Thisbe Vos & Rick Olson—”Black Coffee” (2015)

Last Thursday, I posted Mary Lou Williams and Paul Webster’s 1938 composition “What’s Your Story, Morning Glory,” which must have sounded familiar to a lot of jazz fans. For the melody that was composed a decade later by Pennsylvanian Joseph Francis “Sonny“ Burke (1914-1980) and became known as the jazz standard “Black Coffee,” was based on this melody.

Since the first two measures of “Black Coffee” are identical to Williams’ tune, she considered taking legal action against Sonny Burke, feeling that he plagiated her composition. Even the harmonies that appear on “Black Coffee” are identical to Mary Lou Williams’ piano solo of a decade earlier.

However, with beautiful lyrics by the most successful songwriter of the 1950s, New Yorker Paul Francis Webster (1907-1984) — no relation to Paul Webster — “Black Coffee” became the real classic of the two songs. And it has been sung by songstresses from Vaughan to Vos.

Netherlands-born singer Thisbe Vos and Massachusetts-born keyboardist Frederick Olson, who both reside in California, playing “Black Coffee” in 2015. Thisbe and Rick’s performance fits perfectly into the living room concerts which are given on social media nowadays by artists like Stacey Kent and Norah Jones.