Media Curmudgeon

« November 2008 | Main | January 2009 »

December 28, 2008

Lovers' List

This coming January my wonderful, perfect wife, Julia, and I will celebrate our ninth anniversary and her birthday – I’m lucky we got married on her birthday because I have only one date to remember. Julia is not a perfect person, thank goodness, but she is the perfect wife for me.

She is seventeen years younger than I am, much smarter, adorable, and has a traffic-stopping figure which she tires to hide by dressing modestly. Her hobby is reading, not shopping, and she’s a reading teacher who helps young people learn to read and be successful in school. Is it any wonder I wooed her so vigorously nine years ago and asked her to marry me on our sixth date?

What was the winning secret? It wasn’t money (I didn’t have much at the time). It wasn’t looks (I was too old). No, it was music. I got a Sony disc player and put together a Hit List of 35 of the most romantic songs I knew of. In 2001 I transferred the songs to my new iPod into a Playlist I called Romance-1, and have since added Romance-2, -3, and -4.

After nine years our love has deepened, and much of the credit has to go to our lover’s list of songs, which I play often. It’s worked for us, so I thought I’d share the top songs on our list.

Even though Julia grew up in the late 60’s, our songs are classics from the Great American Song Book (as Jonathan Schwartz would say) – songs written in the 20s, 30s, and 40s for the most part. Beyoncé may be modern and gorgeous, but her slick packaging is all hat and no cows when compared to the plain majesty and brilliance of Ella Fitzgerald. Or would you like to compare Dr. Dre or Jay-Z to Frank Sinatra or Johnny Hartman?

Today’s lyrics, if you can make them out over the incessant beat, don’t hold a candle to the romantic, sophisticated, often bittersweet lyrics of Lorenz Hart or Ira Gershwin. Hart and Gershwin were born a year apart in the 1890s and were the sons of Jewish immigrants who lived in Harlem and Brooklyn respectively. They weren’t victims of their environment; they knew how to get out of it by writing happy, romantic songs you wanted to sing and make love to, not to fight or kill cops to.

Lovers’ List

1. Johnny Hartman (with John Coltrane): “My One and Only Love” by Guy Wood and Robert Mellin. The sexist song and sexist rendition ever. The perfect lover’s song — guaranteed success. Hartman has no peer other than Sinatra as a singer of romantic ballads and Coltrane’s extended introduction is a jazz classic that’s foreplay for Hartman’s vocal love making.
   
2. Ben Webster and Art Tatum: “My One and Only Love.” The greatest jazz sax player and pianist ever team up on a flawless instrumentation of the Wood-Mellin classic.
   
3. Stephane Grappelli: “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” by Manning Sherwin and Eric Maschwit. The peerless jazz violinist’s soaring bridge sends chills all the way up your legs.
   
4. Tony Bennett: “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” by George and Ira Gershwin. The quintessential sad love song. It’s a close call between Bennett’s version and those of Ella, Sinatra, and Bobby Short. Any of them will do the trick. Gershwin received his sole Oscar nomination for the Best Original Song at the 1937 Oscars for "They Can't Take That Away from Me" written for the film “Shall We Dance.” The nomination was posthumous, as he died two months after the film's release.
   
5. Bobby Short: “I Can’t Get Started” by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin. Gershwin’s clever, then-topical lyrics in which a defeated lover pokes fun at himself. Bunny Berrigan’s 1937 recording is the classic version, but Short’s wit makes his more fun. “I Can’t Get Started” was introduced by Bob Hope, who sang it to Eve Arden in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936.
   
6. Frank Sinatra: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Cole Porter. This 1936 Porter song is considered by many the ultimate collaborative effort between Sinatra and Nelson Riddle with its swinging, driving sax section and monstrous trombone solo. It became Frank’s signature song after the album Songs For Swinging Lovers was released in 1956.
   
7. Ella Fitzgerald: “Isn’t It Romantic” by Rogers and Hart. Few artists sing Hart’s cynical third and fourth chorus of this 1932 romantic gem – certainly Ella doesn’t. Every time I hear it, I see Audrey Hepburn in “Sabrina” asking William Holden if he didn’t want to have the orchestra play it. Ella singing Hart’s lyrics; it doesn’t get any better.
   
8. Sarah Vaughn: “My Romance” by Rogers and Hart. From Sarah for Lovers which is a must album on any lover’s iPod with songs such as “I've Got A Crush On You,” “Embraceable You,” “My One And Only Love,” “All The Things You Are,” and “I'm In The Mood For Love.” Sarah wasn’t quite as great as Ella, but she was as close as any female singer got and this song and this album are her finest.
   
9. Frank Sinatra: “Wait Till You See Her” by Rogers and Hart. This 1942 song from By Jupiter is very personal to me because it expresses precisely what I tried to tell my friends after I first met Julia. Tony Bennett and Ella do great versions, but if you can only have one, choose Frank’s.
   
10. Frank Sinatra: “I Could Write a Book” by Rogers and Hart. From Pal Joey, the duo’s best musical in which Gene Kelly made his debut on Broadway. Sinatra’s painfully slow rendition is so good it hurts.
    
11. Lee Wiley: “I’ve Got a Crush on You” by George and Ira Gershwin. This 1928 tune was used in two Gershwin shows, and although Sinatra’s version is as good, in any collection you’ve got to have at least one Lee Wiley song. Bobby Hackett plays a sweet, lyrical, unobtrusive back-up trumpet that makes it memorable – a song for lovers. The vulnerable cabaret singer, Wiley, had a long affair with composer Victor Young, who never married her, so the song has a special poignancy.
    
