Dean Clark suggested we do one from the American Songbook and I chose this one. Originally done with BIAB. Arranged and played by the Coolmiester of Jazz himself. It was a new experience for me singing Jazz which I quite enjoyed. I mixed it in Reaper.
Hope you all enjoy it too.

September In The Rain


Josie



Arranger/Producer Dean Clark
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Josie/Dean,

This is a delight. Josie, you have a terrific sound for this type song... so "sweet"...

The instrumentation is prefect for the song. The mix could use a bit of tweaking. The ride cymbal is overbearing at "to every...I heard you whisper" (I couldn't hear the words there because of it). Then the following section, the brushes are too loud, as well...

Dean's guitar is very cool - but again, the drums are getting in the way of it...

I think all it needs is to have the drums pulled back to be a "subtle" part of the mix instead of such a dominant part... because everything else is really nice...(the vibes are cool, too...)

I like it.

floyd

We all know Dean's mastery of jazz guitar but you really nailed the vocals Josie. Great performance. I agree with Floyd on the cymbals but overall, this is really nice and a wonderful showcase of your versatility.


Charlie

Josie / Dean,

Very nice. Great sound and feel. I really enjoyed this one.

Bob

Josie, Great vocal! Dean's arrangement and guitar parts are tops as always. I like the the mix. Maybe little drop on the high EQ just on the drum track can fix that ride cymbal. Again really nice job on the vocal. Tom

Well, thank you Charlie. What a team, eh? I still can't believe this is Josie's first crack at an American Songbook classic, but her natural talent can carry her in many directions.

Actually, this is a medley of songs. Listen to the guitar solo again. Does it sound familiar?

Maybe I'll start a Name That Tune contest.

First prize: One all expenses paid trip to Weehauken, New Jersey.

Second prize: Two all expenses paid trips to Weehauken, New Jersey.

OK Forum members: Whether or not you wish to accept a prize, name the other tune embedded in September in the Rain (it's the guitar solo, and it's even more famous than the main tune).

Hello Josie,

I agree with Floyd that the ride cymbal is kind of loud in the mix, apart from that: beautiful! You've got just the voice for this!

Regards,
Rob

Guitar solo is Singing in the Rain, same as the image on SoundCloud.

Where are my tickets?

(Additional comments once I get to hear the track on decent speakers instead of crappy headphones.)

Thank you Floyd. Appreciate you listening, the suggestions and sweet comment.

The track has been reposted with changes.

It was a lot of fun working with Dean.

Josie

Thank you Charlie. I love singing different things and working with Dean's wonderful arranging and playing was really fun.

Josie

Hey there Bob!

Thank you - glad to see you.


Josie

Thank you Tommy.

I really appreciate that.

I did what you suggested on the track and some slight other adjustment and I think it worked out really well. If you get a chance would you give it another listen and let me know please?

Josie

Thank you very much Rob.

Appreciate that very much and like I've been saying, I did go back and fix it. I just love Dean's arrangement - he's such a super player and so creative.

Josie

David,

Thank you for giving us a listen. The track has been replaced so you'll be hearing the new one.

Josie

All right, finally got a chance to listen through decent speakers.

First, Josie, you sound great singing jazz! The guitar sounds good, too.

The only thing lacking is backing by a swinging horn section!

Josie, you may be the reincarnation of Billie Holiday!! Lady, sing the jazz! Very nice, natural, and laid back to the max. Dean is the jazz master. Great job guys! I do think Floyd's right about the cymbal being too loud. Loved it!! Take care. Greg

Hi Josie,

I never knew you could sing in this genre. Just wow! I have to say that the song was incredibly easy to listen to – very nice indeed! You and Dean have put together a really great collaboration. (I tip my metaphorical hat to you both. You're a wonderful singer and he's a mighty fine guitar player and arranger.)

I hope you don't mind, but these lyrics are spectacular and I couldn't let them pass without some comment on them because there are so many valuable lessons for lyricists contained within them. I'm so glad you chose this song

Below is the song's format and some of its lyrics.

• It's classic 'Tin Pan Alley', written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin in the mid-1930s and uses the popular AABA format. The standard way of utilising this format is to play through the entire song once (omitting the tag if there's one), have an instrumental that's usually based on the chords of the A-section, and then repeat the B- and final A-section; a tag is sometimes added to give a sense of finality.

