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songs i can't stand


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can't stand jitterburg waltz, no way, shape, or form...

are there any numbers or versions of standards you can't sit through?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9HjAqp_F1M8

Well if you're going to use one of the most boring versions possible. Thankfully, I can't post I have gone into a coma and they can't wake me. You did your best.

Edited by Blue Train
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Are we talking the Bacharach "Alfie"? Sonny never recorded that one...

It's only banal until you try and fake it. Then it becomes labyrinthine (thanks spellcheck!).

True, that, of a lot of Bacharach-David songs, they sound a lot less toothy than they play. Perhaps like getting full-body slammed from 20 yards out in a touch football game, you weren't really expecting it, and it shouldn't be so, but dammit, it happened, and there you go, good luck getting rid of that. I've been on both ends of that, albeit in different games, several years apart, and I've had to fake "Alfie" on a few occasions as well. So this is 24-Karrat 3D real y'all, not some hypothermetical pretense.

Yo.

Not that you should get rid of that, you probably shouldn't, and yeah, there's kind of a rush in it once the initial shock wears off. But never again will you trust touch football to be guaranteed. And that is the right way to look at it!

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I hear ya', Jeff, but maybe "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is one that neither one of us will live long enough to hear that mind-changing version?

You don't have the bootleg Ornette/Cecil version of that? The one where Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd walked onstage halfway through? Dude!

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I hear ya', Jeff, but maybe "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is one that neither one of us will live long enough to hear that mind-changing version?

You don't have the bootleg Ornette/Cecil version of that? The one where Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd walked onstage halfway through? Dude!

I do, but it needs some serious speed correction, it's, like, a minor third slow, so...can't offer an objective opinion just yet. You know how the ears can play tricks when the speed is off.

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As jeffcrom pointed out there are always musicians who can take a tune you really dislike then do things with it that you'd never have thought possible. I'll never forget buying one of Sonny Rollins' Prestige albums (Work Time?) when it first came out back in the fifties. When I got it home I was horrified to discover that Sonny's program included Irving Berlin's There's No Business Like Show Business, a tune I'd always hated. Well, Sonny's interpretation of this hoary standard just blew me away. For days I couldn't stop playing that track over and over. It remains one of my favorite Rollins recordings.

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"As Time Goes By" is simply awful. Forget about "Casablanca" and just listen to this turkey: Clumsy and corny lyrics, trite and repetitive melodic phrases, chord progressions that occasionally sound like they're going someplace interesting but then suddenly stall.

How famous was this song prior to the film? Did the film revive it? I'll bet the farm that, were it not for "Casablanca," this song would have sunk into obscurity. And good riddance.

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I wouldn't put it quite so strongly but you are right. As Time Goes By is a rather clumsy piece. But it suits the overrated bore-fest Casablanca perfectly!

We've had a thread like this before, though. I remember posting my four bete noirs:

Summertime

Darn That Dream

Old Folks

Willow Weep For Me

I still haven't heard a reason why jazz musicians persist in playing these depressing tunes.

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