A great melody first, then lyrics,(only) THEN 'vocals'

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Sir Paul's favorite version of his classic, "Blackbird" -- by KENNY RANKIN[/h]

 

When he appeared at our Winnipeg football stadium five summers ago (I spent a thousand dollars on tickets for the family) the moment came in the show when he performed alone with his guitar, no other accompaniment BLACKBIRD. All my life, he said, "everywhere I go, guitarists show me their version" (pause for effect) "and none of you play it right. Here's the way . . . "

 

 

 

The exception that proved the rule. Kenny Rankin's version. Sir Paul requested Kenny be there to sing it when he and John Lennon were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Last fall I sent my guitarist grandson Thomas and his girlfriend Jewel to see McCartney -- indoors at our Winnipeg Jets hockey arena -- and he reported back that, "He was even better this time, Grampa. And he said it again before playing solo Blackbird. "All you guitarists get it wrong. This is the way it's played."

 

 

 

I'm with you, Paul -- "with this one exception."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for one of George Harrison's best compositions -- Kenny's live take (with strings) of WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS. At least for me this was next up at YouTube this night. Listening to it for the first time at this moment. He segues into MY FUNNY VALENTINE using the same lovely descending chord pattern! (Just in case it isn't next up on shuffle for you this night . . . )

 

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. Historical note: Johnny Carson loved Kenny Rankin -- invited him on THE TONIGHT SHOW as a special guest 20 times, and wrote liner notes for one of his albums.

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]HOW HIGH THE MOON (AND ME)[/h]

 

It's 3:33 (no one in the place except you and me) awake after giving my Irene a fall-back-to-sleep knee and leg rub. It worked -- I hear her gentle breathing. So -- check to see what's been playing overnight and – can't believe it! If I didn't know better I'd say, What a coincidence! A psychologist friend at University of Manitoba introduced me to:

 

 

 

“Synchronicity” – defined as an amazing (series) of coincidences (the term was coined by Viennese psychiatrist Carl Jung). “Is it happening to you very much?” I asked a Facebook friend my age yesterday. “All the time,” the reply.

 

 

 

Yesterday I was in the card section at Wal-Mart – my go-to place, I like to joke, if I'm feeling at all 'down' – pick up a funny card or two and within a few seconds I'm laughing out loud. Every time!

 

 

 

To add to the blissful feeling: My favorite Toni Tennille song comes on the store's sound system – HOW HIGH THE MOON. I think of the times Siriusly Sinatra has played this fast-tempo song (“just for me”) which emulates, even as it surpasses, the original – my favorite ultra-fast Les Paul & Mary Ford (million selling) hit song of the early 50's. I send a good wishes mental note -- thanking Jersey Lou for including it on the playlist – but not lately.

 

 

 

So . . . wee small hours and -- guess what played overnight?

 

 

 

This version at YouTube that wasn't there the last time I looked for it. It's track 1 on Toni's ALL OF ME album of standards (1987). I was 12 the first time it gave me goosebumps – an album loaned to my sister by her guitarist boyfriend. Still does that to me – every time!

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]HERE'S TO THE BAND ('live' -- overnight)[/h]

 

“Synchronicity” – defined as an amazing (series) of coincidences (the term was coined by Viennese psychiatrist Carl Jung). “Is it happening to you very much?” I asked a Facebook friend my age yesterday. “All the time,” the reply.

 

 

 

When I posted that, overnight, I didn't see a need to quote my friend's follow-up question. "What's the song Sinatra sings where he pays tribute to members of the band?" "HERE'S TO THE BAND," I said, and immediately shared a link. My friend was at a ball park and said, "I'll listen to it on the way home!"

 

 

 

Guess what played on Siriusly Sinatra (after I went back to sleep). The 'live' version on the CD I just acquired, thanks to our wise men figuring out which version of a song I'd "just heard" on Siriusly Sinatra. I mean, what a coincidence!

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]TOO LATE NOW - Nancy Wilson (1966)[/h]

 

Siriusly Sinatra satellite radio just played Nancy Wilson's version (my favorite) of an seldom-heard song from an almost forgotten film musical "Royal Wedding" (seen from time-to-time on TCM Classic Movies -- and no where else).

 

 

 

Music by Burton (Finian's Rainbow) Lane with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner (years after Lerner & Loewe's Brigadoon, and years before My Fair Lady). A song so obscure it doesn't have a Wiki entry despite its distinguished composers.

 

 

 

I first fell in love with the melody as an instrumental piano solo by George Shearing -- recorded live, on a summer's night, at a California winery – included for an album titled “Mel Torme (and George) Do Songs From WWII.” (It's my favorite version – wonder if it is at YouTube?)