If the tag is not considered, the bulk of the song is 58 words long. How amazing is that! To take 58 words and to turn them into a 3 minute, delightful journey of music is really something.

What I particularly wanted to highlight with these lyrics, though, are the very clever writing techniques used in the B-section. Such techniques show a great deal of thought and expertise.

First
Consider the phrase ”Every word of love I heard you whisper”. We have the inner-rhymes 'word' and 'heard' symmetrically placed on beat 3 of consecutive bars. We also have the 'w' alliteration of 'word' and 'whisper'.

Second
The real lyric powerhouse in the B-section is line 2, ”The raindrops seemed to play our sweet refrain”.

• I bet the writers, Warren and Dubin, undertook considerable thought and re-writing in an effort to get this line as perfect as it is.

The phrases 'raindrops seemed' and 'play our sweet' parallel one another in that beat-1 contains words with long 'a' sounds and beat-3 words have long 'e' sounds. Moreover, these are consecutive measures. In addition, there's a long 'a' sound on beat-1 of the next bar with the word 'refrain'.

• The net result of this lyrical movement is that when I say the line out loud, those two gently rolling phrases of parallel assonance give me the feeling of swaying; just like the leaves on the tree in the first A-section. Now THAT'S one aspect of prosody at it's most creative! It's also an incredibly sophisticated way of establishing a long-distant lyric relationship between remote sections of the song.

... but that's not what really grabbed me about the B-section.

What really made me sit up and pay attention was the fact that the B-section did not rhyme. This pushed it headlong into the final A-section. Most importantly, though, was that the last line of the B-section set-up the closure of the final A-section by giving 'rain' a rhyming partner with which to end the song. The feeling of payoff that comes from finally rhyming “September in the Rain”, the title, makes the musical and lyrical journey a very satisfying emotional experience.

What a song! What a singer! What an arranger and instrumentalist!

I loved it

All the best to you both,
Noel


Disclaimer: "Fair Use" allows copyrighted material, such as portions of these lyrics, to be quoted for the purpose of critique without infringement.

Josie & Dean ...

Smokinn'! We love it when a song can be both powerful and gentle. This is a perfect example of that.

Josie, your vocal is splendid! Sounds like true Pop Standard to our ears. Billie Holiday? Etta James? Nope ... pure Josie!

Dean, you're just so danged smooth. I've (Alan) been a huge fan since I first listened to you about a year or so ago. A master of the craft.

Standing "O" for both of you!

Alan & Di

I'm glad to hear that Josie, and you can second that on my behalf.

Dean

...AND WHAT AN ANALYSIS, NOEL! An amazing performance in itself. Now that I know that you are a connoisseur of lyrics, let me throw out in the form of a fill-in-the-blank quiz my two favorite examples of superhuman feats of rhyming (answers at bottom of page):

From Put on a Happy Face

Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be

(1) ____________________________________________
fill in the blank. It must result in a rhyme

From Someone to Watch Over Me

Although he may not be the man some girls
(2) ____________________________________________
fill in the blank. It must result in a rhyme

scroll down for the answers.






































1. glad ya decided to smile
2. think of as handsome

Hi Josie and Dean,

I can hear a totally new Josie. Very lovely.
Dean perfect as always.
A very enjoyable listen.

Guenter

I'm very late to the party but I'm sure glad I came! Dean is a terrific jazz guitarist, that we knew. Josie, we didn't know this but you are a terrific jazz singer.

My kind of song, guitar playing and singing! How about an American Standard's CD?

Ps - the mix was great!

Alan and Di,

Ever so kind. Hey, I see you speaking German just to my right in the shout box. I do as well. I lived and worked in Switzerland for many years, although that little dialect they speak there (Schweizerdeutch - pronounced Shveetza-dewtch by the Swiss) is about as recognizable as German as Dutch is. Worse: No agreed upon spelling, no dictionary, no past tense, etc.

The way I learned perfect German pronunciation was by concentrating on one particular character in dubbed-in episodes of Star Trek: Mr. Spock! You know how Spock had that detached, impersonal and ultra-precise English? Well, he spoke German the same way.

Played a number of gigs in Zurich, where I lived, and planned not to come back to the States for a while. However, it doesn't quite work that way ...

Josie and I are glad to hear you folks liked that tune. With her natural talent and impressive tech savvy-ness, it seemed to get done in no time.

