As Long As I Live-Final Cotton Club Song: The 1934 Cotton Club Parade, featuring Lena Horne and the Jimmy Lunceford orchestra, was the final Cotton Club edition for which Arlen and Koehler created several memorable songs " As Long as I Live" and " ILL Wind" which was featured in an earlier post. Alec Wilder described " As Long as I Live" as " Not having a dated note in it and a joyous affirmation of a sadly neglected song form." The lyrics are sung directly to the object of the singer's desire and begin in the chorus with " Maybe I can't live to love you as long as I want to, Life isn't long enough baby, But I can love you as long as I live."
The entire song is an unadorned statement of permanent devotion but in a straight forward and slightly humorous positive manner, It is not a " torch ", the term Arlen used to describe torch songs laden with sorrow and almost tragic sentiments. It's a builder-upper ( the title of a later Arlen song we will be featuring.)
This performance is by Maxine Sullivan, a veteran jazz singer from the 1940's and 50's who made an entire record of songs from the Cotton Club. At age 75, She gave a live performance of" As Long as I Live" in 1985 . She appeared with a small combo that positively lifts one's spirits with Sullivan singing in the very energetic and direct style that would have been enjoyed in those earlier Cotton Club shows.
LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0dpHzlhntA
POSTSCRIPT: I would like to quote Will Freidwald from his 800 page " A Biographical Guide To The Great Jazz and Pop Singers" He describes " Her cool, honey-flavoured contralto with which she trimmed off everything nonessential from a melody, reducing it to its bare minimum by dispensing with anything that remotely suggested exhibitionistic pyrotechnics. She might be considered a key player in the development of the Swingin' Lover style later perfected by Sinatra." Her motto from the beginning was " I had no choice, I had to swing it."
'
No comments:
Post a Comment