1920s Irving Berlin standard 'What'll I Do' is the latest jazz connection in addition to the presence of jazz singer character Eve Marbury played by Joanna Riding (Stella, Into the Woods) who ''singing detective'' Alex Ridley falls for and duets with on 'Swansong' the latest episode of the highly engaging ITV drama aired last night. Ridley is also vinyl hunting for John Coltrane's Impressions (released in 1963 on the Impulse label), the cover of which we see at a particularly dramatic moment.
'What'll I Do' is famously the theme song for the long-running Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran sitcom Birds of a Feather that you still hear even today in jazz clubs for instance by pianist Sultan Stevenson who with his trio was as recently witnessed rendering the standard as last autumn.
Versions over the years have included treatments by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Julie London. And Sarah Vaughan interpreted the Berlin classic in spectacularly jaunty fashion on 1964's Benny Carter-arranged The Lonely Hours.
Alex Ridley (Adrian Dunbar) and Eve Marbury (Joanna Riding) in 'Swansong'. Photo: ITV
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