Monday, October 20, 2014

My Favourite Things

This isn't about my favourite things, but about the song from an old Broadway Musical The Sound of Music. It has a nice enough melody but since the song is a light-hearted waltz, the melody is sort of wasted in potential, potential you realize when you listen two musical geniuses do their own take on it.

Here's the original:




Here's the take by the Isaignani Illayaraja:




It isn't really a copy in the tradition of Preetam, but is inspired. I find this take vastly better than the original. (I found the link between Illayaraja's version and the original here, years ago).

Recently I started listening to Jazz and stumbled upon another version of My Favorite Things, by John Coltrane:




This version really does full justice to what the original could have been. The melody is ever present throughout the piece either in full or in pieces or just surreptitiously lurking behind the flight's of fancies by the soloists. It's like a tight rope walker doing ever impossible feats but always returning back to the rope. A true musical masterpiece.

1 comments:

Captain Mandrake said...

**It's like a tight rope walker doing ever impossible feats but always returning back to the rope.**

Nice description.

I simply love Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" and "A Love Supreme".