billie holiday & louis armstrong - you can't lose a broken heart

this song is just pure cool, everything about it!  i’ve always loved music that hits the ground running.  the short introduction of “you can’t lose a broken heart” perfectly sets up this incredible duet.

• the horns and drumset start this thing off just right: high energy!  and those hip scoops and falls?  i’m down.
• the little piano/bass action going before billie comes in?  oh yeah.  leads right into her vocals with the drumset adding the necessary punctuation.
• TOO COOL!

billie’s voice is so uniquely beautiful.  it has this rare combination of being both sublimely warm and clear as a bell.  her vibrato is nothing like anything we hear today, yet sounds perfectly natural for her voice.  she also has this little whine to her pronunciations sometimes (like when she says ‘don’t’, ‘can’t’, etc.) that’s adorable.  the way she sings her final lyric in the first half of the song always make me smile.

“so don’t lose your head, then lose your guy/’cause you can’t lose a broken heart”

just when you think this song couldn’t get any beter, louis armstrong comes in!  could you imagine hearing this live for the first time and seeing him walk from behind the curtain?  you probably wouldn’t even be able to hear a word he was saying over the uproarious applause!  i know what’s coming every time i listen to this and itstill gets me!

talk about another unique voice, huh?  you can almost hear his smile as he sings.  he does this awesome octave drop toward the end of certain words, like when he sings ‘moon’, that makes it sound like your cool grandpa with a permanently raspy voice is singing to you.  those little chromatic sighs just add to the nonchalant attitude he portrays throughout the song.

the band kills it the whole time, too!  the tasty little piano noodles, the swingin’ saxes, and the struttin’ rhythm section all add up to one way hip group.  not to mention that trumpet solo throughout satchmo’s section, which just had to be done.

as always, the song is in the youtube link at the bottom of this post.  you can also grab it on spotify, which i highly recommend.  i hope this song puts a big, infectious smile on your face- Lord knows i’ve been grinning ear-to-ear while writing this post.

enjoy,

-jgmlnk