10 Ballads (Almost) No One Sings

Most of the best ballads are covered endlessly, but somehow, a few beauties have managed to slip the noose and have not been ground into dust by endless repetition.

I realize a post like this is like a person giving away a person's favorite secret swimming hole, but I know my elite and discreet readership can keep a secret.

I have ordered them from what I think are the most to the least recorded.













The song itself is sandwiched in between very non-ballad sounds and starts about 4:00 in

The Edge of Schmaltz

Schmaltz-easy to say, but how do we really define it? Where does it lay along the slippery border between cheese, camp, marginal taste, pathos, bathos and emotional catharsis?  Is the very use of the word cringe-inducing? Not to me. One era's hip is often another era's schmaltz. Sometimes there's great musicianship involved. Is that enough to rescue the song or not? Sometimes the musicians are amateurish, but through sheer dint of sincerely, a hoary tune or corny lyric works. In one mood, a song sets your teeth on edge and in another mood, you reach for the handkerchief. 

Some of the folks in this playlist will be no surprise, some may bemuse and some annoy, but that's my job. 

Here's The Show.

Blue Stars "Hernando´s Hideaway" from "Jazz in Paris" (1955) on Barclay 

Ziggy Elman and His Orchestra "With a Song in My Heart" from "Dancing With Zig" (1950) on MGM 

Sarah Vaughn "Jim" from "w. Clifford Brown" (Jazz, 1954) on EmArcy  

Andre Previn "Mad About The Boy" from "Previn at the Piano" (1958) on RCA 

Cannonball Adderly "Shake a Lady" from "Domination" (1965) on Capital 

Chet Baker "Time After Time" from "Time After Time" (2002) on GFS 

Sam The Man Taylor "Tara's Theme" from "Blue Mist" (1955) on MGM 

Johnny Hartman "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" from "Sings" (1947) on Savoy 

Lena Horne "Beale St Blues" from "Swinging Lena Horne" (1962) on Coronet 

Matt Dennis "A Trout No Doubt" from "Saturday Date" (1957) on Tops 

Errol Garner "April In Paris" from "Concert By the Sea" (1956) on Philips 

Frank Sinatra "Autumn in New York" from "That Old Feeling" (1956) on Columbia 

Earl Hines "Why Must We Part" from ". . . And His Orchestra" (1933) on Jazz Archives 

Esperanza Spaulding "Precious" from "Esperanza Spaulding" (2008) on Heads Up 

Freddie Hubbard "I Got It Bad (And That ain't Good)" from "The Body and The Soul" (1963) on Impulse 

Bobby Hackett "Stairway to The Stars" from "Dream Awhile" (1961) on Columbia 

Up from the Basement. Or, Lower Register-Philia by Steve Provizer

I was talking with friends about vocalist Johnny Hartman and his justifiably esteemed 1962-63 recording with John Coltrane. Dan said: "Very few things send chills up my spine like his entrance on My One and Only Love. Up out of the basement..."




That got me thinking about other phrases that move dazzlingly up and down and out of the basement. The first two are on I Can't Get Started:

Bunny Berigan (The shift between the basement starting about 3:30 and the stratosphere at about 3:50 is dramatic):