…in this instance, over an urban wetland in Gujarat, western India, a few minutes after sunrise on 16 February this year.
Within the greater urban area of Jamnagar – and less than one hour’s drive from the world’s largest petrochemical complex – this wetland was far from pristine.
Nonetheless, that morning’s waterbird-watching was sublime, and richly-varied; as future posts will show, flamingos were just two of its many species.
(photo is copyright Doug Spencer)
Where Flamingos Fly is also a song, first sung on a record date in June 1956 by Peggy Lee.
The next month Helen Merrill recorded a much more memorable version.
Hers, I think, was the song’s first-released version, on Helen Merrill’s Dream of You.
It was the singer’s own brilliant idea to work with Gil Evans (1912-1988)
As “composer/bandleader/arranger” – all three, in one person – Duke Ellington will likely be jazz’s “yardstick”, forever.
Purely as “arranger”, however, one could (I would) argue that Gil Evans is the “forever” yardstick.
Late in 1960, Gil Evans revisited the arrangement he had devised for Helen Merrill.
The result appeared on Evans’ landmark LP Out of the Cool, with the song now unencumbered by its clunky lyrics.
The instrumental version’s very haunting “vocalist” is trombonist Jimmy Knepper.