1000 SONGS - DAY 213 SONG #244

Day 213: An often covered song, cool as it might be

This is indeed a cool song, a chilling jazz tune, a standard. Written by Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey in the 1930ies, it must have been recorded nearly a thousand times or so since 1936. By famous singers as well as by talented combos, to say the least. I came to know it somewhere in the beginning of the second inning of my teenage years through the version done by Bryan Ferry on his first solo album that was also named after the song. Billie Holiday recorded it at least twice, once in 1936, and then in 1952; here is the earlier version Billie did of These Foolish Things:

Here ixs one of Ella Fitzgerals's rendering of the tune. What great way of phrasing:

Maybe you would not expect that the Godfather of Funk himself has recorded that very song, but it is true, there is a version by James Brown, rather to be filed under "Soulful Music", this one video being an hommage to lovely Terri Hatcher:

Among the instrumental versions, the one by the GREAT Thelonius Monk is my favourite:

But there are also more traditional renderings of it, like those done by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Here is one among them, compare Paul Desmond's phrasing to that of Ella...

Last, not least, the Bryan Ferry version that started it all for me: