… now being conducted by researchers from the University of Prince Edward Island (where UD once gave a paper about James Merrill’s poem Santorini) gives UD an excuse to update you on her own singing.
Faithful UD readers already know that UD loves to sing Henry Purcell’s songs (This year is the 350th anniversary of his birth.) (And look what I get when I Google News him! From an interview with British musician and novelist John Wesley Harding:
Purcell is kind of a bit of an obsession of mine, and my third novel [coming out this year] is about a composer who writes the first great English opera since “Dido and Aeneas.” … Singers like myself — folk singers or pop singers or whatever — there’s a real kinship with the baroque because it’s based on the same song structures as I use.
Er, close parenthesis somewhere.
UD also loves to sing jazz, and her latest enthusiasm there is Witchcraft by Carolyn Leigh in The Collection of Jazz Music. (Lyrics and a recording here.)
While the song doesn’t have a challenging range (only goes up to a D, a note UD can hit in her sleep), it moves sexily up the scale and has clever, naughty words. The last phrase is hokey (’cause there’s no nicer witch than you!), but the rest of the song shimmers.