Music on Freedom Day
Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2023 3:08 am
Freedom Day? Hey, it's the 6th day after Covid symptoms appeared, so I'm allowed to go out of my house and be around others (mask recommended to day 10, but probably not contagious any more). I celebrated by riding with the local youth cycling group in tonight's after-dark downtown Christmas Lights parade. It's a huge deal. Half the population of the city must have been there, more than you get for daytime parades. One organizer counted 50 bikes. Mine was all dressed up with Xmas lights, as were most of the others.
But back to music. The music station carries a weekly program, "Afterglow," that looks back at jazz singers. Tonight they are featuring guitarist Barney Kessel, a member of "the Wrecking Crew," among others. They led off with him backing Fred Astaire signing the Gershwins' "They Can't Take That Away From Me." What a confluence of talent. First of all, the song: it's hard to decide which is superior, George's music or Ira's lyrics. Happily,we don't have to decide. We can just enjoy the product, the words and the notes, as one of those things that emerged from popular culture before any of us were born and will be performed long after we're all gone just because it's brilliant. Then there's Fred Astaire, the singer who introduced this song, and who had a way with songs that noisier singers could not match. And last, Kessel and his compatriots behind Fred. We take the backing musicians for granted; we're listening to the singer and the music behind is just there. But competence among accompanists can be the difference between really good and ordinary.
Read the lyrics:
> https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/4547780/Ge ... ay+from+Me
Simple, brief, but what wistfulness they convey. I just mentioned that this predates me, by a decade in fact. If you had said, "Listen to this" when I was 15, I would have wondered if you had taken leave of your senses. Parents' music, "deleted". But time reveals what has value. When I hit Google for the lyrics, it first showed all the YouTube videos of singers performing this, roughly half a gazillion. The show also included songs by Ella Fitzgerald and Anita O'Day and Julie London. It will be interesting to see what popular music from the last 30 years is being performed in 2073 (my guess is somewhere between zero and two times zero, but I'm biased).
Chris Campbell
But back to music. The music station carries a weekly program, "Afterglow," that looks back at jazz singers. Tonight they are featuring guitarist Barney Kessel, a member of "the Wrecking Crew," among others. They led off with him backing Fred Astaire signing the Gershwins' "They Can't Take That Away From Me." What a confluence of talent. First of all, the song: it's hard to decide which is superior, George's music or Ira's lyrics. Happily,we don't have to decide. We can just enjoy the product, the words and the notes, as one of those things that emerged from popular culture before any of us were born and will be performed long after we're all gone just because it's brilliant. Then there's Fred Astaire, the singer who introduced this song, and who had a way with songs that noisier singers could not match. And last, Kessel and his compatriots behind Fred. We take the backing musicians for granted; we're listening to the singer and the music behind is just there. But competence among accompanists can be the difference between really good and ordinary.
Read the lyrics:
> https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/4547780/Ge ... ay+from+Me
Simple, brief, but what wistfulness they convey. I just mentioned that this predates me, by a decade in fact. If you had said, "Listen to this" when I was 15, I would have wondered if you had taken leave of your senses. Parents' music, "deleted". But time reveals what has value. When I hit Google for the lyrics, it first showed all the YouTube videos of singers performing this, roughly half a gazillion. The show also included songs by Ella Fitzgerald and Anita O'Day and Julie London. It will be interesting to see what popular music from the last 30 years is being performed in 2073 (my guess is somewhere between zero and two times zero, but I'm biased).
Chris Campbell