musical interlude

Today's random musical interlude, "The Mooche", the jazz instrumental first track from John Barry's Grammy winning The Cotton Club soundtrack. Recorded in 1984 and in the movie played over the opening credits. I've never even seen this movie, I suppose I should remedy that at some point, and I'm not sure how I got a copy of the soundtrack. It would've been sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's though, the movie was not really on my radar when it came out and I found the music later. I confess I'm not a huge jazz fan, but I do love this album, lots of great music on it. This track is a Duke Ellington song, originally written and recorded in 1928. I think John Barry is mostly known for his James Bond themes, but his arrangements here are excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kAxKuib6GM

Ellington's 1928 recording to compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRlJWSFUAg

And for something, well, maybe not all that different, we have "Sous le Ciel de Paris" by Edith Piaf. Piaf is one of France's most famous performers and if you're not familiar with her, I'll just point you to her Wikipedia page rather than trying to sum up. This lovely ode to Paris was written for a movie in 1951 and recorded by Piaf in 1954. I think the version I have is from that '54 recording while what's on youtube are more recent remasterings, as the orchestration sounds a little different, but they're close. I came to have this copy because one of my father's gaming buddies would make these awesome thematic mix CDs. Two of which I inherited, this one from his cabaret themed mix, the other being westerns themed. I remember him doing a train themed one as well, which is sadly missing. I really don't have any cabaret-type music other than this one CD, so I'm thankful for it introducing me to a bunch of music I'd likely never have run across otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGUEirAHQBA

And for a more recent take, Pomplamoose doing this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vol9dZ-t93s