Poinciana
Added 2021-07-05 18:06:19 +0000 UTCPoinciana is an old tune with a very interesting background.
The song has been identified as a development of a Cuban folk song entitled "La Canción del Árbol" whose title translates as "the song of the tree", the royal poinciana being a favorite Caribbean flowering plant. However composer Nat Simon would claim the song's tune came to him while he was dining at Manhattan Theater District restaurant Leone's, and that he jotted down a rough draft of the melody on his table's cloth which - with Leone's permission - he took home to work out the completed melody at his piano. Lyrics for the song were completed in about thirty minutes by Buddy Bernier, who cited as his inspiration a postcard of a royal Poinciana tree he'd recently received from Florida.
This song is very popular in the repertoire of jazz musicians, most notably Ahmad Jamal, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, Paquito D'Rivera, Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner, as well as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Percy Faith, Esquivel and Caterina Valente. And as of very recently you can find a very interesting version by Vulfpeck on YouTube.
This song has always sounded to me like something between jazz and ambient music. So in this cover I tried to mix those genres by involving sounds from nature, ambient pads, lo fi drums, and some relaxing fingerstyle on my guitar.