 

 

 

Nancy Wilson's recording of TOO LATE NOW – to a marvelous string arrangement by Billy May, is my favorite version. Ms Wilson left us just three months ago. So, too late now to tell her how much I love her timeless take on this one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. No YouTube posting of George Shearing's lovely solo version available at YouTube. But every jazz guitarist's favorite picker Wes Montgomery loved this obscure song enough to record with a great jazz trio. (Who's playing the Hammond B-3 I wonder?) For when it's time to relax . . .

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Favorite version of TENDERLY[/h]

 

Siriusly Sinatra satellite radio just played Bette Midler's (2002) take on TENDERLY. Not for the first time I'm thinking, 'That's my all-time favorite vocal version! In part because of the gorgeous arrangement; but mainly due to Bette's open skies breath-of-fresh-air delivery. Her voice and those strings are so lovely and artless, you can concentrate on the words -- the meaning of the song.

 

 

 

[Playing along on my 'Gibson Girl' before the song ended, I realized Bette and Barry Manilow decided to perform the song in its original key – E-Flat. The briefest (two-sentence) Wiki entry states:]

 

 

 

"Tenderly" is a popular song published in 1946 with music by Walter Gross and lyrics by Jack Lawrence. Written in the key of Eb as a waltz in 3/4 time, it has since been performed in 4/4 and has become a popular jazz standard.

 

Sarah Vaughan recorded the song in 1946 and had a US pop hit with it in 1947.

 

 

 

“Other Versions” listed include Rosemary Clooney's 1951 recording – but not Bette Midler's 2003 version: From Bette's “Sings the Songs of Rosemary Clooney” album -- that eventually sold more than a million copies world-wide (721,000 in the U.S in the first two years).

 

 

 

The album was literally a “dream come true” for Bette's one-time musical director Barry Manilow who produced the album. Wiki now includes that anecdote I so love!

 

 

 

After the death of singer Rosemary Clooney in the summer of 2002, Manilow claims to have had a dream that he would produce a tribute album and Midler would be the singer on the album. In the liner notes, Midler writes, "When Barry approached me ("I had this dream!") about recording an album of Rosemary's standards, I was excited, but apprehensive. I wanted to be respectful, but I felt we had to find something new to say as well, and in these (mostly) new arrangements...I believe we have."

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]On the day this thread turned 499,000 views! (My overriding obsession beyond Sinatra)[/h]

 

I have a priest friend at the parish in "Hells Kitchen" (if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere) Father George Rutler. I sent him as a gift years ago, an envelope "signed in the hand of Cardinal Newman" (he'll be canonized this year, 2019) -- a mutual 19th century hero of ours. I'd picked it up on Ebay. The letter it contained might have sold for thousands (it would this year!) but I picked up the envelope -- with its one-penny stamp, postmarked "Birmingham" 1863 where my Mom's grandparents were born -- for a 140 U.S. (a jillion Canadian dollars). Anyway I just left this note on Father Rutler's Facebook page, concerning today's reading in our Liturgy of the Hours which "only he could have written."

 

 

 

Today's Second Reading in the 'Breviary': St Gregory Nazianzen (329 – 390) was written, I swear, by my hero Father George Rutler. If not there are two of them out there! (Really. Can't you hear his voice saying this?)

 

 

 

Gregory Nazianzen, “Gregory of Nazianzus”, was the son of Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus, a Christian convert. (Nazianzus is a small town in Cappadocia, now the village of Nenizi in the Turkish province of Aksaray).

 

 

 

The culture of the Hellenic world means that a religion is not merely something to be lived: it also has to make sense. It has to work not only in practice, but in theory as well. Despite the passionate anti-Greek reaction of the Reformation, we are still, in this sense, all Greeks today. Take the doctrine of the Trinity, for example. Some people reject it because it sounds like polytheism. Instead, they make Jesus not God but only a man supremely favoured by God: the Arians believed this, and the Koran reflects this idea.

 

 

 

Or they make Jesus not man but only God, and relegate the intense humanity of the Passion to the status of a mere performance, a show put on by God through phantoms and angels rather than something utterly real and of eternal significance. Both these responses show a general feature of heresies, which is that they simplify the richness of orthodoxy and flatten it into a shadow of itself. “Simpler” may well mean “more easily acceptable”, but that is not the same as “true”. One could simplify quantum physics and get rid of its paradoxes until there is no metaphysical weirdness for anyone to object to – that might well make more people happy, but it would not be true.

