Song:If I Had You
Album:Nice Work If You Can Get It
So I am featuring this CD for Benny Goodman fanatics who collect all his recordings. Though this CD is credited to Teddy Wilson, half of it is from a Benny Goodman live recording that doesn't appear in Goodman's discography. Off labels like Laserlight will do stuff like that though the recordings are valuable to fans. Of course pianist Teddy Wilson is probably the greatest sideman of all time and he is best known for his work with Goodman. If I Had You was written by Irving King (British songwriters Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly) and Ted Shapiro for the 1929 film Our Modern Maidens. It is not to be confused with the Irving Berlin song also titled If I Had You. Wilson recorded If I Had You in 1937 and then he arranged it for the Goodman band. The song is a jazz standard. Wilson still toured with Goodman in the 80s and the recordings on this CD were from a 1982 Washington, DC concert. But they have never been on a Goodman album. The musicians are probably the same ones that are on the video; Eddie Duran on guitar, Al Obidenski on bass and John Markham on drums. But that's just one half of the CD. The other half is from a 1976 Black & White Records album Three Little Words. This has Teddy Wilson on piano, Milt Hinton on bass and Oliver Jackson on drums and was recorded in Nice, France. Fortunately this CD is available as a budget CD. It is mainly recommended to Benny Goodman fans who collect all his recordings as they are only available on this CD and are not listed in Goodman's discography. So why did Laserlight release these Goodman recordings this way? There are only six songs, not enough to fill a CD. And they owned Three Little Words. That's why I am always very careful with off labels. They will do all kinds of weird things. Here's Teddy Wilson with Benny Goodman performing If I Had You at the Aurex Jazz Festival in Yokohama, Japan Sept. 7, 1980.
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