VA - The Great American Songbook, BBC Four Sessions (2010) [HDTV]

Highlights of a unique gathering of eclectic artists at Air Studios in London to celebrate the songs and composers of the Great American Songbook. Performers are Paolo Nutini, Melody Gardot, Claire Martin, Jose James, Sharleen Spiteri, Krystle Warren, and Gwyneth Herbert.

Paolo Nutini sings the classic composition Nature Boy, popularised by Nat King Cole, and has fun with the songs of Louis Prima. Melody Gardot enigmatically explores the songbooks of Cole Porter and Harold Arlen, while Claire Martin swings it and performs classic songs by Rogers and Hart and Irving Berlin.

Sharleen Spiteri presents her accomplished interpretation of the Billie Holiday classic God Bless the Child and Gwyneth Herbert reinterprets the Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn classic Love Me or Leave Me with loops and beats. Jose James delivers a smooth and swinging version of Just Squeeze Me, a song made popular by Duke Ellington, while Krystle Warren performs a bluesy version of Cole Porter's risque Love for Sale and a string-laden performance of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.

The session is a celebration of the music and popular songs of the famous and prolific American composers of the 1920s and onwards. Composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Rogers and Hammerstein and Hoagy Carmichael, to name but a few - composers who wrote the tunes of Broadway theatre and Hollywood musicals that earned enduring popularity before the dawning of rock n roll.

These songwriters have penned songs which have entered the general consciousness and which are now best described as standards - tunes which every musician and singer aspires to include in their repertoire, such as Over the Rainbow, Cheek to Cheek, Love for Sale, Love Me or Leave Me, Get Out of Town and The Lady Is A Tramp.

Tracklist:

1. Intro / artists montage
2. Paolo Nutini - Nature Boy
3. Melody Gardot - preamble
4 Melody Gardot - Someday My Prince Will Come
5. Melody Gardot - Get Out Of Town
6. Melody Gardot - Over The Rainbow
7. Claire Martin - preamble
8 Claire Martin - Cheek To Cheek
9. Claire Martin - The Lady Is A Tramp
10. Jose James - preamble
11. Jose James - Just Squeeze Me
12. Sharleen Spiteri - preamble
13. Sharleen Spiteri - God Bless The Child
14. Sharleen Spiteri - September In The Rain
15. Krystle Warren - preamble
16. Krystle Warren - Love For Sale
17. Krystle Warren - A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square
18. Gwyneth Herbert - preamble
19. Gwyneth Herbert - Love Me Or Leave Me
20. Paolo Nutini - preamble
21. Paolo Nutini - I'd Rather Go Blind
22. Paolo Nutini - preamble
23. Paolo Nutini - Buono Sera
24. End Credits

Broadcasted by BBC Four, 2010-04-09.