This is the long awaited cover for VIBE’s big relaunch after they folded earlier this year. However I’m not really feeling it to be honest, I dont know what it is possibly the retouching but I feel like Chris’s face doesnt look entirely relaxed, this could be because he supposedly asking the question “R U Still Down” but compared to the preview which I showed you guys in early november I think that would have been a much better shot. Saying that it’s not a bad cover, just I’ve seen better from him and I have no doubt that he took better shots than the one they picked.

Check out the cover preview  below:

The issue goes on sale December 8th along with Chris’s new CD “Graffiti”, be sure to get yours.

IMG|SOURCE: TGJ/MediaPost

It’s been a busy few weeks. I am trying to get disciplined with this whole blog thing. So regardless of how spent I feel tonight, I thought I should get some words down to expose what’s been goin on.

I have been dealing with all creative fronts for the last few weeks. In the commercial scoring scene I have gone after a few commercials. They are not unlike cattle calls where a production house sends out a spot to various composers and you’ve got about a day to throw something at it. I used to snub my nose at spec work but now have adopted a new perspective. Even though you are essentially working for nothing there is a good upside. I feel that by trying scoring on some new picture I will just be further developing my composing chops. Also commercials are like small films but packed into 30 seconds. It’s amazing how much creative time you can put into 30 seconds of music. And if I do not get the gig I simply have another track to add to my library, which I hope to eventually sell online. And if I am lucky and do get the gig then I get paid! Which is what it’s about right. That’s when the business part connects to the music part and you feel like a pro! So my shots at a Walmart and Tim Horten’s commercial did not pan out. Even though with my rather biased opinion I thought my tracks were quite excellent. I will try and figure out how to post the tracks and expose them to critical audiences globally. Here is my shot at the Tim Horten Spot. It is kind of hard to get it without the visuals. Tim Horten Spot – Yohands I wanted African overtones in the score. In the final moment I have the theme played with piano and get a little more aggressive with the rhythm to reflect the new land in which they have arrived. I find it interesting to see what one can do in a short time. For me time constraints can be a good thing to put on the creative flow otherwise you can mess around with it forever!

In the meantime I am still working on a series titled Pitchin In” which is a cooking show. And today I began work on a series titled “Princess”. No it’s not a Walt Disney movie but rather a series about young women who spend beyond their means. THe producer Jennifer Horvath thinks “Pussy Cat Dolls” is a good musical influence for the show. So I listened to “when I grow up” to get inspired. I think instead I got visually stimulated vs musically stimulated. I am sending in the first draft tonight but I will also post it here. Princess Title Draft 1

On the voice over scene I have been auditions to a site titled www.voice123.com.  I think this could prove to be very cool. Set up a USB mic in the studio (audio -techinica 2020) and seem to be getting a good sound. Who knows, maybe one day this will become more lucrative then scoring!

Also finally starting to get some performing gigs. The recession really did take a monster bite out of that scene. Looking forward to playing again, especially as a trio. Have been practicing every morning to keep the chops up. But nothing is better than a live gig.

So that is a wrap for today.

I am eating my second round of apple pie. I woke up this morning and did not think |I would be eating apple pie today, let alone on two different occasions. Not sure if I mentioned this before but part of my diverse income stream comes from voice overs. My good friend Elly Ray got me into doing voice overs. Many people have said that I should do voice overs but until this year I never really got it together to make it happen. Elly helped me out with a demo and I am very fortunate to be represented by Edna Talent Management.

Wether he is bringing the shivers to your panties in english or spanish you all love Enrique. Why? Because his daddy is Julio and we know how he get gets down so it has to be in the genes, right? Anywho Enrique is hot and we love him so why not start your morning off with a little spice. Ay Papi!

I loved these photos.
I love Michael Buble.
I love her dress.

And I love his new song.♥

I’ve written more than once about crooners, not only trying to define the term but also questioning why it sometimes seems to be used in a negative way. (From Sinatra To Rod Stewart – The Crooner Conundrum.) To me, croonerhood has always been a sign of distinction for a singer, and with that in mind I’m nominating Mel Carter for inclusion into the ranks.

Sometimes described as a sort of up-tempo Johnny Mathis (who would certainly qualify as a iconic crooner), Carter was born in Cincinnati and grew up in the post-war years with a definite bent for music. By the time he reached adulthood he’d managed to latch on to a recording contract, one that initially took him down the same path followed by many other young R&B singers. He did pretty well and sold some records with “When A Boy Falls In Love,” but by the mid-Sixties he’d taken a turn for the softer sound of pop ballads, and it soon paid off in a big way — his recording of “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” became a huge hit.

For several years, Carter continued to find success crooning songs like “My Heart Sings” (video below), “Love Is All We Need,” and “Band Of Gold.” The balance of the Sixties were his hottest years, and he not only sold a lot of records but also appeared on many TV musical and variety shows.

By the end of the decade the musical side of his career began to wind down a little, but Carter had another facet of his career to fall back on. From time to time he’d managed to find spot acting roles in various TV shows, and he would continue to do so for much of the next couple of decades.

But through the years Carter has managed to keep busy musically too, continuing to record when possible and making appearances on tour and in clubs. Like many of the stars of the past, he’s been helped along by nostalgia-driven Oldies revivals, but I’d like to think his croonerhood has something to do with it.

C’est dans 3 jours que sort le nouvel album du Little Genious, j’ai nommé Jamie Cullum. The Pursuit (c’est le titre) devait annoncer une nouvelle forme de Jazz. Un défi annoncé et autoproclamé comme « l’album de la maturité ». Qu’en est-il vraiment ?

C’est après avoir assisté au concert privé parisien de Monsieur Jamie Cullum, que je ressentis le réel besoin d’entreprendre un article sur son nouveau disque.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Welcome Jaaaaamie Culluuuum.
Belle ambiance parmi les rares 100 personnes qui avaient le privilège d’assister à cette sublime prestation des plus intimistes.
Car sur scène, le bonhomme (ce n’est pas nouveau), est une bête. Il porte le jazz à sa dimension rock. Un rockeur à piano, un rockeur adepte de la note bleue pourrait-on dire. Mais cette fois il va plus loin, car il amène le rock en studio.
Après le succès de Catching Tales, nombre de fans attendaient le nouvel opus, qui se voulait «radicalement différent ».
Alors les promesses sont -elles tenues ?

Et bien oui, elles le sont. C’est un fait. Cet album amorce un tournant dans la musique et la carrière du Kid. Jamie troque le piano du bar du coin contre des orgues Hammond, des nappes de synthé et des basses saturées.
Ce que ça donne ? Une sorte de jazz noisy, d’inspiration trip hop. C’est en fait là que réside tout l’intérêt de The Pursuit. Le son est résolument « from Bristol », paradoxal quand on sait que c’est le producteur de Katty Perry et Mika qui produit l’album. D’ailleurs, l’un des défauts de l’album revient à la production, trop gonflée, mise sur pilotage automatique. Là où l’on ressentait les caves du Blue Note sur les précédents albums, on entend ici toute la platitude d’un studio, le son stéréo trop amplifié qui devient déconcertant.

Car pour ce qui est des déceptions, il y a matière à discuter. Le cover du « Don’t Stop the Music » de Rihanna est bancal. L’idée est facile, il y a ce quelque chose de générationnel, qu’est la reprise de tubes du hit parade, pour en faire (forcément) quelque chose de mieux.
On y trouve certes, quelques coups de génie. Le ralentissement du tempo, et l’apport d’un certain swing dont manque cruellement l’original en font une réussite sur le fond. Mais c’est sur la forme que cela pêche. On regrette les mélodies chiadées dont est capable le petit anglais, car ici, on se noie dans un océan de désinvolture. Péché d’orgueil sans doute.
Dans le genre, petite ritournelle pop un peu soupeuse, on a « Wheels », « Not While I’m around » ou encore « Mixtape », pas dégueulasses en soi, mais certainement les vraies erreurs de cet album. Révélant du même coup l’un des grands défauts de Cullum, celui d’être devenu par moments, une sorte de roi fainéant. Les riffs y ont de faux airs de Coldplay, ou pire de the Fray (au secours !!)
Alors comment se faire à l’idée que le génie du jazz a choisi de faire de la (mauvaise ?) pop ?