12. Ella Fitzgerald: “Embraceable You” by George and Ira Gershwin. Should probably be number two on the list, but her Nelson-Riddle-arranged 1959 Gershwin Songbook album, from which this rendition comes, is the number one album for lovers for many reasons, not the least of which is because it contains another essential song on the list – “How Long Has This Been Going On?”
    
13. Johnny Hartman: “Stairway to the Stars” by Matt Malneck and Frank Signorelli. Hartman is as smooth and mellow as ever but it’s Illinois Jacquet’s back-up sax riffs that makes you drop your pants.
    
14. ”Our Love Is Here To Stay” by George and Ira Gershwin. There are dozens of good versions of this romantic favorite, but I like Michael Feinstein’s because it best evokes one of the most romantic dance sequences on film – Gene Kelly singing to and dancing with Leslie Caron in “American In Paris.”
    

This list should keep lovers satisfied for at least 45 minutes, but if you mix in the following. You’ll never leave home.

1. Billie Holliday: “Body and Soul.”
   
2. Jack Teagarden: “A Hundred Years From Today.” a tie with the great trombonist’s “Stars Fell On Alabama.”
   
3. The Temptations: For Lovers Only, the entire album.
   
4. Carlos Santana: “Samba Pa Ti.”
   
5. Barry White: “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe.” If this song doesn’t do it, nothing will.
   

This is my list. What’s yours?

Posted by Charles Warner at 6:35 PM | Comments (2) | Print |

Media Curmudgeon at December 29, 2008 10:36 AM writes:

---

Media Curmudgeon at December 29, 2008 10:35 AM writes:

---

December 25, 2008

Gregory’s Girls

This week as been dominated by girls, which is reflective of 2008 – a year that has been mostly about girls. I use the politically incorrect word “girls” in an ironic sense because it used to be a pejorative, dismissive term used by many America men – in the same category as “broads.” However, the “girls” have now taken over the media and its headlines and many of the men in media are puffed-up, strutting boys, like Illinois Governor Blagojevich.

But not David Gregory, who on his second week of hosting “Meet the Press,” had all female guests. His main interview was with Condoleeza Rice and his panelists were Michele Norris of NPR, Erin Burnett of CNBC, Andrea Mitchell of NBC, and Carol Marin of the Chicago Sun-Times. The women were brilliant. Gregory held his own and asked intelligent, probing questions, but it was clear the women were the smartest people at the room.

I’ve not been a fan of Condoleeza Rice in the past, but I was dazzled by her communication skills and fluency, by her charming and confident camera presence, and by how skillfully she handled Gregory’s tough questions and stayed on message. She almost had me believing the Iraq conflict had been a war of freedom that had been good for the Iraqis – on the same week an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President Bush.

The first question to the all-female panel was about, guess what, a woman – Caroline Kennedy’s bid for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in New York. Michelle Norris was very smart in her discussion about bloodlines and money dominating politics today.

The next topic was about the economy and the Bernard Madoff scandal, which was handled with ease by the brainy Erin Burnett who added insight and context to the situation. Andrea Mitchell added some smart comments about the SEC’s role in the mess. Mitchell may have had one too many face lifts, but she represents the new era of female reporters – brains first. Unlike Fox News and the Fox Business Network, no bimbos are allowed on “Meet the Press.”

Carol Marin took the lead discussing Illinois Governor Blagojevich. She, too, was smart, informed, and insightful. All the panelists politely added insights and analysis.

I give Gregory and the “Meet the Press” producers credit for being gender agnostic and not saying, “Hey, we ought to put at least one man – preferably a black man – on the panel for balance.” They didn’t think about being politically correct; I’m guessing they wanted the smartest, best-informed guests, and they all happened to have been women.

This was an all-star panel that I hope might be permanent members of the “Meet the Press” discussion roundtable – maybe NBC could rename the program “Gregory’s Girls.” But, on second thought, that doesn’t really work. But what struck me is how much smarter, better informed, insightful, cordial, polite, and collegial this group was than the macho dopes and interrupting loudmouths on the O’Reilly, Hannity, and Chris Matthews’ shows are.

And the week before “Meet the Press,” Katie Couric had her best week in almost a year on the “CBS Evening News,” reaching an average of 7.4 million people. The story on The Huffington Post read: “The improvement could be a result of the positive feedback Couric received for her interview of GOP Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, during the presidential campaign. Palin fumbled on a question about which publications she read regularly, and the interview was a launching point for one of Tina Fey's ‘Saturday Night Live’ spoofs.”

In 2008 Hillary Clinton was the first female to run for president; Sarah Palin overshadowed running mate, John McCain, only to be made notorious by another female, Tina Fey; Katie Couric gained in the ratings; Oprah dominated daytime TV; Rachel Maddow was the best talk show host/commentator on TV; and Michelle Obama became the smartest, most articulate first lady in generations, except for Hillary Clinton – think Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Barbara and Laura Bush. So it looks like 2008 was the year of the girls, and, except for Sarah Palin, it’s about time.

And if the news media and politics are improved so much by women, it makes me wonder if we’d be in this economic mess if women had been in charge of Wall Street and the banks instead of the greedy, arrogant, riverboat-gambler males who took the economy down the tubes. What America needs now is another Margaret Thatcher, or at least some smart woman who no one with any sense would dare call a “girl.”

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | Print |