Beans N’ Beats: Part 3 - Jazz and RNB
Welcome to the final Beans N’ Beats. As you can tell by the title, this is more of a bouillabaisse of genres rather than a specific one. These are songs I have come across in my journey across the musical tapestry and I just couldn’t leave them out of the conversation. Let us hopscotch across Soul, RNB, and Jazz and three songs that have to do with coffee!
COFFEE TIME by Natalie Cole
I have to start it off with the unforgettable voice of Natalie Cole. Daughter of the legendary jazz pianist, Nat King Cole, Natalie grew up immersed in jazz music. With an amazing career across twenty-five albums, it is safe to say that Natalie stepped out from her father’s shadow and is a legend in her own right.
I came across Natalie Cole on the “Unforgettable” duet she did with Nat King. The second she starts singing I became entranced and I knew that I had to listen to angelic voice in everything that she had done. If you have not listen to her discography, I highly recommend kicking back in your favourite chair and just pressing play.
“Coffee Time” is the fourth third track on Natalie’s Still Unforgettable album that was released in 2008. The jumpy bassline, soft drums, and jazz piano let Natalie shine on the song. This song is literally what I think every café should be playing at all times because this song literally sounds like the inside of a café.
Coffee time
My dreamy friend, its coffee time
Lets sing, this silly little rhyme
and have a cup of coffee
The upbeat tempo and tenor in her voice shows that this is quite a happy song. She is singing to a lover about getting together and just having a cup of coffee. Sometimes its just the simple things.
BLACK COFFEE by Ella Fitzgerald
If you are reading this and aren’t familiar with Ella Fitzgerald, I am kind of jealous of you because you get to discover one of the most amazing songwriters and singers ever. She gave her life to music, with 60 years of phenomenal jazz, blues, swing, and pop albums, including many other writing credits.
I found out about the First Lady of Song in her duet with Louis Armstrong on the song “Summertime”. After the horns finished serenading me, Ella starting singing and stole my heart. After that song, I dove head first into her discography and found what was one of the most beautiful songwriters of all time. It has been ten years and I still come across an Ella Fitzgerald song or writing credit I have never heard of.
In 1960, Ella Fitzgerald dropped a soundtrack album for a movie that she was featured in: Let No Man Write My Epitaph. The opening song to that album is “Black Coffee”. In the chorus, she sings:
Black coffee
Love’s a hand me down brew
I’ll never know a Sunday
In this weekday room
Listening to Ella sing, you can hear the sadness and heartbreak in her voice. The melancholy metaphors throughout the song are echoed with the darkness of a black cup of coffee. Listen to this song and then let me know when you finally climbed out of the Ella Fitzgerald rabbit hole.
COFFEE by Miguel
The first time I heard a Miguel song was when I was putting together a slideshow for my sister’s wedding and she insisted that I use “Adorn” and “Simplethings”. It took me slightly longer than anticipated to finish the slideshow because I fell into Miguel’s discography and the rest was history.
Miguel dropped his Wildheart double length album in 2015 to widespread success. If you were listening to music in 2015 you definitely came across at least one of his hit songs. The perfect embodiment of his style of RNB music, Miguel put out his song “Coffee” as the first single. In the chorus, he sings:
Coffee in the morning
I don’t wanna wake you
I just wanna watch you sleep
It’s the smell of your hair
And it’s the way we feel
I’ve never felt comfortable like this
The song progresses showing the development of a relationship from sexual to intimate and comfortable. Miguel paints the intimate relationship using the ritual of waking up in the morning but in a very romantic setting. I agree Miguel, coffee is definitely the most romantic morning beverage.
