Sunday, February 13, 2005

Feeling Good- Michael Buble

What a great song. If any of you have never listened to Michael Buble, you need to. People get mad when I compare him to Frank Sinatra, but that is the only fair comparison and the only way to get across to someone who has never heard his voice, how beautiful and smooth it is.
He mostly does re-makes of old Frank stuff, and some new things too. "Feeling Good" is the first track on his brand new album Its Time. Its pretty much big band music, the medium consists of Buble on vocals, piano, and jazz ensemble (trumpet, trombone, alto,tenor, bari sax, double bass, guitar, and drumset). There is also an orchestral section in the beginning with Buble and a small string ensemble.
Its going to be hard for me to talk about form because I know NOTHING about jazz form and style, (its definately something I want to know more about). Its definately not typical jazz, its more "cookie cutter" I think. There is no improvisation, and the arrangement consists of the same general phrase repeated over and over again with different lyrics going over the top of it. Its somewhat strophic in that sense, (I'm sure thats not the appropriate term for jazz ecspecially).
I think that the lyrics really help out with the form and the phrasing just because its seems like the arrangement underneath the lyrics is constructed to really show off the singer, and emphasize the lyrics. Particularly the lyrics "its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me, and I'm feeling good" really are pushed along and emphasized with the crescendo and phrasing done in the trumpet and trombone parts. The trombones emphasize and dominate the bass line during this lyrics with what is essentially a slow and heavy descending chromatic scale, it gives a really cool effect, and the song ends with Buble and the trombone tapering off together that way.

1 comment:

Scott said...

Strophic forms can be found in jazz music, especially vocal jazz music.