For your iPod

I stumbled on a couple of really interesting and cool jazz covers of novel tunes, and would like to share some with you. Anyone who has an addition, I invite you to post it.

What got me going on this (again) is discovering a couple more Brad Mehldau covers of contemporary pop tunes, I guess you'd call them.

I've noticed that Beatles tunes in particular seem hard to cover, and I started trying collect the more successful of the bunch (in my view). Mehldau in particular appears to be creating his own sort of Beatles' White Album covers, having done at least four by my count. Two of them are great and very accessible, and one (Martha My Dear) is pretty far out there, and requires some work on the listener's part (although worth it to me--it is almost more like contemporary classical music than jazz to my ear).

Besides Beatles pop/tunes, I am fascinated by covers of songs that are sort of more "kids' stuff" perhaps (e.g., Sesame Street Theme--I know Clark Terry used to cover it, but I have never found a good recorded version of it).

Anyway, here goes:

Blackbird: Brad Mehldau - really nice, pretty straightforward for Brad

Dear Prudence: Brad Mehldau - a little further afield, but a beautiful yet dissonant solo

Rainbow Connection: Nice version on a Tommy Newsom album. Tommy was the long running sax player in the Tonight Show Band whose shtick was being the polar opposite of the flamboyant Doc Severinson. But the version of Rainbow Connection on that album is a piano trio led by John F. Hammond with no horns. Anyway, it works.

Peter Cincotti does a reasonable vocal version of it as well. It is just a great tune.

She's Leaving Home: McCoy Tyner-- lush and beautiful

Eleanor Rigby: solo piano by the great Chick Corea

True Colors: Josefine Cromholm & Ibis. This is a very sparse treatment that could benefit from at some point getting a hair more traditional (like halfway through). But I find it quite arresting. I actually am also a big fan of the Cindy Lauper version that was a hit in her heyday.

Candy Man: Ray Brown trio (with Monty Alexander on piano)

Pure Imagination: (like Candy Man, also from the original Willie Wonka movie): Monty Alexander

Still Crazy After All These Years: Brad Mehldau

I've Just Seen a Face: John Pizzareli - I'm not huge fan of Pizzareli (not a hater either, mind you), but this is a great version of this tune

Further out there:

Brad Mehldau: Martha My Dear & 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (you have to get about 3 & 7 minutes into the latter before you can recognize the verse and chorus, respectively)

Nobody Does It Better (the Marvin Hamlisch Bond movie tune): Sex Mob. Check it out, the leader plays a slide trumpet. Also, he likes to record things the first time the musicians have ever played through a tune, to capture the freshness and spontaneity of it.

Not quite on point, but you also might check out a couple of great (and completely contrasting) versions of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' from "Oklahoma"--it is perhaps a little surprisingly a great jazz tune: Ray Charles with the Count Basie Orchestra and Hank Jones on solo piano.

Finally, I really love this version of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You by Dianna Krall: