Dave Horne Posted January 10, 2005 Share Posted January 10, 2005 A friend of mine lent me her Jamie Cullum CD. I was in a store recently and heard this great singer and asked who he was. I also had heard Jamie on BBC TV and was knocked out by how good he was. Now, to the point. He sings Singin' In the Rain. I know that tune and never thought about using it until now. In the original fake book (Book 1), the changes are very simple and it is not a tune you would think that would lend itself to anything other than the original interpretation that we all grew up with - Gene Kelly's. Well, with just a little amount of work (reharmonization and changing the tune to a Latin), it works. The changes are still pretty basic but it's a great tune to improvise over, plus everyone probably has heard it. That's it. I'm just adding more tunes to my own personal fake book and I was taking a five minute break from the keyboard. No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Zeger Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 I like that Jamie Cullum CD, "twentysomething". It's light but very clever. Easy to like. I recommended it on some other thread on one of the forums here. Reminds me of a cross between Harry Connick Jr., Norah Jones, and Bruce Hornsby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted January 11, 2005 Author Share Posted January 11, 2005 Mark, there's another old tune on that CD called Blame It On My Youth. I found it in my set of fake books and learned it was composed by Oscar Levant. I believe Oscar Levant played piano in the film An American In Paris. He was friends with George Gershwin and well as George's lovely sister Ira. (If that's incorrect, someone will correct me, but he was featured in at least one film and was a guest on the old Jack Parr Show.) At any rate, there are many great stories about OL. I remember one where he was stopped by the police for speeding. He had a turntable (or a portable jukebox) installed in his car and was listening to Bach's 2nd Brandenburg Concerto. His response was something like, 'how can you expect me to drive slowly listening to this?'. I also remember one quote from him - The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue. No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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