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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 15, 2006

TT: La perfectly swell

March 15, 2006 by Terry Teachout

It seems I stirred up a considerable fuss with the recent Wall Street Journal column in which I explained why I’d never been crazy about the singing of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. You may be surprised to hear, incidentally, that the fuss came from both directions–I even received an e-mail from a very prominent cabaret singer thanking me for “telling the truth” about Ella and Sarah.


Among the other people from whom I heard was a reader in search of enlightenment:

Very interesting column! I’m not sure I agree about Sarah Vaughan, but I can see right away where you are coming from. I’m sure you are getting a lot of comments about putting Fred Astaire in a list of favorites in an article where you take two legends to task. But again, I take the point. I’ve always sort of ignored him as someone who “sang like an actor,” but your spin makes me see that in a different light.


Astaire is well represented on iTunes. Any recommendations?

This e-mail surprised me, since most of us middle-aged pop-song connnoisseurs take Astaire’s vocal excellence so completely for granted that it would never occur to us how anyone could have overlooked his singing. To be sure, he was modest to a fault, and never admitted to having been anything more than a dancer who sang on the side. “He had put together, at his home, a film library of all his dance numbers,” Andr

TT: Almanac

March 15, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Isolated in love as in a dark wood,

Our two hearts, breathing their peaceful tenderness,

Will be two nightingales singing in the eventide.


Without anxiety as to what Fate holds in store for us,

We shall walk side by side,

Hand in hand, with the childlike soul


Of those whose mutual love is unalloyed–will it not be so?


Paul Verlaine, “N’est-ce pas?” (trans. Roger Nichols)

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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