Et bien c’est en écoutant plus attentivement l’album, que l’on se rassurera. Car l’on y retrouve du réconfort, un véritable album cosy: effet « chocolat chaud » garanti.
Quelques petites perles font tout simplement penser à l’esprit de Catching Tales voire de Twentysomething, l’on pense à « You and Me are Gone » par exemple, véritable réussite, qui rappelle l’ancien Jamie. Et puis le single, « I’m All over It » dont la deuxième moitié de chanson est nettement plus jouissive que la première, mais qui reste globalement un archétype du single de crooner jazz réussi. Sans oublier « Just one of those things » ou « Love ain‘t gonna let you down » , que les Nat King Cole ou autres Sinatra auraient bien chanté si ils étaient encore en activité. Cullum fait du Michael Bublé version 2.0, inventant au passage une sorte de tambouille pop crooner.
Mais, mieux encore, Jamie Cullum sort de ses gonds et offre un disque extrêmement couillu. Chantre de ce virage à 180, « If I ruled the world » se veut être une ballade humaniste sur fond de production trip hop entre David Sitek et Tricky. Jamie Cullum pense faire ici son « Imagine », devenir le Lennon des temps modernes, et assure l’intérim avec audace. Derrière les paroles un peu cul-cul la praline, dont l’esprit philanthrope a pris quelques trentaines d’années dans la tête, se cache une très belle chanson, à ranger au panthéon des ballades les plus réussies de l’année. Il a ce brio de faire de la pop soignée, avec des accords résolument jazz, le bridge lui-même en est la preuve.
Mais, le vrai symbole de l’évolution/révolution Cullum, ce sont certainement ses « Music is Through » et son intro électro/nu-jazz, chanson à mi chemin entre les Scissor Sisters et St Germain. Mais surtout ce « We run things », très rock, diablement sexy.
Les claviers s’y font extrêmement discrets, le solo est subtilement caché derrière une basse électrique et omniprésente, des effets de feedback en toile de fond auxquels s’ajoutent la saturation des nappes et une mise en place quasi-spectorienne. Puis, la diction est RnB, et la voix éraillée.
Car la seconde innovation, c’est cette voix justement. D’une voix de crooner puceau, on passe ici à une voix parfaitement maîtrisé, légèrement roque et qui se permet quelques fantaisies de vocalises intelligemment amenées. Cullum a définitivement décomplexé, et c’est tant mieux. Plus mûr, plus présent, plus rock, plus crade, plus érotisant.

The Pursuit est sans conteste un excellent album, sans doute son plus mature, que l’on soit féru de Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington et Keith Jarrett, ou de Massive Attack et des Beatles.
À se demander si Jamie Cullum ne devrait pas se retrouver classé en variété internationale chez les disquaires, plutôt qu’en Jazz , tant il surfe sur deux vagues différentes. Et c’est certainement ce qui déstabilisera les fans de la première heure.
Pourtant son travail est de qualité, vieillira certainement extrêmement bien, et ce, malgré le problématique manque de cohérence de ce disque somme toute bicéphale.
Mais Cullum a choisi son camp, lui le jazzman flanqué de t-shirts Sonic Youth, a décidé de faire de la musique aux faux airs de Portishead. Cullum fait de la pop, le jazz est devenu une influence plus qu’une référence. Tant mieux pour les uns, tant pis pour les autres.
On vous en a tout dit: À vous de juger.

David de Araujo (le 6 novembre 2009)

R&B Singer Trey Songz, is back with a new music video “I Invented Sex” off his latest studio LP “Ready”. Trey, who’s been rocking a toned bod as of recently clearly has had a  boost of confidence, this is a side we’ve yet to see of him on camera and no doubt the ladies are gonna eat this up.

Check out the racy video below: 

Directed by: Yolande Geralds

“Crooner”

 

THE MORNING I SPOTTED Tony Gardner sitting among the tourists, spring was just arriving here in Venice. We’d completed our first full week outside in the piazza—a relief, let me tell you, after all those stuffy hours performing from the back of the cafe, getting in the way of customers wanting to use the staircase. There was quite a breeze that morning, and our brand-new marquee was flapping all around us, but we were all feeling a little bit brighter and fresher, and I guess it showed in our music.

But here I am talking like I’m a regular band member. Actually, I’m one of the “gypsies,” as the other musicians call us, one of the guys who move around the piazza, helping out whichever of the threecafe orchestras needs us. Mostly I play here at the Caffè Lavena, but on a busy afternoon, I might do a set with the Quadri boys, go over to the Florian, then back across the square to the Lavena. I get on fine with them all—and with the waiters too—and in any other city I’d have a regular position by now. But in this place, so obsessed with tradition and the past, everything’s upside down. Anywhere else, being a guitar player would go in a guy’s favour. But here? A guitar! The cafe managers get uneasy. It looks too modern, the tourists won’t like it. Last autumn I got myself a vintage jazz model with an oval sound-hole, the kind of thing Django Reinhardt might have played, so there was no way anyone would mistake me for a rock-and-roller. That made things a little easier, but the cafe managers, they still don’t like it. The truth is, if you’re a guitarist, you can be Joe Pass, they still wouldn’t give you a regular job in this square.

There’s also, of course, the small matter of my not being Italian, never mind Venetian. It’s the same for that big Czech guy with the alto sax. We’re well liked, we’re needed by the other musicians, but we don’t quite fit the official bill. Just play and keep your mouth shut, that’s what the cafe managers always say. That way the tourists won’t know you’re not Italian. Wear your suit, sunglasses, keep the hair combed back, no one will know the difference, just don’t start talking.

But I don’t do too bad. All three cafe orchestras, especially when they have to play at the same time from their rival tents, they need a guitar—something soft, solid, but amplified, thumping out the chords from the back. I guess you’re thinking, three bands playing at the same time in the same square, that would sound like a real mess. But the Piazza San Marco’s big enough to take it. A tourist strolling across the square will hear one tune fade out, another fade in, like he’s shifting the dial on a radio. What tourists can’t take too much of is the classical stuff, all these instrumental versions of famous arias. Okay, this is San Marco, they don’t want the latest pop hits. But every few minutes they want something they recognise, maybe an old Julie Andrews number, or the theme from a famous movie. I remember once last summer, going from band to band and playing “The Godfather” nine times in one afternoon.

Anyway there we were that spring morning, playing in front of a good crowd of tourists, when I saw Tony Gardner, sitting alone with his coffee, almost directly in front of us, maybe six metres back from our marquee. We get famous people in the square all the time, we never make a fuss. At the end of a number, maybe a quiet word will go around the band members. Look, there’s Warren Beatty. Look, it’s Kissinger. That woman, she’s the one who was in the movie about the men who swap their faces. We’re used to it. This is the Piazza San Marco after all. But when I realised it was Tony Gardner sitting there, that was different. I did get excited.

Tony Gardner had been my mother’s favourite. Back home, back in the communist days, it had been really hard to get records like that, but my mother had pretty much his whole collection. Once when I was a boy, I scratched one of those precious records. The apartment was so cramped, and a boy my age, you just had to move around sometimes, especially during those cold months when you couldn’t go outside. So I was playing this game jumping from our little sofa to the armchair, and one time I misjudged it and hit the record player. The needle went across the record with a zip—this was long before CDs—and my mother came in from the kitchen and began shouting at me. I felt so bad, not just because she was shouting at me, but because I knew it was one of Tony Gardner’s records, and I knew how much it meant to her. And I knew that this one too would now have those popping noises going through it while he crooned those American songs. Years later, when I was working in Warsaw and I got to know about black-market records, I gave my mother replacements of all her worn-out Tony Gardner albums, including that one I scratched. It took me over three years, but I kept getting them, one by one, and each time I went back to see her I’d bring her another.

So you see why I got so excited when I recognised him, barely six metres away. At first I couldn’t quite believe it, and I might have been a beat late with a chord change. Tony Gardner! What would my dear mother have said if she’d known! For her sake, for the sake of her memory, I had to go and say something to him, never mind if the other musicians laughed and said I was acting like a bell-boy.

But of course I couldn’t just rush over to him, pushing aside the tables and chairs. There was our set to finish. It was agony, I can tell you, another three, four numbers, and every second I thought he was about to get up and walk off. But he kept sitting there, by himself, staring into his coffee, stirring it like he was really puzzled by what the waiter had brought him. He looked like any other American tourist, dressed in a pale-blue polo shirt and loose grey trousers. His hair, very dark, very shiny on those record covers, was almost white now, but there was still plenty of it, and it was immaculately groomed in the same style he’d had back then. When I’d first spotted him, he’d had his dark glasses in his hand—I doubt if I’d have recognised him otherwise—but as our set went on and I kept watching him, he put them on his face, took them off again, then back on again. He looked preoccupied and it disappointed me to see he wasn’t really listening to our music.

Then our set was over. I hurried out of the tent without saying anything to the others, made my way to Tony Gardner’s table, then had a moment’s panic not knowing how to start the conversation. I was standing behind him, but some sixth sense made him turn and look up at me—I guess it was all those years of having fans come up to him—and next thing I was introducing myself, explaining how much I admired him, how I was in the band he’d just been listening to, how my mother had been such a fan, all in one big rush. He listened with a grave expression, nodding every few seconds like he was my doctor. I kept talking and all he said every now and then was: “Is that so?” After a while I thought it was time to leave and I’d started to move away when he said:

“So you come from one of those communist countries. That must have been tough.”

“That’s all in the past.” I did a cheerful shrug. “We’re a free country now. A democracy.”

“That’s good to hear. And that was your crew playing for us just now. Sit down. You want some coffee?”

I told him I didn’t want to impose, but there was now something gently insistent about Mr. Gardner. “No, no, sit down. Your mother liked my records, you were saying.”

So I sat down and told him some more. About my mother, our apartment, the black-market records. And though I couldn’t remember what the albums were called, I started describing the pictures on their sleeves the way I remembered them, and each timeI did this, he’d put his finger up in the air and say something like: “Oh, that would be Inimitable. The Inimitable Tony Gardner.” I think we were both really enjoying this game, but then I noticed Mr. Gardner’s gaze move off me, and I turned just in time to see a woman coming up to our table.

