On the Beat

I have been listening to this evening’s Prom on the radio, featuring the newly knighted Johnny Dankworth leading a big big band in a couple sets of largely Ellington numbers; they’re just finishing with a feisty reprise of Take the A Train. A family affair – son Alec is on bass – the vocals are provided by Lady Dankworth, Cleo Laine. (Lady Laine has a kind of Billie-like air to it.)

( I’m not a fan of jazz vocalists, really... )

The song that has been strongly lodged in my mind today is "My Funny Valentine"; it won't budge.

Actually, it isn't the song so much as the piano introduction to the tune on the Miles Davis record Cookin', with Red Garland on the piano. It is a lovely little figure, backed with just the bass, before the trumpet
comes.

And it is going around and around and around in my head.

Still, Rogers and Hart wrote one of the all-time classic lyrics with the line "Your looks are laughable, unphotographeable..."

Brilliant.

My favourite vocal version is a life recording by Elvis Costello, which brings out the inherent sadness in the song - it is beautiful.