# Looking for Jazz help **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 6, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849 "2004-07-06T21:27:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Greenback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/2bfe46/32.png) [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/1 "2004-07-06T21:27:55Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/2 "2004-07-06T21:58:15Z")
L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole is the “L” song. And I would suggest looking for “Love Song” CDs, such as… [Love Songs by Nat King Cole](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007LTI5/qid=1089150188/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/102-6408473-3964932?v=glance&s=music&n=507846/) [Greatest Love Songs by Frank Sinatra](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005UPFI/ref=wl_hu_mrai-recs/102-6408473-3964932?%5Fencoding=UTF8) [Oh Lady Be Good - Ella sings Gershwin](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000004711/ref=pd_sim_music_3/102-6408473-3964932?v=glance&s=music) 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](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/artist/glance/-/39353/ref=m_art_dp/102-6408473-3964932) . Be very careful with the last link though. There’s a lot of smaltz there. It’s scary. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/3 "2004-07-06T22:33:06Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Julius\_Henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/4 "2004-07-06T23:11:06Z")
“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.) ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/5 "2004-07-07T00:52:55Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/6 "2004-07-07T01:44:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Greenback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/2bfe46/32.png) [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2004, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-jazz-help/253849/7 "2004-07-07T13:13:59Z")
Great. Thanks all for the suggestions. I actually have Ella’s Gershwin album so that’s one less to purchase 🙂