A jazz standard performed with the most overlooked of solo instruments
- Piece: Misty;
- Composer: Erroll Garner;
- Arranger: Alan Fernie;
- Soloist: Brent Heyworth.
Few jazz standards could lay claim to have influenced a Clint Eastwood film. Misty, the muse in Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me, is by far Erroll Garner’s best-known work. The song was first recorded in 1955 for the album Contrasts.
The song, with lyrics added by Johnny Burke, has been covered by numerous artistes. Another Johnny, Johnny Mathis, made it his signature tune. The most unusual version was arranged in a Country and Western/Cajun style, and a UK Top 30 hit single for Ray Stevens.
Today’s clip gives you the rarest of concert items with a baritone horn solo. With his wife Sandra, Brent Heyworth plays a key part in SW Comms Brass Band. By trade he is a welder, and if he’s away from the band room, he’s on the golf course.
Behind tomorrow’s Advent Calendar, we’ll have another welder. A fictitious one that inspired an early 1980s movie with a Giorgio Moroder soundtrack. (What a feeling).
Behind the door
We have gone for another more obvious picture for the Advent Calendar. A misty view somewhere in Scotland. (If anybody knows where this hillside is, please comment in the usual fashion).
S.V., 16 December 2020.
East of the M60 