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Category: ‘western’ musics

Revelatory covers (#20 in series): “I’ll Be Seeing You”, sans words, but really singing…

Arguably the quintessential nostalgic song, I’ll Be Seeing You was composed in 1938. (music by Sammy Fain, words by Irving Kahal)

That year it was inserted into a Broadway musical…which flopped.

The song, however, became a “standard”, covered by countless singers…and not a few instrumentalists.

It was a #1 hit for Bing Crosby in 1944.

Frank Sinatra recorded it more than once.

Even Eric Clapton did so, in 2016.

The most celebrated recording – Billie Holiday’s 1944 version – is the one which reached Mars in 2018, as the conclusion to NASA’s final transmission to its Explorer rover.

However, the most “out of this world” version to reach this Earthling’s ears is a “live” and exploratory instrumental trio treatment, delivered in “the city of fallen angels”, in June 2016.

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Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

 

In the USA, it is currently “yesterday”,  Tuesday, 11 May, 2021.

I hope that Carla Bley is enjoying a very happy birthday with her beloved, Steve Swallow.

For rather more than my entire adult life, Carla Bley has composed, arranged and played singular music, variously – sometimes, simultaneously – provocative, surprising, very amusing, satirical, sublimely lyrical, complex, seemingly-simple…

Her three most recent releases – all, new trio recordings of new music, made between 2013 and 2019 – are some of her finest, ever.

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Ugly beauty: “Forest Motors” (# 89 in “a shining moment” series)

A big, rusting surprise was just one minute’s walk away from the house in which we recently spent sixteen nights – on a forested hill near Youngs Siding, in Western Australia’s Deep South.

This post’s musical complement: a singular treatment of an apropos Thelonious  Monk number, plus the most tender song ever written about a car salesman….

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Vale Frank Kimbrough (1956-2020)

 

Many self-declared “jazz lovers” would not recognise his name, nor have ever heard him…wittingly, at least.

That said, I am far from alone – and am in some very good company – in having long regarded Frank Kimbrough as one of the select few improvising pianists who ought be described/remembered as “one of the greats”.

if I were only ever allowed another listen to just ten “piano trio tracks”, his sublimely beautiful Waiting in Santander would be one of them:

 

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Not a “miserable” place (#87 in “a shining moment” series)

Residents of the Australian Perth – a prodigiously sunny city – tend to be very sooky about rain, clouds and cool weather.

Many of them believe that Western Australia’s southernmost coastal region is a “bleak” place, one that only mad persons would voluntarily visit at any time other than summer.

In fact, globally speaking, WA’s Deep South enjoys a warm temperate climate, and even in winter it would not be at all odd to see Mandalay Beach looking as it does in this post.

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“In a mist” (#85 in “a shining moment” series)

 

This is a sequel to the immediately preceding post.

It involves the same vantage point, on the same morning, but this post’s image (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken 13 minutes later, at 7.03 am, with a longer lens. (400mm, effectively)

Again, its musical complement is the work of a troubled genius who died young.

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“Softly, as in a morning sunrise” (#84 in “a shining moment” series)

Its tautological title notwithstanding, the song is one of the loveliest “jazz standards”.

As is true of many “jazz standards”, it was not written as a jazz song.

This post’s photo (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken recently on a beautiful Spring morning in my favourite “Deep South”.

Australians do not need a passport to access it, but internal border closures currently render it “off limits” to most Australians.

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Passion Flower (#83 in “a shining moment” series)

Most – around 80% – of southwestern Australia’s flower species are endemic.

Many naturally only occur in very particular, small portions of WA’s southwest.

Almost all are extraordinary.

Some are very obviously beautiful and/or highly unusual.

Others – this one, for instance – only reveal their singularity if you stop walking, get your head down to where the flower is, and look closely.

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Jumping up in Spring (#81 in “a shining moment” series)

 

 

The featured image shows Caladenia latifolia – the Pink Fairy.

If you are in southern Australia (Tasmania included), within one hundred kilometres of the Indian or Southern Oceans, and have access to somewhere bushy and sandy, chances are excellent that you can see this species in flower, right now…or very soon.

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