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12-24-2023, 08:57 AM #1joelf Guest
I've always liked this song. Janis Ian was pretty young when she wrote it, and the melody and changes are darn sophisticated for a young person---and pop music ca 1970.
The song resonates with me b/c at 17 I may have not been an 'ugly duckling', but I did discover Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian and Stevie Wonder---all of whom changed my life. Fell in love, too: Maddy Lerner, a bug-eyed brunette I met at Canarsie H.S. (She was friends with Ellen Cooper, who hit on me, but I'd have walked over Ellen to get to Maddy. Ah, young love).
Here's the composer, followed by Phil Woods. (I looked at a guitar-bass duo arrangement I wrote and am considering recording shortly w/a great bassist I met in Philly. When finished I will post the chart)...
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12-24-2023 08:57 AM
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I looked at this and thought it wasn't going to work without the lyrics... but it does, it's not bad at all. Might try it myself!
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12-24-2023, 10:00 AM #3joelf GuestA good composer is one who can seamlessly wed lyrics to music, especially if they do both. She's one of those...
Originally Posted by ragman1
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12-24-2023, 10:06 AM #4joelf Guest
Only thing: Janis's tempo is way too fast to blow on for me. And to make it work instrumentally, maybe blow on a vamp section to contrast with the pretty changes. Or maybe 'split the difference': 1 solo on each concept, changes and vamp...
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12-24-2023, 10:11 AM #5joelf Guest
Wow, she's good! Never even heard of her:
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Yes, I like that one.
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Wonderful tune. John Klemmer did a great jazz version too...
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It's very nicely played but I think I'd have slowed it down just a bit. Tends to lose the soul of the thing otherwise, what do you think?
I'm just working on it now, I'm going to do it.
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Me too! Originally Posted by ragman1
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I thought it might be your thang :-)
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She also played a D'quisto Guitar if I remember correctly.
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I was driving in the desert in Oregon (I think - maybe Washington - near Pasco) and saw a little sign advertising Ms. Ian at a local bar for the next Saturday.
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12-24-2023, 08:31 PM #13joelf GuestReally? He made acoustics? Well, glory be... Originally Posted by deacon Mark
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12-25-2023, 08:22 PM #14joelf GuestI listened but honestly didn't care that much for Klemmer's version. I thought the arrangement a bit sugar-coated and pop-happy for my taste and his soloing didn't get me. I wanted to like it b/c a tenor player I rehearsed with in someone's basement centuries ago was always raving about Klemmer, and Klemmer was quite popular in the early to mid 70s. Maybe I'd like other examples of his work better. Originally Posted by ragman1
And I agree that the tempo was too fast...
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I've been working on it (despite Xmas and I'm the cook). It's not easy.
First there's the rhythm. She's got a particular latin/bossa pattern which is highly effective but hard to reproduce if you're not used to it.
Then she's on an acoustic with a capo and minimal chord voicings. It might even be tuned differently, but maybe not. So unless one simply copies it and sounds unoriginal there's not much to do. And I can't do it properly anyway.
Then it's not a tune, it's a song. It's very poignant and really dependent on the lyrics. Turning it into a jazz instrumental isn't simple. You should try it!
There was some other thing to moan about too but I've forgotten it at the moment. Oh, yes, the extra couple of bars after the verses. Filling those is a hard task.
Anyway, all that apart, are there any instrumental versions that you like? If not, how would you do it?
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12-26-2023, 06:13 AM #16joelf GuestI did. Wrote in the OP that I made an arrangement for guitar and bass and will post it once finished. I'm planning to record either that or another arrangement, of Paul Simon's I Do it For Your Love or both soon with Philadelphia bass phenom Richard Hill... Originally Posted by ragman1
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Sorry, Joel, you did so. I completely forgot you'd started the thread let alone what you wrote. Apologies. I put it down to getting carried away with Klemmer, Jeff Matz's interest, and wanting to try it myself.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see the chart and hear your version, especially with a good bass player. Bring it on.
I wasn't familiar with the Still Crazy album and not with I Do It For Your Love but I've just heard it and, you're right, there's absolutely good jazz potential there. That'll be interesting to see too.
In my twenties I fell completely for the Paul Simon Songbook and I could play all the songs I liked note for note, and sing them. It was all about lifting the record player arm up and down in those days.... and I was very keen :-)
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12-26-2023, 11:39 AM #18joelf GuestUh huh. I made some vamps for the blowing sections. Came out OK, and I look forward to recording it. Originally Posted by ragman1
It won't be as bathetic (meant in a good way) as Bill Evans's version though. More of a straight 8th funk groove...
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The Phil Woods rendition is fantastic, but the Jann Arden version carries so much more emotional weight because of the lyrics. Something that's extremely difficult for most of us to disentangle I think is how much of the impact of the Woods' version relies on our knowledge of the original.
But then of course this applies to pretty much every jazz standard: our appreciation of any given interpretation relies on us having heard previous one and hearing how they differ and build on each other. ATTYA is one of my favourite jazz standards, and this version blows me away. But had I not previously heard the song sung and some more accessible or straight instrumental versions, it would probably remain completely opaque to me:
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12-26-2023, 02:41 PM #20joelf Guest
Aaaaaandddd my chart is finished!!
Hold the phone for a clean (handwritten) copy...
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12-26-2023, 02:54 PM #21joelf GuestVery well put. For myself, though, we part company on your last paragraph: Originally Posted by CliffR
I try to go to the source 1st---a reliable singer's version and/or the original sheet music, if available. Of course jazz renditions I favor may be somewhere in the mix, but it's too facile to pick up someone's habits, and it's not always a dependable source for the melody, A good, non-jazz singer's is. (I had some of Phil's rendition still in my ears writing my chart on this, and I 'copped', NP.)
My one rule that seems to work: get the thing from the 'horse's mouth' first, let it marinate a while, sing it to myself for a nice stretch to internalize it. Then I let her rip, b/c I now will have had the foundation and therefore have license. And any changes have to be either improvements (rare as applied to well-written songs) or tugging at me so insistently that I must use them.
And so I do...Last edited by joelf; 12-26-2023 at 03:40 PM.
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Bill Evans's version??? Originally Posted by joelf
Where?
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Started sketching out. Sits nicely on guitar, not really surprising. Its a lovely melody...I think it works instrumentally, but im also singing it in my head, so...
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I've done a quick blast of this. It's quite fast. I gave up - temporarily - trying to make it meaningful because I don't think I can do it justice at the moment. I've basically hijacked the tune (which may enrage the purists), reharmed it, knocked out those two irritating extra bars, and brazened my way through it. Thank god it was in C...
But I feel better now so I'll probably try to get something more desperately miserable together!
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Jeff -
Well done. That's how I started doing it... not very successfully. Tricky little thing, innit? But you got there.
Have a good Xmas? I cooked it, like I do most years, and it was more or less edible. Did you cook yours?
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