 

 

 

The three men we call “the Cappadocian Fathers” were active after the Council of Nicaea, working to formulate Trinitarian doctrine precisely and, in particular, to pin down the meaning and role of the least humanly comprehensible member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. St Basil of Caesarea, “St Basil the Great”, was the leader and organizer; Gregory of Nazianzus was the thinker, the orator, the poet, pushed into administrative and episcopal roles by circumstances and by Basil; and Gregory of Nyssa, Basil’s younger brother, although not a great stylist, was the most gifted of the three as a philosopher and theologian.

 

 

 

Together, the Cappadocian Fathers hammered out the doctrine of the Trinity like blacksmiths forging a piece of metal by hammer-blows into its perfect, destined shape. They were champions – and successful champions – of orthodoxy against Arianism, a battle that had to be conducted as much on the worldly and political plane as on the philosophical and theological one. The sciences ought not to have to work like this, but all of them, at one time or other in their history, do.

 

 

 

It is a relief to us as readers to note, after all this, that St Gregory of Nazianzus, as well as receiving the title of Doctor of the Church, is acknowledged as the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age, and that this “style” does not adopt the over-ripe excesses of some late-imperial rhetoric (Augustine can get carried away in this direction sometimes, and Cassiodorus, in the sixth century, spends altogether too much of his time there).

 

 

 

Gregory’s Second Readings do sound almost operatic at times, but the grandeur of the style does not exist for its own sake but comes from the splendour of its subject-matter. It is possible to be carried away by it, and enjoyable, even, to let that happen; but underlying the experience there is always a sense of being carried away in the direction of somewhere definite and somewhere worthwhile.

 

 

 

Now really, isn't that pure Father George speaking? (his, the 2nd reading Liturgy of the Hours for Saturday 3/30/2019)

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]COME FLY WITH ME on a Boeing 797[/h]

 

I close my eyes – listening to my new favorite version of COME FLY WITH ME and . . .suddenly it's the year 2086 and I'm in the future listening to a 'retro' big band playing a song “made famous by 'Sinatra' – the greatest entertainer of exactly a century ago.” And this is what's playing at this moment on Siriusly Sinatra satellite radio -- in my mind's eye: “a singer yet unborn: he'll be called Dave Damiani and 'The No Vacancy Orchestra' (good title, uh?) Now let me get to work on the screenplay for this. Recalling Johnny Mercer's maxim: Get your song out there immediately – don't save it up for a Broadway show; or someone else will write it first!

 

 

 

All of that from this one track – the freshest futuristic arrangement with a very good singer, working in multi-rhythm brilliance: (half the band is playing in 6/4, the other in 5/4 while maintaining a connection, paying respects, to Billy May's unsurpassed 4/4 original). Did I say thank you, Jersey Lou?

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]I'M NOT AFRAID -- my all-time favorite waltz I never heard before![/h]

 

Are you afraid? I'm not afraid! What is for real, what is false, all of us seem to be caught in a waltz, when will the dancing ever end? As for us, you and me, our eyes are open -- we can see!

 

 

 

Siriusly Sinatra is playing I'M NOT AFRAID. It starts off so tenderly -- one I want to share with my 15 month old, youngest grand child Adeline (based on my singing I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU she may not be able to talk yet, but her eyes say, "I like Johnny Mercer!") I'll share this one with her. What's it from? My favorite waltz tune EVER!

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Rosie's late-in-life SECOND TIME AROUND (my new favorite version)[/h]

 

As I type this Sirius radio is playing a late-in-life recording by George Clooney's Auntie -- Cahn & Van Heusen's SECOND TIME AROUND. Dare I say, my new favorite version? Not least because of the superb solo jazz guitar accompaniment: I'm listening and thinking -- I KNOW that guitarist, his phrasing, his approach to chords. And the instrument he's playing -- more like a solid body electric than a classic archtop by Gibson or Guild.

 

 

 

Is it at YouTube? Yes! And there on the album cover is the name ED BICKERT -- born here in Manitoba Canada. A guitarist's guitarist (his biggest fans are fellow pickers) someone who was a favorite of jazz giants including Paul Desmond. Ed played a solid body Fender Telecaster, not a jazz archtop. So I check Wikipedia -- and learn he died one month ago, February 28, age 86. Rest in Peace, Mr. Bickert -- a world class jazz musician you were.

 

 

 

As here, on Rosie's "Sings the Music of Jimmy Van Heusen" album. Thanks for playing this, Jersey Lou.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wikipedia states,

 

 

 

Edward Isaac Bickert, CM (November 29, 1932 – February 28, 2019) was a Canadian jazz guitarist.

