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Take Two Golden Lady |
Stevie Wonder's song Golden Lady appears as a track on his 1973 album Innervisions. One commentator on YouTube writes: 'I remember hearing this song for the first time in 1984 when I was about 4 years old. We had just moved into our now 32 year old family home, and the living room was still filled with half empty boxes. I was taking stuff out of one of them when this song came on. I remember sitting on the floor, very still, afraid that if I moved I would miss hearing something. I remember looking around at the sun shining in through the window, looking at my mother grooving, my younger sisters playing around, and listening to my father singing along with Stevie. I thought, "This is a pretty house..."
Looking in your eyes
Kind of heaven eyes
Closing both my eyes
Waiting for surprise
To see the heaven in your eyes is not so far
'Cause I'm not afraid to try and go it
To know the love and the beauty never known before
I'll leave it up to you to show it
And golden lady, golden lady
I'd like to go there
Here's Stevie playing Golden Lady in Los Angeles in 2007.
The first of our two jazz interpretations of Golden Lady moved me like Stevie Wonder's recording did that four year old child in his 'pretty house'. It is a video of 17 year old trumpeter Alexandra Ridout playing it to win the BBC Young Musician Jazz Award Final of 2016. At the time, Alexandra was studying at the Royal Academy of Music. The focus of course is on Alexandra, but she had a formidable band playing with her - Gwilym Simcock (piano); Yuri Goloubev (bass) and James Maddren (drums). Alexandra now leads her own band, The Alexandra Ridout Quintet.and is also a member of several other bands including The National Youth Jazz Orchestra. In November 2018 Alexandra won The British Jazz Awards ‘Rising Star’ category and in 2020 was nominated in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.
Alexandra playing Golden Lady in 2016.
Golden lady, golden lady
I'd like to go there
Take me right away
Looking at your hands
Hands can understand
Waiting for the chance
Just to hold your hand
A touch of rain and sunshine made the flower grow
Into a lovely smile that's blooming
And it's so clear to me that you're a dream come true
There's no way that I'll be losing
And golden lady, golden lady
I'd like to go there
With 'Take Two' the idea is to find different interpretations of the song, and I found it hard to choose between two, both by pianists. Cory Henry's solo version, recorded at The Falcon in 2014 is quite different and is well worth checking out (click here). Cory is a former member of the band Snarky Puppy.
But the one I have chosen is Robert Glasper's version recorded with bass player Derrick Hodge and with one mic and one take:
A touch of rain and sunshine made the flower grow
And golden lady, golden lady
I'd like to go there
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