Today I'm gonna do a different thing:
I'm going to post a whole album in this post. I explain: every whistling song here is instrumental and I couldn't find much information about them, so it's better to create one full post than several empty ones. So let me start introducing you the artist of this post:
Toots Thielemans is a Belgian jazz musician, in fact he is one of the greatest jazz masters of the world, he’s a guitarist, a harmonica player and a professional whistler. Hm... I don’t like to say “professional whistler”, because in music we don’t say “Santana is a professional guitarist” or “John Bonham was a professional drummer”. Even more if these musicians compose their own songs. Let me fix it: Thielemans is a master of whistling as well as Alex Moore, Ronnie Ronalde and Andrew Bird.
Thielemans is credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century. In 2009 he became NEA Jazz Master, the highest honour for a jazz musician in the United States.¹
The album "The Whistler and His Guitar" was released in 1962². According to.... it is an album "...".
The first song from "The Whistler..." is "Wives and Lovers". This song was composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Bacharach's version was originally fluted not whistled.
Wives and Lovers
I'm going to post a whole album in this post. I explain: every whistling song here is instrumental and I couldn't find much information about them, so it's better to create one full post than several empty ones. So let me start introducing you the artist of this post:
Toots Thielemans is a Belgian jazz musician, in fact he is one of the greatest jazz masters of the world, he’s a guitarist, a harmonica player and a professional whistler. Hm... I don’t like to say “professional whistler”, because in music we don’t say “Santana is a professional guitarist” or “John Bonham was a professional drummer”. Even more if these musicians compose their own songs. Let me fix it: Thielemans is a master of whistling as well as Alex Moore, Ronnie Ronalde and Andrew Bird.
Thielemans is credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century. In 2009 he became NEA Jazz Master, the highest honour for a jazz musician in the United States.¹
The album "The Whistler and His Guitar" was released in 1962². According to.... it is an album "...".
The first song from "The Whistler..." is "Wives and Lovers". This song was composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Bacharach's version was originally fluted not whistled.
Wives and Lovers
"It's the Talk of the Town" is a popular song. The music was written by Jerry Livingston, the lyrics by Al J. Neiburg and Marty Symes. The song was published in 1933.³
It's the Talk of the Town
“Indian Nuts” is accompanied by Thielemans’ most famous song in the world called “Bluesette”, which is, in its original release, a whistling song too!
"Manhattan" and the following "Falling in Love with Love" were composed by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. They are the duo who wrote My "Funny Valentine".
Manhattan
Falling in Love with Love
"It's Only a Paper Moon" is a popular song. Published in 1933, it was written by Harold Arlen with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and Billy Rose. It was written originally for an unsuccessful Broadway play called The Great Magoo.*
It's Only a Paper Moon
The next song was written by Thielemans himself and the producer Sid Feller.
The Valley Whistler
He can whistle blowing and breathing the air, doing the vibratos look like a thing so easy to do. His technique is splendid! It seems that he does the vibratos and pitch variations through the throat, besides the usual bilabial whistling. Well, all I know is he is a master!