She was one of those American ladies who are so classy, with great hair, clothes and figure, you don’t realise they’re not so young until you see them up close. Far away, I might have mistaken her for a model out of those glossy fashion magazines. But when she sat down next to Mr. Gardner and pushed her dark glasses onto her forehead, I realised she must be at least fifty, maybe more. Mr. Gardner said to me: “This is Lindy, my wife.”

Mrs. Gardner flashed me a smile that was kind of forced, then said to her husband: “So who’s this? You’ve made yourself a friend.”

“That’s right, honey. I was having a good time talking here with … I’m sorry, friend, I don’t know your name.”

“Jan,” I said quickly. “But friends call me Janeck.”

Lindy Gardner said: “You mean your nickname’s longer than your real name? How does that work?”

“Don’t be rude to the man, honey.”

“I’m not being rude.”

“Don’t make fun of the man’s name, honey. That’s a good girl.”

Lindy Gardner turned to me with a helpless sort of expression. “You know what he’s talking about? Did I insult you?”

“No, no,” I said, “not at all, Mrs. Gardner.”

“He’s always telling me I’m rude to the public. But I’m not rude. Was I rude to you just now?” Then to Mr. Gardner: “I speak to the public in a natural way, sweetie. It’s my way. I’m never rude.”

“Okay, honey,” Mr. Gardner said, “let’s not make a big thing of it. Anyhow, this man here, he’s not the public.”

“Oh, he’s not? Then what is he? A long-lost nephew?”

“Be nice, honey. This man, he’s a colleague. A musician, a pro. He’s just been entertaining us all.” He gestured towards our marquee.

“Oh right!” Lindy Gardner turned to me again. “You were playing up there just now? Well, that was pretty. You were on the accordion, right? Real pretty!”

“Thank you very much. Actually, I’m the guitarist.”

“Guitarist? You’re kidding me. I was watching you only a minute ago. Sitting right there, next to the double bass man, playing so beautifully on your accordion.”

“Pardon me, that was in fact Carlo on the accordion.The big bald guy …”

“Are you sure? You’re not kidding me?”

“Honey, I’ve told you. Don’t be rude to the man.” He hadn’t shouted exactly, but his voice was suddenly hard and angry, and now there was a strange silence. Then Mr. Gardner himself broke it, saying gently:

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He reached out a hand and grasped one of hers. I’d kind of expected her to shake him off, but instead, she moved in her chair so she was closer to him, and put her free hand over their clasped pair. They sat there like that for a few seconds, Mr. Gardner, his head bowed, his wife gazing emptily past his shoulder, across the square towards the Basilica, though her eyes didn’t seem to be seeing anything. For those few moments it was like they’d forgotten not just me sitting with them, but all the people in the piazza. Then she said, almost in a whisper:

“That’s okay, sweetie. It was my fault. Getting you all upset.”

They went on sitting like that a little longer, their hands locked. Then she sighed, let go of Mr. Gardner and looked at me. She’d looked at me before, but this time it was different. This time I could feel her charm. It was like she had this dial, going zero to ten, and with me, at that moment, she’d decided to turn it to six or seven, but I could feel it really strong, and if she’d asked some favour of me—if say she’d asked me to go across the square and buy her some flowers—I’d have done it happily.

“Janeck,” she said. “That’s your name, right? I’m sorry, Janeck. Tony’s right. I’d no business speaking to you the way I did.”

“Mrs. Gardner, really, please don’t worry …”

“And I disturbed the two of you talking. Musicians’ talk, I bet. You know what? I’m gonna leave the two of you to get on with it.”

“No reason to go, honey,” Mr. Gardner said.

“Oh yes there is, sweetie. I’m absolutely yearning to go look in that Prada store. I only came over just now to tell you I’d be longer than I said.”

“Okay, honey.” Tony Gardner straightened for the first time and took a deep breath. “So long as you’re sure you’re happy doing that.”

“I’m gonna have a fantastic time in that store. So you two fellas, you have yourselves a good talk.” She got to her feet and touched me on the shoulder. “You take care, Janeck.”

We watched her walk away, then Mr. Gardner asked me a few things about being a musician in Venice, and about the Quadri orchestra in particular, who’d started playing just at that moment. He didn’t seem to listen so carefully to my answers and I was about to excuse myself and leave, when he said suddenly:

“There’s something I want to put to you, friend. Let me tell you what’s on my mind and you can turn me down if that’s what you want.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Can I tell you something? The first time Lindy and I came here to Venice, it was our honeymoon. Twenty-seven years ago. And for all our happy memories of this place, we’d never been back, not together anyway. So when we were planning this trip, this special trip of ours, we said to ourselves we’ve got to spend a few days in Venice.”

“It’s your anniversary, Mr. Gardner?”

“Anniversary?” He looked startled.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just thought, because you said this was your special trip.”

He went on looking startled for a while, then he laughed, a big, booming laugh, and suddenly I remembered this particular song my mother used to play all the time where he does a talking passage in the middle of the song, something about not caring that this woman has left him, and he does this sardonic laugh. Now the same laugh was booming across the square. Then he said:

“Anniversary? No, no, it’s not our anniversary. But what I’m proposing, it’s not so far off. Because I want to do something very romantic. I want to serenade her. Properly, Venice style. That’s where you come in. You play your guitar, I sing. We do it from a gondola, we drift under the window, I sing up to her. We’re renting a palazzo not far from here. The bedroom window looks over the canal. After dark, it’ll be perfect. The lamps on the walls light things up just right. You and me in a gondola, she comes to the window. All her favourite numbers. We don’t need to do it for long, the evenings are still kinda chilly. Just three or four songs, that’s what I have in mind. I’ll see you’re well compensated. What do you say?”

“Mr. Gardner, I’d be absolutely honoured. As I told you, you’ve been an important figure for me. When were you thinking of doing this?”

“If it doesn’t rain, why not tonight? Around eight-thirty? We eat dinner early, so we’ll be back by then. I’ll make some excuse, leave the apartment, come and meet you. I’ll have a gondola fixed up, we’ll come back along the canal, stop under the window. It’ll be perfect. What do you say?”

You can probably imagine, this was like a dream come true. And besides, it seemed such a sweet idea, this couple—he in his sixties, she in her fifties—behaving like teenagers in love. In fact it was so sweet an idea it almost, but not quite, made me forget the scene I’d just witnessed between them. What I mean is, even at that stage, I knew deep down that things wouldn’t be as straightforward as he was making out.

For the next few minutes Mr. Gardner and I sat there discussing all the details—which songs he wanted, the keys he preferred, all those kinds of things. Then it was time for me to get back to the marquee and our next set, so I stood up, shook his hand and told him he could absolutely count on me that evening.

•

THE STREETS WERE DARK and quiet as I went to meet Mr. Gardner that night. In those days I’d always get lost whenever I moved much beyond the Piazza San Marco, so even though I’d allowed myself plenty of time, even though I knew the little bridge where Mr. Gardner had told me to be, I was still a few minutes late.

He was standing right under a lamp, wearing a crumpled dark suit, and his shirt was open down to the third or fourth button, so you could see the hairs on his chest. When I apologised for being late, he said:

“What’s a few minutes? Lindy and I have been married twenty-seven years. What’s a few minutes?”

He wasn’t angry, but his mood seemed grave and solemn—not at all romantic. Behind him was the gondola, gently rocking in the water, and I saw the gondolier was Vittorio, a guy I don’t like much. To my face, Vittorio’s always friendly, but I know—I knew back then—he goes around saying all kinds of foul things, all of it rubbish, about people like me, people he calls “the foreigners from the new countries.” That’s why, when he greeted me that evening like a brother, I just nodded, and waited silently while he helped Mr. Gardner into the gondola. Then I passed him my guitar—I’d brought my Spanish guitar, not the one with the oval sound-hole—and got in myself.

Mr. Gardner kept shifting positions at the front of the boat, and at one point sat down so heavily we nearly capsized. But he didn’t seem to notice and as we pushed off, he kept staring into the water.

For a few minutes we drifted in silence, past dark buildings and under low bridges. Then he came out of his deep thoughts and said:

“Listen, friend. I know we agreed on a set for this evening. But I’ve been thinking. Lindy loves that song, ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix.’ I recorded it once a long time ago.”

“Sure, Mr. Gardner. My mother always said your version was better than Sinatra’s. Or that famous one by Glen Campbell.”

Mr. Gardner nodded, then I couldn’t see his face for a while. Vittorio sent his gondolier’s cry echoing around the walls before steering us round a corner.

“I used to sing it to her a lot,” Mr. Gardner said. “You know, I think she’d like to hear it tonight. You’re familiar with the tune?”

My guitar was out of the case by this time, so I played a few bars of the song.

“Take it up,” he said. “Up to E-flat. That’s how I did it on the album.”

So I played the chords in that key, and after maybe a whole verse had gone by, Mr. Gardner began to sing, very softly, under his breath, like he could only half remember the words. But his voice resonated well in that quiet canal. In fact, it sounded really beautiful. And for a moment it was like I was a boy again, back in that apartment, lying on the carpet while my mother sat on the sofa, exhausted, or maybe heartbroken, while Tony Gardner’s album spun in the corner of the room.

