LEFTOVER STARS

A lot of stars have flown over the bridge since my last stars turn (June 8), which I abandoned mid-post, and which was to be continued when browsers no longer go on the blink and Jupiter aligns with Mars — like, maybe after the dawning of the….

With so much happening in our wayward world, you’re forgiven if you’ve forgotten my intention to follow up. But that doesn’t mean you’re spared these leftovers — because it dawned on me even back then that….

Speaking of remembering, I’d like to note the passing eight days ago of Vera Lynn at age 103. I know of no more popular English female vocalist, especially during WW II when she toured Egypt, India, and Burma entertaining British troops, who named her their favorite musical artist. A brilliant new star shines in the heavens this month.

You may have gathered by now, friends, that the Firefox fix is finally in. Actually (and unbelievably), as I was preparing this post yesterday, I stumbled upon a way to copy music videos to my blog — so, between today’s fix and yesterday’s good fortune (my technological ignorance notwithstanding), I’m feeling so sky high, I could reach up and grab….

With a shout out of appreciation to those readers who offered possible solutions to my tech problems, I’ll close out this series of star songs with THE star female vocalist of the 20th century:

LIKE, WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t liked your posts since about this time yesterday. I haven’t liked them, not because I haven’t liked them, but because I haven’t been able to Like them. All I get where one normally clicks “Like” is “Loading” — and as much as I’d like it to stop Loading, it doesn’t. I can still comment, but if I commented on all the posts I like but can’t Like, I’d spend my whole day writing comments….which isn’t likely, because I also like to eat, sleep, and be merry. So, since I can’t Like you on your posts, I’ll LIKE you musically here.

Speaking of being merry, today is the birthday (May 21, 1904) of Thomas “Fats” Waller, who was about the merry-makingest singer/songwriter/pianist I know. Here he at the piano with such fellow jazz greats as Jack Teagarden and Gene Krupa playing his own composition I NEED SOMEONE LIKE YOU:

There’s more “Like” songs where that came from. Here is the First Lady of Song/Queen of Jazz singing a ballad like only she can:

I’d like to close with something high class, like this:

 

INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY

April 30 is INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY. Mistermuse could write a book about jazz, but many books have already been authored by jazz writers more authoritative than he, so mistermuse will settle for doing a post — and on this post, he has a chick who can sing a lick here, scat a lick there, wing a lick everywhere:

You may think that’s hotter than a chicken wing or a pig on a spit — but here’s a cat who can scat too, and when he blows his bugle, he’s even….

Is your computer smoking yet? We don’t want to alarm the Firehouse brigade, so before your pc bursts into a

….let’s do one number more and stop at four, because….

 

 

TWO IN ONE

April 23 is both LOVER’S DAY and TAKE A CHANCE DAY. As it happens, one of my favorite composers wrote a song which encompasses both of those gambols/gambles in one title:

The name of that composer is Vladimir Dukelsky, better known to lovers (of The Golden Age of Popular Music) as VERNON DUKE, writer of such all-time standards as APRIL IN PARIS and AUTUMN IN NEW YORK. Here, in keeping with our ‘double take’ on this occasion, is one of his lesser known songs:

On this April day, I will keep our celebration short and bittersweet by closing with the above-noted ‘song of the month’:

SWIFT, UP AMONG THE CHIMNEY POTS

chimney pot, a pipe of earthenware or metal fitted on top of a chimney to increase the draft and carry off the smoke. –The World Book Dictionary

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Today I’d like to tell you about a classy dame by the name of KAY SWIFT, who was the first woman to write the complete score for an American musical (FINE AND DANDY, in 1930). To be honest, though, that wasn’t what prompted me to write this post — the real trigger was that, although I’ve long been a fan of her music, today I came across a song of hers I hadn’t heard before, and I liked it so much that I’d like to share it with you (along, while I’m at it, with two other Swift favorites).

The song I hadn’t heard before (with the curious title UP AMONG THE CHIMNEY POTS) is sung here by jazz vocalist Louise Carlyle, with the composer at the piano:

SWIFT was born in NYC in 1897. She trained as a classical musician and composer at what is now called the Julliard School, but was a great fan of popular songwriter Irving Berlin and, later, George Gershwin, with whom she became intimately involved (for more, go to this link, then click BIOGRAPHY (upper left below the word SWIFT):

http://www.kayswift.com/

Swift married her first husband, banker James Warburg, in 1918. A banker might be the last person you think of as a writer of lyrics to romantic songs, but’s that’s exactly what he was (under the name Paul James) to the music of his composer wife….until they divorced in 1934 — the same year he resigned as financial advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt.

I turn now to the first-written (1929) of my favorite Kay Swift/Paul James songs:

Let’s close with the title song from the aforementioned 1930 musical FINE AND DANDY:

JUST BECAUSE

Four days after RIDE THE WIND DAY comes JUST BECAUSE DAY. Because Aug. 27 is JUST BECAUSE DAY — and because some solid* would-be-gone-with-the wind songs didn’t make my RIDE THE WIND DAY post — today conveniently provides an excuse to rewind and take up where I left off. As it happens, I have just the appropriate song:

Of all the wind songs I failed to include in my last post, perhaps I blew it the most with….

