Today it’s raining and gray, so I decided to create a little Last.FM station for the rag “rain”. It’s perfect for today.
Now I’m listening to songs in my iTunes with the word “rain”. It’s cool to match the music to the day. It makes the rain seem romantic rather than just straight-up icky! Here’s one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums. It’s “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” by Ella Fitzgerald from Live in Budapest:
Comment by Ben Greenberg
May 28, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
I’ll have to check out the Budapest disk. I love her Live in Rome disk. But you know which Ella I think might be the best? There’s a little mentioned set of recordings with Ella accompanied just by Ellis Larkins on piano, doing mostly Gershwin covers before the songbook recordings; I have it under the title “Pure Ella.” It swings like nothing else she’s done. (Larkins is a fabulous and under-recognized piano player… )
Comment by Abby
May 28, 2008 @ 11:07 pm
Cool! I’m so glad someone listened. I love Last.FM. I sometimes forget about the tag listening. It’s fun that way, and today was perfect!
Comment by Abby
May 28, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
Oh! I have Pure Ella, and I adore it! There’s another one called Intimate Ella that is very similar which I also love. It starts with Black Coffee, right?
(BTW, no idea why you got stuck in the spam filter. I fished it out for you. Thanks for letting me know.)
Comment by Ben Greenberg
May 29, 2008 @ 12:06 am
I don’t think I know the Intimate Ella recording. Is that the one that starts with Black Coffee? My Pure Ella starts with Someone to Watch Over Me and includes the an utterly divine version of Stardust (one of my all time favorite standards). I’ll post one of the tracks on my tumblr.
Comment by Abby
May 29, 2008 @ 7:11 am
Oh, we’re talking about the same two. I have them both and love them both. Yes, the Intimate Ella starts with Black Coffee. And I have Intimate as well. They are probably my two favorite Ella’s (and I won’t bother explaining how much Ella I own, but it’s really fairly ridiculous and unnecessary, but it makes me so happy!). Share for others if you’d like, but I’m covered!
Another one I love and was so bummed to only have on cassette (until recently when the CD became more readily available) is a collection called Jazz ‘Round Midnight. There’s another collection with a really similar name that isn’t right. This one is so good. If you don’t have it, I recommend getting it. When it’s on, I won’t be talking. I’m singing.
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Comment by kitch
May 28, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
Thanks for the station. I saw your tweet about it earlier and listened for a bit. Cool idea to do a little themed station. Timing was perfect as I just switched back to last.fm