#2 9:20 Special

Like any virtuso, pianist Art Tatum had a few "special" pieces he kept polished, for when it was politic to show off. 9:20 Special was one of those, and it's a standard in the collections of anybody who likes jazz of '30s and '40s. Here's a review from Time Magazine of an appearance Tatum made in Manhattan, in the late fall of 1949, that mentions the tune, and has a short interview with the jazz legend.

#3 Blue Light Blues

Benny Carter and His Orchestra, recorded in Paris on March 7, 1938. Benny Carter (trumpet, alto sax) Fletcher Allen (alto sax), Bertie King (clarinet, tenor sax), Alix Combelle (tenor sax) Yorke de Souza (piano), Django Reinhardt (guitar), Len Harrison (bass), Robert Montmarche (drums). Doing a Benny Carter tune, with solos by Allen, Combelle and Reinhardt. From the compilation Django Reinhardt All Star Sessions.

#4 Trav'lin' Light

From the liner notes of this album, by Gary Giddins:

"Trummy Young, the great trombonist and singer with Jimmie Lunceford's band, and Billie [Holliday] were broke in Los Angeles. So each of them accepted $75 to let a fledging company called Capitol record her singing his song accompanied by Paul Whiteman's orchestra. Johnny Mercer, co-founder of Capitol, wrote the lyric. It turned out to be one of her best-selling records, though she never got another cent in royalties. Still, no one dares sing it without paying her homage."

Why do you always do this as I am about to go to bed?? Well??!!

#5 Strange Fruit

Here's a tune most closely associated with Billie Holiday, yet written under a psuedonym by an American Jew named Abel Meeropol. Here performed by the son of the great Josh White, Josh White, Jr. and Robin Batteau.

Sorry, essexjan. It's just the time zone thing. After dinner, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Eastern time. Sunday repeat work for you? Wouldn't want to keep you from your soccer...

paulsc!!! You're back!!!!

I've missed you.

#6 Ornithology

Here's a cut from the Oscar winning movie soundtrack of "Bird," with Charlie "Bird" Parker's alto saxophone part lifted from vintage recordings digitally, and mixed with modern tracks by contemporary sidemen Charles McPherson (alto sax), Jon Faddis (trumpet), Walter Davis, Jr. (piano), Ron Carter (bass), John Guerin (drums) and Charlie Shoemaker (vibes). We can argue about the authenticity of this production, if you like, but no less a jazz fan than Clint Eastwood spent something like $7 million to bring it to you, and for that reason, if no other, it's worth an occasional listen.

Hey, phoenixc, glad to have you along, again, too!

#7 You're the Top

Anita O'Day, recorded December 6-8, 1955 at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, with a tune by Cole Porter from the 1934 Broadway musical "Anything Goes." In the
second chorus, Ms. O'Day substitutes her own lyrics for Cole Porter's.

#8 Will O' The Wisp

A tune by Manuel de Falla, recorded March 10, 1960 at the 30th Street Studio, NYC by Miles Davis and Gil Evans, for the album "Sketches of Spain." Miles Davis (trumpet), Gil Evans (arranger and conductor), Ernie Royal, Bernie Glow, Louis Mucci, Johnny Coles (trumpet), Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak (trombone), Jimmy Buffington, Joe Singer, Tony Miranda(french horn), Bill Barber (tuba), Al Block, Harold Feldman (flute), Romeo Penque (oboe), Danny Bank (bass clarinet), Jack Knitzer (bassoon), Janet Putnam (harp), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), Elvin Jones (percussion), and (probably) Jose Mangual (percussion).

hmmm...not sure that I like Ms. O'Day's version - totally threw me off as I was singing along.

Ah, but anybody who can praise "...Tatum's left hand..." while scatting gets my vote, phoenixc!

But I guess you knew that, by now...

#9 Oriental Folk Song

An arrangement of an Oriental folk song by Wayne Shorter, for his first Blue Note album "Night Dreamer" recorded at the Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, NJ on April 19, 1964. Les Morgan (trumpet), Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Reginald Workman (bass), Elvin Jones (drums). From the original album liner notes by Nat Hentoff

"Oriental Folk Song" was first heard by Wayne -- at a much faster tempo than this arrangement -- as the theme for a television commercial. Later he listened as a Eurasian girl sang it properly on a television show, identifying it as an old Chinese song. It was this latter experience that stimulated Wayne to adapt it to jazz. In this, as in all the numbers, there are various repetitive devices which serve to accentuate the overall theme of the set. "They're an attempt," Wayne explains, "to keep telling the listener that 'Judgement Is Coming." The word, however, is not 'beware,' but rather it's 'be aware!'"

