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7 abr 2006

A song I know very, very well already: "Everything I have is yours" or "Nice Work If You Can Get It," for example. And the first time I hear Billie Holiday sing it, there is a special emotion. It's like hearing it for the first time, but the emotion comes from *already* knowing it, and hearing it in a heightened dimension: from the combination of these two things, really. it's not that this is the only way the song should be sung: other interpretations are valid too. The beauty comes from knowing other, subsequent different versions, not from only knowing hers. Usually, hers is the best. Dinah Washington is great too. Ella and Sarah. Betty Carter. I'm not thrilled with Diana Krall and all the other Dianes and Dianas of jazz vocalism. I haven't anything against her, but there's a high standard set here. It's like reading 10 translation of Li Po, and always coming back to Ezra Pound.

1 comentario:

  1. If I hear Billie sing a song, its hard to imagine anyone else singing it. It almost seems wrong. Its not but the emotion to something that shuts everybody up, in a good way.

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