 

 

 

A native of Hochfeld, Manitoba,[1] Bickert grew up in Vernon, British Columbia.[2] When he was eight years old, he started playing guitar.[1] He performed at country dances with his parents, who were musicians, his mother on piano, his father on fiddle.[2] During the early 1950s, Bickert he worked as a radio engineer in Toronto.

 

 

 

Later, Bickert became a studio musician, recording as a sideman for Canada's leading jazz musicians -- among them, Moe Koffman (of Swingin Shepherd Blues fame), Phil Nimmons, and Rob McConnell . . . He worked with leading American musicians when they toured in Toronto, including Ruby Braff, Paul Desmond, and Frank Rosolino.[1] After playing in Japan with Milt Jackson, he recorded with Oscar Peterson, then Buddy Tate.

 

 

 

Bickert signed with Concord and recorded with Ernestine Anderson, Benny Carter, Rosemary Clooney (and others).

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]ROSIE & ED -- Here's That Rainy Day[/h]

 

Wanting to pull an Andre Previn (reflect on the first song playing on Sirius when I wake up) and . . . . its Rosemary Clooney. Her fast-as-possible arrangement by Nelson Riddle of “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

 

 

 

I go to YouTube and watch a black and white early television video of Rosie singing to an even-better, slower tempo version of the same Riddle arrangement. I wait to see what's next on the shuffle play that is YouTube. As if to say “I think this is what you're looking for, actually” – it's Rosie and Canadian-born guitarist Ed Bickert – a small jazz band arrangement of HERE'S THAT RAINY DAY.

 

 

 

Can't thank Sirius programmer Lou Simon for this particular synchronicity! But it's Sunday, so – thanks, guardian angel!

 

 

 

Ed Bickert left us last month. Listen to his solo beginning at 1:20 and you'll know why all guitarists (not just Canadians!) loved him so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. two comments below the video speak for many of us kindred spirits!

 

 

 

noahvale939

 

6 years ago

 

This is the best version of this lovely song that I've heard, along with that by Gary Burton and Stephane Grappelli on their album "Paris Encounter". I've been a great Bill Evans fan since before the beginning of his well-known career, but he weighs this song a bit bit with two pianos. I only wish that Rosemary Clooney's performance of "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" from the Merv Griffin show many years ago would re-surface somewhere so it might be heard again. 

 

 

 

Connie Yelp

 

6 years ago

 

There aren't words adequate enough to talk about and describe singers like Rosemary. She didn't have any formal training but she had the gift that enabled her to be able to sing with the very best. She also had the emotion, interpreation of lyrics and passion she put into her songs. They are all gone now, the singers today sing or they think they do but this is singing at it's best. I can't wait to get to Heaven to hear them all again..

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]LITTLE GIRL BLUE – girl song, definitively sung by Frank[/h]

 

Words sung to herself by a woman looking in the proverbial mirror:

 

 

 

No use, old girl, you might as well surrender

 

your hopes are getting slender,

 

why won't somebody send -- a tender

 

blue boy to cheer up little girl blue . . .

 

 

 

Wikipedia has only a single sentence about LITTLE GIRL BLUE – “music by Richard Rodgers, words by Lorenz Hart published in 1935 and introduced by Gloria Grafton in the Broadway musical Jumbo.

 

 

 

Wiki lists 46 artists, mostly women, who have recorded this song – plus a few distinguished instrumental soloists, foremost among them, Canada's Oscar Peterson. For a review I wrote for my favorite of the piano giant's solo albums, MY FAVORITE INSTRUMENT I said Oscar's interpretation of LITTLE GIRL BLUE “is as definitive for pianists as Sinatra's is for singers.”

 

 

 

About to be played on 'Nancy For Frank' -- "Show # 455 - March 31, 2019 -- "Celebrating the Ladies" as Nancy says [track "48. Little Girl Blue (FS – Capitol)"] I feel the same way today. Sorry Ladies. This guy does it better!

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]I'LL ONLY MISS HER WHEN I THINK OF HER -- favorite version[/h]

 

"Likely I'll spend my days, hearing her turn-of-phrase, things I found hard to praise, right now, would be sublime"

 

 

 

Siriusly Sinatra's "Nancy for Frank" (3-hour) show closer this week is I'LL ONLY MISS HER WHEN I THINK OF HER – the best song to survive Cahn and Van Heusen's 1965 Broadway show, “Skyscraper.” According to Wiki the show ran for a respectable seven months and was competing with some truly great shows with more memorable songs:

 

 

 

"Despite stiff competition from Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Man of La Mancha, and Sweet Charity, the production ran for 248 performances and was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Actress in a Musical."

