There are of course many forms of jazz today but in the 1940s, the eras of dixieland, mainstream and swing were slowly being overtaken by the new 'bop' innovators such as Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie, and with the big band sounds of Stan Kenton. And then came Miles Davis, Bill Evans and eventually John Coltrane, Herby Hancock, etc. But I still preferred to hear the melody and at least the vocalists of the day - as Sarah Vaughan, Billie Eckstine, Nat Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Vic Damone, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong provided more than enough satisfaction and talent for me. Fortunately, they and others carried on doing so through the '50s and '60s - despite popular music gradually becoming swamped by the predominance of rhythm over melody - with the phenomenal growth of 'rock' and 'pop'. This continues today of course - with the synthetic, mechanically produced sounds (?music) of the synthesizer: 'Thump, thump, clickety click, thump...'. Well, to each his own.
More recently, I have realised that without the best material, even the better perfomers can sound below par. Certain songs and tunes seem to have an innate quality I find hard to define (not being a musician myself) but, to use the old cliche, 'I know what I like'. I kept a record of the many artists and, increasingly, the songs I most enjoyed hearing and eventually produced an alphabetic index of the latter. This then grew to include (incomplete) discographies of various artists as well. I hope to transfer much of this material onto this section of the website - for no other reason than I hope others out there with similar interests may find it of some interest and value. They may, for instance, be reminded of some tune or performance they too appreciate but had forgotten about. They may also have related information of interest to myself about which I'd love to hear. The alphabetic list of titles of these Songs and Tunes is divided into two Parts - A to M and N to Z.
A beginning has also now been made in addressing these interests from the point of view of the Artists often involved with these songs (and in many other not so listed). These 'notes' have no set pattern and simply include various items noted from time to time about such performers, listed alphabetically, and a little on their many recordings. Much more is of course available on most of these performers in their biographies and in many books on jazz. It is appreciated that most LPs mentioned have now been superceded by CD versions.
To My Favourite Songs - Part One (A to M)
To My Favourite Songs - Part Two (N to Z)