A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY BY JACK TEAGARDEN

(BRUNSWICK, 1933)

I first heard the name Jack Teagarden from my junior high school bandmate, Bill Teagarden - (I can’t remember if he told me he WAS or WAS NOT related to the famous trombonist. In any case I don’t think I actually heard the man’s music until later in life when I scored a Time/LIfe 8 track collection of his work, which included this song.

From the moment the sound waves created by Jack’s slurring, insouciant vocal delivery hit my aural receptors I started grinning from ear to ear. The unimpeachable philosophical argument of the lyrics put obviously in service to a seduction has stayed with me since that first listen. The “live for today” - Be Here Now - cosmic sentiment has been articulated many times through many iterations, but never, for me, so persuasively.

Written by Victor Young, Ned Washington, and Joe Young, this standard has been recorded by all the mid-20th century vocal greats (Ethel Waters with Benny Goodman made a hit with it), but give me the trombonist from Texas any day.  He was only 28 when he recorded this side, but he sounds like a stewed, ageless sorcerer casting a love spell.