Why this tune? Tunes on Tuesday celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month with another seasonal classic. Tommy Wolf wrote the music in 1955 to a lyric by Fran Landesman, her jazz interpretation of T. S. Eliot’s “April is the cruelest month.” It’s a complex musical setting for a complex lyric exploring the singer’s feelings of loss andContinue reading “Tunes on Tuesday: Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most”
Tag Archives: American Songbook
Tunes on Tuesday: Everything Happens to Me
Why this tune? This week’s song is another one from the American songbook, a pop song from 1940 written by Matt Dennis and Tom Adair. It was a hit for Frank Sinatra, singing with Tommy Dorsey’s band, and entered the jazz repertoire soon after, recorded by Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and many others. I’m attractedContinue reading “Tunes on Tuesday: Everything Happens to Me”
Tunes on Tuesday: It Might As Well Be Spring
Why this tune? As the weather gets colder in DC, I turned to an American classic about spring by Rodgers and Hammerstein, written for the 1945 film “State Fair.” “It Might As Well Be Spring” is not really about spring as a season, but as a metaphor for joy and new beginnings. Thereare many otherContinue reading “Tunes on Tuesday: It Might As Well Be Spring”
Oren Levine, jazz pianist and songwriter 