this week;

"Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

In 1934, a rendition sung by Constance Bennett appeared in the film Moulin Rouge, but was unreleased on record.

Set in Paris, the lyrics include "I walk along the street of sorrow/The Boulevard of Broken Dreams/Where gigolo and gigolette/Can take a kiss without regret/So they forget their broken dreams."

Boulevard of Broken Dreams served as the title tune for a stage musical which played February 11 – March 9, 2003 at the Coconut Grove Playhouse: featuring a libretto by Joel Kimmel, the play was based on the life of composer Al Dubin – played by Jordan Bennett – and featured a number of Dubin compositions as its score.

The song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" has been added to the score of the stage musical 42nd Street for its 2017 West End run being performed by Sheena Easton in the character of Dorothy Brock: the Daily Express opined that "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" seemed "out of place" in 42nd Street while stating that Easton sang the song "splendidly".

This piece is written as a tango in the harmonic minor scale. The song is in the key of E minor.

Here are the 6 versions I picked for you;

• Tony Bennett & Sting - "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

• Diana Krall - "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

• Marianne Faithfull - "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

• Nat King Cole - "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

• Seija Karpiomaa - "Sarkyneen Toiveen Katu"

• Robin Nolan Trio - "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

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.

Five Songs for the Weekend -XCVI -

This week it really seems like the summer is over. Rain, clouds, cool winds and all. But hey, we have Indian summer ahead of us, right? On the other hand, Covid cases are significantly increasing all around the world. So be careful, wear a mask, pay attention to the social distance rules and keep your hands virus free. And remember this shall pass too and when it is over, we will be even stronger...

As Charlie Parker once said;

“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. 

If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn."

Here is the list for this weekend;

• Jyoti - "Mama, You Can Bet!"

• Severija - "Zu Asche, Zu Staub"

• Carl Finlow - "Anomaly"

• Kutiman feat. Melike Şahin - "Sakla Beni"

• Blick Bassy - "Aké"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - LV -

This week we go back to the 30s. The song I chose is a classic Tin Pan Alley song composed by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics written by Johnny Mercer.

Here is the song for this week;

"Lazybones"

Mercer was from Savannah, Georgia, and resented the Tin Pan Alley attitude of rejecting southern regional vernacular in favor of artificial southern songs written by people who had never been to the South. Alex Wilder attributes much of the popularity of this song to Mercer's perfect regional lyric.

He wrote the lyrics to "Lazybones" as a protest against those artificial "Dixies", announcing the song's authenticity at the start with "Long as there is chicken gravy on your rice".

The song has been recorded scores of times over the years. Recordings were released as early as 1933 by Jay Wilbur, Paul Robeson, and 1934 by The Mills Brothers, and as recently as 2018 by Nellie McKay. 

It has been recorded by a variety of artists in a variety of formats, including country singers such as Hank Snow on the album Old Doc Brown in 1955, R&B artists such as The Supremes on their 1965 album The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop, Leon Redbone on his 1975 album On the Track, and even fictional characters such as the Electric Mayhem band on the Muppet Show in 1977. Jonathan King's 1971 revival was a Top 20 hit in the UK and was played on US soft rock stations, earning a position on Billboard's Easy Listening chart, reached #34. King's version sold over a million copies around the world.

Here are the 7 versions I picked for you;

• Leon Redbone - "Lazybones"

• Jacqui Naylor - "Lazybones"

• Hoagy Carmichael & Dorothy Dandridge - "Lazybones" 

• Harry Connick Jr. - "Lazybones"

• Dr. John - "Lazybones"

• Liza Minnelli - "Lazybones"

• Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong - "Lazybones"

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.

Five Songs for the Weekend -XCV -

Busy days at work, busy days in the studio. We are doing our best to prepare a radio show that would amuse the listeners and believe me it is not that as easy as it sounds. However, we enjoy a lot and hope that everyone else does too. Don't forget to listen on the internet: https://karnaval.com/radyolar/joyjazz

As Hallie Flanagan once said;

“The power of radio is not that it speaks to millions, 

but that it speaks intimately and privately 

to each one of those millions.”

Here is the list for this weekend;

• Bror Gunnar Jansson - "Moan Snake Moan, Part III"

• Julia Holter - "Words I Heard"

• Holly Herndon - "Eternal"

• Jonathan Richman - "That Summer Feeling"

• Yussef Kamaal - "Calligraphy"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - LIV -

I noticed that I have only written about a few songs from the 50s. So, here is a loved one from 1956. It is a song written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, who used the pseudonym John Davenport. It was originally recorded by American R&B singer Little Willie John for his debut album, Fever (1956), and released as a single in April of the same year.

Here is the song for this week;

"Fever"

The song managed to top the Billboard R&B Best Sellers in the US and peak at number 24 on the Billboard pop chart. It was received positively by music critics and included on several lists of the best songs during the time it was released.

It has been covered by numerous artists from various musical genres, most notably by Peggy Lee, whose 1958 rendition became the most widely known version of "Fever" and the singer's signature song. Lee's version contained rewritten lyrics different from the original and an altered music arrangement. It became a top-five hit on the music charts in the UK and Australia in addition to entering the top ten in the US and the Netherlands. "Fever" was nominated in three categories at the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

The idea for "Fever" was presented to Otis Blackwell by an old friend, Eddie Cooley, who in 1956 had a hit song called "Priscilla". Blackwell said: "Eddie Cooley was a friend of mine from New York and he called me up and said 'Man, I got an idea for a song called 'Fever', but I can't finish it.' I had to write it under another name because, at that time, I was still under contract to Joe Davis." John Davenport, the name he used, was the name of Blackwell's stepfather. Little Willie John reportedly disliked the song, but was persuaded to record it, on March 1, 1956, by King Records owner Syd Nathan and arranger and producer Henry Glover. It became the title track for his debut album, Fever, released in 1956.

