Mary's Little Boy Child - Jester Hairston

[MCJazzer]

I've written a version of this song by the late, great Afr.-Amer. spiritual composer & arranger, Jester Hairston. I'm posting two diff. versions, because I sort of have a dilemma:

Mr. Hairston identified this song as a Calypso, although most recordings (Andy Williams, even Harry Belafonte) don't sound very "island". I'm using the Latin-Cuba: Son Montuno 3-2 rhythm style to create more of a Calypso sound.

But - in Version 1 below, I'm adding some interludes at the end of the Verse & the Refrain that end up making the phrases add up to an odd number of measures - which turns the 3-2 clave around to make it a 2-3. To me, this makes the rhythmic feel sound weird, kind of klunky.

Version 2 fixes this problem by adding (or taking away) measures in the interludes to keep the lengths of the phrases even #'s of measures, thereby keeping the integrity of the 3-2 clave. And it sounds better to me, it's just - I didn't necessarily want the phrases of the song to go like that.

Any opinions about this are welcome - I'm no expert by any means in Cuban son music, so tell me what you think, & use & enjoy this song if you like it.

Latin-Cuba: Son Montuno 3-2
@ 108 bpm
Rhodes 2 Tremolo
Nylon Guitar
Acoustic Bass


Mary's Little Boy Child vrs- 1 - Jester Hairston

Mary's Little Boy Child vrs- 2 - Jester Hairston

[MontunoResonante]

Hi,

I created this version of Mary’s Boy Child by Jester Hairston as a calypso. The best rhythm to choose is Baião from the new Brazilian rhythm set which can be bought as an extension in iReal Pro (recommended !)
If you don’t have this, try Samba from the Latin rhythms.

Mary's Boy Child (Calypso) - Jester Hairston