Mack The Knife- German style

[Marty Grass]

Cool vid.

[Woody Sound]

That's pretty cool. But "Mack the Knife" and "In the Mood" are two tunes I'd be happy to never have to play again.

[teeps]

Fascinating song. For many years I thought of this as an american piece of swing music. Probably due to the popularity of the Louis Armstrong version. Written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and part of a comment about the "dark clouds" collecting over europe in the late 1920s. A period recently portrayed/interpreted by the TV series Babylon Berlin Babylon Berlin (TV Series 2017– ) - IMDb

[sgosnell]

The song is from Die Dreigroschenoper, translated as The Three Penny Opera, book by Berthold Brecht and music by Kurt Weill. Based on an 18th Century English ballad opera. This is one of the songs from that opera. Weill wrote many great tunes, but this is arguably his best remembered one. Speak Low and September Song are also pretty much jazz standards.

[Doctor Jeff]

Ute Lemper is, IMO, THE interpreter of Brecht/Weill, with all respect to Lotte Lenya.

Here is Ute in the excellent “authentic” recording Die Dreigroschenoper from 1990–supposed to be faithful to the original.

And here is Lotte Lenya with the redoubtable Louis Armstrong:

[sgosnell]

I never get tired of listening to Louis, no matter what he's playing.

[Ukena]

The song is from Die Dreigroschenoper, translated as The Three Penny Opera, book by Berthold Brecht and music by Kurt Weill. Based on an 18th Century English ballad opera. This is one of the songs from that opera. Weill wrote many great tunes, but this is arguably his best remembered one. Speak Low and September Song are also pretty much jazz standards.

The English translation with which most people are familiar is by Marc Blitztein, who translated the entire musical which was produced Off-Broadway in 1956. Lotte Lenya won a Tony Award for her performance; also in the play were Ed Asner, Charlotte Rae, Bea Arthur, John Astin, Jerry Stiller, and Jerry Orbach.

That translation was a smoothed-over, gentler version of the original, which was far more acerbic and dark (one can get a good idea from the 1931 G.W. Pabst film). A far better, more faithful translation was made by Ralph Mannheim and John Willett, although they refused to allow it to be produced. Fortunatey, an Off-Broadway playwright/director named Richard Foreman was living with Mannheim's daughter, and got permission from them to stage the show for the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 1976. It originally starred Raul Julia, and ran for 9 months on Broadway, then moved to the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park.

From the Mannheim/Willett translation of Die Moritat:

See, the shark has teeth like razors,
All can read his open face;
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place!

See the shark, how red his fins are
As he slashes at his prey;
Mack the Knife wears white kid gloves which
Give the minimum a-way!

[...]

And the child-bride in her nightie
Whose assailant's still at large!
Violated in her slumbers –
Mackie, how much did you charge?

There are some who are in darkness
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight

[ronjazz]

I played the original charts on banjo when I toured with a small group as guests of several excellent orchestras around the USA, we did a Kurt Weill Medley, mostly Threepenny Opera, but some other fantastic tunes from his book as well. And we did it in the old German cabaret style, which put a twist on these tunes that was unforgettable. Really down and dirty, funky and soulful. Far superior to later interpretations.

[wintermoon]

every time I hear the name Lotte Lenya I can't help but think of this....

[grahambop]

Ute Lemper has the perfect voice for these songs, I love listening to this stuff even if I don’t know what she’s singing about! (but I usually end up googling the lyrics to find out).

[Vladan]

I remember watching TV broadcast of this :

I remember thinking how Gianna Nannini was really cool.

[basscadet]

I see this lady frequently in my various social media feeds, she is ferociously talented - cool stuff!