Mr. Gardner broke off suddenly and said: “Okay. We’ll do ‘Phoenix’ in E-flat. Then maybe ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily,’ like we planned. And we’ll finish with ‘One for My Baby.’ That’ll be enough. She won’t listen to any more than that.”

He seemed to sink back into his thoughts after that, and we drifted along through the darkness to the sound of Vittorio’s gentle splashes.

“Mr. Gardner,” I said eventually, “I hope you don’t mind me asking. But is Mrs. Gardner expecting this recital? Or is this going to be a wonderful surprise?”

He sighed heavily, then said: “I guess we’d have to put this in the wonderful surprise category.” Then he added: “Lord knows how she’ll react. We might not make it all the way to ‘One for My Baby.’”

Vittorio steered us round another corner, and suddenly there was laughter and music, and we were drifting past a large, brightly lit restaurant. Every table seemed taken, the waiters were rushing about, the diners looked very happy, even though it couldn’t have been so warm next to the canal at that time of year. After the quiet and the darkness we’d been travelling through, the restaurant was kind of unsettling. It felt like we were the stationary ones, watching from the quay, as this glittering party boat slid by. I noticed a few faces look our way, but no one paid us much attention. Then the restaurant was behind us, and I said:

“It’s funny. Can you imagine what those tourists would do if they realised a boat had just gone by containing the legendary Tony Gardner?”

Vittorio, who doesn’t understand much English, got the gist of this and gave a little laugh. But Mr. Gardner didn’t respond for some time. We were back in the dark again, going along a narrow canal past dimly lit doorways, when he said:

“My friend, you come from a communist country. That’s why you don’t realise how these things work.”

“Mr. Gardner,” I said, “my country isn’t communist any more. We’re free people now.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to denigrate your nation. You’re a brave people. I hope you win peace and prosperity. But what I intended to say to you, friend, what I meant was that coming from where you do, quite naturally, there are many things you don’t understand yet. Just like there’d be many things I wouldn’t understand in your country.”

“I guess that’s right, Mr. Gardner.”

“Those people we passed just now. If you’d gone up to them and said, ‘Hey, do any of you remember Tony Gardner?’ then maybe some of them, most of them even, might have said yes. Who knows? But drifting by the way we just did, even if they’d recognised me, would they get excited? I don’t think so. They wouldn’t put down their forks, they wouldn’t interrupt their candlelit heart-to-hearts. Why should they? Just some crooner from a bygone era.”

“I can’t believe that, Mr. Gardner. You’re a classic. You’re like Sinatra or Dean Martin. Some class acts, they never go out of fashion. Not like these pop stars.”

“You’re very kind to say that, friend. I know you mean well. But tonight of all nights, it’s no time to bekidding me.”

I was about to protest, but something in his manner told me to drop the whole subject. So we kept moving, no one speaking. To be honest, I was now beginning to wonder what I’d got myself into, what this whole serenade thing was about. And these were Americans, after all. For all I knew, when Mr. Gardner started singing, Mrs. Gardner would come to the window with a gun and fire down at us.

Maybe Vittorio’s thoughts were moving along the same lines, because as we passed under a lantern on the side of a wall, he gave me a look as though to say: “We’ve got a strange one here, haven’t we, amico?” But I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to side with the likes of him against Mr. Gardner. According to Vittorio, foreigners like me, we go around ripping off tourists, littering the canals, in general ruining the whole damn city. Some days, if he’s in a bad mood, he’ll claim we’re muggers—rapists, even. I asked him once to his face if it was true he was going around saying such things, and he swore it was all a pack of lies. How could he be a racist when he had a Jewish aunt he adored like a mother? But one afternoon I was killing time between sets, leaning over a bridge in Dorsoduro, and a gondola passed underneath. There were three tourists sitting in it, and Vittorio standing over them with his oar, holding forth for the world to hear, coming out with this very same rubbish. So he can meet my eye all he likes, he’ll get no camaraderie from me.

“Let me tell you a little secret,” Mr. Gardner said suddenly. “A little secret about performance. One pro to another. It’s quite simple. You’ve got to know something, doesn’t matter what it is, you’ve got to know something about your audience. Something that for you, in your mind, distinguishes that audience from the one you sang to the night before. Let’s say you’re in Milwaukee. You’ve got to ask yourself, what’s different, what’s special about a Milwaukee audience? What makes it different from a Madison audience? Can’t think of anything, you just keep on trying till you do. Milwaukee, Milwaukee. They have good pork chops in Milwaukee. That’ll work, that’s what you use when you step out there. You don’t have to say a word about it to them, it’s what’s in your mind when you sing to them. These people in front of you, they’re the ones who eat good pork chops. They have high standards when it comes to pork chops. You understand what I’m saying? That way the audience becomes someone you know, someone you can perform to. There, that’s my secret. One pro to another.”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Gardner. I’d never thought about it that way. A tip from someone like you, I won’t forget it.”

“So tonight,” he went on, “we’re performing for Lindy. Lindy’s the audience. So I’m going to tell you something about Lindy. You want to hear about Lindy?”

“Of course, Mr. Gardner,” I said. “I’d like to hear about her very much.”

FOR THE NEXT TWENTY MINUTES OR SO, WE SAT IN that gondola, drifting round and round, while Mr. Gardner talked. Sometimes his voice went down to a murmur, like he was talking to himself. Other times, when a lamp or a passing window threw some light across our boat, he’d remember me, raise his voice, and say something like: “You understand what I’m saying, friend?”

His wife, he told me, had come from a small town in Minnesota, in the middle of America, where her schoolteachers gave her a hard time because she was always looking at magazines of movie stars instead of studying.

“What these ladies never realised was that Lindy had big plans. And look at her now. Rich, beautiful, travelled all over the world. And those schoolteachers, where are they today? What kind of lives have they had? If they’d looked at a few more movie magazines, had a few more dreams, they too might have a little of what Lindy has today.”

At nineteen, she’d hitch-hiked to California, wanting to get to Hollywood. Instead, she’d found herself in the outskirts of Los Angeles, working as a waitress in a roadside diner.

“Surprising thing,” Mr. Gardner said. “This diner, this regular little place off the highway. It turned out to be the best place she could have wound up. Because this was where all the ambitious girls came in, morning till night. They used to meet there, seven, eight, a dozen of them, they’d order their coffees, their hot dogs, sit in there for hours and talk.”

These girls, all a little older than Lindy, had come from every part of America and had been in the LA area for at least two or three years. They came into the diner to swap gossip and hard-luck stories, discuss tactics, keep a check on each other’s progress. But the main draw of the place was Meg, a woman in her forties, the waitress Lindy worked with.

“To these girls Meg was their big sister, their fountain of wisdom. Because once upon a time, she’d been exactly like them. You’ve got to understand, these were serious girls, really ambitious, determined girls. Did they talk about clothes and shoes and make-up like other girls? Sure they did. But they only talked about which clothes and shoes and make-up would help them marry a star. Did they talk about movies? Did they talk about the music scene? You bet. But they talked about which movie stars and singers were single, which ones were unhappily married, which ones were getting divorced. And Meg, you see, she could tell them all this, and much, much more. Meg had been down that road before them. She knew all the rules, all the tricks, when it came to marrying a star. And Lindy sat with them and took everything in. That little hot-dog diner was her Harvard, her Yale. A nineteen-year-old from Minnesota? Makes me shudder now to think what could have happened to her. But she got lucky.”

“Mr. Gardner,” I said, “excuse me for interrupting. But if this Meg was so wise about everything, how come she wasn’t married to a star herself? Why was she serving hot dogs in this diner?”

“Good question, but you don’t quite see how these things work. Okay, this lady, Meg, she hadn’t made it. But the point is, she’d watched the ones who had. You understand, friend? She’d been just like those girls once, and she’d watched some succeed, others fail. She’d seen the pitfalls, she’d seen the golden stairways. She could tell them all the stories and those girls listened. And some of them learned. Lindy, for one. Like I say, that was her Harvard. It made her what she is. It gave her the strength she needed later on, and boy, did she need it. It took her six years before her first break came along. Can you imagine it? Six years of manoeuvring, planning, putting yourself on the line like that. Getting knocked back over and over again. But it’s just like in our business. You can’t roll over and give up after the first few knocks. The girls who do, you can see them any place, married to nobodies in nowhere towns. But just a few of them, the ones like Lindy, they learn from every knock, they come back stronger, tougher, they come back fighting and mad. You think Lindy didn’t suffer humiliation? Even with her beauty and charm? What people don’t realise is that beauty isn’t the half of it. Use it wrong, you get treated like a whore. Anyway, after six years, she finally got her break.”

“That’s when she met you, Mr. Gardner?”

