Straighten up and fly right - Cole, Mills - Ukulele chord-melody w. pdf

Straighten up and fly right - Cole, Mills (1943). Now universally known and loved, this was originally a big hit for both its composer, Nat King Cole, and also for the Andrews Sisters the same year. The lyric has its origin in African folk tales about the Signifying Monkey, a smart critter who outsmarts and foils his enemies, in this case a buzzard hoping for a meal. Wiki points out that the harmonic progression is based on Gershwin’s “I got rhythm,” which in fact served as the starting point for a lot of jazz compositions and improvs, e.g. Charlie Parker and friends.

Second Hand Songs lists 189 versions, but I imagine there’s scarcely a jazz student anywhere who hasn’t tried their hand at it. Important versions from bygone days would include: Bob Wills, Sammy Davis Jr., Marvin Gaye, Carmen McRae, Linda Ronstadt, Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, Nnenna Freelon, Dianne Reeves, King’s Singers, Jeff Goldblum & Imelda May, Oscar Peterson, John Pizzarelli Jr., Rosemary Clooney.

Uke key: C. This song, short though it is, even with the verse / intro, nearly murdered me; I had to practice it way longer than I do most songs, because of one thing: the tempo. The two reference recordings, by Nat King Cole and the Andrews Sisters, both take it at around mm 160, and a lot of the later versions follow suit (Exception: Dianne Reeves, mm 80, but then it becomes a different song altogether). I couldn’t come close to 160 on uke, but it’s obvious that, unless you get it up to a reasonable clip, you may as well stay home. After hours of repetition, and thinking, and tweaking some of the fingering and articulation, I managed to push it to 132 without the wheels coming off, much. I hope it’s still fizzy enough at that speed. Hmm, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea to begin with …

pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ma2SdGcBz...