Jazz, blues and nostalgia, by Sjaak Roodenburg.
With a singer with such a beautiful crisp edge on her vocal cords, Helen Merrill with the Louis van Dijk trio (“But not for me”), the same song performed by Ineke Vandoorn with guitarist Marc van Vugt on the album “Vandoorn Uncovered”), close harmony quartet The Merry Macs (“Sentimental Journey”).
From the album “Conny Stuart sings Annie M.G. Schmidt,” the vicious but also humorous “Ik hoef alleen maar even zo te doen”, the indestructible saloon song “Angel Eyes” in an instrumental version by the Dave Brubeck Quartet on an album of Matt Dennis compositions.
The sun-drenched orchestra of Xavier Cugat with a lullaby under the palm trees, Dean Martin posthumously linked to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy through modern technology (“Who’s got the action?”).
Also featured are the AVRO Dance Orchestra (“Crazy rhythm”), June Christy (“I’m thrilled”), Brigitte Kaandorp with a radio-controlled sailboat, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra in a Sonny Bono song, pianist Teddy Wilson.
From the American heartland: Joseph Emmet Mainer with his Crazy Mountaineers yodeling and singing in “Yodelin’ mountaineer,” the Viennese Greta Keller singing about the loneliness of a woman in a big city. And the German singer who so beautifully revives German dance and film music from the twenties and thirties, Max Raabe (“Küssen kann man nicht allein”).
