I give you Fever...

Yesterday's musical triumph was creating a music-minus-one version of the Peggy Lee classic, "Fever". My buddy's wife is going to sing it at a Christmas party, and I owe him a favor for helping me out with the BCM CD. Even though it was all done with samples (John Patitucci's acoustic bass and Bob Clearmountain's drumset), I tried to do the best job I could -- it would've been easy to just whip it out quick and dirty, but it seems like anything I take on, I want to try to do it to the best of my ability. Besides, even though it's an easy tune, I can still learn something about groove from the bass player's note releases, or the drummer's less-spazzo-and-more-crafted drum fills. And while I was layering finger-snaps (being careful to vary my snapping technique and mic proximity to make it sound like different people!), I thought of my former teacher from USC, Joe Harnell. Joe was a great teacher and musician and a super-nice, personable guy. One of the lesser among his many musical accomplishments occurred while at those Peggy Lee recordings sessions -- he was the one who suggested they snap their fingers on that track!