Today is April 30th and it is the "International Jazz Day". So this week's post will be purely jazz. I hope you are staying home and listening to more music than ever...
As Boris Vian once said;
“Without jazz, life would be a mistake.”
Here is the list for the weekend;
Nina Simone - "African Mailman"
Helen Sung Trio - "C Jam Blues"
Sons Of Kemet - "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman"
Metheny & Mehldau - "The Sound of Water"
Mostly Other People Do The Killing - "King of Prussia"
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.
This week's song was written by Phil Spector and Jerry Leiber and was first recorded by Ben E. King at the beginning of the 60s. It climbed the Billboard charts with an arrangement by Stan Applebaum featuring Spanish guitar, marimba, drum-beats, soprano saxophone, strings, and a male chorus, and peaked at number 15 for rhythm and blues and number 10 in pop music. It was ranked number 358 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Here is the song for this week;
"Spanish Harlem"
Spanish Harlem is a section of New York City with a large Latino population and a rich cultural heritage. This song is about a rose that grows through the concrete in the city, always shaded from the sun. The singer is enchanted by this beautiful flower and dreams of taking it to his garden.
The rose is likely a metaphor for a girl - one who is "soft and sweet and dreaming."
This was one of the first songs written by the legendary producer Phil Spector. He wrote it with Jerry Leiber, the lyricist of the famous songwriting team Leiber and Stoller. Spector learned his craft working with Leiber and Stoller, and quickly made a name for himself as a top producer.
This was the first single Ben E. King released as a solo artist - he left The Drifters after complaining of low wages. The song became the title track of his first solo album, which had a Spanish theme, with songs like "Besame Mucho" and "Perfidia."
King recorded this in the same sessions as "Stand By Me," which would be his next release and biggest hit.
Here are the 5 versions I picked for you;
Aretha Franklin - "Spanish Harlem"
Rebecca Pidgeon - "Spanish Harlem"
Laura Nyro - "Spanish Harlem"
The Jazz Passengers - "Spanish Harlem"
Tom Jones - "Spanish Harlem"
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.
4 days of lockdown as of today in my home country and at the same time, today is a public holiday...
Nice weather outside but no one can go out :(
So we do a lot of cooking, drinking and listening to amuse ourselves. I don't know when these days will be over but I hope to see them over very soon as we miss the social life and our friends (no zoom for a while please...).
As Harry Belafonte once said;
“You can cage the singer but not the song.”
Here is the list for the weekend;
Michelle Gurevich - "Fatalist Love"
Yvonne Fair - "Straighten Up"
Piero Umiliani - "Lui e Lei"
ESG - "My Love For You"
Celeste - "Strange"
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.
This week I have a song from the 60s which for many years I had thought that the best known cover had been the original and the original had been a cover version :) When I say Cher and Nancy Sinatra, probably you will realize which song I am talking about. I hope you like this song, written by Cher's husband at the time, Sonny Bono, as much as I do.
Here is the song for this week;
"Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
The song is the second single by American singer-actress Cher from her second album, The Sonny Side of Cher. Written by her then-husband Sonny Bono and released in 1966, the song reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week (behind "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" by The Righteous Brothers), eventually becoming one of Cher's biggest-selling singles of the 1960s.
In this song, Cher recalls playing childhood games with a boy when he would shoot her with his toy gun. They grow up together and get married but then he leaves her. She has again been shot down, but this time it's for real and she is devastated.
Here are the 8 versions I picked for you;
Lady Gaga - "Bang Bang"
Bria Skonberg - "Bang Bang"
Ania - "Bang Bang"
Dalida - "Bang Bang"
David Guetta & Skylar Grey - "Bang Bang"
Nancy Sinatra - "Bang Bang"
Paul Weller - "Bang Bang"
Isobel Campbell - "Bang Bang"
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.
The death toll continues to increase amongst artists due to Corona virus and another great jazzman passed away due its complications. Alto sax player Lee Konitz, one of the pioneers of cool jazz, died yesterday. He was 92...
Konitz in the middle, with Miles Davis & Gerry Mulligan
He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s and 1950s includes participation in Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool sessions and his work with pianist Lennie Tristano. He was one of relatively few alto saxophonists of this era to retain a distinctive style, when Charlie Parker exerted a massive influence.
Here is a live recording of Lee Konitz (Denmark 1965 feat. Bill Evans, Alan Dawson and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen).
