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More Good Tunes

More Good Tunes

by DAVID MACFARLANE
Executive Editor

ALZlive asked artist and music-lover Leopold Plotek about what he listens to when he needs a boost. Lee visits his 94-year-old mother regularly at a long-term care facility in Montreal. He isn’t always sure she knows who he is.

Lee was born in Moscow in 1948. But even though he has lived in Montreal for most of his life, the delight he takes in jazz retains the enthusiasm of someone from the Old World who has never stopped being bowled over by the musical energy of the new.

Some of these are happy songs. Some of them simply make Plotek happy because they are so inventive, so musical, and so good. If you want a play-list of jazz classics, you could do worse than to copy Lee Plotek’s chosen pick-me-ups.

Lee’s List

Chet Baker: Look for the Silver Lining

Chet Baker: It’s Always You

Al Bowlly/ Ray Noble: Love is the Sweetest Thing (1932)

Andy Bey: Never Let Me Go

Andy Bey: If You Could See Me Now

Cab Calloway: Wake Up and Live

Nat King Cole: Rosetta

Ella Fitzgerald: I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart

Paul Desmond/ Gerry Mulligan: All the Things You Are

Erroll Garner: Penthouse Serenade

Benny Goodman: I’m Living in a Great Big Way

Johnny Hartman: Close Your Eyes

Coleman Hawkins and Django Reinhardt: Avalon

Django Reinhardt: Swing 42

Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli: Begin the Beguine

Judy Holiday: What’s the Rush?

The Mills Brothers: The Song is Ended

Frank Sinatra: Blue Skies

Art Tatum with Benny Carter: Undecided

Art Tatum with Lionel Hampton: How High the Moon

Sarah Vaughan: Good Night, My Love

Ben Webster and Oscar Peterson: Perdido

Lester Young and Teddy Wilson: Our Love is Here to Stay

Check out ALZlive’s previous Good Tunes list.

We welcome your lists. Let us know the music that lifts your spirits when they most need lifting.



About the author

David Macfarlane

Read All Articles by David

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