Great Love Songs (12)

I suppose I was first introduced to big band music back in the late '70s or early '80s through Dennis Potter's TV series Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective, which featured scores of popular hits from the '30s and '40s (are those soundtrack albums still available, I wonder - I'd love to get them on CD). My parents had some Glenn Miller, but not much else; at university, the blues became one of my earliest niche interests, soon followed by early jazz. It might well have been my Indian friend, The Younger Dr P (junior sibling of The Egregious one), an idolater of Frank Sinatra (and a passable impersonator of him, too), who first gave me a wider exposure to the other great musicians of that era. As soon as I heard Harry James's trumpet, I was in a swoon. I don't think anybody else has had quite that sound, or has been able to carry a melody quite so sweetly.

This is You Made Me Love You, sung by one of his regular female vocalists, Helen Forrest. It appears to be from an old film, but I can't tell which one. I'm afraid the sound is fairly weak, but it's still a lovely clip.

I think this was one of the tunes used by Woody Allen for the soundtrack of Hannah and Her Sisters (of course, after that, for a little while, everyone was a Harry James fan again!). Other Harry James numbers from that film were, I think, I've Heard That Song Before (again, sung by Helen Forrest; you can see that here, but alas, there's no video with it, only a still from Hannah), and It's Been A Long, Long Time (which I had thought was also sung by Helen, but apparently it's by another of Harry's stable of fine singers, Kitty Kallen; I absolutely love this, and might well have chosen it above You Made Me Love You, but again there is no video accompanying it). And while we're having a splurge on Harry (god, YouTube sucks you in, doesn't it?!), here's a colour clip of the great man playing his Trumpet Blues & Cantabile, from a 1944 film called Bathing Beauty.

What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon???