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Handyman - My Funny Valentine , yeah one of my favourites and in its original form. I grew up with the Miles Davis version from 1964 where to be fair not a lot of the original tune was left. Never the less it has been one of favourites since then and have recently been listening again to Chet Bakers version, which is also exquisite and he actaully sings the tune lol. Nicely played by the way.

Tim Adrianson - three more classics and two which I play often, in fact they have been on my list for the bar for a while (along with funny valentine) but will keep for now.
Excellent arrangements with fine playing, not much more to say really other than great listen and keep them coming.

( Funny enough I came across Keith Jarrett's version of 'You Took Advantage....' the other week, it's on YouTube, worth a listen I would say )

Handyman,
My Funny Valentine - Nicely played and a good choice.
Ian

Hi, folks! A nice set of submissions this month -- hopefully, we'll get a few more.

jazztpt "One Two and Three" was for me very reminiscent of the Vince Guaraldi jazz scores for the Peanuts TV specials, for whatever reason -- it had that same gentle lilt, a childlike lyrical quality about it that was most infectious. In the case of "New Lifetime", I could have done without the synthesizer -- I was just never a fan of that type of sound; in fact, to this day, I seek out the Acoustic station on Sirius XM for just that reason. I get the same bad vibe on "Truthfully" -- that one strikes me as a "concession" from a Jazz-based perspective to one more attuned to contemporary Pop. But they were all effective, satisfying musical statements, as always.

Pianist685 -- "Yiruma -- Maybe?" Well, I confess I haven't kept up with what used to be called "New Age" music -- for me, the genre started in California in the 1980s, the Windham Hill recordings being the best known. But in any event, this is stylistically very true to what I remember from that era, in the best sense of that understanding. OK, it doesn't develop much from the initial idea, but there's enough of an "earworm" to carry it through, very attractively.

IosPlayer -- In "Bluebird Boulevard", your addition of the various voicings as the improvisation progressed was fascinating to listen to -- your introduction of the theme with disturbing dissonant undertones was a concept I thought you might pursue to a greater degree than you did. I wasn't disappointed in your improvisational choices, but I was intrigued with the possibility of "doubling down" on the implications of your opening statement. Well, I guess the important thing is that I do listen with interest to where you're going, from beginning to end.

Beemer -- Well, there's just no way "Careless Love" is a Blues-based song, but I did find the arrangement an interesting departure from the Country and Western mode in which I've always heard it -- and a very attractive one. By contrast, "Trouble in Mind" IS definitely Blues-based -- it's one not familiar to me, but it was really a sophisticated song in the Great American Songbook style.

Handyman -- As you say, "My Funny Valentine" is a well-deserved American Standard by anybody's measure, and your rendition just underlines the subtle chordal progressions that match the bittersweet lyric to a tee.

Beemer, Pianist 685 -- You've got good ears! I recorded "Lush Life" last December, shortly after the piano was tuned; by contrast, "Skylark" I recorded only a couple of days ago, when months of my relentless abuse have clearly wreaked havoc upon the overall tuning. I have on occasion doctored a couple of notes here and there myself, but I'm frankly not very good at it, and prefer to get a tuning every 6 months -- and coincidentally, I arranged for that tuning for this May 21, when we are the host for an amateur musical group that same evening.

Tim,
Regarding your tuning. You said that I must have good ears. I have an advantage because I tune my own Blüthner and retune any drifting unison immediately so the piano is always in tune.

Regarding your comment about Careless Love not being a blues tune. It certainly is, with its country versions (e.g. Peggy Seeger) being introduced much later.

Here is Bessie Smith:

https://tinyurl.com/yxjv53sr

Ian

Sorry,

Looks like using Tinyurl does not work with You Tube videos

So again here is Bessie Smith:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iympOhiU1o&list=RD7iympOhiU1o&start_radio=1&t=0

Ian

Hi, Beemer! Well, I'll be -- I never knew that "Careless Love" was originally a Blues tune! I believe it was Hank Williams that put it on the map in C & W, sometime in the late 40s - early 50s. Thanks for that correction -- and the incomparable Bessie Smith recording. She sure could outmuscle any deficiency in the sound equipment!