 

 

 

His composer buddies brought the song to Frank – to be recorded that same year, on his “My Kind of Broadway” album. To this day Sinatra's recording is my favorite – not least because my Brazilian nylon-string guitar hero Laurindo Almeida is heard throughout the evocative orchestration by Torrie Zito. I've heard this song a thousand times (perhaps) and still it gives me goosebumps every time!

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

Pick guitar, fill fruit jar, and be gay-oh (and make someone happy too!)

 

 

At this very moment Satellite radio is playing Tony Bennett and Bill Evans' version (my favorite) of MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY. I always think of Mother Teresa's advice to those who want to change the world. Summed up in my favorite line of that song. Start at home and "make just one someone happy -- then you will be happy too!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know Mother Teresa's favorite secular song to sing was Jambalaya? She had a professional singer friend who introduced her to the Hank Williams classic from Louisiana: "Jamba-lye and a crawfish pie, and a filet gumbo. For tonight, I'm gonna see my ma chera-mio. Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh. Sonnovagun we gonna have big fun, on the bayou!" I laugh with joy at the thought of my hero, dancing around and singing those words -- composed by one someone who died age 29 of alcohol poisoning -- but not before becoming Country music's greatest ever composer!

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Are You Lonesome Tonight – CHRIS BOTTI[/h]

 

Now and then, once or twice a year, Siriusly Sinatra satellite radio plays (as it did earlier this hour) trumpet great Chris Botti's hauntingly beautiful (to my ears) timeless take on, ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT” -- each time I wonder, “Who's the vocalist?” A Google search reveals that the 'character voice' is a Scot – Paul Buchanan (he turns 63 this month). Wiki informs that Paul was front man/guitarist for a Glascow band called “Blue Nile” -- whose fans it seems are undecided about whether or not the group has disbanded. [!]

 

 

 

Chris Botti lifted Paul Buchanan temporarily from obscurity to sing this old ballad (from 1934, made popular in 1960 by Elvis). A song so old it employs the word 'parlor' -- the term for the front living room area of people's homes where the piano and/or violin were stored for visitors to play. Parlor -- a term that "don't get 'round much anymore.' This recording is track eight on . . .

 

 

 

TO LOVE AGAIN: The Duets is the eighth studio album by Chris Botti, released on October 18, 2005. It consists of cover versions of pop and jazz standards, except for the title track "To Love Again"

 

 

 

Most watched version (nearing 55,000 views) at YouTube, where the comments are ambivalent – as always with 'character' voices, right? Husky voices like Paul's will never please everyone's ears!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ike Ukazu 4 months ago

 

This dude's voice is horrible. I honestly thought there would more people who share that same sentiment.

 

 

 

jim hutchison 1 year ago

 

known this song almost my whole life ,but this takes it to another level, a brilliant version of this classic song.

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]BOB DYLAN -- I could Have Told You So[/h]

 

Sirius radio just played Bob Dylan's late-in-life version of Sentimental Journey. Is it at YouTube? Nope. But a song rescued from obscurity in 1953 by our favorite singer I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU SO is one of those covered lately by – let's call him the 'ultimate character voice.'

 

 

 

When he first moved to NYC Bob Dylan purchased Sinatra's most important LP, "Wee Small Hours" and played it constantly. It was inevitable that a 75-year-old Dylan would be recording his late-in-life renditions of classic songs (and should-have-been-standards) performed by our favorite singer.

 

 

 

If you'd never heard Bob Dylan before and listened to this recording you'd be underwhelmed, right? And yet, replete with steel guitar that makes it sound like an old Country classic, the man who is poised to enter his seventh decade as an entertainer, makes it work. Amazing, isn't it?

 

 

 

Frank's good buddy Jimmy Van Heusen wrote the tune. Note the first comment below the video -- from the son of the lyricist:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Sigman (2 years ago)

 

My dad, Carl Sigman, wrote the lyrics to "I Could Have Told You" when Dylan was 13. He would never have believed that Dylan would, at the age of 75, cover the song so beautifully!

