Cole Porter’s I Love You – Part of My Learning Process
A few months a year after beginning my 14 year stint as solo pianist at the Radisson Milford Hotel, I recorded a solo piano album entitled I’m Beginning to See the Light. Little did I know when I began the project, how prophetic the title of that recording would turn out to be. Although we learn from our mistakes and grow from life experiences, the process can be extremely painful.
Despite the fact that many people purchased and enjoyed my cassette album, I was somewhat disappointed by what I heard in my piano playing. After dealing with discouragement and disillusionment with the results of my efforts and investment of time, energy and money, I began to see the light. While listeners had enjoyed my solo piano music as an easy listening background tape for dinner, driving and /or relaxing, I knew that I needed more musical training to better express myself as a pianist.
Remembering the advice of my closest friend, jazz guitarist John Dougherty from several years earlier (I spoke about this in last week’s post), I knew exactly what to do.
Take piano lessons!
Within a short time after deciding to proceed to with the next step on my musical journey, I searched for, located and enrolled in private lessons with composer and jazz pianist William Thomas McKinley. At my first lesson with Tom, he not only introduced me to some new and better ways to understand and play chords, he also encouraged me to enroll in the Master of Music degree program at New England Conservatory. Before I knew it, I was a graduate student majoring in Jazz Studies.
During the fall of my second year at NEC, I was taking a course taught by Jazz Department Chairman Hankus Netsky. Though I have no other recollection of hearing Cole Porter’s I Love You before that time, this standard came to my attention while I was in that class. Since I was exploring the technique of reharmonization (replacing chords shown in the sheet music with more colorful sounds) in my private lessons with Mr. McKinley, I took the opportunity to combine this with my classroom learning experience.
Once I had replaced several of the standard chords for I Love You with some more unusual ones, started playing the song on my solo piano gig. In keeping with my normal custom, I decided to create a three song medley of Cole Porter tunes using the beguine bass rhythm for the accompaniment style. I played two thirds of this original medley for the recording for my recent blog post Let’s Beguine with a Cole Porter Medley, I Love Paris/I’ve Got You Under My Skin . Since these two songs are more widely known than I Love You, I often have used them with many of my piano students to help them learn how to play pieces with the beguine bass accompaniment.
As a result, I decided to play today’s selection with a different rhythm than I have done in the past. Cole Porter, as I mentioned before, reintroduced himself to Broadway in 1929 after returning from Paris. I Love You is from the 1943 show Mexican Hayride. This places the song about halfway through the composer’s most productive 30 years. Despite this fact, I have noticed that most of the songs that get lots of performances tend to come from the years prior to this.
When I did my usual search on Rhapsody Music for recorded performances of I Love You, I was disappointed that there was such a limited selection. Fortunately, even though there were only three available jazz tracks, they were all swinging performances. In fact two of them featured the great bassist Ray Brown of whom I’ve spoken in my recent posts. In addition to his long association with Oscar Peterson, Brown’s later groups included pianists Monty Alexander and Gene Harris. Because both of these keyboard artists tended to play with a very bluesy style, the many recordings that during the bassists final years were upbeat and had a great sense of fun.
When my piano students want to learn how to add a walking bass to their arrangements of songs, I recommend that they listen to Ray Brown. When they model their left hand lines of this great bassist, their sense of swing develops and their piano playing comes to life. So when you listen to my recording of I Love You in the blog audio player on the right, you’ll hear me playing this standard very differently than I played it a decade ago.
But that’s part of the joy of music making!
One of the most enjoyable and exciting parts of playing the piano is that you can arrange songs in different ways. After more than three decades of teaching children and adults how to play the piano, I have become even more convinced that students want to express themselves at the keyboard. As one of the parents commented at last year’s recital, “these kids don’t just play the notes, they are making music!”
Because they know how valuable self-expression is, parents contact us all the time because they want their children to have the opportunity to learn to play the piano. We also hear from many adults who wish they had taken piano lessons when they were young. They want their lives to be richer by achieving their long-awaited goal of making music at the keyboard. You can too!
Take 10 seconds to fill out the contact form on the website, and we’ll help you find out if taking piano lessons is right for you. Beginners, young and old, are always welcomed. Whether you are close to our Natick Piano Studio or you live near our convenient Hudson Studio, all of our patient and encouraging piano instructors are always delighted to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love!