“Me? No, no. I didn’t come on the scene for a while longer. She married Dino Hartman. You’ve never heard of Dino?” Mr. Gardner did a slightly unkind laugh here. “Poor Dino. I guess Dino’s records wouldn’t have made it to the communist countries. But Dino had quite a name for himself in those days. He sang in Vegas a lot, had a few gold records. Like I said, that was Lindy’s big break. When I first met her, she was Dino’s wife. Old Meg had explained that’s how it happens all the time. Sure, a girl can get lucky first time, go straight to the top, marry a Sinatra or a Brando. But it doesn’t usually happen like that. A girl’s got to be prepared to get out of the elevator at the second floor, walk around. She needs to get used to the air on that floor. Then maybe, one day, on that second floor, she’ll run into someone who’s come down from the penthouse for a few minutes, maybe to fetch something. And this guy says to her, hey, how about coming back up with me, up to the top floor. Lindy knew that’s how it usually played out. She wasn’t weakening when she married Dino, she wasn’t cutting her ambition down to size. And Dino was a decent guy. I always liked him. That’s why, even though I fell badly for Lindy the moment I first saw her, I didn’t make a move. I was the perfect gentleman. I found out later that was what made Lindy all the more determined. Man, you’ve got to admire a girl like that! I have to tell you, friend, I was a bright, bright star around this time. I guess this would be around when your mother was listening to me. Dino, though, his star was starting to go down fast. It was tough for a lot of singers just around then. Everything was changing. Kids were listening to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. Poor Dino, he sounded too much like Bing Crosby. He tried a bossa nova album folks just laughed at. Definitely time for Lindy to get out. No one could have accused us of anything in that situation. I don’t think even Dino really blamed us. So I made my move. That’s how she got up to the penthouse.

“We got married in Vegas, we had the hotel fill the bathtub with champagne. That song we’re gonna do tonight, ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily.’ You know why I chose that one? You want to know? We were in London once, not long after we got married. We came up to our room after breakfast and the maid’s in there cleaning our suite. But Lindy and I are horny as rabbits. So we go in, and we can hear the maid vacuuming our lounge, but we can’t see her, she’s through the partition. So we sneak through on tip-toes, like we’re kids, you know? We sneak through to the bedroom, close the door. We can see the maid’s finished the bedroom already, so maybe she doesn’t need to come back, but we don’t know that for sure. Either way, we don’t care. We tear off our clothes, we make love on the bed, and all the time the maid’s on the other side, moving around our suite, no idea we’ve come in. I tell you, we were horny, but after a while, we found the whole thing so funny, we just kept laughing. Then we’d finished and we were lying there in each other’s arms, and the maid was still out there and you know what, she starts singing! She’s finished with the vacuum, so she starts singing at the top of her voice, and boy, did she have one lousy voice! We were laughing and laughing, but trying to keep it silent. Then what do you know, she stops singing and turns on the radio. And suddenly we hear Chet Baker. He’s singing ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily,’ nice and slow and mellow. And Lindy and me, we just lay there across the bed together, listening to Chet singing. And after a while, I’m singing along, really soft, singing along with Chet Baker on the radio, Lindy curled up in my arms. That’s how it was. That’s why we’re gonna do that song tonight. I don’t know if she’ll remember though. Who the hell knows?”

Mr. Gardner stopped talking and I could see him wiping away tears. Vittorio brought us around another corner and I realised we were going past the restaurant a second time. It looked even more lively than before, and a pianist, this guy I know called Andrea, was now playing in the corner.

As we drifted again into the dark, I said: “Mr. Gardner, it’s none of my business, I know. But I can see maybe things haven’t been so good between you and Mrs. Gardner lately. I want you to know I understand about things like that. My mother often used to get sad, maybe just the way you are now. She’d think she’d found someone, she’d be so happy and tell me this guy was going to be my new dad. The first couple of times I believed her. After that, I knew it wouldn’t work out. But my mother, she never stopped believing it. And every time she felt down, maybe like you are tonight, you know what she did? She put on your records and sang along. All those long winters, in that tiny apartment of ours, she’d sit there, knees tucked up under her, glass of something in her hand, and she’d sing along softly. And sometimes, I remember this, Mr. Gardner, our neighbours upstairs would bang on the ceiling, especially when you were doing those big up-tempo numbers, like ‘High Hopes’ or ‘They All Laughed.’ I used to watch my mother carefully, but it was like she hadn’t heard a thing, she’d be listening to you, nodding her head to the beat, her lips moving with the lyrics. Mr. Gardner, I wanted to say to you. Your music helped my mother through those times, it must have helped millions of others. And it’s only right it should help you too.” I did a little laugh, which I meant to be encouraging, but it came out louder than I’d intended. “You can count on me tonight, Mr. Gardner. I’m going to put everything I’ve got into it. I’ll make it as good as any orchestra, you just see. And Mrs. Gardner will hear us and who knows? Maybe things will start going fine between you again. Every couple goes through difficult times.”

Mr. Gardner smiled. “You’re a sweet guy. I appreciate you helping me out tonight. But we don’t have any more time to talk. Lindy’s in her room now. I can see the light on.”

WE WERE GOING BY A PALAZZO we’d passed at least twice before, and I now realised why Vittorio had been taking us round in circles. Mr. Gardner had been watching for the light to come on in a particular window, and each time he’d found it still dark, we’d moved on to do another circle. This time, though, the third-storey window was lit, the shutters were open, and from down where we were, we could see a small part of the ceiling with its dark wooden beams. Mr. Gardner signalled to Vittorio, but he’d already stopped rowing and we drifted slowly till the gondola was directly beneath the window.

Mr. Gardner stood up, making the boat rock alarmingly again, and Vittorio had to move quickly to steady us. Then Mr. Gardner called up, much too softly: “Lindy? Lindy?” Finally he called out much louder: “Lindy!”

A hand pushed the shutters out wider, then a figure came onto the narrow balcony. A lantern was fixed to the palazzo wall not far above us, but the light wasn’t good, and Mrs. Gardner wasn’t much more than a silhouette. I could see though that she’d put up her hair since I’d met her in the piazza, maybe for their dinner earlier on.

“That you, sweetie?” She leaned over the balcony rail. “I thought you’d been kidnapped or something. You had me all anxious.”

“Don’t be foolish, honey. What could happen in a town like this? Anyway, I left you that note.”

“I didn’t see any note, sweetie.”

“I left you a note. Just so you wouldn’t get anxious.”

“Where is it, this note? What did it say?”

“I don’t remember, honey.” Mr. Gardner now sounded irritated. “It was just a regular note. You know, saying I’d gone to buy cigarettes or something.”

“Is that what you’re doing down there now? Buying cigarettes?”

“No, honey. This is something different. I’m gonna sing to you.”

“Is this some sort of joke?”

“No, honey, it isn’t a joke. This is Venice. It’s what people do here.” He gestured around to me and Vittorio, like our being there proved his point.

“It’s kind of chilly for me out here, sweetie.”

Mr. Gardner did a big sigh. “Then you can listen from inside the room. Go back in the room, honey, make yourself comfortable. Just leave those windows open and you’ll hear us fine.”

She went on gazing down at him for a while, and he went on gazing back up, neither of them saying anything. Then she’d gone inside, and Mr. Gardner seemed disappointed, even though this was exactly what he’d suggested she should do. He lowered his head with another sigh, and I could tell he was hesitating about going ahead. So I said:

“Come on, Mr. Gardner, let’s do it. Let’s do ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix.’”

And I played gently a little opening figure, no beat yet, the sort of thing that could lead into a song or just as easily fade away. I tried to make it soundlike America, sad roadside bars, big long highways, and I guess I was thinking too of my mother, the way I’d come into the room and see her on the sofa gazing at her record sleeve with its picture of an American road, or maybe of the singer sitting in an American car. What I mean is, I tried to play it so my mother would have recognised it as coming from that same world, the world on her record sleeve.

Then before I realised it, before I’d picked up any steady beat, Mr. Gardner started to sing. His posture, standing in the gondola, was pretty unsteady, and I was afraid he’d lose his balance any moment. But his voice came out just the way I remembered it—gentle, almost husky, but with a huge amount of body, like it was coming through an invisible mike. And like all the best American singers, there was that weariness in his voice, even a hint of hesitation, like he’s not a man accustomed to laying open his heart this way. That’s how all the greats do it.

We went through that song, full of travelling and goodbye. An American man leaving his woman. He keeps thinking of her as he passes through the towns one by one, verse by verse, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Oklahoma, driving down a long road the way my mother never could. If only we could leave things behind like that—I guess that’s what my mother would have thought. If only sadness could be like that.

We came to the end and Mr. Gardner said: “Okay, let’s go straight to the next one. ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily.’”

This being my first time playing with Mr. Gardner, I had to feel my way around everything, but we managed okay. After what he’d told me about this song, I kept looking up at that window, but there was nothing from Mrs. Gardner, no movement, no sound, nothing. Then we’d finished, and the quiet and the dark settled around us. Somewhere nearby, I could hear a neighbour pushing open shutters, maybe to hear better. But nothing from Mrs. Gardner’s window.

We did “One for My Baby” very slow, virtually no beat at all, then everything was silent again. We went on looking up at the window, then at last, maybe after a full minute, we heard it. You could only just make it out, but there was no mistaking it. Mrs. Gardner was up there sobbing.

“We did it, Mr. Gardner!” I whispered. “We did it. We got her by the heart.”

But Mr. Gardner didn’t seem pleased. He shook his head tiredly, sat down and gestured to Vittorio. “Take us round the other side. It’s time I went in.”

