Thursday 20 June 2019

" i Never Has Seen Snow"   Sung by Vanessa Williams, this is more of and art song or aria than a conventional popular song. It is from the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote show House of Flowers. Set in an exotic Haitian setting, the song suggest that Otillie, the beautiful young girl, employed in a bordello run by Pearl Bailey believes that snow which she has never seen could ever be as beautiful as her love is, " as her love is." Vanessa Williams has a real affinity for the Arlen blues-inflected song style. Here she is backed by the Boson Pops and an onstage cellist in an imaginative arrangement by Rob Mathes. Alec Wilder, dedicated song scholar and Arlen devotee has stated that the song " impresses me more than the song arias from " Porgy And Bess."  " Withour prejudice, I respect Gershwin, but I envy Arlen."

https://youtu.be/SYqfL6kygRc

Tuesday 4 June 2019

Sinatra sings " It;s Only a Paper Moon."  Harold Arlen  wrote this song in 1932 with lyrics by .Y.Harburg and Billy Rose. It was written for a failed Broadway show " The Great Magoo." It was a big hit later on for Nat Cole and his trio.
Frank Sinatra  provides a very jazzy performance improvising both music and words in a way that Arlen hinself would have approved. Harold would often sing and play his own songs in a freer improvised manner not just playing the notes as written. After all, he started playing in Buffalo area jazz joints as a teenage, high school drop out.

 https://youtu.be/yecohwTQzQY