Sunday Drive: Begin the Beguine

Artie Shaw is the best, and this Cole Porter tune made his career in the big band era. It's been a favorite of your Head Trucker's for many years, but this is the first time I've seen this live performance. Enjoy.

-----

Sunday Drive: Frenesi

A light and breezy tune for a summer afternoon.  Artie Shaw conducts his orchestra in the 1941 hit:

-----

Sunday Drive: Sunrise Serenade

As performed by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra:

Sunday Drive: All the Things You Are

The other day, I tried to express my thoughts here in the BT about the present age.  But the manifest contrast between the corrupted culture of today and this exquisite piece by Artie Shaw and his orchestra from 80 years ago - which, I realize with a shock, was not all that long before I was born - expresses what I was trying to say so much better than any words of mine can.

Just drink it in, beautiful thoughts in a beautiful form - the sheer loveliness of the music. 

Joy.

Sunday Drive: Begin the Beguine

From 1938, Artie Shaw and his orchestra performing what your Head Trucker thinks is the best big-band tune ever:  Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine":




But what is the beguine? The inimitable Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell may give you a clue in their delightful interpretation from Broadway Melody of 1940:

Sunday Drive: My Blue Heaven

Sunday Drive: Out of Nowhere

Sunday Drive: Moonglow

That Artie Shaw, he's something.

Lost Time: Bounce Me, Brother, with a Solid Four

Wouldn't it have been fun . . .




From the 1941 Abbott and Costello comedy Buck Privates.

Sunday Drive: Moonglow

By the great Artie Shaw and his orchestra.