When it came time to select the tunes for the CD, I first listened to all the tracks to see which ones I felt were the cream of the crop, so to speak. Remember also that the tracks were recorded live, so there would be no possibility of fixing any 'wrongly placed' notes. (I can't remember who said this, but some wise musician said "There are no wrong notes in jazz- only 'wrongly placed' ones.")
After several days of listening, I had some definite favorites and was able to figure out a playlist that worked on two levels:
- Fast tunes needed to alternate with slow tunes so the listener wouldn't get either overwhelmed or bored. (Anyone who has created a 'mix CD' or an iTunes playlist knows what I mean.)
- The key of each tune needed to have some relation to the tune that came before and afterward.
And then, of course, what would I call the CD? Was there any kind of theme that could be gleaned from the titles of the tracks that would make for a good, catchy CD title? Well, not really, other than that many of the tunes dealt with 'love'- but what American Popular Songbook tune doesn't?
Maybe one of the tune titles would work as an overall title of the CD? I had planned to call the CD LIVE AT THE DELANEY HOUSE, but that seemed kind of ho-hum and predictable. And then I recalled Brian mentioning to me at the session that he really liked the Henry Mancini song, "Dreamsville"- he had never heard of it before and loved the chord progressions. So I decided that DREAMSVILLE would not only be a interesting title, it would also give my designer Katie Mazzerina-Schwartz and my photographer Peter Simon a very cool theme to work with. More on that later.
Here are the tunes I selected and the order that I came up with:
- A Foggy Day (uptempo; key of F)
- Dreamsville (ballad; key of C)
- How Deep Is The Ocean? (ballad intro/uptempo swing; key of dm/F)
- I'll Never Smile Again (ballad; key of Eb)
- A New Kind Of Love (uptempo; key of G)
- These Foolish Things (medium shuffle; key of Eb)
- It Might As Well Be Spring (slow swing; key of G)
- MEDLEY: I May Be Wrong.../I Hadn't Anyone (uptempo swing; key of C/F)
- The Girl I Love (ballad; key of Eb)
- Lover, Come Back To Me (slow swing; key of G)
- I Left My Heart In San Francisco (ballad; key of Bb)
- Somebody Stole My Gal (fast stride; key of Eb)
- Blue In Green (ballad; key of dm)
- I Can't Give You Anything But Love (medium stride; key of G)
Here is the order in which the tunes were actually recorded that evening (I haven't tried listening to them in this order yet):
- A New Kind Of Love
- These Foolish Things
- Dreamsville
- Lover, Come Back To Me
- MEDLEY: I May Be Wrong.../I Hadn't Anyone...
- I'll Never Smile Again
- I Can't Give You Anything But Love (take one)
- It Might As Well Be Spring
- How Deep Is The Ocean?
- I Left My Heart In San Francisco
- The Girl I Love
- A Foggy Day
- Somebody Stole My Gal
- Blue In Green
The above order does not include the other unreleased tunes I recorded that evening.
"Blue in Green" by Miles Davis and Bill Evans, one of the last tracks I recorded that night (and the only really straight ahead jazz tune I included on the disc) is a very emotional piece for me to perform. I've always been affected by the beautiful chord changes that occur in its irregular ten measure pattern. The pattern begins slowly, and soon the chords occur twice as fast, but the theme eventually returns back in the slower tempo. For me, the song has a melancholy and wistful feeling attached to it. It's probably my most favorite of the live tracks. I seriously considered ending the CD with it, but I realized that I needed to match the optimism of the opening song, "A Foggy Day", with something equally upbeat. So I ended up selecting "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" to be the final track of the program proper. I've always started the latter with a rough glissando up the keyboard to give it an exciting start. I felt that by placing "I Can't Give You..." at the end, the glissando effect would nicely brush away the residual sadness of "Blue In Green".
There were actually two takes of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" recorded, and I preferred the first take over the second, but the second take had some closing dialogue on it that I really liked. It was at the end of the evening and a table of four (two couples) had enjoyed listening to me, so right as I finished the tune one of the guys came over to the piano and said "Very nice! I know that's your last number, so..." as he dropped some bills into my brandy snifter tip jar- to which I responded, "Thanks!" So I asked Brian to tack on that dialogue onto the end of the first take. It's the only splice we allowed in the live portion of the disc, I'm pleased to say. I think that the closing dialogue was a neat way to finish the disc.
However, the disc would not end there- I wanted to put some surprise bonus material on it, too! I'll talk about that another time.
