Composer-arranger Gordon Jenkins made just this one LP for RCA Victor's short-lived subsidiary, "X" Records, but it's a good one.

His not-terribly-original concept was to write a new song for each month in the year, and call it Gordon Jenkins' Almanac. None of the songs became hits, but even so, the record is pure delight.

The album dates to 1955. It and about six single sides were Jenkins' sole contributions to the "X" Records catalog before RCA disbanded that mark in 1956. Jenkins then moved on to Capitol.

Gordon Jenkins

"X" was actually Jenkins' third record label. The first records under his own name came out on Capitol in 1942. One of the label's earliest signings, he appears on about a dozen sides for the company, issued either under his own name and or as accompanist for Capitol vocalists. Early in the LP era, the label collected eight of those singles on the 10-inch LP Time to Dance with Gordon Jenkins, which I shared many years ago. I am preparing a newly remastered version of the LP, and including the additional singles as a bonus. 

Jenkins' biggest hit for Capitol came after he left the label. It was his song "San Fernando Valley," recorded by label co-founder Johnny Mercer with Paul Weston's orchestra in 1944.

Jenkins' next stop was Decca, which kept him busy with his own recordings (including the popular and trend-setting Manhattan Tower), his orchestrations for such singers as Dick Haymes, and his work with the Weavers. He brought that group to the label and had a handful of huge hits with them before they were blacklisted in 1952.

In late 1954, Jenkins moved on to RCA Victor, which engaged him to produce and record for its new subsidiary, "X" Records.

Gordon Jenkins' Almanac is a good compendium of his various styles. There are riff-based big band sounds such as"January Jumps," a march, waltzes, blues, night music, and his trademark sad song, in this case "Blue December," which portrays a lonely man reflecting on the upcoming holidays.

Bonus Single

The single's "plug" side was "Goodnight, Sweet Dreams." Supposedly a "Lindeman-Stutz-Barefoot" composition, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the Weavers/Jenkins' greatest hit, "Goodnight, Irene." The uncredited soloist sounds very much like Lee Hays of the Weavers. Whether this was the still-blacklisted Hays incognito or merely a sound-alike, it makes for an enjoyable tune. The Weavers themselves would soon re-emerge to record a live album on Christmas Eve 1955 that was released by Vanguard in 1957 to much acclaim.

Stuart Foster

The LP comes from my collection. Its sound was surprisingly opaque, so I brightened it up a touch. The single, conversely, was strident, so I have tamed it a bit. I found that 78 on Internet Archive.

The American bass-baritone William Warfield was a great singer who did not achieve the fame his gifts warranted, possibly because he made very few solo recordings. We have been slowly working through them on this blog.

Warfield's initial session for Columbia, in 1951, was devoted to lieder by Carl Loewe and a selection of "Ancient Music of the Church." That recording will appear here in the future.

William Warfield

In 1952, Warfield's third Columbia session produced more quasi-popular material, this time settings of folk or folk-influenced songs, with backings led by (and possibly authored by) Lehman Engel. This also has appeared here, and now has been remastered.

Today we have a fine collection of Schumann and Brahms lieder dating from 1953. Following this session, Warfield was to make no other solo recordings, save for a reprise of Copland's Old American Songs, this time in the orchestrated version. He was, however, often heard in ensemble works such as The Messiah, and of course in Porgy and Bess.

Warfield in the recording studio

The LP program shows these qualities very well. It includes Schumann's Liederkreis, 1840 settings of poems by Joseph von Eichendorff, and Brahms'Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), the composer's 1896 settings of Biblical texts. (The download includes texts and translations for both works.) It's a shame Warfield was not asked to record more of this repertoire.

Otto Herz

Also included is an interview with Warfield by the Chicago Tribune's John von Rhein dating from 2000, when the vocalist was 80 and still teaching at Northwestern. He died two years later.

By 1942, Gordon Jenkins was still only 32 years old, but had already enjoyed considerable success as a songwriter and arranger. He started contributing charts to the well-known Isham Jones orchestra when he was just 22, and began writing both music and lyrics for hit songs soon thereafter.

Jenkins had, however, made only a few records as a bandleader - I can only find four sides backing Martha Tilton on Decca in 1941. 

