No accident these, no throw of the random dice, but compiled with loving care.
- Body & Soul : Billie Holiday, from The Quintessential Billie Holiday Vol. 8
- Brickyard Blues : Helen Shapiro, from Rhythm on the Radio – Oval Records 1974-87
- California Bloodlines : Dave Alvin, from West of the West
- Don’t Take This the Wrong Way : Graham Fitkin Band, from Veneer
- Falling in Love Again : Billie Holiday, from The Quintessential Billie Holiday Vol. 8
- Flamingo : Earl Bostic, from Larkin’s Jazz
- Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves : Cher, from Cher’s Greatest Hits 1965-92
- Hemingway’s Whiskey : Kris Kristofferson, from This One’s For Him, A Tribute to Guy Clark
- I Got Rhythm : Django Reinhardt, from Djangology
- I’m Down in the Dumps : Bessie Smith, from Larkin’s Jazz
- I’ve Had It : Aimee Mann, from Whatever
- Is This America? : Charlie Haden, from Rambling Boy
- The House That Jack Built : Jack ‘N’ Chill, from Rhythm on the Radio – Oval Records 1974-87
- Jumpin’ at the Woodside : Count Basie & His Orchestra, from Larkin’s Jazz
- Leaving the Table : Leonard Cohen, from You Want it Darker
- Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor : Mississippi John Hurt, from Today
- Never Not You (Remember to Breathe) : Girlboy, from Late Bloomers
- New Orleans Hop Scop Blues : Bruce Turner & Wally Fawkes, from That’s the Blues, Dad
- Now’s the Time : John Lewis, from Improvised Meditations & Excursions
- Our Song : Joe Henry, from Civilians
- Private Life : Grace Jones, from Island Life
- Rosetta : Allen Toussaint, from American Tunes
- Round Midnight : Robert Wyatt, from For the Ghosts Within
- Runaway : Bonnie Raitt, from The Bonnie Raitt Collection
- Sister Mercy : John Stewart, from The Day the River Sang
- Someday You’ll Be Sorry : Louis Armstrong, from Louis Armstrong at The Crescendo 1955
- Stone for Bessie Smith : Dory Previn, from Mythical Kings & Iguanas
- Vamp : Graham Fitkin Band, from Vamp
- When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful : Fats Waller, from Larkin’s Jazz
- You Don’t Own Me : Dusty Springfield, from A Girl Called Dusty
Perhaps the most surprising, to me, single track is Helen Shapiro’s remarkably strong version of Allen Toussaint’s Brickyard Blues, originally written for Frankie Miller, and recorded by Shapiro for Charlie Gillett’s Oval records in 1984. I knew she had grown to be a far better singer than her very early Don’t Treat Me Like a Child pop days, touring and recording with the Humphrey Lyttelton Band, for instance, but this – this is, I think, superb.
What else is worth commenting on? The way in which both the Leonard Cohen and John Stewart tracks seem so knowingly valedictory, Cohen aware, I think, that he was dying; Stewart conscious, perhaps – just listen to the opening lyrics – of the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.
And the fact that most of the jazz tracks included here come from a 4 CD compilation commissioned by The Philip Larkin Society, based upon Larkin’s years of jazz record reviewing – how could someone who often came across in his other writing as being uptight, mysogynistic, mean-spirited and cheerless, have enjoyed such joyous music?
