My favorite things

Jul 12, 2011

Two "Softly as in a morning Sunrise" from the past

Softly as in a morning sunrise has been my favorite. See, the face of John? It's rare to see his face with this kind of smile. When could this video be? They all are pretty young and I've never heard this kind of clear recording before. My experiences with MJQ is limited to the LP. No, I went the very first concert in Tokyo. That was, . . . well I cannot be sure though, it could be somewhere around 1960. Boy! that was the experience.

Well, tell you the truth, I don't like John's backing Mr. Jackson with too much high notes.

I realized first time that the improvisation of Milt is kind old fashioned. This recording cannot be any later than 1970, right?


My favorite softly is of Wynton Kelly. This is in Kelly blue, is it? This is my favorite "Softly".


See? that beautiful block chords Kelly does. That 's Wynton Kelly. and I like the way he use scales in his improvisation so naturally. And listen, so beautifully sing this song with his piano! I agree, drumming is a bit too old. But Kelly does as he should, my goodness.

Jul 2, 2011

Stardust, Paul Desmond plays clarinet, beautiful

I've been searching U-tube for some beautiful music. Yes, I wanted to listen to beautiful music because of the incident written below. And found this chorus. There are lots of sentiments for me in this song, Stardust. I started out to learn clarinet.

I was in love with Benny Goodman. It was mid 50es, as I started to go to junior high. This is one hell of the difficult tune to improvise and cannot be played without the verse. That makes harder to improvise. The initial 16 bars are so closely attached to the melody and it make you feel bad to neglect them. The reason may be that the melody line has been constructed so tightly and that makes us normal person difficult to improvise.



That makes me wonder if there's any piano player who dare to challenge its improvisation. So I've wondered around with the keyword "Stardust". La,la, la....
I've found a few.

Dave Brubeck duet it with Paul. The first passage of verse is intriguing. I see his face quite young. There is no discography though, I guess it could be before 1960. The sound of Desmond is so mellow but young, don't you think? Yeah, he does funny vibration around 4:50. Right, he is playing clarinet. This is the first I ever heard him with clarinet.



So, I needed something beautiful:
I stumbled over a road block and hit my right shoulder and knee plus got my left elbow skinned. Oh, I skinned a bit under the right eye as well. Right, to be exact I falled to the ground with my bicycle. It should have passed over 20 years since I tumbled over the ground last time. I feel like losing strength. I wonder if I have to accept that I am an old man. Those things made me sad.

This is the beautiful recording of Benny Goodman playing Stardust