I'm so curious about the original version of this Chinese folk song now...

#10 For a Thousand Years

A Pat Metheny tune, recorded December 15-17, 1997 at Avatar Studios, NYC. Gary Burton (vibraphone), Chick Corea (piano), Pat Metheny (guitar), Roy Haynes (drums) and Dave Holland (bass), for the album, Like Minds. One of my favorites. 5 guys, some of whom have played together, off and on, for more than 30 years, playing together, again, and glad to be doing so.

#11 In A Mellotone

A Duke Ellington tune recorded November 3, 1959 for the original Verve album "Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster," but unreleased until the CD re-issue. From a February 19, 1990 interview of Gerry Mulligan by Phil Schaap for the CD re-release:

"...You see, Norman Granz really enjoyed this type of thing: two stars or same horn battles and I occasionally fit in to this type of packaging. I, of course, did the one with Desmond. It was successful and we went on. Besides Ben, I did one with Johnny Hodges and I love Hodges. But the difference is I hadn't played much or in a long while with Johnny, while Ben and I had something together. Our meeting, our studio meeting stood on its own musical merit and also fit in to what Norman wanted to do. But Ben and I were a focused, near functioning little band. That's why it worked and of course it's all related to our mutual esteem and musical rapport. I dug the date with Johnny, and of course, the original one with Desmond. I didn't nearly enjoy the one with Stan [Getz] as much. That was more forced and more exclusively the idea of Norman Granz. He wanted that date, he wanted it a lot more than I did. It would be fair for you to say that I place the one with Webster as the best of the lot and that I further stress it was because it happened to appear as another star vs. star album, but musically represented something entirely more meaningful to me, Ben, and our rhythm section."

#12 Georgia on My Mind

This Hoagy Carmichael tune seems a little out of place on this 1968 album "Down Here On the Ground" by Wes Montgomery. I place much of the blame for that, and the album's over the top orchestrations, on producer Creed Taylor, at whose direction Wes Montgomery also included the Tijuana Brass tune Wind Song, as well as two tunes, including the title tune, from the popular movie "Cool Hand Luke." But the late '60s were hard times for jazz performers, who were competing in the musical marketplace for radio air time and record store shelf space with hundreds of rock bands. So, guys like Creed Taylor got control of artists like Wes Montgomery, in an effort to make record sales. So this is mainly guys playin' for a paycheck, and yet, something original does come through. Wes Montgomery (guitar), Ron Carter (bass), Grady Tate (drums), Herbie Hancock (piano), Bobby Rosengarten and Ray Barretto (percussion), Mike Mainieri (vibes), Gene Orloff and Raoul Poliakin (violins), George Ricci (cello), Emanuel Vardi (viola), Hubert Laws, George Marge, and Romeo Penque (flutes & oboe) are credited on the album. Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Rudy Van Gelder, engineer, December 20 & 21, 1967, and January 22 & 26, 1968.

#13 Aguas de Março (Waters of March)

If you read the Creed Taylor interview linked for the last tune, the story of this one is already told. It's Stan Getz, Joao and Astrud Gilberto doing a Jobim tune. And Creed Taylor made a lot of money from this, although Stan Getz himself is listed as the Producer credit. From the 1975 album "Stan Getz: The Best of Two Worlds featuring Joao Gilberto." And Astrud, of course, whose spent a good chunk of her life explaining that, no, she wasn't really "discovered" by either Stan Getz, or Creed Taylor, and that she was singer well before the day she was invited to add her "unaffected" voice to this album.

love this song!

#14 Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte

Regina Carter playing the Paganini violin, on a Maurice Ravel tune.

#15 Tears Inside

Pat Metheny (guitar), Charlie Haden (bass), and Billy Higgins (drums) in a November, 1983 recording of a tune by Ornette Coleman.

