Mark Pentleton

Today’s song dates from 1925 and has been performed by a variety of performers including Oscar Peterson, Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald.
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This song comes from the 1927 Jerome Kern musical Showboat, and it’s dedicated to my grandfather Terry McGibbons who would have been 99 years old today. He used to love singing this song and I’m including a recording of him below.
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This will have to be quick – it’s about 2 minutes to midnight! I’ve had a really busy day so this is the first chance I’ve had to post today’s song. Amapola – meaning “poppy” in Spanish –  dates from 1924 and was written by Spanish composer Joseph LaCalle. It was recorded by the Jimmy [...]

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A wonderfully romantic (if a tad politically incorrect) song today – Let’s do it, let’s fall in love by Cole Porter dating from 1928. Unfortunately the reasons for thinking of this song today have more today with geekdom than romance: last night Apple announced the new range of iPods and while Steve Jobs was demoing [...]

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Today’s song dates from 1928 when it was first written for a never-published operetta by George and Ira Gershwin called East is West. It was introduced in 1930 in the musical Girl Crazy by Ginger Rogers.
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Today’s song is It had to be you, one of my wife Catriona’s favourite songs. It dates from 1924 and was performed by Priscilla Lane in the 1939 film The Roaring Twenties. Since then it’s been performed by many artists, including Harry Connick Jr. in the 1989 Sleepless in Seattle Soundtrack. [Correction: as Pierre-Benoît pointed [...]

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Today’s song is the wonderful Makin’ Whoopee from 1928, and my performance was inspired by Dave Grusin’s version in the film The Fabulous Baker Boys. I’m afraid Michelle Pfeiffer wasn’t available to drape herself over my piano as I performed this, but I’m sure she would have done so if she had been available!
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Today’s song comes from the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II musical Showboat. I remember being given the Showboat piano album by my first piano teacher, Elsa Baird, and I was probably a bit too young at the time to appreciate the rhythms and wonderful chord progressions. However, I’m so glad I was introduced to [...]

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When you’re making tea you tend to make it not just for yourself… Mum will understand where I’m coming from here, and this will hopefully remind Catriona to make tea for two next time!
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I’ve always loved this song. It was originally written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1926 for the musical Oh Kay! and has been sung by many performers including Ella Fitzgerald, Barbara Streisand and Linda Ronstadt. The song has also featured on Battlestar Galactica and in Star Trek: Voyager and in the movie Mr Holland’s [...]

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