Blossom Dearie - Lush Life
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- Опубликовано: 24 апр 2011
- Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life," such a beautifully sad song. This version from Blossom Dearie's 1979 live recording, Needlepoint Magic, is probably my favorite. The despair of the song combined with the delicacy of her voice just stuns me every time.
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The starkness of this recording is mesmerizing, true vocaleeze, no autotune, just notes vocals and the "space" in-between
Perfect. 11 years was worth it.
Blossom Dearie sounded young her whole life Voice never changed, forever young
A lesson in song writing, and interpretation. 💛🎶
This will always be my favorite version of Lush Life. I did see her perform in the 80's when I was in college and she joined us for a drink afterwards. Sweet lady and large talent.
You lucky lucky guy!!
Nice
Truly a great version.
Wow!
Wonderful. Those years she was learning how to play and sing Lush Life were years well spent.
Best version I’ve ever heard of this song
Bill Evans said he admired her and used to go listen to her in clubs. She obviously had an influence on him.
I was going to say that I only now heard that connection, since Evans was the only other Blossom contemporary who could hold this kind of aching tempo so tenaciously without breaking it.
I adore her piano and sweet voice...simply wonderful....
I do too, but always secretly wish she had recorded on a boffo Steinway B or D. This sounds tinky, but I can't complain. She's magical. Heard her in person.
She was so the best. Heard her live and spoke with her at The Ballroom in Lower Manhattan back in the 80s. She's gone.
Blossom at her absolute best. I'll always regret not having heard her "live."
I did hear her and it was magical. I wish you had too, Stan.
This has always been one of my favorite jazz standards, and I think this has become my favorite version.
that's a subtle, beautiful version ... thank you BD
It's incredible how many artists strayhorn has inspired to cover his brilliant song. Everyone adding his own seasoning to it
Absolutely. I actually met a relation to Billy Strayhorn in college. A girl. She is beautiful I might add. Good genes.
I love her performance of this great tune… her voice is so sweet and her piano playing is amazing and so is her voice… I love it… just piano and voice… it really touched me
ahahah I am on the way to eleven years :D thanks Blossom, I feel better now
Blossom was a consumate vocalist and Pianist! I had the good fortune to have seen her Live some twenty times[Starting in an Italian restaurant In Buffalo NY in 1965 and ending with her Appearamce at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in the eariy 1990s She is sorely missed. Stacey Kent is an excellent Song Stylist whose Voice IS reminiscent of Blossom.
I too am a fan of both Blossom and Stacey. While I never got to see Blossom, we saw Stacy at Birdland earlier this year. What a treat, and at such a great and storied venue!
I saw her at that SF show, too- One of the highlights of concert going years. I just loved her and had two dozen or so of her CDs.
Wonderful. She owns this one if you ask me.
I think she rushes a little, but still, great version! Awesome piano arrangement. Maybe compare with Lady Gaga's..
Exquisite! Lovely performance
I love Blossom Dearie
One of my favorite songs in this world. :) Thanks
Ro
A fine version of this song. The piano helps in making the song even more poignant.
Fiercely yet gently individualistic. Wonderful.
mindydawn1 You're so right about Blossom's delicacy with the song's despair. Absolutely gorgeous and like no other version I've heard. Thanks so much for this.
Oh! She is exquisite! I'm going to be a new fan.
Stunning.
What a beautifully sensitive and deep interpretation of Strayhorn's masterwork. Thank you so much for posting this.
I love this unusual song, first heard Sinatra sing it, (he recorded it in about 1958). Dearie was before my time but when I finally did hear her sing a few years ago, I loved her unusual, little-girl voice! Talented lady on the piano as well as singing. (The lyrics of this song are so typical of a person wallowing in the sorrow of a lost love, and the booze they use to deaden the pain.) Sad. You can run away to Paris but that won't kill the pain "burning inside my brain" as some of us know all too well!)
absolutley beautiful!
Ah fantastic. So heartfelt
Thanks for posting ~ along with the great pictures. This is up there with her 1994 recording in Australia, accompanied on piano by Phil Scorgie. Here she acknowledges how hard a song it is to sing & play ~ & she does both here, exceptionally. There's a clip on RUclips with Sinatra trying, but calling it off, never to get around to doing it.
Very delicate and sensitive
@Wheelie55 Great to know someone feels the same way I do about the Blossom version! (Hartman's good, of course, but nothing compares for me to the delicacy with which Blossom does it.)
A really great pianist…….
Billy would approve.
A fantastic
Song she interprets so well
Thank you Miss Blossum.
Don't know what made me think of this song today, but I remember seeing Blossom on The Mike Douglas Show (I think) back in the 70s, and I credit her intimate performance with turning me on to jazz. She commented then that it took 11 years to get her confidence up to perform it live - I wonder if this is from that TV appearance? Whatever the source, it's a great version of a great song. Blossom remains one of my favorite singer - musicians; I regret never seeing her in person, but her recordings are priceless.
