# Whose songs do you love most?



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

This is an easy one for me, but I'm curious about others.... 

I left Duke Ellington off the poll because I guessed he'd run away with it if he were present. 

Who are my most significant omissions?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

science said:


> I left Duke Ellington off the poll because I guessed he'd run away with it if he were present.
> 
> Who are my most significant omissions?


I'm not sure if Ellington is one of the most significant names considering songwriting, even if he wrote beautiful tunes. 
I would probably include before him musicians like Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Alec Wilder (my favorite), Hoagy Carmichael, Vernon Duke, but there are surely other significant names (jimmy van heusen, hugh martin, frank loesser, vincent youmans, arthur schwartz, willard robison...)


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I haven't been able to differentiate these songwriters. I have heard Ella Fitzgerald's fantastic songbook cycles and I hear them all as a unit. The only one of her songbooks that stands apart for me, and the only one I replaced on CD (so far), is the Duke Ellington songbook :lol: While the other songbooks sound Broadway, the Ellington one sounds jazz.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

Forced to pick one -- assuming Ellington isn't in the mix -- then I'd want to go with *Harold Arlen*.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

brotagonist said:


> I haven't been able to differentiate these songwriters. I have heard Ella Fitzgerald's fantastic songbook cycles and I hear them all as just one unit. The only one of her songbooks that stands apart for me, and the only one I replaced on CD (so far) is the Duke Ellington songbook :lol: While the other songbooks sounds Broadway, the Ellington one sounds jazz.


but that it's a matter of arrangements, certainly not of value of songs. After all a lot of jazz is based on the songs of Rodgers, Arlen, Kern, Gershwin, Porter etc.
I mean this is Cole Porter:




Anyway I've chosen Gerswhin because I was thinking of those songs for Porgy and Bess (Summertime, It ain't necessarily so, My man's gone now, I love you Porgy) but it doesn't mean that he's better of Richard Rodgers or Cole Porter.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

norman bates said:


> I'm not sure if Ellington is one of the most significant names considering songwriting, even if he wrote beautiful tunes.


I think Charles Ives and Duke Ellington are America's greatest composers.

So, naturally, I think Duke's songs are MAGNIFICENT.

YMMV, of course.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

JACE said:


> I think Charles Ives and Duke Ellington are America's greatest composers.
> 
> So, naturally, I think Duke's songs are MAGNIFICENT.
> 
> YMMV, of course.


Sure, Ellington is one of the greatest american composers, but to be a songwriter is a different thing. Is Beethoven reminded as one of the greatest opera composers just because he wrote great symphonies?
Many of those pieces we now know as songs of Ellington are thought as instrumental pieces and later adapted as songs. Sometimes the thing produces great results (the first piece that come to mind is Laura, the melody of Raksin with the perfect lyrics of Mercer) but certainly not always, after all a vocal melody and an instrumental one are different things.
I think that a single song as Lush life, the piece written by the young Strayhorn is better than anything Ellington wrote in the field of songs (excluding maybe Come Sunday that is a masterpiece).
Anyway what are your favorite songs of him?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I wasn't thinking of the lyrics but of the music. Obviously if lyrics are the issue, Ellington has no chance.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

norman bates said:


> Sure, Ellington is one of the greatest american composers, but to be a songwriter is a different thing.


I hear you. That makes sense. You could definitely argue that Ellington wasn't a _songwriter_ in the sense other "Great American Songbook" writers were. Primarily because Duke was writing for a particular group of musicians, his orchestra.



norman bates said:


> Anyway what are your favorite songs of him?


Favorites? "In My Solitude"; "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart"; "In a Sentimental Mood"; "Prelude to a Kiss."

And about a hundred others. 

Obviously, Ellington wasn't an all-time great lyricist. Many of his greatest songs began as instrumental compositions and then had lyrics added by others; for example "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and "Do Nothing Til You Hear from Me."


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

science said:


> I wasn't thinking of the lyrics but of the music.


Yes. Me too.



science said:


> Obviously if lyrics are the issue, Ellington has no chance.


I agree.


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## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

George and Ira just in front of Cole Porter. Funnily enough, if songs weren't part of the equation I'd have chosen Ellington without hesitation.


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## Lovemylute (Jul 17, 2014)

Cole Porter, for his sophisticated wit.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> This is an easy one for me, but I'm curious about others....
> 
> I left Duke Ellington off the poll because I guessed he'd run away with it if he were present.
> 
> Who are my most significant omissions?


Harold Arlen, i.e. you've listed lyricist Johnny Mercer, important of course, but not the 'headliner' name for recognizing which tunesmith you meant.

In looking at the sheer number of great songs most of these in your list wrote, it is often a gestalt moment to realize, "Harlen wrote that, too?" and it goes rather on and on. Since a lot of ardent fans of the American songbook repertoire are often not quite so quick on 'who wrote what,' I'm sure for many a casual listener, even a keen listener, a list of the output of most of the others in this poll would elicit a similar result.

I'd vote for all but Irving Berlin (with Mercer as your proxy party for Harold Arlen) because generally, each has a large body of terrific songs... and I know I'm less impressed with Irving Berlin, I think the four other than Berlin are remarkably outstanding musician / songwriters.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I quite miss Haogland Charmichael Sr and Noël Coward in this name mix, top of the available for me is Cole Porter, he is the only one in the list that have the come close to the wit that Mr Coward had! 

/ptr


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

You left out Jerome Kern!






But I gotta go with Mercer because he wrote Early Autumn which is probably my favourite song ever next to stardust and skylark. Can't I just vote on Mercer and on Carmichael?


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

brotagonist said:


> I haven't been able to differentiate these songwriters. I have heard Ella Fitzgerald's fantastic songbook cycles and I hear them all as a unit. The only one of her songbooks that stands apart for me, and the only one I replaced on CD (so far), is the Duke Ellington songbook :lol: *While the other songbooks sound Broadway, the Ellington one sounds jazz.[/b/*


*

That's because the Ellington one is jazz and the others are broadway XD*


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Okay scratch my first post I'm gonna go with Carmichael. This is the only songs that can bring me to tears, this Louis Armstrong version of Star Dust might be the most perfect song I've ever heard.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The Gershwins, Cole Porter, and Jobim. And Johnny Mercer for his superb lyrics to Midnight Sun. But ultimately, my enjoyment of these classics depends heavily on the interpretation. If I don't like the arrangement, or the vocal phrasing, it kills it for me.


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