‘I’ve Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good’

While the rest of the USA was listening to “Chances Are,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and  “All I Have to Do is Dream” in the 1950s, I was learning about jazz and the blues from my father’s large collection of 78 rpm records. My musical “philosophy” (haha, like I had one) came from a 1931 song by Duke Ellington, “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t got that. . .” Well, you know.

I’ve always preferred jazz and blues to just about everything else except, perhaps, songs by Pete Seeger and the Weavers. Sooner or later, when moving to a new town, I would find the local jazz station even though it never earned as much money as the so-called “top forty” stations.

So naturally, I liked “I’ve  Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” by Duke Ellington and Paul Francis Webster released in 1941.  A lot of other people liked it, too, since everybody who was anybody sang it, including Cannonball Adderley, Ivie Anderson, and Louis Armstrong. Cher, who–like me–wasn’t born when the song came out, sang the version I liked the best on her 1973 album “Bittersweet White Light.” Many think this album contains some of her best work, though it didn’t do well.

I ended up liking Cher a lot, probably because of this album, surprising everyone knew me.

I still like jazz, blues, and ragtime best which means, I guess, that–music-wise–I’ve still got it bad and that ain’t good.

–Malcolm

My musical preferences usually make their way into my novels.