{"id":7232,"date":"2016-01-08T22:34:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T06:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=7232"},"modified":"2018-02-10T16:54:58","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T00:54:58","slug":"weekend-extra-jeepers-creepers-its-a-tour-de-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2016\/01\/weekend-extra-jeepers-creepers-its-a-tour-de-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Extra: Jeepers Creepers, It&#8217;s A Tour De Force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have all been victims, or beneficiaries, of <em>cranio-melodia-repeatis<\/em> syndrome. The tune I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been able to get out of my head for several days is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jeepers Creepers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the 1938 Harry Warren-Johnny Mercer hit premiered by Louis Armstrong in the film <em>Going Places<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6kHN1fc8ejs?rel=0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7233\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Jeepers-Creepers.jpg\" alt=\"Jeepers Creepers\" width=\"220\" height=\"287\" \/>The movie had been out for about a minute-and-a-half when Ethel Waters went into the studio for the first big cover recording. Through the 1940s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s singers including the Mills Brothers, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Mel Torm\u00c3\u00a9, Paula Kelly, Toni Tennille, the Al Belletto Sextet and probably a dozen others followed suit. In recent years, videos of the song by Wesla Whitfield and Nikki Yanofsky have been memorable for different reasons.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">There have been at least dozens of instrumental versions, among them this 1954 interpretation by the Dave Brubeck Quartet in their first big Columbia album. Gratuitous information: the Brubecks chose to play it in B-flat rather than the original A-flat.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SevcCNTN-sM\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jeepers Creepers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmore accurately\u00e2\u20ac\u201dits chords and structure, stuck in the minds of jazz composers. Jimmy Guiffre used them as the basis for the Woody Herman classic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four Brothers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Charlie Parker for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My Little Suede Shoes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and Dizzy Gillespie for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tour de Force.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In the summer of 1987 Gillespie gathered several of his trumpet prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9s for a performance of his brainchild at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Virginia. We borrowed the <em>Great Performances<\/em> video from Wynton Marsalis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website. Dizzy introduces the trumpeters. The rhythm section is Walter Davis, Jr., piano; Eddie Gomez, bass; and Ignacio Berroa, drums.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/144611380\" width=\"500\" height=\"371\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Have a splendid weekend.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Oh, if you wonder what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s memorable about the Whitfield and Yanofsky videos, go <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=R9USUBGOqRc\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PEtscBET5-w\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. With the Whitfield, you get a twofer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have all been victims, or beneficiaries, of cranio-melodia-repeatis syndrome. The tune I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been able to get out of my head for several days is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jeepers Creepers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the 1938 Harry Warren-Johnny Mercer hit premiered by Louis Armstrong in the film Going Places. The movie had been out for about a minute-and-a-half when Ethel Waters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}