I was surfing the Net today and ran across this listing of the “Top Ten Jazz Standards.” It’s very cool because you can actually see and hear each tune by clicking on the start arrow. Enjoy.
I think a lot of the selections would fall in my list (if I were to take the time and thought to put one together), but I know for sure that these list-makers left out one of my absolute favorites: “My Foolish Heart.” I first fell in love with the song on hearing it on Bill Evans’ great, great, great album, “Waltz For Debby.” That album was recorded in 1961 when I was still in high school. I literally wore out my first copy and bought another later.
Later, I heard a vocal version (sorry I can’t remember who was singing it) and was impressed by the lyrics, which only enhanced the incomparable greatness of this tune. Here are the lyrics:
(N.Washington, V.Young)
The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart!
How white the ever constant moon, take care, my foolish heart!
There's a line between love and fascination,
That's hard to see on an evening such as this,
For they give the very same sensation.
When you are lost in the passion of a kiss.
Your lips are much too close to mine, beware my foolish heart!
But should our eager lips combine, then let the fire start.
For this time it isn't fascination, or a dream that will fade and fall apart,
It's love this time, it's love, my foolish heart!
There are several nice Bill Evans versions on YouTube, which actually feature video of him and the trio. But the definitive Bill Evans version for me is the one I feel in love with.
There are also tons of vocal recordings, (but not that many on YouTube) most of which are terrific, but you can’t go wrong with Tony Bennett’s version with Bill Evans himself.
post script: I got a bit choked up putting this post together. It brought back a lot of memories. I miss Bill a whole lot.
3 comments:
Bill Evans ~ master of the transparent heart ~ reminds us of the beauty which lives inside everyone of us.
Laurie Verchomin
Author of "The Big Love/My Life with Bill Evans"
First thing I did when the mother of my youngest and I split up and I was left with a house in the Berkshires we were not now going to move into, was to go out and buy a portable CD player and a copy (mine was back in Jersey) of WAKTZ FOR DEBBIE and listen to "My Foolish Heart" over and over again and it worked, Evans' incredibly delicate touch and transformation of the song filled my heart with happiness, happy memories of the days when I first heard it (a little older than you, out of high school and playing my own version in bars in NYC) while falling in love with my first great love-of-my-life ("Bambi"—God rest her soul) and all the other times over the years it brought me solace, as it did the time I started this comment with, and still does, every time I listen to it. It's always in my top ten list. Top five.
PS: I didn't set the scene for my comment correctly (still post-brain surgery has me thinking I'm doing things I'm not) but the point was I had my own CD of Waltz for Debbie as well as the LP still back in Jersey, but I was in this mostly empty house up in Western Massachusetts (because we had canceled the moving van since we ended up staying in jersey in separate apartments) and the emptiness resonating with lost dreams etc. I had to fill it with something while I stayed there to settle matters, and what I filled it with was that CD, WALTZ FOR DEBBIE!
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