As we started to move again, I thought he was avoiding looking at me, almost like he was ashamed of what we’d just done, and I began thinking maybe this whole plan had been some kind of malicious joke. For all I knew, these songs all held horrible meanings for Mrs. Gardner. So I put my guitar away and sat there, maybe a bit sullen, and that’s how we travelled for a while.

Then we came out to a much wider canal, and immediately a water-taxi coming the other way rushed past us, making waves under the gondola. But we were nearly up to the front of Mr. Gardner’s palazzo, and as Vittorio let us drift towards the quay, I said:

“Mr. Gardner, you’ve been an important part of my growing up. And tonight’s been a very special night for me. If we just said goodbye now and I never saw youagain, I know for the rest of my life I’ll always be wondering. So Mr. Gardner, please tell me. Just now, was Mrs. Gardner crying because she was happy or because she was upset?”

I thought he wasn’t going to answer. In the dim light, his figure was just this hunched-up shape at the front of the boat. But as Vittorio was tying the rope, he said quietly:

“I guess she was pleased to hear me sing that way. But sure, she was upset. We’re both of us upset. Twenty-seven years is a long time and after this trip we’re separating. This is our last trip together.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Mr. Gardner,” I said gently. “I guess a lot of marriages come to an end, even after twenty-seven years. But at least you’re able to part like this. A holiday in Venice. Singing from a gondola. There can’t be many couples who split up and stay so civilised.”

“But why wouldn’t we be civilised? We still love each other. That’s why she’s crying up there. Because she still loves me as much as I still love her.”

Vittorio had stepped up onto the quay, but Mr. Gardner and I kept sitting in the darkness. I was waiting for him to say more, and sure enough, after a moment, he went on:

“Like I told you, the first time I laid eyes on Lindy I fell in love with her. But did she love me back then? I doubt if the question ever crossed her mind. I was a star, that’s all that mattered to her. I was what she’d dreamt of, what she’d planned to win for herself back in that little diner. Whether she loved me or not didn’t come into it. But twenty-seven years of marriage can do funny things. Plenty of couples, they start off loving each other, then get tired of each other, end up hating each other. Sometimes though it goes the other way. It took a few years, but bit by bit, Lindy began to love me. I didn’t dare believe it at first, but after a while there was nothing else to believe. A little touch on my shoulder as we were getting up from a table. A funny little smile across the room when there wasn’t anything to smile about, just her fooling around. I bet she was as surprised as anyone, but that’s what happened. After five or six years, we found we were easy with each other. That we worried about each other, cared about each other. Like I say, we loved each other. And we still love each other today.”

“I don’t get it, Mr. Gardner. So why are you and Mrs. Gardner separating?”

He did another of his sighs. “How would you understand, my friend, coming from where you do? But you’ve been kind to me tonight, so I’m gonna try and explain it. Fact is, I’m no longer the major name I once was. Protest all you like, but where we come from, there’s no getting round something like that. I’m no longer a major name. Now I could just accept that and fade away. Live on past glories. Or I could say, no, I’m not finished yet. In other words, my friend, I could make a comeback. Plenty have from my position and worse. But a comeback’s no easy game. You have to be prepared to make a lot of changes, some of them hard ones. You change the way you are. You even change some things you love.”

“Mr. Gardner, are you saying you and Mrs. Gardner have to separate because of your comeback?”

“Look at the other guys, the guys who came back successfully. Look at the ones from my generation still hanging round. Every single one of them, they’ve remarried. Twice, sometimes three times. Every one of them, young wives on their arms. Me and Lindy are getting to be a laughing stock. Besides, there’s been this particular young lady I’ve had my eye on, and she’s had her eye on me. Lindy knows the score. She’s known it longer than I have, maybe ever since those days in that diner listening to Meg. We’ve talked it over. She understands it’s time to go our separate ways.”

“I still don’t get it, Mr. Gardner. This place you and Mrs. Gardner come from can’t be so different from everywhere else. That’s why, Mr. Gardner, that’s why these songs you’ve been singing all these years, they make sense for people everywhere. Even where I used to live. And what do all these songs say? If two people fall out of love and they have to part, then that’s sad. But if they go on loving each other, they should stay together for ever. That’s what these songs are saying.”

“I understand what you’re saying, friend. And it might sound hard to you, I know. But that’s the way it is. And listen, this is about Lindy too. It’s best for her we do this now. She’s nowhere near old yet. You’ve seen her, she’s still a beautiful woman. She needs to get out now, while she has time. Time to find love again, make another marriage. She needs to get out before it’s too late.”

I don’t know what I would have said to that, but then he caught me by surprise, saying: “Your mother. I guess she never got out.”

I thought about it, then said quietly: “No, Mr. Gardner. She never got out. She didn’t live long enough to see the changes in our country.”

“That’s too bad. I’m sure she was a fine woman. If what you say is true, and my music helped make her happy, that means a lot to me. Too bad she didn’t get out. I don’t want that to happen to my Lindy. No, sir. Not to my Lindy. I want my Lindy to get out.”

The gondola was bumping gently against the quay. Vittorio called out softly, reaching out his hand, and after a few seconds, Mr. Gardner got to his feet and climbed out. By the time I too had climbed out with my guitar—I wasn’t going to beg any free rides from Vittorio—Mr. Gardner had his wallet out.

Vittorio seemed pleased with what he was given, and with his usual fine phrases and gestures, he got back in his gondola and set off down the canal.

We watched him disappear into the dark, then next thing, Mr. Gardner was pushing a lot of notes into my hand. I told him it was way too much, that anyway it was a huge honour for me, but he wouldn’t hear of taking any of it back.

“No, no,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face, like he wanted to be done, not just with the money, but with me, the evening, maybe this whole section of his life. He started to walk off towards his palazzo, but after a few paces, he stopped and turned back to look at me. The little street we were in, the canal, everything was silent now except for the distant sound of a television.

“You played well tonight, my friend,” he said. “You have a nice touch.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gardner. And you sang great. As great as ever.”

“Maybe I’ll come by the square again before we leave. Listen to you playing with your crew.”

“I hope so, Mr. Gardner.”

But I never saw him again. I heard a few months later, in the autumn, that Mr. and Mrs. Gardner got their divorce—one of the waiters at the Florian read it somewhere and told me. It all came back to me then about that evening, and it made me feel a little sad thinking about it again. Because Mr. Gardner had seemed a pretty decent guy, and whichever way you look at it, comeback or no comeback, he’ll always be one of the greats.

Álbum: The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore 7″ (Smash, 1966)

Originalmente grabada por Frankie Valli, esta canción se convirtió en historia con la interpretación de los “no-hermanos” The Walker Brothers.

The Walker Brothers

John Maus, Gary Leeds y Scott Engel formaron The Walker Brothers y aterrizaron en el Reino Unido para alcanzar el éxito a mediados de los 60, como contrapartida a “The British Invasion” que se vivía en USA. Separados en 1967, Scott Engel, conocido como Scott Walker, inició una larga y fascinante carrera en solitario que se extiende hasta nuestros días, grabando para el prestigioso sello 4AD discos experimentales muy alejados del sonido que le caracterizó en los 60, mezcla de las técnicas del “muro de sonido” de Phil Spector con arreglos sinfónicos, siendo una gran influencia en artistas como Neil Hannon o Jarvis Cocker.

Cuando el que esto escribe tenía el placer de poner canciones en algún bar, era muy común cerrar la sesión con esta monumental canción…

The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore
The moon ain’t gonna rise in the sky
The tears are always clouding your eyes
When you’re without her

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When I t’was a lad, Glastonbury was a bit grungy, dirty, and all breaking bands… now it seems it is for crooners.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Andy Williams to play Glastonbury.

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – Hey Hey It’s Saturday has gone into damage control after a blackface skit brought condemnation and forced an on-air apology by the show’s host Daryl Somers.

US crooner Harry Connick Jr, who made a guest appearance on the Nine Network show, took offence to the skit during Hey Hey’s second reunion special last night.

During the show’s Red Faces talent segment, five men covered in black face paint and black wigs re-enacted their skit ‘Jackson Jive’, which appeared years ago when Hey Hey was on air.

The Michael Jackson character this time had his face painted white.

Connick Jr was one of the judges of the segment and took offence to the act, giving it a score of zero.

He said if the skit appeared on television in the US the show’s broadcast would have been terminated, labelling it the “Hey Hey No Show”.

Somers apologised to Connick Jr at the end of the live broadcast.

“I think we may have offended you with that act and I deeply apologise on behalf of all of us – because I know that to your countrymen, that’s an insult to have a blackface routine like that on the show, so I do apologise to you,” Somers said.

Connick Jr responded, saying he would not have participated if he knew beforehand about the ‘Jackson Jive’ skit.

“I know it was done humorously, but we’ve spent so much time trying to not make black people look like buffoons that when we see something like that we take it really to heart,” he said.

“I feel like I am at home here and if I knew that was going to be part of the show, I probably, I definitely, wouldn’t have done it.”

Online reaction

Online bloggers went into action immediately following the show, expressing varied responses on the opinion website The Punch as well as Twitter.

“Can’t believe the producers of the show let this happen – Australia, I quit,” one person wrote.

Another viewer said: “Would you find a satirical sketch about dying children funny?”, referring to a skit on The Chaser’s War On Everything which caused public outrage when it was aired on ABC TV in June.

