[Dixielandjazz] Stompin' the Hits

[Marek Boym]

In 1977, the Dutch Swing College Band recorded a number of popular
hits.  Out of the 16 tracks, only one track Georgia - is a real jazz
warhorse, and two other numbers - The Nearness of You and Blueberry
Hill - are jazz standards.  One can sometimes hear jazz bands
performing I Will Wait for You, and I have heard a jazz band play "The
More I see You.  the other numbers are: "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" (when
Roy Crimmins was still playing, he performed it quite often with his
various Israeli groups), "Can't Buy Me Love," "Hello Mary Lou,"
"Chanson d'Amour," "Rosetta" (by M. Snow, not Earl Hines), "Girls,
Girls, Girls," "Winchester Cathedral" (that one was on the air so
often that even I knew it, and drove to see the cathedral upon my
first visit to England with my wife in 1976), "You are the Sunshine of
My Lfe," "When You Smile" and "Champs Eysees."
And it works!  I believe jazz bands should do such things more often
(the subject has been discussed on the list before).
It is not the Collegians' first foray into hits: many years earlier
they recorded "Marina," a grand hit for, I believe, Marino Marini (I
don't know whether it was a hit in the States as well, or only in
Europe).
Cheers