This enjoyable event took place last weekend, August 6 and 7, with about a dozen students working in two groups with our very friendly tutors - Paul Edis and James Brady (of Leeds.)
Grateful thanks to all those at the Globe who were involved in the organising of this event.
I don't need to outline the proceedings blow by blow or rather chord by chord, as most readers have probably been part of such events more times than they can shake a sax at. Enough to say that the music played included:
Songs: Perdido (Juan Tizol); Sometime Ago (Serge Milhanovic)
Instrumentals: Ad Infinitum (Carla Bley); Struttin' With Some Barbecue (Lil Hardin Armstrong & Don Raye); Jelly Rolls (Charles Mingus); Westerly (Nikki Iles).
However, I have another purpose which is to rave about the wonderful song Sometime Ago, which is a masterpiece, at least to my ears, and it was worth doing the weekend for just this one song. Lyrics and music are a perfect fit, especially as sung by American singer Irene Kral (1932-1978).
Life began
when you came sometime ago
There was love
in the game sometime ago
So
unconventional you and me
And so
essentially young and free
We were both
very smart until the end
Little girl
with no heart I would pretend
Now I'm
discovering as I'm recovering
Love wasn't
really just a game
But we're the
only ones to blame
We find out about the love affair indirectly without details of where they met etcetera, which is clever songwriting as the listener can make up the details for themselves, and thus feels more involved in the story. The listener may perhaps think about a similar experience that they have had.
We don't actually know how long ago all this happened, was it a month, a year, or when? The last line of the song can be sung differently by various singers. Obviously it's sad which could be shown by singing quietly with pauses between words, but a clever singer could probably bring off an angry interpretation to that line.
The tune is a perfect fit for the words. Repetition of 'sometime ago' works well and 'unconventional' trips lightly off the tongue after the low note on 'so'. 'Young and Free' actually sounds light and free because of the higher note on the 'and'. I could elaborate more but I'm sure that readers of this blog can do that just as well for themselves. But I must mention how enjoyable it was to sing the line 'Now I'm discovering as I'm recovering' which, again, slips nicely off the tongue because 'recovering' has higher notes than the rest of the line, so sounds like a recovery.
Irene Kral sings a coda to the words above, which we didn't include in our version:
We were both
very smart sometime ago
Little girl
lost her heart sometime ago
Which suggests that she hadn't really recovered after all. And as for the chords …..
I'll leave
that to the instrumentalists! Ann Alex
2 comments :
Sometime Ago is indeed a sweet tune. I heard it played at the NYJC Summer School concert last year - sans vocalist sadly. The recording is at https://youtu.be/F_MlxPDhfvE?t=1117. Paul Edis was in the audience as one of the tutors - I wonder if that was where he spotted the potential for the tune? Though, then again, I bet it was already in his encyclopaedic pad!
Thanks for the feedback Chris. I felt very privileged to get the chance to sing the song in the final session of the course on Sunday. The tune itself without the vocals would still sound good.
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