Whilst watching & enjoying the "Last night of the Proms" I was looking forward to the one Gershwin number, which turned out to be "They can't take that away from me". The Mezzo Soprano who sang it was Sarah Connolly, certainly not the ideal voice for this gem, but the young trumpeter who accompanied her was Alison Balsom, a real talent, and together they brought it off , even interspersed with some scat. Liz.
I actually enjoyed it and, if I'd heard them in a club and not known who they were probably thought 'knockout!' However, as it was at the Proms everything was no doubt tightly arranged and carefully rehearsed (just how do they manage all those rehearsals?)so there was nothing improvised. Still it was very listenable and one can argue as to how much of jazz is actually improvised? Even Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden, in their latter years, tended to play the same solos night after night.
ReplyDeleteTrad fans would feel cheated if High Society or Dippermouth didn't have the now obligatory chorus as played nearly 80/90 years ago.
So, I suppose, the criteria is if a solo works don't try to fix it.