Contestant: Kris Allen
Song: "The Way You Look Tonight" (Frank Sinatra)
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Originally popularized by Fred Astaire in the 1935 movie Swing Time, this Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields-penned number is best remembered in later versions by Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Though the original took home the Oscar for Best Song way back in 1936, it was the slower, jazzier takes that were popularized in the Fifties and Sixties that make this the tender ballad we know today.
Contestant: Allison Iraheta
Song: "Someone To Watch Over Me" (Frank Sinatra)
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The Roaring Twenties farce Oh, Kay! is barely remembered today, but that Broadway hit did provide us with this classic number from the famed pens of George and Ira Gershwin. Sinatra's more thoughtful version on his 1954 LP Songs For Young Lovers transformed the song into an interpretive standard.
Contestant: Matt Giraud
Song: "My Funny Valentine" (Frank Sinatra)
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This jazz standard from the Rodgers and Hart songbook first appeared in the musical Babes In Arms; though not a hit upon release, it was reworked by an endless number of jazz musicians in the Fifties until it achieved classic torch song status. As with most later versions, Matt omitted the original first verse, sung from the female perspective, and went right to the title chorus.
Contestant: Danny Gokey
Song: "Come Rain Or Come Shine" (Frank Sinatra)
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Although Ray Charles' 1959 version, recorded while the Genius was at his absolute peak, is the version best known by today's audiences, it's included here because the Chairman of the Board offered up his own unique take on the Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer favorite on his own rat-pack era milestone, the LP Sinatra and Strings.
Contestant: Adam Lambert
Song: "Feeling Good" (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
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The most recent song on this week's show dates from 1965 -- specifically, the soundtrack of the relatively obscure London production of The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse (who would later pen those catchy Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory songs). Nina Simone's version is actually the most popular, but Sammy did cover this on a 1965 LP, so...
Group Songs
"It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (Ella Fitzgerald)
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The first group song this week was not sung by a Rat Packer at all, being primarily associated with Duke Ellington, who wrote and waxed it in 1931, and Ella Fitzgerald, who put her own indelible scat/bop mark on it on the 1957 LP Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook (though the Packish Tony Bennett took several stabs at it). The song was an early precursor of postwar jazz styles and brought the word "swing" into usage to describe many of them.
"I Got Rhythm" (Judy Garland)
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Not many remember this, but Judy was indeed an early member of the Rat Pack before her mid-career decline. Another George and Ira Gershwin standard, 1930's "I Got Rhythm" helped set the standard for jazz chord progressions (or, as they referred to them, "changes"). The Happenings had a #3 hit with a sunshine-pop (but still somewhat jazzy) vocal-group version.
