Had over 13,000 steps Thursday, by far my best day. After finishing all the Passover shopping, I went to the travel agency and got the train tickets for our overnight trip next week to Ferrara with Mike and Jalayne.
Thought I would relax for the rest of the day. Barbara is working her ass off ( and it is small to begin with) getting ready for Passover. She loves to hear music while she is working so I put on a multi-hour concert. Our apartment is set up so the music can be heard or shut off in every room.
The fist album, in honor of Susie Wishnick, was Barbara Cook’s “It’s Better With a Band”. I previously wrote about how great Cook was, particularly with her brilliant arranger-conductor Wally Harper. This is a recording of a one-night life performance at Carnegie Hall around 1980. It is very eclectic in nature. There are many great versions of “Sweet Georgia Brown” but this one ranks with the best.
I have a list of my favorite underrated songs and one of them is on this album. It is “Lullaby in Ragtime” written by Danny Kaye’s extraordinarily talented Wife Sylvia Fine for one of the great movie musicals “The Five Pennies”, the Red Nichols story. Fine also wrote the special lyrics for one of the greatest duets in the movies—-Louis Armstrong and Kaye doing “When The Saints Go Marching In”. If, by chance, you are not familiar with it, go online for one of the musical treats around.
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I next played “Michael Feinstein Sings and Jerry Herman Plays The Jerry Herman Songbook”. I love Herman’s music. “I Won’t Send Roses” is an incredible gem that few people know was originally sung by Robert Preston in “Mack and Mabel”.
Then, one of the greatest love songs written, from a truly great show “La Cage Aux Folles”. It is called “Look Over There,” and it is sung by one gay man to his lover. I always loved this show but found the whole experience of listening to this album particularly poignant because both Performers are gay. I see a trend in our country anti-gay, anti-same-sex-and- interracial-marriage etc.. And people, as Passover starts tonight, I say to my Jewish friends, “stop sitting on your asses and because the Jews could well be next." It happened in Pre-Nazi Germany and the same trends are evident in the United States.
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I was in a duet mood and first played one of the greatest of all duet albums Sammy Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae called “Boy Meets Girl”. There is one great duet after another. I also listen to Davis’ “Porgy and Bess” album.
Judy Garland was also a great duet singer and I played an album entitled “Judy Garland and Friends” . The duets are with Tony Bennett and Dick Shawn, Lena Horne, Vic Damone, Lisa, Mickey Rooney, Martha Ray, Mel Torme, and Barbara Streisand. Not a bad lineup.
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The concert ended with the first half of a Bing Crosby-Bob Crosby album I have been playing since I was teenager
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Governor DeSantis signed a 15-week abort bill. The man is out of his mind. I do not know the precise numbers, but I know the vast majority of Floridians oppose such a restrictive law. The man simply does not care about his constituents. He know better.
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Happy Passover.
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