Garrett writes:
I have an old cassette tape that has Matt Dennis himself singing and playing
the piano. I'll bet it has been fifteen years since I've played it, but I am
certain that I can find it in some box stashed away somewhere. I had played
Matt's Angel Eyes (the tape) several hundred times and was quite taken by it
back then. I think he did it in F minor, but I did it in D minor for some
now-forgotten reason. (Email me privately if you want me to send you the tape)
It would be interesting to find out if Matt Dennis used different changes
than those one might find published. This brings up a question that I will
pose to the list... Where do the Fake/Real Book changes originate? Do they
come from the original composers already written out or do they come from
transcriptions? I imagine that the changes are copyrighted, so what happens
when transcriptions bring out different progressions? Are these "new"
changes now copyrighted?
I have not seen any Fake/Real Book changes for Angel Eyes, but suspect that
a lot can be done with the song beyond anything that you would find
published. I guess that's a part of being an artist... start with the raw
materials and make it sound the way you want. So, this sparks another
question that I have pondered... How important is it to maintain the
integrity of the original composer's changes/harmony?
For example, I heard on KUT (our local public radio station) yesterday, a
local vocalist making a point about how the second turn-around in some
particular standard was written a certain way. Most players stick their own
pet turn-arounds in whenever they want. She makes it a project of hers to
teach her various piano players and other accompanyists the "correct"
version. She has a copy of the original score. I wonder how others on this
list react to this? In other words, where is the integrity line drawn?
I suspect too, that Angel Eyes may be a good selection for us to analyse in
this list-setting. As I had written here yesterday, I welcome the
opportunity to dig into a tune together through this list. Are there others
who are interested as well?
Warmest Regards,
Garrett Wilner
Austin, Texas
love2fly@ix.netcom.com