What a wonderful world

What a wonderful world

Zakir Hussain performing in the Song Around The World, “King Clavé” The pre-eminent classical tabla virtuoso of our time, Zakir Hussain, is appreciated both in the field of percussion and in the music world at large as an international phenomenon and one of the world’s most esteemed and influential musicians. The foremost disciple of his […] Ever wonder what it’s like to be a content creator? Chris Franks has written more than 1,600 published posts on topics ranging from wordpress themes to the movie theater industry. Find out what a content creator’s experience is like and be inspired to dive into your own content.

World

via GIPHY

The song extols the pleasures of this ``wonderful world'': ``I hear babies cry, I watch them grow./ They'll learn much more than I'll ever know,/ and I think to myself, `What a wonderful world.'"" Bryan illustrates the lyrics by means of a puppet show performed by a cross-cultural group of children and a smiling black man with a trumpet (presiding adults will have to identify the figure as Armstrong; there's not even an explanatory note in the book). Fittingly, Bryan's gouache and tempera paints are as bright and varied as a rainbow, but even with the lyrics they don't tell a coherent story.

Bursting with its upbeat message, this seems like a picture-book cross between ``Up with People'' and ``It's a Small World.'' Ages 4-8. (Mar.)It was a number one hit in the U.K. in the 1960s. Then it was a top 20 hit in Italy in the 1970s. Finally, in the 1980s, it charted in the United States, where it had gone nearly unnoticed for two decades. And fifty-three years after it was recorded, Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” was recognized as an iconic standard when its creators were posthumously honored with the Songwriter Hall of Fame’s Towering Song Award in June of 2015 in New York City. (Source:americansongwriter.com)