On this week’s show, we’re looking at bird songs—not like actual bird calls, but rather songs from the Great American Songbook all about birds. There are more than you might think at first: “Skylark,” “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square,” “Bye Bye Blackbird,” just to name a few. On this program, we’ll hear songs about birds sung by Bing Crosby, Hoagy Carmichael, Carmen McRae and more. Plus we’ll hear some music by the jazz musician Charlie Parker, who went by the name of “Bird.”
[Originally aired August 9, 2019]
Bird songs featured on this episode:
- Carmen McRae - A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square (Maschwitz/Sherwin)
- Blossom Dearie - Little Jazz Bird (Gershwin/Gershwin)
- Anita O'Day - Night Bird (Cohn/Malone)
- Hoagy Carmichael - Baltimore Oriole (Carmichael/Webster)
- Ella Fitzgerald - Skylark (Carmichael/Mercer)
- Bing Crosby and Johnny Mercer - Mister Meadowlark (Donaldson/Mercer)
- Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell - Bob White (Whatcha Gonna Swing Tonight?) (Hannigan/Mercer)
- Sammy Davis Jr. - Bye Bye Blackbird (Henderson/Dixon)
- Bob Dorough - Yardbird Suite (Parker/Dorough)
- Chris Connor - Lullaby Of Birdland (Shearing/Weiss)
- Carmen McRae - The Eagle And Me (Arlen/Harburg)
- Carmen McRae - Chicken Today And Feather Tomorrow (Marks)
- Duke Ellington with Herb Jeffries - Flamingo (Grouya/Anderson)
- Peggy Lee - Where Flamingos Fly (Perle/Courlander/Brooks)
- Blue Lu Barker - A Little Bird Told Me (Brooks)
Plus excerpts of these bird songs:
- Count Basie and His Orchestra - Flight Of The Foo Birds (Hefti)
- The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Strange Meadow Lark (Brubeck)
- The Beatles - Blackbird (Lennon/McCartney)
- Gene Krupa - Bird House (Mulligan)
- Count Basie and His Orchestra - Whirly-Bird (Hefti)
- Charlie Parker - Ornithology (Harris/Parker)
- Weather Report - Birdland (Zawinul)
- Manhattan Transfer - Birdland (Zawinul/Hendricks)
- Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, feat. Ray Eberle - (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover (Kent/Burton)
