David Bowie Cover of the Week: Fini Bearman’s Jazz version of “Starman”

Before I get to explaining why I selected this excellent jazz cover of “Starman” as “cover of the week,” I’m going to take a moment to recap what this weekly feature is. The original idea of ‘cover of the week” was really just based on my observation that every week multiple artists, ranging from amateurs in their basements to international superstars post Bowie covers on YouTube. To me, this is a show of how Bowie’s music lives on and is not static or frozen in time, and how Bowie continues to inspire artists all over the world, all the time. In the process of identifying new covers, I have come to discover some pretty great music, too. Such is the case with this week’s selection.

This is a jazz cover of “Starman,” which is something we’ve seen before, however this arrangement is new to me and the sound is unique and innovative. I am not naturally drawn to jazz, but I like the idea of going to a jazz club, or a fancy restaurant with a band like this playing in the background or heck, I’d see these guys in concert. The point being that, for me at least, jazz is a kind of special occasion music. Along those lines, this is a special occasion type of cover. To some ears, a non-rock version of “Starman” might defy expectations or even not sound like the way the song was meant to sound, but to me that’s what makes this new, with added value. It’s like Bowie left us tools to use, and I think this trio put those tools to great use.

This video appeared on the YouTube channel of the musician playing the piano, Tom Cawley. Fini Bearman is on vocals and Calum Gourlay is on bass.

For more on Fini, visit her website HERE.

You can find Tom Cawley’s website HERE.

And HERE is a link to Calum Gorlay’s website.

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One more note: Readers have shared with me or brought to my attention several others quality covers this week. I’m going to look to give some of them stand-alone posts in coming days and/or weeks. There’s a lot coming up, so check back often for future content.