Dean

Mario,

Thanks for that complement and also for being the only heroic Forum member to produce a solo to the Mighty Burner. My invitation for others to join the party did its usual "blub blub blub ..." dive off the front page without a single taker. I want to thank you (for your gutsy playing) and apologize to you (for throwing up my hands and walking away from the idea). I was really hoping Tommy or Al or someone would bite.

Yeah, and what about that Josie, eh? Who knew?

Dean

Guenter,

Isn't she great? But another surprise is how tech-savvy Josie is. I could have never done that re-mix as well. And I got all kinds of leads from Josie to different DAWs, plug-ins, mastering software, etc. So this collaboration paid off in more than the production of a good tune.

Thanks for your kind words.

Dean

OK, OK Yes David, you win both first and second prizes ...

Rummaging right now through my drawer of free tickets ... let's see ... Liberia, no I don't think you want that one, oh ... here's Cameroon, Sierra Leone, oops, same problem.

Wait! Here's an envelope with two tickets to Lagos from a guy in Nigeria who claims to be the custodian of a huge sum of money; just fly there and pick it up ...

Willington, Willamantic, ..., let me get back to you. Weehauken. I know they're in this mess somewhere.

Dean

Hey Dean,

My great-grandmother on my father's side was from Untervaz, Switzerland. It's a small village of perhaps five or six thousand 60 Ks south of Vaduz, Lichtenstein. When I lived in Germany (was there almost 12 years), I often went to Basel and Zurich. On my father's side, I'm predominantly Welsh and Swiss. On my mother's side, it's German and irish.

The German dialect in Switzerland always reminded me of Bayerische Deutsch gone awry. I lived in the state of Rhineland Phalz, Germany for seven years and their dialect was quite pronounced and and different. Several Germans have told me that it's the German equivalent of American Hillbilly/Redneck.

One genre of music I miss from Europe is Gypsy Jazz. It's almost non-existant here in the States. I've always been a huge Django Rheihardt fan.

I left Germany in 1988 and haven't been back since. I have forgotten many of the peripheral words, but I do go online and occasionally read the German newspapers from the towns I lived in.

Okay, I've hijacked this thread long enough. Best to ya ...

Alan

well.. I liked that A LOT!

Josie... this is a side of you I've never heard before, and you nailed it! I think everybody would agree we need more Josie-Jazz

Dean, I stand in awe of your guitar-playing. Very nice project, all 'round.

I guess this proves one thing.... you never know what will happen when you reach out to the other folks here to collab on a project.

Who'd a thunk it?

Very nice version.

I agree the mix could use some tweeking.... my main nit was the EQ on the voice is in need of some highs to bring out the sparkle. I'm thinking a bit on the whole mix would work too....although this style doesn't need "crispy" in the recipe.

Well done.

Hey Pat,

First, let me say that your DISCLAIMER is a lot more impressive than mine!

Second, Josie is really amazing - I believe that this is the first time she ever tried a tune from this genre.

No three chords and a cloud of dust on this one. And she lands every note dead center with a relaxed expressiveness. You never feel that she's working hard (actually, she is but covers it like a pro).

Third, let's think about my next victi ... wait! Hey Pat, how about you? Come on, dude! We'll do your all-time favorite tune.

Dean

Dean

Hey Guitarhacker,

Thanks on behalf of both of us for the kind remarks. However, you heard a version that has already been remixed.

You know, we all have our biases and blind spots. My blind spots are lyrics and mixing. That's because my vision is most acute in the direction of chord voicings, bass lines, orchestration, soloing, etc.

I'm virtually deaf when it comes to mixing, unless it's so bad that, say, the bass drum is putting cracks in my ceiling. Otherwise, I can barely detect the difference between one mix and another.

Other Forum members are highly mix-conscious and usually turn out to be the best mixers (no surprise there). So, when I say that I think that Josie really nailed that new mix, you have to take the opinion with the grains of salt it deserves. Nevertheless, Josie got it about as right as anyone in this
Forum could have done.

Dean

Josie, Back for another listen. I think the new mix got it right. Dean, those comments about the tickets got a big laugh from me. Good work guys. Tom

Tommy,

Thanks for the kind words about the new mix from the guy I've heard is the best mixer on the Forum.

If David is reading this, it's important he know that I found 5 (five) free tickets to Eastern Ukraine. There's a very nice Aeroflot Tupolev 19 taking off from Pawtucket, Maine every other Friday at 6:00 am. It's an oldie but goodie, and pay no attention to the duck tape. The tickets to Weehauken never showed up ... must have gone to a previous winner.