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]KENNY RANKIN -- When the Sun Come Out[/h]

 

As opposed to among the most beautiful baritone/tenor voices ever -- the late Kenny Rankin. At this moment Siriusly Sinatra satellite radio is playing his version of WHEN THE SUN COMES OUT. An old Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler song. Bet they would have loved this. Words fail. Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]CHRIS BOTTI -- my favorite trumpet version of MY FUNNY VALENTINE[/h]

 

Jazz piano giant Ramsey Lewis hosted a PBS series beginning in 2006 (hi-def TV, perfect audio engineering -- a jazz fan's dream: My favorite moments included Chris Botti's exquisite trumpet soloing (with George Duke accompanying on piano) for just about my favorite Rodgers & Hart song, MY FUNNY VALENTINE. Really, I imagine Chris simultaneously singing, in his mind's ear, the words of the lyric for each turn-of-phrase. That's what I'm hearing in his delivery.

 

 

 

[Just reminded myself of something English born jazz piano virtuoso Marian McPartland (speaking with Oscar Peterson on her PBS radio show) watching a tenor sax great coming down off stage, looking disconsolate. "What's wrong?" she asked. “I forgot the lyric!”]

 

 

 

Yes, more than any other living trumpeter Chris is the equal of my all-time favorite Jack Sheldon (still with us in his 80's). The tone as well as content are simply unsurpassed (to my ears). Chris Botti's deceptively artless approach to a ballad, like this one by my favorite composer Dick Rodgers – brings everything into perfect focus, like the alignment of stars on a summer's night.

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]FROM HERE TO ETERNITY -- one little moment in time[/h]

 

'On this first day of April (no foolin') I just got goosebumps reading a special anecdote in 'Sinatra History' – adding to the emotion I feel each time I hear him sing the theme song for From Here to Eternity.

 

 

 

The moment in time when Frank Sinatra “felt it in his bones” that things were turning around for him: his supporting cast role in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY hadn't been filmed yet. And there was no way he could know that he was just a year away from winning the Academy Award for “Best Supporting Actor” We can be grateful for one Honolulu newspaper writer, accompanying Frank to a small fair on the (northernmost) island of Kauai – who recognized that moment when Frank said it out loud. The scene is so vivid and emotional it reduced me to tears (of joy – the best kind, right?)

 

 

 

-----

 

 

 

APRIL 1953: The stars of From Here to Eternity flew to Hawaii to begin filming . . . and the reporter recalled:

 

 

 

'It was raining at the Kauai County Fair and the dilapidated tent was leaking. And Frank said to me, "For just one second, I wondered if the show really did have to go on. Then I peeked out at the audience. There were a few hundred, tops. They weren't wearing fancy clothes or expensive jewelry. They wore aloha shirts, jeans, muumuus and such. Homey. And their warmth and friendliness smacked me in the face. And when two brown-skinned young girls gave me a couple of handmade leis and little kisses, I almost broke down."

 

 

 

'Well, Frank went on and sang, song after song, hit after hit maybe twenty. I was stunned. It was fantastic, it was one thousand percent for several hundred small-town ticket holders with big hearts and hands that grew red from clapping. Afterward, Frank had tears in his eyes. "Buck," he told me, "I sang the best I know how. Those people deserved it. It's a night I'll never forget. Tonight marks the first night on the way back. I can feel it in every bone."

 

 

 

'And from that moment, everything seemed to go right for him.'

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

Chris Botti & 'Sting' and a mini-movie soundtrack

 

 

A fellow fan of Chris Botti (and 'Sting') shared a music video -- a mini-movie, actually. I replied:

 

 

 

From the train station in Paris (Gare de Lyon) where one would catch 'The Orient Express' – to the main station in Istanbul – then on to the Bosporus ferry boats – where, like the proverbial 'ships-passing-in-the-night' she snaps his picture, on the other boat looking back at her. [The zoom-in feature on her digital camera! -- who says life isn't getting better?] The expression on her lovely face – that fate (or a guardian angel – a “God Coincidence” as some of us call it) is leading her on to . . . what? Finally meeting him -- or is it a dream?

 

 

 

The closing moments when the young man 'pulls a Joe Biden' (when you're young and look like him, you can get away with that). We're still left wondering, Is it all a dream? Fade-to-black before we get to know! All this in barely five minutes of wonderful screen time, perfectly punctuated by the 'train-rhythm' percussion accompaniment ('chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh') reminiscent of a steam locomotive. Yes, all this, with our favorite trumpet player sharing lines with Sting -- a work of art! Among the visual echoes – the four spires of the former Christian cathedral, turned into a mosque – Hagia Sophia, now a secular museum -- for the closing seconds of this evocative mini-movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who is she, you ask. Below the video a comment from

 

Daniel Foisy

 

She is a French actress Audrey Tautou

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

My favorite trumpet version of ONE FOR MY BABY

 

 

A friend shared a radio interview (very recent) with Chris Botti speaking eloquently about his influences. Remarks that triggered a personal memory concerning my favorite of his Sinatra standards, ONE FOR MY BABY (see below). This week, Chris told a radio interviewer:

 

 

 

“If we came out and played like – just one (long) set of cerebral, 'Miles Davis Live-at-the-Plugged-Nickle' sort of stuff -- I think [my] audience wouldn't know 'what the heck's goin' on.' But I think when you – in short little views of it – you can play serious, acoustic, straight-ahead jazz -- if they kind of know a back story about what's going on – who's to solo, and what to focus on. It worked out fine for Miles to kind of turn his back to his audience, but that's not my trip: I explain to the audience and take them along with us on that trip.”