Hi Tim, thanks for the interesting comment. Yes, it could have been influenced by that dissonance, but, frankly, I do not direct these things with my thinking mind. I once asked my teacher " if I play something I like, should I play it again?" Her response: "Anything but!). I seem to follow that advice after years of trying to get to a nonjudgmental place. I do repeat themes, but almost never by conscious choice. I am at the mercy of the gods.

Well to hopefully keep things going a bit longer this month here's another one from me , some straight ahead jazz with my 'virtual trio' ( courtesy of the iReal App ).
Henry Mancini's Days Of Wine And Roses from the film of the same name.

Days of Wine and Roses

Jazztpt,
A great upbeat performance full of joy. I much prefer this to the slower romantic versions. Did you play this live to a backing track?

Ian

Beemer – Careless Love I love the left hand pattern of this arrangement you are playing admirably softly.
Trouble in Mind This one is such a gently swinging, bluesy song. By whom is it? Interesting: in the “A” part, maybe the verse, the usual 12 bars blues pattern is extended to 16 bars by repeating measures 5-8. Just great and perfectly played. I have listened to it four times. No, you do not have to play any sort of jazz here but I would appreciate if you did because you are that good at it.

Handyman – My funny Valentine A very romantic arrangement and rendition of a great jazz standard I enjoyed very much.

Jazztpt – Days of Wine and Roses Oh, yeah, strike up the band… Very professional and great fun to listen to. A perfect start into the weekend.

Pianist685,

Thank you for your kind and encouraging words. Trouble in Mind was written by Richard M.Jones and published in 1937

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrF8HVrt2os

Ian

Hi Ian , yes played live with the backing generated by the iReal App. I can play generated backing tracks through my Roland and play along but if I want to record what I am playing I have to either use a mike or jump through a few hoops as below.

To record the backing with the live playing I have to export the backing track in MIDI format and import it to my MIDI sequencer on my PC (in my case Anvil Studio which is free). I then assign the instruments (bass and drums) and play the MIDI backing track back through my piano and at the same time record the piano part to a spare track on the sequencer. After that I can import the full MIDI track back into the piano (which will then play all the parts) and then export it as a wave file. Gosh that sounds complicated but once you know what you are doing its straight forward.

My piano is a Roland HP507 , I believe the more recent models have wifi or bluetooth which make the transfer of the midi files a bit less fiddly, I dont do it that often so its no great issue to me.

Also rather than use a PC to run the sequencer, iPad versions are available, Mike (IosPlayer) is the expert on that setup.

Beemer & Pianist685 - Days of wine and roses, thanks for your comments, glad you liked it.

Mean to me -- Turk/Ahlert arr Nelson Riddle

In the interests of extending the Piano Bar listening experience for this month, here is another American Standard from the Ronstadt/Riddle collaboration. "Mean to Me" was written in 1929, and at least to my ear, it borrows from the early Jazz and Blues genre that was becoming increasingly popular in the 1920s, helped along by the fledgling recording industry. This song managed to stick around over the years, as various Jazz bands and combos found it effective and appealing.

I'm delayed listening/commenting this month - too many distractions elsewhere...

jazztpt - liked this one a lot - nice, easy listening...very enjoyable "groove"...

Constantin - I'm somewhat familiar with New Age piano music and I believe I've heard this composer/pianist on one of the iheartradio streaming radio stations - it might have been the David Lanz or Jim Brickman stations - anyway, this is a gentle, listenable piece very well played!

Michael - soft, relaxing, melodic Blues sounds - nicely done...

Ian - good job on these two - enjoyable - when I saw the title "Careless Love" I thought you were going to play the old folk song by J.D.Souther, but then after checking I found that his famous old standard is actually called "Faithless Love" - after listening to Bessie's version of "Careless" and a Crystal Gayle version of "Faithless" it's the same sad old heartbreak, just different tunes...

If you aren't already familiar with it I wanted to bring to everyone's attention here a website called

Cafe Songbook

which bills itself as "The Internet Home of the Songs, Songwriters and Performers of The Great American Songbook". It can be found here: Cafe Songbook

I discovered this wonderful resource while looking for details on the history of the song "My Funny Valentine", my submission to the Bar this month. Here is the page within the Cafe discussing the song:My Funny Valentine. Note the "Reading Room" section and the "Record/Video Cabinet" section.

I think most of us who frequent the Bar on a regular basis will find this a very valuable source of information in general - and for our versions of songs we post here in particular. I can see myself spending many hours there.

Enjoy, John