Fran Landesman
Fran Landesman (1927–2011) was an American lyricist and poet. Her songs, among them Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most and The Ballad of the Sad Young Men, became lasting jazz standards.
Her lyric writing began in the early 1950s in St Louis, sparked by the musicians and audiences at the Crystal Palace nightclub. Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, a jazz take on T. S. Eliot’s cruel April, and The Ballad of the Sad Young Men both entered the standard repertoire and later reached Broadway through the short-lived musical The Nervous Set.
On Move the songs appear in Australian performances: Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most on Tomorrow, just you wait and see (MD 3266), and The Ballad of the Sad Young Men on Unanimity (MD 3155).
Compositions by Fran Landesman appear on
Tomorrow, just you wait and see
Pianist Tony Gould and vocalist Emma Gilmartin share a programme of standards and originals, shaped as first-take, spontaneously conceived duets. Favourites sit beside less familiar songs, all chosen for melodic beauty and meaning.
Unanimity
Two grand pianos, one disc: Bob Sedergreen and Tony Gould, leading Australian jazz improvisers, in a rare live duo of spontaneous piano performance.