Diamanda is just lovely.

I've almost laughed my head off while listening to the interview.

I guess people are more and more frightened of THEMSELVES, that is, to become a SELF without the constant paranoia of egoism seems to be more and more an unaccomplishable task for people. Thus they need vulgar-Freud(ianism), feminism etc. instead of THEMSELVES, which should be the only real need i guess, just babbling anyway. I wouldn't quite say that it is an echte American thing, but a good deal of it comes from the US, that's a fact.

I'm a Hungarian guy anyway. I was filled with joy when I first heard Gloomy Sunday (Szomorú vasárnap), a song of Seress Rezső (certainly not of Billie Holliday) by Diamanda. To hear now Autumn Leaves was a different pleasure, as I did not know the song.

What Diamanda says about jazz/blues-singers neglecting the connection btw chord progression and dramatic flow is true in general, most of them just simply follow a "style". Two exceptions come into my mind now, Nina Simone and Tom Waits. But they are NOT jazz/blues singers, circle complete.

Re: Dimanda's disparging comments about jazz musicians..

Is she trying to say that Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, or other jazz interpreters didn't know, understand or appreciate "Autumn Leaves" as it was originally written? Because that's baloney. You have to know the original score and understand the chord changes very well in order to improvise. These musicians weren't just singing or playing 'whatever'. Additionally Diamanda's own rendition of the song is a free JAZZ interpretation, she improvises through most of it and is not singing the song as composed, straying from the chord changes and the original melody quite a bit.

She seems to be basing this opinion about jazzers' lack of musical knowledge of "Autumn Leaves" on one comment made by Miles Davis taken out of context in a book that she claims was written by a "non-scholar". And for some odd reason seems the need to add that "Miles Davis depended on Gil Evans for quite a lot". What did Miles Davis depend on Gil Evans for? Gil Evans was a pianist in Miles Davis's band. Nobody would even know who Gil Evans is if it weren't for Miles Davis. Gil Evans was no where around when Miles Davis was out inventing Be Bop. Additionally, lots of people would have never heard songs like "Autumn Leaves" if they weren't made popular by jazz musicians so composers like Kosma should be thanking his lucky stars that Billie Holiday and Miles Davis even chose to record his song.

BTW , we Americans think you Europeans are "boring" too , so we're even.