William's Song a Day Blog - est. September 2007

From: What a Wonderful Christmas ; Year: 1997 (1962); Genre: Jazz/Christmas Music Well, it's Christmas Eve; nothing better than throwing on some Christmas jazz from some of the Greats to set the mood. Hear Jingle Bells on YouTube. My song pick 1 year ago today: Bob Rivers - Goin' Up To Bethlehem My song pick 2 years ago today: "Weird Al" Yankovic - The Night Santa Went Crazy My song pick 3 years ago today: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - A Mad Russian's Christmas My song pick 4 years ago today: Bing Crosby - White Christmas My song pick 5 years ago today: B. Bumble and the Stingers - Nut Rocker My song pick 6 years ago today: Jethro Tull - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen My song pick 7 years ago today: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Wizards in Winter My song pick 8 years ago today: "Weird Al" Yankovic - Christmas at Ground Zero My song pick 9 years ago today: Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake & Palmer) - I Believe in Father Christmas My song ...

From: The Only Big Band CD You'll Ever Need ; Year: 1999 (1932); Genre: Jazz I'm choosing another where my pick number coincides with the date when a song was released. This jazz standard composed by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Irving Mills was one of the songs to dominate the charts in the year 1932. While it's not technically "Swing Jazz" it was one of, if not the first song to coin the term "Swing" and contains many of the elements that would create the jazz sub-genre that reined supreme throughout the mid 1930s-1940s. It has been recorded a multitude of times by many artists, but my favourite version by far is the one that features Louis Armstrong along with Duke Ellington. Hear It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) on YouTube. Hear a version of the song featuring the incomparable Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong on YouTube. - Does it really get any better? My song pick a year ago today: Jefferson Airplane ...

1174 Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Ko-Ko Still feeling like some more Big Band Jazz this morning, plus I noticed that I have not chosen a Duke Ellington track yet; this is one of my favourites from his catalogue. This is a quite a neat sounding track, I especially love the way the horns are made to sound almost like they are talking. Hear Ko-Ko on YouTube. My song pick a year ago today: Rush - Bastille Day My song pick two years ago today: The Steve Miller Band - Brave New World My song pick three years ago today: C.W. McCall - Convoy +

Most would remember this as the theme for Mickey Spillane's " Mike Hammer ," however, the song existed before the series. It was originally written by Earle Hagen and is a Big Band Jazz standard. The song actually got a lot of notoriety when it was covered by the Viscounts, which can be found here on YouTube ; they took it away from the Big Band Jazz sound and gave it more of a Surf Rock feel. One of the most interesting aspects of this song musically is that they use a whole tone scale in places within the song. Here is a recording of the song on YouTube. +