Pic(k) of the Week: Colors of autumn

Time was, preserving a leaf under a flyleaf was a life memento. Nowadays, there are e-variants thereof. Here: colors of autumn, from October 2019, seen in and around Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

And another: when spring's joy-green, its purchase failing, could yet be seen.

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Pam Bricker & Autumn Leaves

The song Les Feuilles mortes was composed for the 1946 French movie, Les Portes de la Nuit (Gates of the Night) by Hungarian émigré Joseph Kosma with lyrics by French poet Jacques Prevert. The song soon became a popular music standard (Edith Piaf's version, well-known) and a jazz standard. The American lyricist Johnny Mercer penned the English translation, Autumn Leaves.

Autumn Leaves, below, is from Washington, D.C.-vocalist Pam Bricker's 2001 album, U-Topia, named after a D.C. club in which she held a regular gig. Performing with her are her longtime accompanist, Wayne Wilentz, on keyboards, and Jim West on drums. It's a crystalline performance.

Ms. Bricker began her career singing folk music but, after moving to Washington, D.C., transitioned to jazz (and cabaret). In the 1980s, she performed with the vocalese group Mad Romance, then going solo in the 1990s. In the early aughts, she recorded with the acid-jazz Thievery Corporation.

I was fortunate enough to hear Ms. Bricker perform in person, on several occasions, in the early 1990s, at hotel lounges in Washington, D.C. Like any bar and lounge, there was a lot of inattentive audience chatter, an experience she compared to performing like "a living jukebox." Me, I paid rapt attention.

Bricker is blessed with perfect pitch, clear diction, more than average range, and a knowledgeable sense of the lyrics and feel for the beat, all packaged in a clear, cool set of vocal pipes.

— All About Jazz

A life's memento of the remarkable Pam Bricker (1955-2005).

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
I see your lips, the summer kisses,
The sun-burned hands I used to hold.

Since you went away the days grow long,
And soon I'll hear old winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.

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• The Washington Post's obituary of Pam Bricker: here.
  
  
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays, and occasionally, but not always (as is the case today), with a good fermentable as the subject.
• Photo(s) 44 of 52, for year 2019. See them on Flickr: here and here.
• Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.
  • Photo (top)
    • Lens: Lumix G 20/F1.7 II
    • Settings: 20 mm | 1/200 | ISO 200 | f/2.0
  • Photo (bottom)
    • Lens 2: Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 FD
    • Settings: 50 mm | 1/160 | ISO 200 | f/5.6
    • Peripheral: Fotodiox adaptor
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


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