If you’re feeling a bit low from on high,
don’t end up on the downside like this guy….

Be like Ella. Tell a fella….

*Swing era slang for great, wonderful, sensational, far-out

 

DON’T FORGET TO KISS AND MAKE UP

First, I want to beg your forgiveness for forgetting to publish a post for you on July 2nd (I FORGOT DAY), for I forgot it was I FORGOT DAY….but even if I hadn’t forgotten it was I FORGOT DAY,  I might have forgotten to forget what I forgot. In any case, my bad.

If memory serves me right, friends, they say you never get a second chance to make a worst impression. But now it’s July 6th (INTERNATIONAL KISSING DAY), so let us let bygones be bygones, kiss and make up. After all, if Trump and North Korean dicktator Kim Jong Un can rise above it all on the world stage, you can see that you and I, surely, should be able to get down to a measure of serendipity on this piddling platform (albeit a bit less passionately than The Donald embracing Un). Of course, it would surely help if you….

And just in case you forgot how Trump and Un have come to feel about each other….

Surly friends, it’s TIME to bury the hatchet, forget that I forgot, dig our differences, and pucker up. However, since kissing can transmit 80 million microbes of bacteria in a single buss, I suggest we get off the buss and blow each other kisses electronically. Ready. Set. Blow. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I’d blow more, but I don’t want this post to be X-rated. Besides, I want to leave space for you to return the love….

I’m waiting.

 

SCREENINGS FOR ELLA

“….any day with Ella Fitzgerald is a grand day. ….that song [is] another one I hadn’t heard before.” –from a June 13 comment to my last (June 6th) post by Silver Screenings (a blog published by ‘Ruth’)

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In my reply to Ruth, I noted that with June 15 nearing (the 23rd anniversary of Ella’s death), I’d use the occasion to post a remembrance, including clips of other songs she may not have heard Ella sing. Over the years, I’ve probably done over a dozen Ella clips, including a half dozen in my April 25th post titled THE FIRST LADY OF SONG. After screening a few previous Ella posts to try to avoid repetition, hopefully the songs that follow will fall fresh on Ruth’s ‘Ella-fan-true’ ears (as opposed to mistermuse’s Elephant ears).

Let’s start with an early Ella (as ‘girl’ vocalist with Chick Webb’s Orchestra in April 1936):

Next, we turn from the swinging Ella to a more dreamy Ella:

Before you tune out, I know some of you guys aren’t fans of my kind of music (or the songbirds who warble it), so next time I’ll consider a return to posting about your (and Mexico’s) favorite tweeter of note, Donaldo el Trumpo — mean-o-while, I bid you a fond….

THE FIRST LADY OF SONG

The only thing better than singing is more singing. –Ella Fitzgerald

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Today marks the birthday (4/25/1917) of one of my all-time favorite female jazz vocalists, Ella Fitzgerald. Nearly forty years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing/hearing The First Lady of Song (as she was fittingly known) when she was appearing in San Francisco at a time I happened to be there. Her performance that night confirmed what I’d dug from decades of collecting her records and listening to her sing and interpret lyrics as only she could.

Ella, my musical muse and soulmate in song, for all the ‘spiritual’ pleasure you brought (and continue to bring) me and countless other fans over the years, this post is….

Like the Lady said at the start, the only thing better than singing is more singing (especially when It’s Wonderful singing):

I first got hooked on (and continue to love) Ella’s feel for a song as the ‘girl’ vocalist with Chick Webb’s Band in the mid-to-late 1930s. Even before reaching stardom, there was little doubt she meant it when she expressed….

….and then she became the band’s BIG attraction when her rendition of A-TISKET, A TASKET became a #1 hit in 1938. Later in her career, Ella’s vocals evolved into more of a scat-singing style, but I didn’t scat from evolving with her and echoing….

….and I hope it’s all right with you.

 

SCAT!

Wait — don’t scat! Stay where you are and let scat come to you — scat singing, that is — and who better to lay the scat on you than two of the best: Mel Tormé, whose birthday (9/13/25) we celebrate this month, and the First Lady of Scat, Ella Fitzgerald:

Man, if that didn’t knock your socks off, you’d better put your shoes on and scat back to Squaresville, because you’re just not with it! To say scat singing is little more than vocal jazz improvisation with nonsense words is like saying The Donald is just improvising when he lets loose with nonsense tweets (to use a reverse perverse metaphor).

So, who was the cat who ‘invented’ scat? There seems to be no definitive answer, but some say it began 2/26/26 when Louis Armstrong supposedly forgot the words to this song and began improvising a little more than halfway through the recording:

Let’s wrap it up with this recent scat-iteration (which, I kid you not, ends with tweets):

And now you can scat! Come back any time.