Looks like it was recorded at a place called Reno Sweeny? cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0002/332/MI0002332144.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
But she probably did a similar introduction every time she performed it, I imagine. She died the spring before I moved to NYC for law school, and I was *CRUSHED* not just because the world had lost such a gift but because I would never get to see her live. (I think she stopped performing a few years before that, but I always had a little hope that if I was in NYC she might pop up at a supper club somewhere or something...)
mindydawn, I get ya! Delicate and so sweetly sad. I just can't sing like Blossom. As a baritone, I like learning from a voice like Johnny Hartmann's(and Tony and Frank and Dino and Mel and...) Thanks again.
loved!!
Beautiful !
Que hermoso, simplemente maravilloso.
Thanks for this. For my money, Blossom and Hartmann do the finest versions of this beautiful song
Reeeaaaalllyyyy ?
I also liked Natalie Cole's version.
@Sean Francis Waters Lancaster Animal-hating "Lady Gaga" didn't realize this song was not meant to be belted out, like Joe Williams.
I discovered this gem on the "Donna Summer" album produced by Quincy Jones.
Parabéns, muito lindo 👏👏👏👏
Wow
Many great versions of this... Natalie Cole in my mind is the best as it has a full orchestra, and modern recording technology. But this is great too...
Wow.
Blossom's and Rickie Lee Jones's versions are my favorite
i wondered if someone would mention Rickie ! - i'm with you ! (Blossom is wonderfully delicate, i love her... but Rickie...)
Her Piano is more Elligtonnish that Strayhornish!
i wonder if Strayhorn enjoyed both Dearie's and Hartman's performance equally.
Funny I was just thinking of Johnny Hartman version!
Natalie Cole???
Donna Summer's was the all time best, This is the only one that sounds like the same song Donna sang. Surprisingly very good. I wish she had sung the extra 2 minutes in Donna's version(which is in no other version, kind of unfair to the other singers).
@wimpers I hadn't heard of Andy Bey. I will definitely check him out.
She nails the songspiele asthetic
You are beautyful lady gaga
does it justice actually.. Try esperanza spalding, too.. and yeah,, nothing beats the original where billy sings it yet - this song is so complex like life itself,, so there is no perfect rendition :_
Not "With distant gay traces" but "With distingué traces" (Deestangay = Traces of elegance/chicness). It's French. Listen on RUclips to Kay Davis and Billy Strayhorn himself performing it. She obviously didn't know the correct words, since she spoke French. Good performance.
her french could be okay at times. it's always funny when a musician isn't very good with languages. kind of doesn't go together.
I'm really glad you cleared that up!
Very feminine, very haunting
You and Me, Blossom my dearie. 2o years on, i know the melody and lyrics, and 89.26719 % of the changes, but still fuck up bar 6 of the D section. Every fucking time. And Bars 8-12 of the B section. Every fucking time. The rest i play perfectly. I dinne get it laddeee! I dinne ken the reason that... "HE KANNE DO IT". somebody help me please
I think i got it now. Part of it.
I -"of Ab13 a (great) love for I me B9 (b5)" I
i'll try this for memory triggers.
I "AAAhhh---vvv (soft A for Ab)---Ab13 a FLAT love for I MEE.. B7 .( B rhymes with mee) I
I "BUT (Bb9) yes I was FLAT I AAAA-gain (A7) I was I
I Ebm dong dong (ii) WRONG I D7 ding dang dong tri sub of Db dong I
you see the problem don't you? too many Ab and A's . and an asymmetric VII7 chord shit.
I 've tried to memorize it with the "number system" too, but it doest stick.
Try again i guess.
Ab is the V dom of Db. the key of the song.
B9b5 is a VII dom. how do you remember that? it's not really part of "standard progressions"
then it goes to V of ii (of Db).... descending a half step from the VII dom chord
i guess that's easy enough to remember. I hope it will be.
Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.
(repeat after me, 8 times, please :
Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.Bar 8 of the B section , after 8 bars of a very standard minor blues progression, lands on the V dom of the original key. ( Db) Which is the relative major of f minor.
then it goes to VII dom of Db, which is B79b5
then it descends a half step then it descends s half step
then it descends a half step then it descends s half stephen
then it descends a half step then it descends s half step
then descends a half step then it descends s half step to......
Bb 7 9 which is the V of ii
to Ebm7
to a raised V (A7b5) "ahhh (A) gain"
back to the min ii
Ebm7 (sus)
to V dom of db ( tritone sub. )
D13 #11
Easy fucking peasy...... right.
Actually, it works. Once you get the first A (aahh)chord, in bar 8
I can i hope remember that it steps out of *normal progression, and goes to B7
then a half step down to Bb7 which is the V of
the ii Ebm
* now somehow symmetric, in terms of pattern, change to the asymmetric A7
back to the ii
end of V (tri sub)
well it worked
ask me again in a week to play it without the book.. oh my
having a bad memory is definitely a handicap whilst trying to play jazz
You guys like Andy Bey s version check it out. love Blossom s version
What can you say.
I had no idea that she played the piano.Excellent
How could you NOT know?
So was her voice just a gimmick?
Time will tell.............................