Saturday Serenade

The honey-smooth voice of Johnny Hartman and golden tenor sax of John Coltrane.

NIGHTCLUB

You are so beautiful and I am a fool

to be in love with you

is a theme that keeps coming up

in songs and poems.

There seems to be no room for variation.

I have never heard anyone sing

I am so beautiful

and you are a fool to be in love with me,

even though this notion has surely

crossed the minds of women and men alike.

You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool

is another one you don't hear.

Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.

That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon

I am listening to Johnny Hartman

whose dark voice can curl around

the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness

like no one else's can.

It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette

someone left burning on a baby grand piano

around three o'clock in the morning;

smoke that billows up into the bright lights

while out there in the darkness

some of the beautiful fools have gathered

around little tables to listen,

some with their eyes closed,

others leaning forward into the music

as if it were holding them up,

or twirling the loose ice in a glass,

slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,

borne beyond midnight,

that has no desire to go home,

especially now when everyone in the room

is watching the large man with the tenor sax

that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.

He moves forward to the edge of the stage 

and hands the instrument down to me

and nods that I should play.

So I put the mouthpiece to my lips

and blow into it with all my living breath.

We are all so foolish,

my long bebop solo begins by saying,

so damn foolish

we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

~Billy Collins~

Saturday Serenade

The spectacular voice of Linda Eder singing "Vole Mon Angel" from "Svengali".  And, because she is so much more, I also offer another:

Saturday Serenade

We saw a lot of these license plates in the Pikeville area.

Miss Patty Loveless knows about coal and coal mining. She grew up in Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of coal country.


Her daddy was a coal miner and died from Black Lung Disease, and the emotion you hear in her voice comes from her 'Mountain Soul'.

Saturday Serenade

Margaret Whiting died on January 10 at the age of 86. Her rendition of 'Moonlight in Vermont' is one of my favorite songs of all time. Probably because I fell in love with Vermont the first time I visited that beautiful state.

Fresh Air's Terry Gross interviewed Ms. Whiting in 1988. You can read the interview in it's entirety here.  Or you can listen to the podcast in which she sings a few of her famous songs.



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Saturday Serenade

It was rumored that Dean Martin was totally smitten (really, in love) with the lovely Petula Clark. She appeared several times on his variety show in the late sixties and early seventies. I think it's pretty obvious what his feelings for her were in this video. His daughter Deana Martin wrote a biography of her late father, Memories Are Made Of This , in which she hinted at his infatuation with Petula. Whatever the truth happens to be, they sing very well together, and there was definitely some chemistry going on there.

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Saturday Serenade

One of my favorite songs is the signature song of my mother's namesake, Edith Piaf. It makes me want to learn French just so I can understand the words that she wrote and sang. There is an English version, but it just doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi. The movie "La Vie en Rose" (2007) is not always easy to watch, but Marion Cotillard's performance as the "Little Sparrow" is mesmerizing, and her Oscar for best actress was well-deserved.

I love Louis Armstrong's version, too, and always watch the credits at the end of "French Kiss" just so I can hear him sing it. Interestingly, when researching the song, Wiki gave a list of notable people who had sung it. Here are a few of the singers I would never have associated with this song:

• Aretha Franklin
• Barbara Feldon (Get Smart)
• Belinda Carlisle
• Brenda Lee
• Connie Francis
• Cyndi Lauper
• Donna Summer
• Grace Jones
• Jack Nicholson (I forgot about his karaoke scene in "Something's Gotta Give")
• KT Tunstall (Black Horse in a Cherry Tree)
• Petula Clark

Who knew?



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Saturday Serenade

Thank goodness, it's almost over.





If you've never listened to Heywood Banks, you don't know what you've been missing. 

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Saturday Serenade

Remembering Nicolette Larson (July 17, 1952 - December 16, 1997).


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Saturday Serenade

If you would like to learn more about the great Anita O'Day, go here.  Her fascinating story Anita O'Day: Life of a Jazz Singer is available on Amazon, Netflix, and on The Documentary Channel, Monday, August 9, at 6:00 PM. If you love jazz, you'll love Anita.


I did it! I did a whole week's worth of posts! In case you were wondering why the frequency. Just a little mini-challenge for myself.


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