Over the last fifty years I have heard countless versions of Mack the Knife. Undoubtedly, the most acute – and probably the quietest – can be found on One Endless Night, the 2000 album by a master of the “honky tonk” end of country music!
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Actual? Imaginary? Animatronic? Whose foot is this?
Comments closedChances are, you know this song via Roberta Flack’s hushed, reverent “1972” version.
(Her 1969 version became a hit in 1972, thanks to Clint Eastwood)
Lovely as hers is, it inhabits an utterly different musical world to that of Ewan MacColl’s Scottish-folksong-ish 1957 original.
In 1973 Bert Jansch recorded his singular, Scottish-folkish version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
Comments closedIn the Blue Light is his final new album, Simon says; it offers brand new takes on 10 of his previously-recorded songs.
Some are gently tweaked, others more substantially rewritten and/or rearranged.
One of the new versions is an absolute hoot…and a nice surprise.
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Here are two albums you should hear.
They offer no tediously-roosterish displays of “technique”.
Neither are they lamely “hip”, or tepidly “smooth”.
Both are uncommonly beautiful.
Crucial to their success is something rarely mentioned by reviewers of “jazz” releases: real friendships, sustained over many years.
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Chapter Two is international, and includes a musical bonus – audio of two of my favourite rain songs. (one of them is an “unissued” version)
Comments closed…the same song, twice, nearly 44 years apart. Each version is equally acute, but very different. Neither involves an electric guitar!
Comments closed…and Ira.
George Gershwin wrote this song’s music, his brother Ira the words, for a 1932 opera. A flop on debut, it is now a landmark. Its most tender number – Summertime – is probably the best-loved 20th century song. Its sardonic song is less popular; I have heard only several hundred covers of It Ain’t Necessarily So!
Comments closed…wordlessly, but you can hear how acutely conscious he is of Woodstock‘s lyric.
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For many years Fred Hersch has been an inspired interpreter of two of the greatest songbooks – Thelonious Monk’s and Tom (Antonio Carlos) Jobim’s. On his new album Fred does right by both. He also covers someone whose songbook I long have loathed…
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