“Nice going Australia, now your back to being racist again,” aishagrace tweeted.

On the flipside, a person put Connick Jr up against Australian viewers.

“As for Harry Connick – a storm in a tea cup. Until Harry made the point I do not think anyone would have given a hoot.”

Tweep stevetothe0 added: “I didn’t find the Michael Jackson act the slightest bit racist last night. One of the blokes was Indian! Lighten up aus.”

Wednesday’s broadcast was the second of two reunion shows for Hey Hey, which went off air in 1999.

Last week’s reunion broadcast peaked at 2.640 million viewers across the five major city markets.

Source: Hey Hey red-faced over blackface skit

One afternoon at Jazz at Chautauqua (mid-September 2009) I was walking through the musicians’ room — no doubt on my way to ask someone a question — when I was stopped abruptly by the unexpected and beautiiful sound of a man quietly crooning a song, accompanying himself on the guitar.  I didn’t know him but when he came to a halt I introduced myself, said how much I admired his singing, and asked if he would like me to capture an impromptu performance for my readers.  Happily, he said yes.  His name is Edward Lovett; he lives in New York; he admires early Crosby and the “transitional singers” of the late Twenties, without imitating them.  He reminds me very much of that old-time ideal of making lovely music all on your own — a Jazz Age troubadour, ready to serenade his lady with Carmichael and Porter.

I asked him what song he would like to offer, and we settled on STARDUST, with the verse.  I apologize for the rippling-waters accompaniment, but Edward’s performance was so complete that I did not want to ask for a retake.  Just imagine that Shep Fields and his Rippling Rhythm is rehearsing nearby:

Then he revealed previously unknown talents as a satirical contemporary lyricist — beginning his rendition of YOU’RE THE TOP with Porter’s verse before launching into three choruses full of nimble rhymes and social commentary:

If he isn’t Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, I don’t know the art of intimate singing.  And Petra van Nuis and Andy Brown, in the audience, agreed with me wholeheartedly (they know!).

Álbum: Late Night Final (Setanta, 2001)

Richard Hawley

Pocas maneras mejores se nos ocurren para inaugurar el blog que de la mano de uno de nuestros artistas favoritos, Richard Hawley. El de Sheffield nos seduce una vez más con esta canción, una de las más bonitas declaraciones de amor oídas nunca.

First time the longing in you wears the girl that grows it
And if he relieves you know that then you’ve blown it
And as life goes on you know you get to taste
All you find
‘Cos baby, you’re my light
Baby you’re my light

Puedes escucharla aqui

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Mario Biondi est blanc et italien, mais sa voix est comparable à celle des crooners noirs-américains les plus talentueux. Sa voix profonde, grave et veloutée nous entre dans les veines dès la première écoute. Une voix “barrywhitienne” à vous donner de voluptueux frissons, une voix à vous faire aimer le jazz… et tout le reste ! Cette voix peut rendre toute musique sublime et sensuelle, elle vous donne envie de l’écouter à l’infini. Si chaude et élégante, elle fait du bien à l’âme. Tout simplement.

L’album I love you more a été enregistré en public, au Teatro Smeraldo de Milan, avec, pour accompagner Mario Biondi, le Duke Orkestra (un orchestre composé de 25 éléments dont un ensemble à cordes) et le High Five Quintet (un quintette formé par quelques-uns parmi les meilleurs musiciens de jazz de la Péninsule).  L’alchimie créée entre le quintette de jazz, l’orchestre à cordes et la voix de Mario Biondi est parfaite et émouvante, les solos du trompettiste et du saxophoniste s’intercalent avec les parties vocales dans un mariage stylistique parfait.

Un double CD à écouter avec délectation, pour l’amour du jazz, des voix puissantes et de la soul qui vous possède irrémédiablement.

Je ne peux que vous conseiller d’écouter également l’autre extraordinaire album (le premier) de Mario Biondi Handful of soul, toujours avec le High Five Quintet, que vous trouverez bien évidemment dans notre réseau.

Katia

BIONDI, Mario. I love you more, live (Millenium Jazz, 2007)   Disponibilité

BIONDI, Mario. Handful of soul (Schema Records, 2006)   Disponibilité

… Et pour vous mettre l’eau à la bouche … et vous donner la chair de poule…

G’s away and the house feels incurably empty despite our clutter of cats. So I send this song out to G in hopes of seeing her again soon.

Song Recommendations

If you like this song, I also suggest:

• Dion and the Belmonts
• Etta James
• Frank Sinatra

I also suggest the music genre:

• Crooner

Click here for more info on Bobby Darin – “Beyond the Sea”.

The MP3 may be purchased here:

Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea

Grazie all’ultimo post del mio amico e maestro Ernesto Assante, ho riscoperto questa splendida canzone, della quale mi ero dimenticato

Ora mi sembra di non poterne più farne a meno. Richard Hawley, bella voce – un crooner d’altri tempi – è davvero british! Tra qualche giorno esce il nuovo disco, sono curioso di sentire com’è.

NOTE: The following story is a work of fiction.

Autumn in Hollywood, 1979. You knew the season had changed ’cause the sun bailed early after hanging all day, pouring OJ over the tinsel. Frank Sinatra wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be, but at least it was a place he found agreeable.

Frank was making a record. A monster, his first in years. Long enough for a whole generation of young people — those mile-tressed jackanapes who scorned him as Establishment passe, a weathered memory of ancient Camelot cool — to blob into blase adulthood, their Utopian passion dimmed by the mundane demands of reality. Shit, they may as well have matured into their image of him. Except Frank wasn’t that; Frank was still Frank, for the 64th year in a row, all lights and camera and action. “It” had been passed like a scepter from one pretender to the next during Ol’ Blue Eyes’ involuntary exile, but nobody came back like Frank.

“Good take, good take,” he nodded to the room as the music dispelled. The room was visibly relieved. All that remained was the anticipation of the Chairman’s next request. A full orchestra sat out the seconds; the ostensible directors, controllers, and engineers (titles, shmitles — Frank outranked ‘em all) sat behind glass and quietly counted the dimes as they tumbled off the ledger. Reprise’s dime. Frank’s dime, really, in a funny kind of way, since Reprise had once been his.

But then everything around Frank belonged to Frank: his time, his pipes — even the physical space they occupied now. Every inch of United Western Recorders was possible because of his financial generosity. If he and Bing hadn’t ponied up, old Bill Putnam would’ve been recording brass sections in his bathroom. Everyone benefited. Bill got his own place, and so did Frank. Whenever he got a golden-throated itch, this was where he came.

No one could recall who came up with the idea. The label yokels were always pitching the Chairman something, just to have an audience with him. They were obsessed with the concept of “now,” some revolutionary eureka that was actually a parasite clinging to older ideas, then spit-shone for a new batch of unwashed masses. This baby would be one of those mondo-numbers that bent your wallet and snapped your spine. If it went platinum there’d be a million happy hunchbacks.

The idea was pretty heavy too: a three-cylinder exploration of Sinatra’s whole career — the whole enchilada, all the way to marble and dirt, and all those years that he, you, and I would never, ever see, when kids landed spaceships on Neptune to neck to the Sinatra oeuvre. Sensational.

Now. Everybody jabbered that word. Excitement was always palpable in label conference rooms. Must be the tight space. “This is very now!” someone exclaimed, and for some reason, no one laughed him back to squaresville. Frank hated that word, cringed in its presence. He couldn’t swing. It was too…too — what’s the word…fluid? Fluctuating? Tenuous? Whatever. It was never faithful for long.

“Now” was a Sammy word. Sammy was always a little too conscious of the argot. That was his bag: “groovy,” “outtasite,” straining to ingratiate himself with the kids who couldn’t give a shit if he’d copped their language. He’d even bought the Cocoanut Grove, that wonderful nightclub smacked to the ass of the Ambassador Hotel, and tried to update its image. He squeezed out all the Tinseltown history and went disco-corndog, turning it into the “Now Grove,” a painfully hip embarrassment.

Frank remembered the words he’d taken to heart years before. “You know what ‘now’ is, kid?” some fuddy-duddy posited to a younger Ol’ Blue Eyes. “Tomorrow’s used-to-be.” And here “now” was again, fattened with hokey urgency by the adult children of the bobbysoxers who once melted in Sinatra’s presence. Don’t tell ME about now. I’ve seen so many come and go.

But everyone was thrilled with the project, a real label hard-on. Frank was interpreting contemporary material, a perfunctory nod to the kids, then hooking the grandmas with new jaunts down their shared hit parade (that fab nostalgia buck), then rocketing into the beyond on an ambitious trip for the professional chin-scratchers with access to typewriters and nationwide eyeballs.

It was an audacious swing for the fences that made Frank sound as if he sat at his hi-fi in his spare time, collecting songs and taking notes. Billy Joel was hot, with that great tune about being yourself. Frank in his prime would’ve made it a showstopper, the kind appreciative true-blues would cut off with applause before he reached the end of the first verse.

George Harrison was another cat who appreciated a cuddle number. He was a little older and from a slightly different era, but that was OK. George was a Beatle, beloved beyond belief. In Sinatra’s hands, “Something” could only be improved, its new master slipping into its awestruck gaze like a custom-tailored suit. Other ideas were floated, but everyone knew they meant nothing unless the Chairman was engaged.

