Putting On The Ritz

On the one hand, I'm a big time technology junkie. I subscribe to Popular Science. I love to know about the newest and fanciest things available; particularly related to entertainment. I've fortunately learned to restrain myself from HAVING all the newest gadgets, though I frequently stop by Best Buy to eyeball them.

On the other hand, I absolutely love some of the older entertainers. Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Frank Sinatra are some of my favorite artists to listen to. I love the purity of their performances; not just in terms of having generally clean content, but in that they didn't have the advantages of special effects or multiple tracks to make their recordings. They had to perform well, and to get it all right in one take. There are some talented folks out there today, but generally, there are some folks making millions who are not even in the same league as some of the old guys.

Having said all that, I think this performance by Fred Astaire is simply amazing, and that you should watch it. If you click on the video and open it in YouTube, you have the option of watching it in higher quality.