Subject: Been wondering--- Mack the Knife
Date: Tue Sep 13 23:24:11 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:Does anybody have a favorite version? I have heard Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, and a whole packet of others. Also, Lotte Lenya in original version lyrics. I am kind of up in the air on this one. Leaning Louis Armstrong or Lotte Lenya. Any input? Favorite artist on this classic?
Date: Wed Sep 14 00:57:57 2016
User: joeygray
Message:What _I_ wonder about on the subject is, what's with that song anyway? That melody and those words juss do no go together. Never did, no sir.
Date: Wed Sep 14 01:09:11 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:The song is adopted from the "Three Penny Opera" a German adaptation of an earlier English story. A classic. And so many folks, have sung Mack the Knife in so many variants. Some really good stuff. I just found some nice renditions on YouTube. Here's one, rarely heard by Americans:
(Of course, few Americans have never heard the Bobby Darin version.)
Link: By Lotte Lenya
Date: Thu Sep 15 16:16:34 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:Something I was not aware of, although I was wondering about "Lotte Lenya" in the Americanized song:
"Blitzstein's translation provides the basis for most of the popular versions we know today, including those by Louis Armstrong (1956) and Bobby Darin (1959; Darin's lyrics differ slightly), and most subsequent swing versions. Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, the star of both the original 1928 German production and the 1954 Blitzstein Broadway version, was present in the studio during Armstrong's recording. He spontaneously added her name to the lyrics ("Look out, Miss Lotte Lenya"), which already named several of Macheath's female victims. The Armstrong version was later used by Bobby Darin."
From Wikipedia
Link: Wiki on Mack the Knife/Three Penny Opera
Date: Thu Sep 15 19:58:18 2016
User: billyh
Message:Ella sang it in Berlin and forgot the words which did not stop her finishing the song. She goes on for almost 5 minutes.
Date: Fri Sep 16 09:17:46 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:Excellent, Klepp.
By the way, I am thinking Louis Armstrong's version. It's not exactly stellar vocals, but that's what we love about Armstrong. What tips it for me is his awesome trumpet, and his brass backups. Kinda like in his "La Vie en Rose."
Link: Louis/Mack
Date: Fri Sep 16 09:24:59 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:I just played your link, Klepp. Thanks! By the way, wait after it completes, because it rolls right into Ella Fitzgerald singing a really good Jazz version.
The play showcases the London Underground, both ignored and feared by those not of that number, the working class and the wealthy.
Date: Fri Sep 16 09:33:54 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:...And then follows Dinah Shore (singing straight-up) and Pearl Bailey tossing in some counterpoint and scat. Just a very different version. And very enjoyable. If the string of videos plays as it did for me, you will experience some fine listening. Again, the version that entered popular music was Bobby Darin. It got teen male gonads excited.
Link: Bobby Darin
Date: Fri Sep 16 10:21:33 2016
User: FilthyMcNasty
Message:A guy singing about a hit man tickled your fancy?
These days, no one of character will judge you, but that is very interesting. If you were a teen growing up today, would you have followed a different path?
Date: Fri Sep 16 15:34:04 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:Hmmm... let me put it this way. The idea of a mysterious man slipping into the shadows is a movie icon. My guess is its popularity, especially among young men, stems from that image, but also the very fact of imagining using a knife in that way could be seen as cathartic. Now, some guys back in that more simple day undoubtedly would have used a shiv, but to most boys and men, the thought of actually stabbing somebody is abhorrent.
Young guys who couldn't imagine themselves motorcycle drag racing or playing chicken in a dragster got excited in the second-hand experience of viewing it, as I am sure was also the case with girls and women.
Link: http://imagining
Date: Fri Sep 16 15:35:17 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:Ooops. Stray word slipped into the Link URL space. Means nothing.
Date: Tue Sep 20 19:43:32 2016
User: Lindyhopper_Agame
Message:I DJ for Lindy Hop/Swing dances, so this was all very interesting to me; Thank you all.
I never knew who "Lotte Lenya" was; I assumed she was part of the Opera, not the original singer.
I play the Bobby Darin version.
Date: Wed Sep 21 10:32:35 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:Her husband, Kurt Weil, composed the music for "Die Dreigroschenoper." (The Three Penny Opera, thus the ballad "Mack the Knife.")
Date: Wed Sep 21 11:23:10 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:HI, Lindyhopper. Great some folks are keeping that ssyle of dance popular!
While Louis Armstrong threw Lotte Lenya into his version (while she was in the recording studio) Ella Fitzgerald threw in some references to Bobby Darin in her Jazz version. (Linked above.) She slips into a Louis A type of voice in the latter parts. Kinda cool. She does that in pretty much every performance, including the Ella-Dinah version.
For me, Louis Armstrong might be my favorite but dancers just might stop dancing, to listen. I found an uploaded studio version, though. It should be danceable as another version.
Try his Saint Louis Blues, if you don't have it. Should be a great version for your purposes, Lindyhopper
His "La Vie en Rose" should be a great "Foxy" to dance to, a slow type of Foxtrot that is very popular with couples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJOxQEM3rXY
(It was the father-daughter dance at my daughter's wedding.) Some very nice dance figures, too... I was sorry to learn afterward that nobody had videoed it, even with a cell phone. I must have been "so awesome" they were "spellbound" (?)
Link: Saint Louis Blues
Date: Wed Sep 21 15:52:41 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:A comparison of the first two stanzas, showing how the English language version benefits from the English term "jack knife." In German, a knife is a messer. Same when you eat. Table knives are also called messers. But English has the advantage of "jack knife- Mack the Knife." Although he may not have used an American-style jack knife, a folding blade knife. (Would they have had switchblades or some other automatic knife back in the London Underground? Or maybe a fixed-blade knife. No matter. I just like "jack knife" in this song. Here are the two versions, translated German to English and English-language version (adapted to American theater.)
Literal translation
And the shark, it has teeth,
And it wears them in the face.
And Macheath, he has a knife,
But the knife can't be seen.
American version (as introduced off-Broadway)
Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear,
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear
And he keeps it out of sight.
"Jack knife" just works...
Date: Sun Sep 25 14:41:00 2016
User: BuzzClik
Message:I've seen that translation before, and it's attributed to Hyde Flippo, "German language expert." But that first stanza is so oddly phrased that I don't believe Mr. Flippo tried very hard to capture the meaning.
It reminds me of a story that John McEuen told at a concert I attended. He said that earlier that year he was touring in Japan, and in greeting his audience he said, "I'm tickled to death to be here." The translator interpreted his comment as, "I am going to scratch myself until I'm dead."
Anyway... on with the show.
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