Dean

I keep going back to hear this again! Its SOOooo classy!
Yeah, it's already been said many times, but... you really nailed the genre on this one!

My theory is that Dean is an alien who has the power to absorb talent left behind by dead jazz-masters... apparently, that power is part of the same package that lets him levitate guitars with a flaming finger.

but Josie, Josie, Josie... you have found a niche worthy of MUCH more of your time! I will be sorely disappointed if you don't repeat this phenomenon!

OK, that's all I wanted to say. Again.

Great tune very well done. I agree that I missed horns a little, but excellent still.

Hi, Josie & Dean !


This is simply just marvelous !
Must be one of the best performances
I´ve ever heard on this forum !:))
I just love it, Josies voice is
so beautiful it gives me goosebumps
all over enhanced by the magic playing
of Dean !:)) I am awed and don´t know
what to say !!!!:)) Congrats both of
you !:))


Cheers
Dani

The Aeroflot Tupolev 19 sounds like a nice upgrade from last time I flew Aeroflot-Rossiyskiye avialinii and got stuck in the baggage hold of an Ilyushin Il-14. I should have read the fine print a bit more carefully.

The family is looking forward to some of that fresh Dnipropetrovsk air! With only 5 tickets, one of them (Duncan, in case you're wondering) drew the short straw to stay home and take care of the cats.

But that's OK, because I promised to pick up one of those Australian safari packages Zakharchenko has been handing out when we swing through Donetsk.

We're loading the old station wagon right now!

LOL! David, you just cracked me up.

Tommy, I appreciate that second listen.

Dani, Thank you so much.

JohnG, you sax players are always wanting a horn in there....just kidding maybe Dean will arrange a horn on the next one.

Pat, thank you - wanting to hear it again is the best compliment we could hope for. And yes, we are planning on doing some more in the future.

If I've missed answering anyone specifically please forgive me - it's not intentional.

Thank each of you who have listened for your time and all the great comments.

It was a wonderful experience working with Dean. Without him suggesting it, I would never have thought of singing something from the American Songbook with a Jazz arrangement. I'm so glad he did and so happy that you enjoyed our version of this romantic classic.

Josie

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++1

to everything Josie just said.

Dean

BLAST IT, PAT !

You had to go and reveal what very few others have done: the truth about me. Well, it's happened enough times to become boring, so I am now providing all the documentation.

I was one of the survivors of the craft hovering above Johannesburg. I survived 9.

The following link publicizes what was purported to be a work of fiction. It is not. It is a documentary.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/district9/

The device (DNA-rep/con) that sprays that poor devil, can of course be used in the opposite direction, although with varying results. There are side-effects - like my blasted finger (which has been giving me trouble lately; do I go to a doctor?). That's a whole 'nother story, which I will never tell.

But Pat, listen to the very last words in the documentary. You just gave one away, but it's OK. I forgive you and I'll tell you something else: being human sure beats living in 9 and surviving on cat food.

Dean

I wanted to add an important PS to Josie's introductory piece.

The drummer is RealDrummer Lewis Nash (how PG music managed to snare him I don't know).

Except for the intro and outro, the RealBassist is Neil Swainson, sort of the Canadian Ron Carter/Rufus Reid/George Mraz wrapped into one.

I play MIDI vibes, guitar, and the SampleTank Upright 1 for the intro/outro. The arrangement was fully orchestrated in BIAB, further worked on in RealBand, and then outsourced to Josie for special treatment by Reaper.

Dean Clark

Pun intended?

I'm having a LOL-A-THON here reading your posts today, Dean! You are a wickedly clever man!

Oh, and I was wondering if the flaming finger has anything to do with your ability to play jazz with blazing perfection?

Hey you two,

We much enjoyed this production.
Your voice and Dean's guitar and
RT's are a wonderful illustration of
what can be done with BIAB. We're
late to the party and missed the first
version (re the drums, etc.,) but this
mix sounds wonderful on my monitors
and your voice just sparkles.

Great collab!!

J&B

Hi Janice and Bud,

I've been so busy backpedaling and replying to the sensation that Josie has caused I haven't had a chance to listen to your new tunes and, for that matter, anyone else's. I will get to it however.

Hmmm ... Janice sure has a great voice, y'know (as I rub my hands diabolically, just in anticipation ...).

You're right about BIAB + humans. Revolutionary.

Dean