Take Two
Well known tunes approached in two different ways
Fascinating Rhythm
It seems hard to believe that Fascinating Rhythm is now 100 years old. It was written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1924 and featured in the Broadway musical that year by Fred and Adele Asataire. Wikipedia adds the factoid: "One of the rarest recordings is by Joe Bari (a pseudonym of Anthony Dominick Benedetto, later better known as Tony Bennett, for Leslie Records in 1949 (here) and issued as catalog number 919 with Vieni Qui as the flip side. Having re-recorded it as a duet with Diana Krall in 2018 for their duet album Love Is Here To Stay, (here), he currently holds the Guiness World Record for the "longest time between the release of an original recording and a re-recording of the same single by the same artist".
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Since 1924 it has been recorded numerous time with different approaches including one of Jacob Collier's early videos (here), but for our two versions that you might not have heard before we turn to the Tamuz Nissim Trio featuring Thanos Daskalopoulos, and The Amazing Keystone Big Band featuring Neima Naouri. They both swing in their different ways.
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Award winning vocalist Tamuz Nissim grew up in Tel Aviv, went to The Netherlands to study and then moved to New York where she has been based since 2014. Her trio's version of Fascinating Rhythm features tap dancer Thanos Daskalopoulos:​
​There are many audio recordings and videos of Fascinating Rhythm on YouTube to explore - of course they include versions by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and others, but we turn to a big band for our second 'take'. The Amazing Keystone Big Band is a French band. Their February 2025 album Fascinating Rhythm(s) celebrates the music of Gershwin and here is one of their singers, Neima Naouri, with a video of the title track:
You can sample and download The Amazing Keystone Big Band's Fascinating Rhythm(s) album here.
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2025.4