Thoughts on Sarah Vaughan Singing "September Song"

I've been meaning to post a video with Sarah Vaughan for a while now, not only because she is brilliant, but so I could tell this quintessentially jazz anecdote I came across a long time ago now but which always pops into my mind when I listen to her. So I was reading an interview with two musicians who were in her band for many years (I can't remember who just now), and one of them said, "One thing about Sassy (her nickname) is you didn't want to do any drugs around her." And the interviewer asks, "Why, was she very strict and proper?" and the musician says, "No, because she would do them all before you even had a chance to do any yourself!" Much laughing ensued, including from me.

What else can I say about this track? 

1. Well, it's a Kurt Weill composition, which is interesting, because he's only one of two non-Americans whose work is central to the the Great American Songbook, the other being Antonio Carlos Jobim. Weill did move to the States after WWII, but his most influential years were in Germany.

2. Then there's Vaughan's voice. In addition to being called Sassy, she was also called The Divine One. You can hear why. People often comment on the nearly operatic tone and control of her voice. But her formal training only amounted to two years at the Newark Arts High School, after which she dropped out to be a full time musician. Her breakthrough came at the age of 18 when, like Ella Fitzgerald and so many others, she won the Apollo Theater Amateur Night Contest in Harlem. The winner was chosen by audience applause I think. But the point I want to make is that the internal standards for excellence in the jazz community were so high that musicians of such technical and aesthetic brilliance as Ella and Sassy could develop their art to the highest pinnacle with very little formal training.

3. This cut features my favorite musician, the trumpeter Clifford Brown, who died tragically at the age of 25 when he and his companions got in a terrible car crash while driving to a gig in Pennsylvania in 1956. Brownie was a comet, a shooting star in the firmament of jazz. A truly inspired player. Anyway, here he is playing a cup mute, not to be confused with the Harmon mute, which Miles made famous in the 50s. When I played I favored the Harmon mute, and at my best could get a nice Mile-like sound. I'll note just one more thing here. After a few choruses of bluesy lyricism, Clifford flips a switch at 3:27 and for about ten seconds unspools a passage of such Mozartian clarity and invention that you know that during playback all the musicians were laughing and shaking their heads, in that way that musicians do.

4. Well, I'm in the autumn of my years, so this song does hit home.