Here’s That Rainy Day …Sunny Side Up
For a long time on my gigs, Here’s That Rainy Day was the only song by Jimmy Van Heusen that I played. When I decided to present this blog post series that features his compositions, I realized that even though I have played many of his great songs since my early years as a professional musician, I’ve still only scratched the surface of his oeuvre (body of artistic i.e. compositional work). In fact, Van Heusen’s list of his 50 commonly performed standards represents only about 6% of his total output of 800 songs.
Last week’s featured selection, Darn That Dream, marked the beginning of Van Heusen’s most prolific period. Not long after collaborating on this tune and several other songs with lyricist Eddie DeLange, he began his long-time partnership with lyricist Johnny Burke. Burke, like his soon to be collaborator, started out as a staff pianist for a music publisher. In this case, it was Irving Berlin’s company.
Burke headed for Hollywood in 1936 and within four years he and Jimmy Van Heusen began making their mark on song writing history. As a matter of fact, four of the six standards that I selected for this blog post series come from this collaboration. As I mentioned earlier, I have played Here’s That Rainy Day since the earliest days of my performing career.
During all of these years, or perhaps because of this, I have played Here’s That Rainy Day as a ballad, a Bossa nova, a swing tune as well as an arrangement combining all three. It’s just one of those terrific tunes that work well no matter how you play it. About a year ago, I talked about this in my Over the Rainbow blog post.
Although I have no clear recollection of being inspired to learn and perform Here’s That Rainy Day after hearing a specific recording of it, I was delighted to find tracks by so many of my favorite jazz artists among Rhapsody Music’s 400 offerings, in a huge variety of styles which all work beautifully. One performance comes from an album called That’s the Way It Is featuring a quintet led by vibraphonist Milt Jackson.
Jackson had been a charter member of the sophisticated Modern Jazz Quartet known internationally for its “chamber music” style of jazz. Because the MJQ’s performances were so highly structured (as was evidenced by the group’s members always wearing matching outfits), Milt also led swinging small ensembles that performed and recorded the standard repertoire in a less formal way. That’s the Way It Is was recorded in performance at Shelly’s Manne-Hole, a well-known jazz club in Hollywood, California, which brings back a very special musical memory for me.
Not long after this recording was released; a promotional copy arrived at Worcester’s Public Radio Station WICN-FM where I was hosting a Tuesday night jazz show. The album instantly became one of my favorites and I often played cuts from it on my program. A few months later, a friend of mine named Dan Harrison invited me and a couple of other friends to drive into New York City to hear the Milt Jackson Quintet perform at a jazz club called Slugs. (I mentioned Dan in my Bossa nova series blog post that featured A Day in the Life of a Fool A Morning of Carnival Along the Road to Rio . When we arrived, the group was swinging in the New York jazz style that I mentioned in last week’s post when describing Cedar Walton’s rendition of Darn That Dream.
As a matter of fact, Cedar was the quintet’s pianist that evening. And although he and the other ensemble members (except Jackson, of course) were different from those on That’s the Way It Is, the music had the same wonderful quality. That is until…….the second set.
After the intermission, the piano bench was occupied by a special surprise guest: Jamaican born pianist Monty Alexander who had been the pianist on the original Jackson recording. Although this may have accounted for some of the additional energy that the ensemble exhibited, the performance, fueled by Monty’s enthusiasm, took on a life of its own. To say it was electrifying is an understatement. And this, my friends, is one of the reasons that I’m still teaching people how to play the piano nearly 40 years later.
Special musical moments like these are rare indeed, even for professionals. Nevertheless, music touches the deepest parts of all of us. What I have found over the years is that when individuals invest time and energy in learning to play the piano, they not only benefit from acquiring a particular skill, but they also become acutely aware of the music all around them. This, in turn, enriches their lives and makes them happier people besides.
No wonder adults continue to contact us to find out about piano lessons. It’s because they want to learn how to play the piano. Whether they are rank beginners, students who are returning to lessons after a long hiatus or simply amateur pianists who want to broaden their musical horizons, more and more adults are realizing that there’s no time like the present do what they have always wanted to do….take piano lessons.
How about you? Are you tired of letting everything else get in the way? Contact us today. It’s easy. It only takes 10 seconds to get started.
Whether you live near our Natick Studio or your home is closer to our Hudson, MA location, our patient and encouraging piano instructors will be delighted to help you Learn to Play the Music You Love!