Its not only values that we, as children, caught from our parents, but also, acquired tastes in fashion, literature, & the arts. Dad & Mum had both eclectic & pedestrian tastes in music, for their time. For example, Mum loved the Beatles, Chopin & Strauss.
We grew up in Bombay, when it was still Bombay.
Even with city changing its name to Mumbai, the Hindi movie business is still Bollyood. Bombay's 1950s & 1960s Bollywood's produced excellent, cutting-edge Hindi music, but, with a few exceptions, the Western, cabaret numbers skirted copyright ligitation. When we were young we played the, which song is this copied from? game.
It was while browsing through my sister's Facebook picture with our mother, that I was reminded that Mum specifically loved Tea for Two. I also thought that this was a good way to further introduce the Steemit community to some part of my background & to where I come from.
I regret that I had never asked her why when she was alive.
So, I began my quest to get into her head.
First, with the aid of machine search, then manually scouring some family letters & through humint i.e. talking to people.
Here we go.
Tea for Two, the song which originally from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette.
Tea for Two made its first appearance on Broadway
Music: Vincent Youman
Lyrics: Irving Caesar.
Duet sung by Nanette and Tom, played by Louise Groody & Jack Barker in Act II as they imagine their future.
Based on the original 1925 orchestration, Jason Graae & Rebecca Luker perform Tea For Two.
After listening to it on a phonograph, conductor Nikolai Malko, in 1927 challenged composer Dmitri Shostakovich to compose an arrangement of Tea For Two . Malko wagered 100 roubles for Shostakovich to re-orchestrate the song from memory in under an hour. Shostakovich won; in 45 minutes. His "Tea for Two" arrangement, Opus 16, was incorporated into the Tahiti Trot in his ballet The Golden Age.
Tea for Two has been extensively covered through the 20th century including Doris Day & Gordon MacRae in Tea for Two, in 1950 in the eponymous movie.
As Tea for Two, the jazz standard, its composition was turned on its head by the likes of Thelonious Monk's Skippy, & Anita O'Day.
Art Tatum's Tea for Two, in 1933, beat James P Johnson & Fats Waller, in a cutting contest.
My favourite, Tea for two Yuja Wang. stays close to Shostakovich.
Yuja Wang works with Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev, Michael Tilson Thomas, Antonio Pappano, Charles Dutoit, and Zubin Mehta.
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