Poinciana

Poinciana - Song of the Trees

POINCIANA - Song of the Trees

I thought "Poinciana" was an Ahmad Jamal tune because of his iconic version from At the Pershing. I never looked for an earlier version until a couple years ago. Turns out it's from 1936 and was based on a Cuban folk song, "Song of the Tree." There are lots of great versions of this, including ones by the Four Freshman, Frank Sinatra, and one by Vulfpeck that's all on vocoder.

Ahmad Jamal trio guitarist Ray Crawford used to play his guitar percussively to imitate the sound of congas, which is another thing about Ahmad Jamal that I didn't realize for a long time. I thought he was switching off and actually playing a percussion instrument, but he was hitting his guitar. Even though Crawford was out of the band by the time of At the Pershing, I included some "conga guitar" at the top of this arrangement as a tribute.

#poinciana #ahmadjamal #raycrawford #congaguitar #guitar #sologuitar #sologuitarist #telecaster #atthepershing #crestonguitar #songofthetrees #songofthetree

Posted by Nick Millevoi on Friday, March 24, 2017