Blossom Dearie “My New Celebrity is You”

Un poco de sofisticación no le viene mal a está página y en líneas generales a toda publicación que se precie. Blossom Dearie, tiene poco que ver con el jazz en el sentido literal del término. Ha cantado melodías de jazz o aquellas que los jazzeros usan para sus improvisaciones. Esta delicada cantante de voz atiplada, frasea impecablemente, jamás levanta su voz, mas bien susurra y a veces en un  hilo de voz, endulza nuestros oídos y apacigua nuestros ánimos. Nacida en Nueva York en 1926, viajo temprano a Europa y casó allí con el saxofonista belga Bobby Jaspar de quien en algunos post venideros tendré que rendir tributo. En su primer disco Blossom toca el piano y no canta pero a partir de ese, ha grabado varios de vocalese y de bebop.

El disco en cuestión aquí es “My New Celebrity is You”  y Blossom Dearie toca el piano y canta . Los demás músicos son Hubert Laws  (flauta), Toots Thielemans (armónica), Jay Berlinger (guitarra), Ron Carter (contrabajo) y Graddy Tat (batería)

Las canciones

My New Celebrity is You,/There Ought to be a Moonlight Saving Time/Smiling Feet/Pretty People/The Christmas Card/You’ll Never Lose The Love You Give To Me/Killing me Softly with His Song/Who Knows All Answers/A Paris/Spring in Manhattan/Unless It’s You/Inside a Silent Tear/Long Daddy Green (The Almighty Dollar)/Peel Me A Grape/A Song For You, una versión que vale la pena escuchar mas de una vez, sobre todo comparándola con la extraordinaria de Aretha Franklin/The Pro Musiqua Antiqua de la que he agregado la letra tal como figura en mi libro de canciones antiguas 

Promusica Antiqua (From a Julius Monk Revue ca.1955)

I’ll sing you a song of the Cloisters if you hark.

I’ll sing of the Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park.

Where I used to go in the month of June

To listen to the riddle of an ancient tune

At a concert given in the afternoon

   By the Pro Musica Antiqua, the Pro Musica Antiqua

   The Pro Musica, the Pro Musica, the Pro Musica Antiqua.

It was at precisely such a recital I recall

That I met a young man, like an oak tree, straight and tall.

As we sat there together, and we spoke no word

As within our hearts —Ah, something stirred

As we listened there to Buxtehude, Purcell and Byrd

   At the etc.

He invited me to his flat

For a cup of tea and a chat.

For he said he had a batch of recordings to play

Of Dufy and Dupres, so what could I say, but “Yes”!

What a fool I was to go.

What an idiot from tippy-top to toe.

For behind that face and charming smile

Lay a motive base and a manner vile.

What a fool I was to go!

But how could I nonny nonny nonny know?

Well he took me up to his flat as he had said

And he locked the door and he sat on his great double bed

And he looked at me with eyes that lied

And I knew when I saw that look in his eye

That he had no recordings of Dupres and Dufy

   From the etc.

Well there I stood. I was rooted in my place.

As I viewed with dread my deceitful lover’s face.

For I knew from the lovesick look in his eye,

He could lay me low with a single sigh

Well he laid me low…and he laid me high

   At the etc.

Now if you go to concerts on the grass

And you’re overfond of Gabrielli brass

Or a gay Bonsel, Beware! Beware!

Of what may come to pass.

Of what may come to pass.

Now the sound of a consort of viols makes me ill,

And the lute and the zither make me sicker still.

And every morning at the crowing of the cocks

I wash my face and I comb my locks

And I brush my teeth and I put a pox

   On the etc.

Now maidens take fair warning from my tale.

Beware! Beware of the music-loving male.

You can go to the Cloisters if you choose

And seek enchantment in the muse

But I hate to tell you what you might lose

   At the etc.