Cleaning up my cassette pile (I’m going for the 8-tracks next month, and then I’ll hit the pile of 78 RPM albums), I found a tape of some jazz arrangement of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top”–no artist, no other clues.
Any idea who’s responsible for this? (The artist–I’m responsible for leaving unlabelled tapes all around the living room.)
My first thought is Miles Davis. What instrument played the lyric line?
Man, this is the type of showtune/standard that jazz musicians loved use as the basis for their improvs. I imagine it’s been covered by dozens artists over the years. I know that Canonball Adderly did a version and I wouldn’t be surprised if Oscar Peterson recorded one, as well.
You’re going to have to be more specific. Do you have a time frame? Is it full blown orchestra or a stripped down trio?
Yup, it’s a trumpet, and yup, now I remember recording some Miles Davis a few years ago. Now I can google “Miles Davis” and “Surrey…” and confirm. Thanks.
The definitive Miles version tweaks the melody in a recognizable way. The original tune starts out like this (in the key of C, for convenience:)
G G G G | G G F# G C |
G G G G | G G F# G D |
Whereas Miles alters it like this:
G G G G | G G F# G **D** |
G G G G | G G F# G **E D** |