Billy Batts Ensemble Takes On Another Friday With Bossa, Blues, 'n Beatles

We get together and the elliptical nature of time makes it feel as though we just saw each other.  For this evening, Walt suggested a tune for us to audition, an odd one at that: Caramel by Suzanne Vega.  It's a bossa nova sounding number with some cool heavy (for a bossa) rhythm section work courtesy of Bruce and Pete Thomas (no relation to each other, did you know that?), the old bass & drums team from Elvis Costello & The Attractions.  So I got the song, learned the song, made changes to the chart Walt had sent, and really enjoyed it.  We did a decent job on it, although I don't think it is in the best key for Walt to sing it.  Here's my slightly modified chart - it's close to the arrangement of the original:

The form isn't quite right, and the V7 chords are iffy (sometimes it does the bII7 and sometimes it does the V7).  You gotta love the i to the bV7 to the ii - V - what is that bV7 anyway?  It sure grabs your ear.  I want to steal that idea someday.  The bass in this song is just perfect and really carries the tune.  It could be even more bossa with an upright bass and a tenor sax stating the melody.  Cool tune and it made me search out some more of her stuff.  She's had a long career.

The rest of the night wasn't too different than a normal session for us.  Pride and Joy always seems to work, even in this country club environment.  We did play Norwegian Wood and Come Together.  After hearing Walrus Confusion, I'd like to see us try a mash-up like that to stretch our Beatle wings - Beatle Wings!  How about Plastic Ono Wings?  Here's a fun link to check out if you haven't come across this yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE49bsxGTFM

They were writing a song together and didn't even know it!

And here's how we looked on this evening, the 14th of March, 2014...