Sing, Sing, Sing

My fondness for music goes back to my earliest days. I recall riding along in the car as a child, listening transfixed to Piano Man by Billy Joel. I also remember my father grading papers with the radio tuned to NPR, listening to classical music in all of its thunderous glory. I drank deeply of contemporary Christian music throughout high school. Steve Taylor, Phil Keaggy, Rich Mullins, as well as Amy Grant, Randy Stonehill, and Michael Card played the soundtrack of my life. Hip Hop and Country were two genres I could never embrace, even rappers and cowboys filtered through the Christian subculture which targeted sanitized versions of their music towards me and my friends.

I’m unsure when the change happened, sometime around my early twenties. I think one motivating force was a new movie. When Harry Met Sally was a tremendous film of course, but the music that gave the movie life introduced me to a whole new world that I have never successfully escaped. Big Band and swing music have been a part of my life ever since.

Glen Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Connick, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong have all made a substantial impression on me. The sheer joy and fun that these musicians are able to convey through their music has always downloaded directly into my soul. One of my absolute favorite songs is Sing, Sing, Sing. When done well, it is an instrumental performance that dares you to sit still while you experience it.

In this version by Benny Goodman’s band, watch the sheer exuberance of the drummer, the great Gene Krupa. Such music is, simply, inspired. I suspect that when we get to heaven, there will be as many songs performed from the Cotton Club as there are from the Baptist Hymnal.