#16 The Blues Walk

Recorded live at Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University on November 11, 1990, this is something of a bookend to the career of the famous trumpeter/saxophonist Benny Carter, who we heard in this program earlier, from 1938, in the #3 tune of this program. Here, with flugelhorn virtuoso Clark Terry, Benny Clark celebrated his return to Princeton University, which had honored him previously with honorary degrees, and with which he maintained a musical and teaching connection, for many years, with a rendition of a well known Clifford Brown tune.

#17 The Two Lonely People

The Bill Evans Trio from an August, 1974 live recording of a concert at Camp Fortune, Hull, Ontario, doing a Bill Evans original composition. Eddie Gomez on bass, and Marty Morell on drums. The cover art for the album is by Antonio Benedetto (also known for his singing, as Tony Bennett).

#18 If I Were A Bell

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock (bass), and Jack DeJohnette (drums) from the 2003 live album (recorded July 2002), Up For It. The Frank Loesser tune they play has become a standard.

#19 I Love Paris

Nashville pianist and teacher Beegie Adair and her Trio, doing a Cole Porter tune, from her 2000 album "Dream Dancing."

I've got to bail out before your set ends since we're going out for a late din but thanks for the tunes, paulsc!

You're welcome, phoenixc. See ya again, soon.

#20 Fly Me to the Moon

Diana Krall (piano and vocals), with Anthony Wilson (guitar), Jeff Hamilton (drums) and John Clayton (bass) from her 2002 "Live in Paris" album, doing the Bart Howard standard.

#21 Falling Grace

Chick Corea and Gary Burton have been playing together for more than 30 years, but they've had few better nights on stage together than the one from which this recording is taken, on October 28, 1979, while doing this Steve Swallow tune.

#22 La Habana Sol

Previously, I've played several tracks from the 1998 album "McCoy Tyner and the Latin All Stars" but none better showcase the talents of pianist Tyner, or the tightness of the band playing with him than this up tempo reprise of a tune he first recorded back in 1981 on the album La Leyenda de la Hora (The Legend of the Hour).

#23 I'll Be Hard to Handle

Ella Fitzgerald doing a tune written by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Bernard Dougall, for the female foil's role of the 1933 Broadway musical "Roberta." From the album notes:

"Ella has great fun with the mock-tough sentiments of a lady married off against her will. The words, indeed, are the main event of the song, strongly rhythmic but without much melodic distinction (which is unusual for Kern)."

#24 I Will Say Goodbye

Once again, The Bill Evans Trio, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, takes us out with the title track from the 1977 album of the same name. To recap, in this set, we heard:

1. McCoy Tyner - The Greeting (2:27)
2. Art Tatum - 9:20 Special (2:32)
3. Django Reinhardt - Blue Light Blues (3:07)
4. Billie Holiday - Trav'lin' Light (3:09)
5. White, Josh Jr., with Robin Batteau - Strange Fruit (3:53)
6. C. Parker, B. Harris - Ornithology (4:45)
7. Anita O'Day - You're the Top (2:25)
8. Miles Davis - Will O' The Wisp (3:49)
9. Wayne Shorter - Oriental Folk Song (6:54)
10. Gary Burton - For a Thousand Years (5:23)
11. Gerry Mulligan - In A Mellotone [Previously Unreleased] (6:57)
12. Wes Montgomery - Georgia on My Mind (2:46)
13. João Gilberto/Stan Getz - Aguas de Março (Waters of March) (4:42)
14. Regina Carter - Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte (4:48)
15. Billy Higgins/Charlie Haden/Pat Metheny - Tears Inside (3:49)
16. Benny Carter - The Blues Walk (7:57)
17. Bill Evans - The Two Lonely People (7:19)
18. Keith Jarrett - If I Were A Bell (11:45)
19. Adair, Beegie - I Love Paris (4:45)
20. Diana Krall - Fly Me to the Moon (6:05)
21. Chick Corea/Gary Burton - Falling Grace (5:22)
22. McCoy Tyner - La Habana Sol (8:35)
23. Ella Fitzgerald - I'll Be Hard to Handle (3:49)
24. Bill Evans Trio - I Will Say Goodbye (3:30)

Until next time, kids, be swell, don't yell and get out of your shell!

Shoot! I am so sorry I missed this! You always give me good ideas for iTunes and CD purchases paulsc. I also bought a couple jazz for kids CDs a while back. The whole family loves them.

Sorry you missed this, too, LoriFLA, but I'm playin' jazz again, Thursday evening, at 7 pm. Hope you can "tune in" then!