 

 

 

Reminded me of what Chris said on his first of three visits to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. As I quoted in my Amazon review for the resulting CD/DVD of live performances. (If this link doesn't work, the relevant passages below on 'taking the audience along with you.')

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r...at_pdctrvw_srp

 

 

 

Botti told his Winnipeg audience that, when he toured with Sting, he was urged to "find yourself the best drummer in the world - and make him the heart of your band."

 

 

 

"So I Googled," he said, "for 'The baddest- *ss drummer in the world,' and up came the name Billy Kilson." Then Botti told us: "What you are about to see, you will not believe." He wasn't exaggerating. The drum solo (I forget the tune -- doesn't matter) was beyond any musical experience I've witnessed since Oscar Peterson last performed here 20 years ago.

 

 

 

I turned to the person next to me and said, "This is like watching a god." At one point Billy Kilson was performing with just one hand, multiple rhythms, with alternating shadings so subtle it sounded like he was using brushes, not sticks.

 

 

 

The entire band stood out in the front lobby of our "Burton Cummings Theatre" and signed autographs until every last patron had gone out into that good night. I wanted to talk to other members of this all star band, comprised of Grammy-winners, including pianist Billy Childs and guitarist Mark Whitfield. Instead, I went straight for Bill Kilson.

 

 

 

"Who are your heroes?" Billy thought about it a minute, (he has a modest, gentle demeanor) and said, "My teacher" (a lesser-known jazz drummer - but an influential artist whose name I can't recall six months later). When he'd mentioned just that one name, I asked: "Anyone else?"

 

 

 

"Max Roach," he said.

 

 

 

The "bonus track" on this DVD concert, also happened to be Chris Botti's lone 'encore' here in Winnipeg -- a gorgeous rendition of the Arlen/Mercer classic written for Frank Sinatra. The trumpeter told us: "I worked with Sinatra for two weeks at the start of my career -- when I was fresh out of college!" It was, he said, "the greatest musical experience of my life"

 

 

 

For the Winnipeg audience that gave him a standing ovation, his performance of "One for My Baby" -- ALONE -- was worth the price of admission!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sinatra was sparing in his compliments. Bet we could guess what he's say about this one. Retire-the-trophy instrumental version.

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Charlie & Shirley Watts – still watching over each other . . .[/h]

 

Siriusly Sinatra satellite radio just played “The Charlie Watts Quintet” version (from more than a decade ago) of my favorite Gershwin & Gershwin ballad, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.

 

 

 

On June 2 this year Charlie Watts will turn 78 – he's been with The Rolling Stones for 55 years and after beating throat cancer, Charlie is still going strong.

 

 

 

He was a jazz drummer years before he joined the Stones. And Charlie Watts has maintained that love 'on the side' with his self-named “Quintet.” Always mean to check on the vocalist who is never credited. Wiki tells us,

 

 

 

Bernard Fowler (born January 2, 1960[1]) is an American musician. He has provided backing vocals for The Rolling Stones since 1989 and is featured on their studio recordings and live tours.[1] Fowler has been a featured guest vocalist on the majority of solo albums released by the members of that band.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the back of my mind there's always been a memory of Charlie Watts being married to the same woman since his first year with the Stones. Wiki confirms . . .

 

 

 

On 14 October 1964, Watts married Shirley Ann Shepherd (born 11 September 1938), whom he had met before the band became successful. The couple have one daughter, Serafina, born in March 1968, who in turn has given birth to Watts' only grandchild, a girl named Charlotte.

