" ‘Don't you know you fool, you never can win!
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.’
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.’
But each time I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
'Cause I’ve got you under my skin.”—Cole Porter, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” composed for the 1936 film Born to Dance
How many covers of the Cole Porter standard exist, anyway? Frank Sinatra’s swinging 1956 hit put the song on the map, though it had been introduced by Virginia Bruce two decades before in Born to Dance. Since then, the likes of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Katherine McPhee, Diana Krall, and Jamie Cullum, to name just a few, have taken a crack at it.
But for my money, when I’m looking for a version that lays down its own marker for distinction from the first note; that features jazz musicians in the best kind of “can-you-top-this?” contest; that fills you with the sheer joy of being alive—the one to go with is Dinah Washington’s, recorded on this date in 1954 in a series of live sessions, then released as Dinah Jams.
What a handful she was! They called her “The Queen”—as much a testament to her tempestuous temperament as to her brilliance in front of a microphone. She achieved her greatest success as a pop singer, recording “What a Diff’rence a Day Made,” but in her relatively short life she’d tried it all: gospel (where she started), R&B, pop ballads, jazz—almost as many styles as she had husbands (at least seven, before she died at 39 in 1963).
Fans of “The Queen” are much taken by other songs on Dinah Jams, such as “Lover Come Back to Me” and “There Is No Greater Love.” But I’m a partisan of her inspired, full-throated take on the Porter classic, recorded two years before Ol’ Blue Eyes scaled the mountain.
Right away, drummer Max Roach’s rhumba beat clues you in that you’re in entirely different territory here. Just as quickly, Queen Dinah jumps into the fray, not just keeping pace with the persistent beat but passing it, barely able to control the emotions inside her—and loving every minute of it.
But about a third of the way through, the song assumes a near-stratospheric level of competition and skill. In turn, trumpeters Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson, and Clifford Brown conduct a thrilling duel that in the end becomes a three-way standoff.
But you can’t ignore the singer who ignited them. In a 1976 profile, later collected in his collection Living With Jazz, critic Dan Morgenstern noted that she “functions as a horn among horns, trading improvisatory skills with some of the best players in the field.”
When the horn players cease, Dinah returns, concluding five and a half minutes of supercharged joy.
How many covers of the Cole Porter standard exist, anyway? Frank Sinatra’s swinging 1956 hit put the song on the map, though it had been introduced by Virginia Bruce two decades before in Born to Dance. Since then, the likes of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Katherine McPhee, Diana Krall, and Jamie Cullum, to name just a few, have taken a crack at it.
But for my money, when I’m looking for a version that lays down its own marker for distinction from the first note; that features jazz musicians in the best kind of “can-you-top-this?” contest; that fills you with the sheer joy of being alive—the one to go with is Dinah Washington’s, recorded on this date in 1954 in a series of live sessions, then released as Dinah Jams.
What a handful she was! They called her “The Queen”—as much a testament to her tempestuous temperament as to her brilliance in front of a microphone. She achieved her greatest success as a pop singer, recording “What a Diff’rence a Day Made,” but in her relatively short life she’d tried it all: gospel (where she started), R&B, pop ballads, jazz—almost as many styles as she had husbands (at least seven, before she died at 39 in 1963).
Fans of “The Queen” are much taken by other songs on Dinah Jams, such as “Lover Come Back to Me” and “There Is No Greater Love.” But I’m a partisan of her inspired, full-throated take on the Porter classic, recorded two years before Ol’ Blue Eyes scaled the mountain.
Right away, drummer Max Roach’s rhumba beat clues you in that you’re in entirely different territory here. Just as quickly, Queen Dinah jumps into the fray, not just keeping pace with the persistent beat but passing it, barely able to control the emotions inside her—and loving every minute of it.
But about a third of the way through, the song assumes a near-stratospheric level of competition and skill. In turn, trumpeters Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson, and Clifford Brown conduct a thrilling duel that in the end becomes a three-way standoff.
But you can’t ignore the singer who ignited them. In a 1976 profile, later collected in his collection Living With Jazz, critic Dan Morgenstern noted that she “functions as a horn among horns, trading improvisatory skills with some of the best players in the field.”
When the horn players cease, Dinah returns, concluding five and a half minutes of supercharged joy.
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