best cover version illustrated

any music-loving audiophile would have come across countless cover versions (or interpretations) of their fave hits by the so-called audiophile singers. it can be a jazz standard (think "fly me to the moon") or bossa nova ditty (think "corcovado") and in the case of chinese music, a popular cantopop or mandarin hit being re-arranged.

my key expectation of a good cover version is that, while it can never exceed the original song, it must be of different arrangement or feel, and it must give the listener a "light bulb" feeling, i.e. "oh, this song can sound like this!" or "hey, this is creative interpretation!".

i think i am pretty good in sizing up if the arrangement is up to par. many audiophile singers (think mainland china singers) can sing well but often times, the arrangement of the song fails them, making it sound ordinary or inferior to the original song.

good arrangers are extremely hard to come by. in the context of malaysian music scene, i can think of only one who has international standards - mac chew. there may be others, most likely malay musicians that i don't know.

anyway, i would like to share with you this mega classic cantopop hit by danny chan (pin pin hei fun nei, it is unlikely that you haven't heard this popular tune before) being re-sung recently by over-the-prime and grossly-underrated HK female singer by the name of chiu hock yee. chiu is a credible singer but luck wasn't on her side.

listen to this light jazz cover of this golden classic. tell me how you like it and i will tell you which album does it come from :-)