My guitar-playing sis sent this to me, and it's wonderful. Frank Vignola and others playing a medley of Hoagy Carmichael's beautiful Stardust with the Tommy Dorsey band's signature tune, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. It's the most unsentimental version of that number I've ever heard, and it swings like crazy.
More on music: Mark Steyn on the Jerome Kern /Dorothy Fields number Pick Yourself Up, which was recalled to him by a line from (of all places) Obama's Inauguration speech. (Mark's complete take on that here with The Audacity of Dull). It's from the Astaire/Rogers gem Swing Time, and Mr. Steyn says:
On screen, it’s one of their best numbers together. Astaire’s delightful in his game efforts to dance badly, landing on the floor just in time to be admonished by Rogers to pick himself up, dust himself off, start all over again. Then, after she says disgustedly, “I can’t teach you anything”, Astaire goes into a machine-gun rat-a-tat-tat and sweeps her up and across the floor. This is one of Ginger’s best numbers: watch the way she’s initially bewildered and tentative over Fred’s sudden display of virtuoso terpsichore and then surrenders to the pure joy of the moment.
Here's the clip from Swing Time:
*sigh* I just bought the DVD of that flick - Now I must go watch it.
UPDATE: (Next day) Yep, I watched it, and now I have to include this - A Fine Romance, "a sarcastic love song."
A FINE ROMANCE (1936)
Dorothy Fields & Jerome Kern
A fine romance, with no kisses;
A fine romance, my friend, this is.
We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes -
But you're cold as
Yesterday's mashed potatoes.
A fine romance, you won't nestle;
A fine romance, you won't wrestle.
I've never mussed the crease in your blue serge pants -
I never have the chance,
This is a fine romance.
A fine romance, my good fellow,
You take romance, I'll take Jell-o.
You're calmer than the seals in the Arctic Ocean -
At least they flap their fins
To express emotion.
A fine romance, with no quarrels;
With no insults and all morals.
You're just as hard to land as the Ile de France -
I never get the chance,
This is a fine romance.
A fine romance, with no kisses;
A fine romance, my friend, this is.
True love should have the thrills that a healthy clime has;
We don't have half the thrills
That the March of Time has.
A fine romance, with no clinches;
A fine romance, with no pinches.
You never give the orchids I send a glance,
No, you like cactus plants!
This is a fine romance.
Again ... *sigh*.
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