My SiL just gave me my job for her upcoming wedding and reception. My job is music. She would like jazz, preferably older stuff from the era including Lady Ella and the Rat Pack (Boy I hope I got that right). Anything that has to do with love and/or is upbeat is fair IMO. Ditto with instrumentals.
Here’s the problem. I only started really listening to jazz a couple years back and still don’t know a lot of the great songs. I don’t have a lot of cash so I would prefer to not spend money on CD after CD looking for the right song. If I can get a list first, I can then go buy the CD’s I need without getting “stuck” with a disk. As a plus, I get te add to my collection
So I decided to turn to my fellow dopers for help. I need songs suitable for a wedding/reception dinner. Three to four hours worth. I suggested “Lady is a Tramp” and my wife hit me so that one is out
I can start with a few. I have more lined up but I am not typing them all out. Feel free to suggest other versions:
Ella Fitzgerald - Blue Skies, Deed I Do
Oscar Peterson - You look good to me
Juli London - (Not sure what song but that’s a damn sexy voice) Sway?
Sinatra - Fly Me To the Moon, The Way You Look Tonight
She also requsted the song ahem “L is for the way you look…at me” (My first solo. I hope that was in the right key) but I don’t know the actual name for the song.
Thanks for any help. I could get an hour of music together but this a little daunting.
I would rip them, edit out what doesn’t belong (Celine Dion, But Not For Me, etc) and make new CDs. Ideally, make an MP3 CD that you can just play on “shuffle” for hours on end.
And you might want to check out movie soundtracks for good mixes of love songs, or Wedding Music CDs . Be very careful with the last link though. There’s a lot of smaltz there. It’s scary.
The Ken Burns Jazz series has some great compilations with excellent digital reproduction of some of the masters, including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, etc. All worth pursuing. Here are some of the songs(with instrumentals noted) I recommend, by artist name:
Louis Armstrong: Ain’t Misbehavin’, A Fine Romance, What a Wonderful World
Art Blakey - Doodlin’(inst), Moanin’(inst),
Ella Fitzgerald - Nice Work if You Can Get It, Night and Day, A Night in Tunisia
Count Basie - Jumpin’ at the Woodside(inst),
Dave Brubeck - Take Five(inst), I Get a Kick Out of You(inst)
Dizzy Gillespie - Manteca(inst), Tin Tin Deo(inst)
Sonny Rollins - St. Thomas(inst), Alfie’s Theme Differently(inst)
Duke Ellington - Cotton Tail(inst),
Sarah Vaughan - They Can’t Take that Away From Me, The Nearness of You
Also, you couldn’t go wrong with any of the songs from these albums of duets recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong: Ella and Louis; Ella and Louis Again
Speaking of soudntracks, the entire When Harry Met Sally soundtrack is full of wedding-appropriate old jazz songs.
“At Last” by Etta James is a great song, very wedding-appropriate (especially if the couple are a bit past their teens), and is sung by one of the great jazz vocalists. Her “Love Songs” CD could have a couple other songs you may like.
And to add to Rufus’ list of Louis Armstrong’s work, I’d suggest “La Vie En Rose” and “Kiss to Build a Dream On.”
Cyndi Lauper’s most recent CD includes both “At Last” and “La Vie En Rose” that are also wonderful, as well as that old wedding standby, “Unchained Melody.”
Then there’s Ella Fitzgerald’s “Oh Lady Be Good: Best of the Gershwin Songbook.” Here you have this country’s best ever songwriter combined with this country’s best ever singer with at least 5 songs you’d be able to use. (“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” may not be the most appropriate piece.)
Speaking of the Gershwin Songbooks: I recommend 'S Marvelous, on Verve. Same series, but a variety of vocalists. It includes: [ul]
[li]Billie Holiday, Nice Work If You Can Get It[/li][li]Joe Williams, Embraceable You[/li][li]Sarah Vaughan, Love Walked In[/li][li]Arthur Prysock, Someone to Watch Over Me[/li][li]Ella and Louis, You Can’t Take That Away from Me[/li][li]Sarah Vaughan, 'S Wonderful[/li][li]Antonio Carolos Jobim, Fascinating Rhythm (not a love song, but a lot of fun)[/li][/ul]
And for Cole Porter: Red Hot + Blue, the first of the “Red-Hot” AIDS fundraising albums, with:
[ul]
[li]Annie Lennox, Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye[/li][li]k.d. lang, So in Love[/li][li]Lisa Stansfield, Down in the Depths[/li][li]Jimmy Sommervile, From This Moment On[/li][li]Jody Watley, After You, Who[/li][li]Aztec Camera, Do I Love You[/li][/ul]
Not all of these are completely wedding appropriate (Cole Porter had a hard time writing a straight [sic] love song), but these are just swooningly romantic. If I ever get married, I’m going to use the Jody Watley at my wedding. Plus, this album has an incredibly kick-ass version of Don’t Fence Me In by David Byrne.
There are some cds of Ella’s called ‘The Song Books’. Like Ella sings the Cole Porter Songbook, or Ella sings the Gershwin Song Book.
Get those. Not just for the wedding. Get them for yourself.
