The way you look tonight - Kern, Fields, 1936 - Ukulele chord-melody w. pdf

The way you look tonight (Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, 1936). Academy award-winning song, from the film “Swing time,” where it was unveiled by Fred Astaire. Since then, performed by everyone and his brother, and a favourite among jazzers, especially after someone (Sonny Rollins?) boosted the tempo to an Olympic sprint of 240 beats a minute! For my part, I figure it’s more human at a slower tempo of ca. 108-120, especially if you want to include the lyrics. Second Hand Songs documents a veritable tsunami of no fewer than 950 versions, including some of my favourite singers: Mel Tormé, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Barbara Cook, Mary Cleere Haran, Maxine Sullivan, Betty Carter, plus hundreds of artists I’ve scarcely or never heard of. On the instrumental side, it looks like the first recording was by Eddie Duchin in 1940, followed by a horde of band leaders and jazzers. Start your engines! Uke key: F. There’s no verse. The form of the chorus is AABA, with each section 16 bars long. The A section(s) start with a drop of a fifth to the tonic, followed by a stepwise ascending sequence leading to the high F and then a cadence figure. The most remarkable feature, in a way, is the wordless vocalise over the closing four bars, set to a couple of vi-ii-V-I progressions. The bridge modulates to the key of Ab (bIII), where it stays until a deft turn back to F major at the end (“touches my foolish heart”). In the last A section, Fields decided to have the singer hum along on “mm”. I don’t think I’ve heard another song that does that, although I’m probably wrong. But Fred was Fred, and Dorothy was Dorothy, so there you go. In any case, the overall melodic design is a beauty, a marvel of simplicity and sophistication, as is usually the case with Kern’s tunes. I did this song a few years ago, but without words, and with somewhat different voicings and fingerings (see Fmaj7: x500). This version is easier and sounds nicer, thanks to the open A string, which can lend a sort of harp-like articulation when combined with a closed E string (see bar 3, for example, “when I’m awfully low”). Anything to let the uke breathe a bit, so it doesn’t sound like a wind-up music box. pdf link in the comments