Sarah Vaughan, performing “September Song” in 1984.
In May 1984, one of the jazz world’s living legends (Newark-born singer Sarah Vaughan, 60) and one of its young stars (trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, 22) appeared onstage together for the first time, at a Boston Pops concert. One of the songs they performed together was “September Song” (written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson), with Marsalis deferentially duplicating Clifford Brown’s trumpet solo from Brown’s 1954 collaborative album with Vaughan.
“Afterward, Marsalis recalled the Vaughan-Brown album as one of the first to fire his interest in jazz,” wrote critic Gary Giddins in an essay included in his 1992 book, “Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, and Filmmakers.”
So, on this fine September night, here are Sarah Vaughan and Wynton Marsalis, performing “September Song.”
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. To see the entire list, click here.
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