[Monday Notes no. 39] Many songs in the jazz repertoire derive from musicals and films, and cartoons are no exception. In the 1937 cartoon, Snow White sings Someday My Prince Will Come to an audience of dwarves and forest animals.Continue readingSomeday My Prince Will Come, from Snow White to Jazz
Tag: jazz waltz
[Monday Notes no. 130] Irving Berlin is one of the greatest American songwriters. He was born in Belarus and emigrated to America at the age of five. Despite having a poor musical education, he achieved success thanks to his tenacity and his ability to invent simple and effective melodies. Let us listen to and analyse…Continue readingIrving Berlin, What’ll I Do. The secrets of a good song.
[Monday Notes no. 110] In its original version Footprints is an avant-garde piece, at the same time the simplicity of the harmonic progression has turned it into a jam session piece that anyone can play. It is difficult to think of another piece in which these opposite qualities coexist. Let us listen to and analyse…Continue readingFootprints, a jazz classic between avant-garde and jam session
[Monday Note No. 86] Claus Ogerman was a great arranger who made wonderful orchestral albums with Bill Evans, Antonio Carlos Jobim and many others. His collaboration with Wes Montgomery produced the 1966 album Tequila, from which we now hear Little Child (Daddy Dear).Continue readingClaus Ogerman & Wes Montgomery, Little Child Daddy Dear
[Monday Notes no. 61] Bill Evans combined jazz and the harmonies of European classical composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. No wonder then that many of his compositions have the 3/4 time, used in Europe but almost non-existent in jazz, at least until the 1950s. Let’s analyze his jazz waltz entitled Waltz for…Continue readingBill Evans, Waltz For Debby. From Debussy to the jazz piano