It's Only a Paper Moon

Post date: Feb 28, 2015 4:57:23 PM

Recently Venus, Mars, and the Moon were aligned to create a stunning image in the night sky.  This reminded me of a jazz standard that I've been working on, It's Only a Paper Moon.  Countless singers have covered this and I'm by no means an accomplished jazz vocalist (or vocalist in general).  So what I've done to try and make this unique is to comp Freddie Green-style rhythm playing on a seriously old archtop guitar giving it an early Django Reinhardt feel.

The song was written by Harold Meyerson and Ernie Harburg of Wizard of Oz fame.  In their biography Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist, the authors include Harburg’s story of the tune. “They wanted a song for the barker, a man disillusioned with the world, and he had finally fallen in love. [Rose] called me up and said, ‘Do you have any kind of a song that would fit that situation?’ Harold had a tune. He had a whole tune. And I got an idea-there’s a guy who sees the lights of Broadway, thinks the whole world is that, that the moon is a paper moon, everything is a Barnum and Bailey world.

Production notes: recorded using MXL960 tube mic with GE 12AY7 NOS tube.  Rhythm guitar was recorded with a 1937 Vega Archtop.  Lead guitar is a Larrivee L-03.  Vocal is EQ'ed lofi to sound like a vintage radio.  Less aggressive EQ is also applied to lead/rhythm guitars.  Preamp was an M-audio DMP3.

It's Only a Paper Moon (MP3)