"Lover Come Back To Me", with Kazoo solo, Jazz Standard, Live 2018, with Musicology Analysis

The Jazz Chorus performed their first show of the year. The Chorus performed arrangements of standard jazz songs with a backing trio of drums, electric guitar, and stand-up acoustic bass. Several stand-out vocal performances out of the dozen songs performed, were: "Days of Wine and Roses" (Henry Mancini), "Lover Come Back To Me" (Sigmund Romberg), "Beautiful Love" (King, Young and Van Alstyne), "You Make Me Feel So Young" (Josef Myrow). Other performances in the show not mentioned in this paper seemed lacking in various aspects. The chorus pieces sounded rhythmically muddy and in some spots, unharmonious. The backing trio became out of time or miscued with a vocalist on at least one song. This paper will focus on the outstanding vocal performance of "Lover Come Back To Me" which was the highlight of the entire show. My bootleg of this performance can be reviewed at the following link: youtu.be/ rBovEfAcS4U
The structure of the song is a standard jazz form: Instrumental introduction, Verse 1, Verse 2, Solo, 2nd Solo, Verse 2, Final Refrain. The two verses followed a main melody theme. The solos were accompanied by all instruments which is preferable and avoided the cliche of jazz soloists taking rounds in which they play for themselves rather than for the audience.
The lyrics were performed as follows:
The sky was blue / And high above / The moon was new / And so was love
This eager heart of mine is singing / Lover come back to me
You came at last / Love had its day / That day is past / You've gone away
This aching heart of mine is singing / Lover where can you be, When
I remember every little thing / You used to do / I'm so lonely
Every road I walked along / I walked along with you / No wonder I am lonely
The sky is blue / The night was cold / The moon is new / But love is old
So while I'm waiting here / This heart of mine is singing / Lover come back to me
The sky is blue / The night was cold / The moon is new / But love is old
[ Solo 1 - Piano ]
[ Solo 2 - Kazoo ]
Every road I walked along / I walked along with you / No wonder I am lonely
The sky is blue / The night was cold / The moon is new / But love is old
So while I'm waiting here / This heart of mine is singing / Lover come back to me
( Retardo ) Lover, come back to... me----!
The underlined refrain "Lover come back to me" / "Lover where can you be" above is a transposition compared to the standard versions (i.e. these lines are sung in opposing order). The underlined "is" and "was" is also a transposi- tion compared to standard versions. These differences could be either purpose- ful performance choices or accidental mistakes. These differences are mentioned because performance mistakes often lead to unique interpretations of a song, and especially in jazz, performances mistakes are often purposely kept as innovations. Unless either a detailed performance description is published by the performer, or a rarely done post-mortem is undertaken by the performer in which they explain performance discrepancies, the source of changes in songs over time remains mysterious. In this case, as usual, the cause of the variation is unknown. However, the change of tense in the early line, "This eager heart of mine is singing" is a significant change as the persona of the song is rendered as no longer as obviously heartbroken in the first verse and longing to patch their sorrow (compare to, "this heart of mine was singing").
The two outstanding aspects of this performance were the vocal quality from the vocalist, and the second instrumental solo, also performed by the vocalist, on a kazoo. The kazoo solo restated the rhythm and melody of the main vocal line which made the instrumental easy to follow as a listener, and not too "outside the box". The vocal line started strong and pure from the first note, which was in sharp contrast to the apparent nervousness of the performer be- fore the music started. The overall quality of the vocal sounded true to pitch and bright, falling only slightly in the middle of a verse line. The vocalist's vibrato was strong and even.
The rhythm of the song is upbeat and at fast tempo with the drummer is- suing sharp staccato beats. The time signature appeared to be 4/4. The upright bass player played rapid walking bass mixed with longer notes at the end of phrases. The rhythm section sounded incredibly tight. The vocal rhythm transi- tioned frequently between a feeling of double-time and standard time which gave the simple melody line significant interest. The piano solo was also performed staccato. The finale of the song changes to half-time to express the feeling of longing of the vocal persona.

[@superblondeDotOrg]

Music Academia mandates Jazz. I don't like Jazz standards and no amount of jazz study will make me enjoy the genre. Jazz is less than 1% of the total revenue of music sales, because audiences do not like Jazz standards either. Modern musicians are forced into Jazz studies by requirement.