From the Studio #50 – Deep Night Sometime in the late 1960s, I arrived at the last moment at the cinema. The movie had just started. The film was Bonnie and Clyde, and it started with the original version of this fascinating song, written and performed by Rudy Valley (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #49 – Song of the Wanderer Here is a song that is not so complicated and thus fits well for use in a collective ensemble format. The lyrics are, as you see, utterly basic, and life is not easy for the wanderer… (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #48 – Wasting My Love on You I need to practice a song that will soon be featured in a concert, so I played the verse, the melody in 1920s style, and a solo chorus. I don’t sing it myself, but if you want to give it a try, I give you the lyrics below (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #47 – If I Could Be with You –
This song has been in my mind always, it seems, but more precisely since I, as a teenager, heard it with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers as sung by their saxophone player George Thomas. He had (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #46 – What a Girl! What a Night! –
This song expresses the kind of happiness that a man or woman can feel when bitten by the love bug. The Coon Sanders Orchestra of Kansas City made a version that I immediately liked (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #45 – I’m In the Mood for Love – I sing and play an old favorite that we have used for many years in small groups. It’s the kind of gig where the music may be somewhat in the background but still very important to create an atmosphere (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #44 – In a Café on the Road to Calais – A tune that is almost forgotten catches my attention because there is a version by Noble Sissle and his Orchestra (rejected but saved) recorded in New York 1931 where Tommy Lanier and Sidney Bechet play short solos (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #43 – It Had to Be You – Sometimes it can work well to slow down the tempo of a tune, especially if you want to think about the meaning of the words. So that’s what I did, and the words in this case are simple and nice. (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #42 – Pardon Me Pretty – I thought that this tune deserved a more ambitious arrangement and an interpretation in the late 1920s style (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #41 – Basin Street Blues – Sometimes it’s interesting to play and record a typical jam session tune. Not to try to prove how it should sound; that would be too pretentious and too much work. But more importantly, how it could sound if not everyone was stepping on (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #40 – Out of Nowhere – Here’s another rendition of a beloved tune, inspired by the more or less classic versions that I’ve heard and, as always, by life itself (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #39 – Sonny Boy – Al Jolson made a dramatic interpretation, and the dance bands played it normally. We used to play it with my arrangement for The Absalon Orchestra, but it fell out of the repertoire. I think that I was influenced by a critic who said (…) read more and listenread more and listen