05-01-2017, 11:54 AM
Commenting on some of the above comments-
I heard "City of Stars" during the Oscars and wasn't impressed. The opening line got me curious, but it was the only good melodic bit in the song.
The only good halfway recent (and not that recent really) musical I can think of is Everyone Says I Love You. And that's also the only non-Disney recent one I can think of. Before that maybe Pennies From Heaven. And there was that musical episode of Buffy.
I am very fond of musicals from the 1930s, where there is almost always one really good song, and I often hear good ones I don't know. Busby Berkeley in particular does some great productions. Yes they are silly, but when they moved to a style where the songs are more integrated into the plot (as in Oklahoma etc.), it meant that fewer of the songs could be standards, since they are specific to the show, and the Rodgers/Hammerstein style is less exciting to me than Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin etc. because it's not as swinging.
Yes, Astaire is a weak singer, but he had a fantastic sense of rhythm, so he could put the song across. Same thing with Gene Kelly. And now most performers are weak singers, which is why the backup singers always double the lines in live performance when they can't use studio tricks to improve it.
And the "white guy explaining jazz" thing- it is foolish to say that jazz is/was a purely black art form, just as it's foolish to say that Country is purely white. Both were born from miscegenation and borrowing. And the vast majority of standards were written by white people, and that's a big chunk of the repertoire. Plus West Coast Jazz was pretty white, with big names like Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan.
I heard "City of Stars" during the Oscars and wasn't impressed. The opening line got me curious, but it was the only good melodic bit in the song.
The only good halfway recent (and not that recent really) musical I can think of is Everyone Says I Love You. And that's also the only non-Disney recent one I can think of. Before that maybe Pennies From Heaven. And there was that musical episode of Buffy.
I am very fond of musicals from the 1930s, where there is almost always one really good song, and I often hear good ones I don't know. Busby Berkeley in particular does some great productions. Yes they are silly, but when they moved to a style where the songs are more integrated into the plot (as in Oklahoma etc.), it meant that fewer of the songs could be standards, since they are specific to the show, and the Rodgers/Hammerstein style is less exciting to me than Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin etc. because it's not as swinging.
Yes, Astaire is a weak singer, but he had a fantastic sense of rhythm, so he could put the song across. Same thing with Gene Kelly. And now most performers are weak singers, which is why the backup singers always double the lines in live performance when they can't use studio tricks to improve it.
And the "white guy explaining jazz" thing- it is foolish to say that jazz is/was a purely black art form, just as it's foolish to say that Country is purely white. Both were born from miscegenation and borrowing. And the vast majority of standards were written by white people, and that's a big chunk of the repertoire. Plus West Coast Jazz was pretty white, with big names like Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan.
the hands that guide me are invisible