 

 

 

Watts' personal life has outwardly appeared to be substantially quieter than those of his bandmates and many of his rock-and-roll colleagues; onstage, he seems to furnish a calm and amused counterpoint to his flamboyant bandmates. Ever faithful to his wife Shirley, Watts consistently refused sexual favours from groupies on the road; in a 1972 documentary, A Journey Through America with The Rolling Stones . . . when the group was invited to the Playboy Mansion during that tour, Watts took advantage of Hugh Hefner's game room instead of frolicking with the women. "I've never filled the stereotype of the rock star," he remarked. "Back in the '70s, Bill Wyman and I decided to grow beards, and the effort left us exhausted."[14]

 

 

 

[Favorite anecdote] In the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Jagger phoned Watts' hotel room in the middle of the night asking "Where's my drummer?". Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying: "Don't ever call me your drummer again. You're my [effing] singer!"[16]

 

 

 

Watts is noted for his personal wardrobe: the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has named him one of the World's Best Dressed Men. In 2006, Vanity Fair elected Watts into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.[17]

 

 

 

In June 2004, Watts was diagnosed with throat cancer, despite having quit smoking in the late 1980s, and underwent a course of radiotherapy. The cancer has since gone into remission, and he returned to recording and touring with The Rolling Stones.

 

Watts now lives in Dolton, a rural village in west Devon, where he and wife Shirley own an Arabian horsestud farm.

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Favorite version of THE LOOK OF LOVE -- Chris and Chantal[/h]

 

Winnipeg's greatest singer -- Chantal Kreviazuk. Well, greatest since Giselle MacKenzie who left us in 2003. Giselle a darling of early television -- Jack Benny in particular -- Giselle grew up here in the St. Boniface half of Winnipeg where I reside. (We're a city about the same size as San Francisco . . . but a little bit cooler in winter).

 

 

 

Yes, a Facebook friend and fellow Chris Botti fan just shared with me a minute ago this video (below). I replied with gratitude,

 

 

 

'Gorgeous. Of course I'm prejudiced in favor of the amazing singer -- who was born here in the "world's coldest major city" (where Chris has performed three times). So beautiful! Thanks for the alert, Hitomi Shiho -- kindred spirit!'

 

 

 

According to Wiki: Chantal Jennifer Kreviazuk CM (/ʃɑːnˈtɑːl ˌkrɛviˈæzək/; born May 18, 1974) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, composer, pianist, and actress. Born in Winnipeg . . .

 

 

 

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2](rap on your door) TILL YOU COME BACK TO ME (with goosebumps)[/h]

 

As if to say, “I just know you like this!” – next up for me, a moment ago, on the YouTube shuffle: My favorite live version of my all-time favorite song written by Stevie Wonder. That's the late George Duke on keyboard over Aretha's shoulder, stage left; the other keyboardist, stage right, needs no introduction. But Aretha gives him one anyway, and shares about the night Stevie phoned to say . . . "I have a song for you!"

 

 

 

“I'm gonna rap on your door, tap on your window pane . . . . till you come back to me, that's what I'm gonna do."

 

 

 

Not many live performances by anyone give me goosebumps. The exception that proves the rule!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment below the video, speaks for many of us!

 

 

 

Joan In Florida

 

7 months ago

 

Aretha died today. This is my favorite song of hers. RIP.

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Best ever version of GIRL TALK[/h]

 

This one – played a moment ago on Sirius – Frank Sinatra Jr and Steve Tyrell – my favorite version of this song, for the loving laughter in their voices and the witty updated references:

 

 

 

STEVE: Their SUV's they love to squeeze through traffic -- far too near!

 

FRANKIE: But when they do they've got a cell phone stuck upside their ear!

 

 

 

You can hear the fun they were having with this one. The song's composers -- Neil Hefti's music, with words by Bobby (Route '66) Troup -- would have loved this! [Wiki says]

 

 

 

"Girl Talk" is a popular song . . . written for the 1965 film Harlow, a biographical film about Jean Harlow, starring Carroll Baker. The song has been described by Michael Feinstein as the "last great male chauvinistic song written in the 60's".

 

 

 

16 versions on Wiki's “partial list” – but not this one. Forever my favorite. Yours too?

 

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. The late Warren Luening -- one of my musical heroes -- with that lovely trumpet solo!

 

[Mark Blackburn]

[h=2]Sting & Stevie -- How FRAGILE we are . . .[/h]

 

Next up at YouTube on shuffle play this night (as if to say "You will like this!") STING and STEVIE singing FRAGILE. (I'd just noted above that)

 

 

 

Siriusly Sinatra just played SUGAR! Thanks, Jersey Lou or your designated hitter -- for immediately working this into your play list this night! Knowledgeable fans (below the video) claim it's "Stevie himself on drums," [or] "Marvin Gaye -- who started out as a Mo-Town sessions drummer" Someone named Glen Campbell is playing guitar (on SUGAR).

 

 

 

Then this -- next offering at YouTube: Two giants at play, I would say. ("How fragile we are!")