"Fever" is a soul and rhythm and blues minor key opus with an arrangement consisting of low saxophones played by Ray Felder and Rufus "Nose" Gore and guitar by Bill Jennings. The vocal style of Willie John is similar to moaning and he is backed by finger snaps. Bill Dahl from the website AllMusic noted a contrast between the song's "ominous" arrangement and the vocals along with the finger snapping which "marginally lightened the mood".

Here are the 6 versions I picked for you;

• Peggy Lee - "Fever"

• Beyoncé - "Fever"

• Madonna - "Fever"

• Leon Russell - "Fever"

• Michael Bublé - "Fever"

• Musica Nuda - "Fever"

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.

Five Songs for the Weekend -XCIV -

Today I am very excited about the radio show I will be co-hosting. The first program will be broadcasted today. It will be a jazz show with guests therefore not limited to music but sharing experiences too. You can listen to the show here: https://karnaval.com/radyolar/joyjazz

As Henry Threadgill once said;

“Art leaves something to the listener; 

that's what separates art from craft.”

Here is the list for this weekend;

• Into The Pale Abyss - "Leave Us Alone"

• Charles Bradley - "Why Is It So Hard"

• Esperanza Spalding & Gretchen Parlato - "Inutil Paisagem"

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Henry Lee"

• Tahoultine - "Mdou Moctar"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - LIII -

Here is a song for the season. It dates back to 1945 and the original was in French. The tune was popularised by Yves Montand. It has been  a leading standard in the jazz repertoire.

Here is the song for this week;

"Autumn Leaves"

The song was composed by Joseph Kosma with original lyrics by Jacques Prévert in French, and later by Johnny Mercer in English. An instrumental version by pianist Roger Williams was a number 1 best-seller in the US Billboard charts of 1955.

Kosma was a native of Hungary who was introduced to Prévert in Paris. They collaborated on the song "Les Feuilles Mortes" ("The Dead Leaves") for the 1946 film Les Portes de la nuit (Gates of the Night) where it was sung by Irène Joachim. Kosma was influenced by a piece of ballet music, "Rendez-vous" written for Roland Petit, which was itself borrowed partially from "Poème d'octobre" by Jules Massenet.

Marcel Carné decided to use it in his film Les portes de la nuit and wanted it sung by Marlene Dietrich — who declined. In the movie, it is played by the whole orchestra, then by a harmonica, then hummed and sung briefly by Yves Montand, then sung by Irene Joachim (dubbed for actress Nathalie Nattier).

 The first commercial recordings of "Les Feuilles mortes" were released in 1950, by Cora Vaucaire and by Yves Montand. Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyric and gave it the title "Autumn Leaves". Mercer was a partner in Capitol Records at the time, and Capitol recording artist Jo Stafford made the first English-language recording in July, 1950. The song was recorded steadily throughout the 1950s by leading pop vocalists including Bing Crosby (1950), Nat King Cole (1955), Doris Day (1956), and Frank Sinatra (1957). It was also quickly adopted by instrumental jazz artists including Artie Shaw (1950), Stan Getz (1952), Erroll Garner and Ahmad Jamal (separately in 1955), Duke Ellington (1957), and Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis (together in 1958). In 2012, jazz historian Philippe Baudoin called the song "the most important non-American standard" and noted that "it has been recorded about 1400 times by mainstream and modern jazz musicians alone and is the eighth most-recorded tune by jazzmen.

Over the years since its first publication, the composition has undergone several adjustments. The verse is a 24-bar AAB form, though originally it was written in twelve bars. The AABC form chorus was originally written in sixteen bars, but is now commonly seen as a 32-bar structure. The tune is usually played in 4/4 at a medium tempo in the key of G minor, although the original edition is in A minor.

Here are the 8 versions I picked for you;

• Sarah Vaughan - "Autumn Leaves"

• Chet Baker & Paul Desmond - "Autumn Leaves"

• Iggy Pop - "Les Feuilles Mortes"

• Dee Dee Bridgewater - "Autumn Leaves"
  

• Paula Cole - "Autumn Leaves"

• Dalida - "Les Feuilles Mortes"

• Nat King Cole - "Autumn Leaves"

• Patricia Kaas - "Autumn Leaves"

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.

Five Songs for the Weekend -XCIII -

It's getting cooler and it seems that autumn is around the corner. Let's hope this corona thing will fade away before the end of the year and things will get back to normal. Just like everyone else, I  missed going to the movies and attending live concerts... I am really curious what stories or tunes will come out of this strange times we are living in...

As Slash once said;

“Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules too complex,

 there's some sort of musical explosion..”

Here is the list for this weekend;

• Massive Attack - "Teardrop"

• Florence and the Machine - "Cosmic Love"

• Gin Wigmore - "Hey Ho"

• Khruangbin - "August Twelve"

• Avalon Jazz Band - "Si Tu Vois Ma Mère"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.