Frank took all suggestions under advisement but resolved, as the Paul Anka (nice kid) anthem went, to do it his way. Which meant he would populate the project with his people. None of those knob-twisting weirdos the labels were always foisting on older artists. Frank didn’t need some excitable virgin shoveling funny dust up his nose and layering this on top of that with a slice of this other thing back here like he’s building the world’s most complicated shit sandwich. This was a job for Sonny Burke. Sonny was the genius who kissed greatness into September of My Years and too many other productions to count. (Trilogy would be his last.)

For the three sides, Frank called upon his most trusted arrangers. Billy May, who made every timeless crescendo sound as if dropped from Heaven, was a natural for “Past.” That was obvious, given their history together. For the “Present,” Sinatra grabbed Don Costa, the go-cat who loosened up pop for the new kids back in the ’50s. He made Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee” swing, Paul Anka’s (nice kid) “Lonely Boy” swoon, then guided Ol’ Blue Eyes through his early-’60s glory. “Future” went to Gordon Jenkins for the ultimate gas: marathon orchestrations, to put the dimestore jivesters and punklings on notice: You don’t fuck with forever. Record any scemo noodle you want — people dig classical pop, and that will never change.

Frank often fantasized about faceless critics — the ones he had yet to berate by phone or belt in person — wailing in terror when the youth-pandering electronics they were likely expecting were instead a wallop of their pops’ 78s, more vibrant than ever before. Go ahead and rail against the dinosaurs, pal. The last voice you hear will be mine.

“Why don’t we try this one, fellas,” Frank announced to the room. Pages dutifully shifted to the composition in question: Justin Hayward’s “Nights in White Satin,” a dangerously sneaky surge from the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed (1967). Frank enjoyed the album title’s pun and irony, and thought the song itself was gorgeous as hell, if a little overblown. He happened to catch it on a morning drive one day, when the song was enjoying something of a second wind, reaching #2 in 1972, some five years after its initial release. He felt the instrumentation (the aggressive thrust of Peter Knight and the London Festival Orchestra) was a little too powerful, but it made his whole being shudder nonetheless. Imagine what he and a little experienced sonic restraint could do with it.

Now he was about to find out.

He adjusted his reading glasses and awaited his entrance.

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I’ve written
Never meaning to send

He closed his eyes. Saw a beach. He felt the sand give beneath his feet and form walls between his toes. He carried his sandals in his left hand. In his right hand was her. She was young. Vibrantly young. Defiantly young. Brushing the strands of raven hair from a face the light ocean wind had the audacity to obscure. Her exotic features became even more so when she smiled, as she did right now, so long ago. He’d touched that smile so many times, pushed past it with his own, yet he was driven to it always.

Beauty I’d always missed

The strings arrived as commanded, and Frank shivered with them.

With these eyes before

Those eyes.

Just what the truth is

This was truth.

I can’t say anymore

There was so much left to say.

Frank felt an alien stirring in his heart, something that demanded to be summoned, released. It rattled from the deepest reservoir and shook his whole body.

‘Cause I love you

He’d sung that sentiment so many times, coaxed untold thousands to their radios to sigh over how much he cared. Now his declaration was the ultimate in personal, directed at one person: the girl in his fantasy, which was once his truth. He sang in a voice that was no longer his. The weight of his words thundered through everything in him that felt longing and pain.

Yes, I love you

The gathered began to notice a glow forming around the crooner. The players played through the distraction, possessed, trapped in perhaps the greatest love song ever committed to tape. They were startled by the change in Frank’s voice, which was still a formidable instrument even in this, his twilight. Not only were the years stripped away to expose a rip-roar delivery, it had an almost inhuman range that not even the younger Sinatra at his absolute zenith could reach. He seemed to be grabbing it from somewhere else.

Oh, how I love you

As the choir soothed its leader’s proclamation, the glow began to expand, until it caressed the entire studio in insistent red. One of the engineers thought he saw a flicker of movement in a space beyond his periphery, then an assistant tapped his shoulder and pointed at the ceiling. A little boy smiled from wall to wall. The startling vision cut abruptly to the next scene, this one of a waterfront, its waves crashing in a silent distance, as if watched from the safety of a pier. Italian faces filed past. Handshakes. Women. Lips. Flowers. Houses. Anonymous gazes lost in ecstasy, stretching down a darkened hall.

They were watching Frank’s memories. Sinatra, his orbs fused shut in rapture, was oblivious. The boy kept returning, waving at a gathering he couldn’t have seen, as he hailed from an America three generations back. Other couples strolled past overhead, stopped to watch, shook their heads, and pressed on.

Some try to tell me
Thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be
You won’t be in the end

This time the girl materialized. Forceful, gorgeous. Everyone in the studio recognized the fiery screen beauty. They also knew of her tumultuous history with the man before them now. But she was smiling with that famous smile that sent many boys happily to dreamland, the only place she would ever be theirs. She brought a certain comfort to the room and to Sinatra, who continued to perform with a near-lethal vigor. She watched as if listening only to him.

And I love you
Yes, I love you
Oh, how I love you

Her smile covered the width of their little world. If they reached out, they could touch it. The ocean wind continued to pull her hair across her face, obscuring her features. She made no effort to stop it, which only added to the mystery and glamour of her once-endless youth.

As the music finally settled, so did the room. When it died, she was gone. And Sinatra opened his eyes as if for the very first time.

The main engineer collected what was left of him and punched into the room. “Playback?” he asked.

“N-no,” Sinatra stammered, visibly shaken. “I never want to hear that again.”

Slated for inclusion on the Trilogy set, “Nights in White Satin” was deemed unreleasable. It was replaced on the “Present” disc by the more straightforward “That’s What God Looks Like to Me,” recorded without incident. It seems even the Man Upstairs lacked the power of She. “Satin” remains in the vaults — deep within, locked away, a still-beating heart.

]]> http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/song-of-the-day-82709/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:32:52 +0000 delarue http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/song-of-the-day-82709/

This hasn’t been a blow-off month for us – it’s been a fun month. We’ve been going out a fair amount, but not for the sake of creating content for Lucid Culture. Instead, this August has been a welcome chance to catch up with friends and to see some old favorites who’ve been reviewed ad infinitum. There’s still an ever-growing stack of cds here waiting to be reviewed and what looks like an amazing month of live music coming up in September, at least as far as NYC is concerned. Stay tuned and you’ll be able to find out about all that. In the meantime, as we do every day, our top 666 songs of alltime countdown gets one step closer to #1. Thursday’s song is #335:

LJ Murphy – Bovine Brothers

Like a lot of the NYC noir rock legend’s other songs, this scathing anti-fascist broadside’s been through a lot of incarnations. The latest is a slow, 6/8 blues ballad. But the fiery, Costelloesque version he was playing circa 2002 or so is the best, a nightmare urban tableau where “a sermon blares from the roof of a radio car.” Unreleased, but there are bootlegs out there.

Will is the kind of guy who would walk me home after school. Very understanding face, plays guitar, and very much the settle down type. I, would have never took him seriously. Now as an adult woman…he’s my type. I heard the Parachute’s song “She is Love” on VH1 countdown and this brunette hottie caught my attention. There is nothing more attractive than a man that can sing, write, perform, and melt your panties simultaneously. Will is my new fave crooner…watch out Adam & John. Enjoy the view

Gary Crosby Admits that He, Bing Bitterly Estranged

By Rick Du Brow (UPI Staff Writer)

LAS VEGAS, ev. (UPI)—Gary Crosby, eldest son of crooner Bing Crosby, admitted today he is bitterly estranged from his father.

“We just don’t get along,” he told United Press International in an exclusive interview.

Gary, 26 said Bing has not yet come to see him and his three brothers—Dennis, Philip and Lindsay—in their smash new nightclub act at the Sahara Hotel here.

And, he added, he has no intention of extending an invitation to the crooner.

“The other boys can invite him if they want,” he said.  “Ain’t gonna bother me in the least.”

There have been reports from friends of the Crosby family that Bing might slip into town quietly some night to catch the show, which began July 28 and will end Sept. 3.

But in Hollywood, Bing’s brother and business adviser, Larry, said:

“I doubt it.  Bing has no such plans that I know of.  One reason is that he’s with a group fishing off Alaska.

“I’m not going up to Vegas.  The boys want to be on their own, and I imagine Bing feels the same way about it that I do.”

Gary, sitting in his dressing room between shows, said:

“Dad did some things last Christmas that I felt were far from right.  They’re personal, very personal, and I can’t explain any more.  But he’s done a lot of other things in the past that I didn’t like.  I’m sure no one knows him as well as I do although a lot of people think they do.”

“We always wanted to be together in show business,” Gary said.  “We just waited until Linnie got out of the Army.  We always knew we could get along on our own although some people, of course, didn’t think so.”

Gary conceded the Crosby name has “helped” the brother act.

“But,” he said, “you’ve gotta have something else to make it because if you’re out there five minutes and nothing happens, dad, you’re dead.

“And in some ways, the name has hurt us.  There’s no way for us to start at the bottom, where we could learn.  People expect something immediately when they see the Crosby name.”

08-12-1959 – The Bend Bulletin

BING CROSBY STORE