The song of the day for Saturday, December 31, 2016 is “There Will Never Be Another You.”
About This Song
Today’s song, “There Will Never Be Another You,” was written in 1942 by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon. It’s ironic that one of Harry Warren’s most beautiful songs was written for a Sonja Henie vehicle called Iceland, starring Miss Henie and John Payne as a U.S. Marine stationed in Iceland during World War II. The song was introduced in the movie by Joan Merrill.
Amazingly, this beautiful song was not nominated for an Academy Award. No matter. The song has become a serious jazz standard and has had many fine recordings, including Bennett’s 1959 recording with Count Basie and his 1962 improvisation with Dave Brubeck at the White House Sessions. Other significant recordings include those by Lionel Hampton, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Sonny Rollins, and Lester Young and Oscar Peterson.
About This Version
Tony Bennett recorded today’s version of “There Will Never Be Another You” in 1962 at a concert set up by the Kennedy White House for the year’s interns. Bennett and the Dave Brubeck Quartet both performed at the concert. After their two individual sets, Bennett, Brubeck, drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright did a jazz improv session, which included today’s song. The tapes for this concert were located in the Columbia vaults not long after Brubeck’s death in 2012 and released in 2013 as Bennett/Brubeck: The White House Sessions Live 1962.
One of my plans for 2017 is to start to learn how to play jazz upright string bass. If you listen closely to Eugene Wright’s bass in the last half of this recording, you’ll hear the kind of thing that I aspire to be able to do. I’m getting wonderful support from many friends for this endeavor. I’ll be sure to keep you posted!
“There Will Never Be Another You,” as well as Bennett/Brubeck: The White House Sessions Live 1962, is available from iTunes.
About Today
Our Saturday video today is from the movie Iceland and features Joan Merrill introducing “There Will Never Be Another You.” Sorry about the slight out-of-sync with the music.
I also want to share an instrumental of today’s song that really blew me away. Lester Young and Oscar Peterson from 1954:
To Our Readers
I want to sincerely thank every reader of this site for a wonderful 2016 at The Year of Tony Bennett. I’ll never lose my enthusiasm for doing this blog because of the energy and passion we all share for the music of the great Tony Bennett.