Benny Goodman - Memories of You

For my money, one of the most beautiful songs ever written.  The lyrics are powerfully evocative, but even as an instrumental, I hear it and memories of life and loves flow past in an unending rainbow of sentiment.

Benny Goodman's clarinet was legendary and the piano of the inimitable Teddy Wilson is beyond compare.

Here are the lyrics to Memories of You.  If you can find the vocal version by Bette Midler, you'll fall in love all over again with your memories.

Waking skies - at sunrise
Every sunset too
Seems to be - bringing me
Memories of you

Here and there - every where
Scenes that we once knew
And they all - just recall
Memories of you

(Oh) How I wish I could forget those, (those) happy yesteryears
That have left a rosary of tears

Your face beams - in my dreams
(In) Spite of all (that) I do
(And) Everything - seems to bring
Memories of you 

Jazz for a Lazy Sunday:Bunny Berigan & Orch-I Can't Get Started

Bunny Berigan, one of the most original jazz musicians of the 20;s and 30’s, was given a fiddle when he was a kid and later his grandfather gave him a trumpet.  He learned to play both and by high school, he was playing fiddle with the school band and trumpet professionally with a jazz orchestra.

Later he hooked up with Benny Goodman.  Want to hear some other great Berigan solos?  Listen to Goodman’s ‘King Porter Stomp’ and ‘Sometimes I’m Happy,’ both from 1935. 

Soon Berigan was on his way, with his own orchestra and a hit number called ‘I Can’t Get Started.’  Recorded in 1937, it was to be his one big shot.  By 1940, Berigan’s orchestra was gone, he’d gotten on with Tommy Dorsey’s band (Check out his solo on ‘Marie.’) and then been dropped.  Heavy drinking had worked its horrific transformation, turning promise and future into empty and past.  In 1942, at the age of 33, cirrhosis of the liver silenced the magic trumpet of Bernard R. Berigan.  But, the bits and pieces of solos and songs still thrill, their ups and downs, happiness and melancholy always reminding us of the talent that once was Bunny Berigan.

Jazz for a Lazy Sunday Afternoon

One of the finest jazz musicians ever, Benny Goodman's clarinet took jazz from the backstreet speakeasies to Carnegie Hall.  His 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, featuring his orchestra, trio, and quartet, is still hailed as the greatest jazz concert ever.

The Goodman Quartet featured Benny Goodman on clarinet, Gene Krupa on drums, Lionel Hampton on vibes, and my all time favorite jazz pianist, Teddy Wilson.

Goodman took the long way around to get to the top.  Born into an impoverished Russian, Jewish, immigrant family, Benny was the ninth of twelve children.  HIs got his first music lessons in a synagogue.  At the age of 16, he joined Ben Pollack's jazz orchestra.  Pollack's eye for talent led him to hire, in addition to Goodman, such future jazz greats as Jack Teagarden, Glen Miller, and Harry James, all of whom went on to form their own orchestras. 

The Goodman Quartet, featured on this recording, brought together Benny Goodman on clarinet, Gene Krupa on drums, Lionel Hampton on vibes, and my all time favorite jazz pianist, Teddy Wilson.  Very tough to beat that combo!