Saturday Dec 23rd, 2023, 7:00 PM – The Palace of Melancholy.
Today in the Palace of Melancholy we meet a selection of musicians who are sometimes miles apart in style. Bebop tenor Dexter Gordon has as neighbour…Wim Kan! We zoom in on two versions of the jazz standard I’ll Close My Eyes. In 1960, trumpeter Blue Mitchell recorded it in a quartet line-up. And one of the many vocal versions is the 1947 one by Johnny Desmond – a successful crooner whose fame has faded over time.
Hard bop trumpeter Blue Mitchell started his career in the early 1950s, in R&B bands. A few years later he was picked up by Cannonball Adderley, and from 1958 he fronted Horace Silver’s quartet. In 1960 he entered the studio at Riverside, for the first time as leader of a quartet line-up. The resulting record, Blue’s Moods, contains the song I’ll Close My Eyes. This composition, by British songwriter Billy Read, has both a melody and a chord route that takes the listener effortlessly along. One moment flows ‘logically’, as a matter of course, into the next. A crystal clear musical story. Pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Sam Jones and drummer Roy Brooks together with the trumpeter achieve a high degree of ‘groupiness’.
The original song version has a real, extra-musical story. A story of regret – unfortunately love is no longer there; Only with closed eyes can things be recalled briefly. Enter crooner Johnny Desmond. The tempo is considerably slower, every word is broadly sung , the emotion is expressed unambiguously. In the short intermezzo, piano and guitar repeat the melody, commentary comes from the bass.
The line-up of the accompanying Page Cavanaugh Trio: piano, guitar and bass – no drums! -, was first introduced by the Nat King Cole Trio in the early 1940’s. That was widely followed.
I’ll close my eyes
To everyone but you
And when I do
I’ll see you standing there
I’ll lock my heart to any other cares
I’ll never say yes to a new love affair
I’ll close my eyes
To everything that’s gay
If you’re not there
To share each lovely day
And through the years, those moments
When we’re far apart
I’ll close my eyes
And see you with my heart
Thoughts: having heard Desmond’s interpretation, does it shed a different light on Mitchell’s instrumental version?
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Complete program information can be found in the Guide.
The Palace of Melancholy – Sjaak Roodenburg
