Start with the title, Moody’s Mood, Eddie Jefferson’s reworking of the lyrics of I’m In The Mood For Love (Fielding/McHugh) based on a solo by James Moody. It reminds me of Cole Porter’s “Do do that voodoo that you do so well” from 1929’s You Do Something To Me. I swooned the first time I heard that, and swoon again, despite growing up in a house where Kiss Me Kate was continually playing on the HiFi. My father loved Broadway musicals, and I grew up listening to Paint Your Wagon and My Fair Lady and Oklahoma, but he was 6 years old when Fifty Million Frenchmen debuted, so I know he didn’t see the first run.
Moody’s Mood. How can this song even exist?
Dorothy Fielding’s lyrics were of variable quality. Mood is pretty straightforward; it’s not even The Way You Look Tonight. But, like real jazz musicians, Moody and Jefferson each lifted something much deeper from the surface of Fielding’s lyrics and McHugh’s melody. The original melody is still there, and the original lyrics are still there, although the order — the plot line — is more interesting in Eddie Jefferson’s version. “There I go there I go there I go pretty baby” has replaced “I’m in the mood for love,” referring to something later in the lyrics. (Like when I realized that Chapter 13 of my second novel was really Chapter One.). “Simply because you’re near me” becomes “Calling me so very close to you.” There’s action in this lyric.
There’s also “Come let us put our two hearts together,” which sounds like a strategy in bridge. And it’s not even in the bridge. But the lyric follows that rhythm of Moody’s solo.
Sometimes listening to John Coltrane’s less lyrical work I feel like he was trying to force as many substitutions as possible into each chord, to the point of losing track of the melody. Moody and Jefferson never lose track of the original.
There is a brief piano interlude in the Moody recording, which Jefferson put into another voice. In performance Jefferson prefaced this by blurting out “Then the girl says” before starting to sing in falsetto “What is all this talk about loving me?” Ironically, Andrea Motis, the tiny Spanish trumpeter/vocalist — she’s hardly taller than her trumpet — has an almost contralto voice, so still has room to reach the falsetto. Many singers do not acknowledge the change of voice, which makes me wonder if they really understand what is going on.
Understand. Now there’s a word.
I’m sure that a well-trained AI can come up with a decent solo for I’m In The Mood For Love, because I’m sure that the AIs have been trained on the Berklee School of Music’s catalog of solo techniques. I am equally sure that the resulting melody would not have the depth and range to allow someone else to come up with a lyric like Jefferson’s. AIs do not understand, nor do they have access to that time that me and my buddies jammed on I’m In The Mood For Love at a party. It didn’t have the depth of the Moody/Jefferson work, but it was fun, and even mistakes can make for interesting jazz. In jazz if you play a “wrong” note just play it again and it will sound like you’re doing it on purpose
Do AIs make mistakes? You betcha. AI's asked to write scientific papers invent false citations and draw incorrect conclusions, or so I’ve heard, because I have no interest in messing with that kind of stuff.
Speaking of stuff, ie, stuffing, today is Thanksgiving, and I’m in the mood for — grub!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Thanks for sharing this with me, Jim! I agree - even if AI can mimic art, it's the depth of experience that comes from living as a human that imbues art with its meaning.