He finally came into his own as a recording artist with the founding of Capitol Records in April 1942. As one of the label's earliest signings, Jenkins led several sessions in June and July of that year, both under his own name and with his orchestra backing Capitol vocalists. This burst of activity was to be short lived - the first recording ban intervened, choking off most sessions from August 1942 to November 1944. Jenkins eventually ended up with Decca. He devoted his first date there, in December 1945, to one of his most famous creations, Manhattan Tower. Jenkins enjoyed great success with Decca, remaining there until 1955, when he joined "X" Records.

This post compiles 17 of the 22 Capitol records that Jenkins made in 1942. The five remaining titles can be found in my 2019 Johnnie Johnston compilation.

I am again indebted to collector extraordinaire and frequent collaborator Bryan Cooper for his help in assembling this program.

Time to Dance with Gordon Jenkins

Eight of Jenkins' 1942 sides can be found on the Capitol LP Time to Dance with Gordon Jenkins, which I posted back in 2009. I've now remastered this early 10-inch LP, which provides the first eight songs in this post.

Connie Haines

For example, Don Raye and Gene de Paul's "I'll Remember April" was originally issued as a Martha Tilton record, with Jenkins and his orchestra as backing artists. Similarly, "At Last" and "Be Careful, It's My Heart" came out with Connie Haines as the main attraction. Johnnie Johnston was the primary credit on the 78 issue of "That Old Black Magic." 

All three of those songs derived from current films. Amazingly, the superb "I'll Remember April" is from Ride 'Em Cowboy with Abbott and Costello (eek!). Harry Warren's "At Last" comes from Glenn Miller's Sun Valley Serenade. Haines is good on "At Last," but you must hear the fabulous original soundtrack version sung by Pat Friday. Finally, Bing Crosby introduced "Be Careful, It's My Heart" in Holiday Inn.

As I mentioned above, Jenkins backed Johnnie Johnston on five other Capitol recordings - "Dearly Beloved,""Easy to Love,""Light a Candle in the Chapel,""Singing Sands of Alamosa" and "Can't You Hear Me Calling Caroline" - which can be found in my Johnston compilation.

Bob Carroll

"Chasing Rainbows" has an uncharacteristic arrangement, starting off with a brass fanfare and quickly subsiding into a quasi-baroque chart with Jenkins (presumably) on the harpsichord. This must be one of the earliest appearances of the harpsichord on a popular record. I'm not sure if the arrangement is supposed to represent Chopin, who wrote the melody, but if so, Jenkins undershot the mark stylistically.

"There Will Never Be Another You" is another Harry Warren-Mack Gordon song, this one from Sonia Henie's skating spectacular Iceland. The recording has a vocal by the excellent Bob Carroll, a Charlie Barnet alumnus. (Some of Carroll's later records are collected here.)

The 1942 78s

With the help of Internet Archive and Bryan Cooper, I've assembled what we think are the balance of Jenkins' issued recordings from Capitol that date from 1942.

Next we have Ferde Grofé's "Daybreak" with a vocal by Bob Carroll, which was the flip side of "There Will Never Be Another You." Carroll returned for Holiday Inn's "White Christmas" and for "Heaven for Two," a fine Don Raye-Gene de Paul song written, improbably, for Hellzapoppin'.

Six Hits and a Miss

None of the Six Hits and a Miss songs are characteristic of Jenkins' later work or even elsewhere in this set. "You'd Be So Nice" starts off with a quasi-Dixieland chorus, sliding into the smooth vocal. "Would You Rather Be a Soldier" sounds more like the fare that John Scott Trotter was producing for Crosby than the approach Jenkins adopted for his other Capitol arrangements. "Bye Bye Blackbird" also is atypical, although here the group name checks Jenkins and he responds with a typically spare piano solo. "Two on a Bike" even has a Tex Beneke-style whistling chorus.

Six Hits and a Miss were originally Three Hits and a Miss before inflation set in. The group was formed in 1937 with Martha Tilton as lead voice, but the talented Pauline Byrns took over the following year and was still in that slot when these records came out. The group was ubiquitous on the radio during the war years.

Martha Tilton

Most of the other arrangements are a cross between the dance-band charts Jenkins would have produced for Isham Jones or Shep Fields and the more lush string sound he would use for Sinatra and others in the 1950s and later.

As was the general practice back then, when the singer was primary on the label, he or she took the first chorus. When Jenkins was billed as the main artist, a band chorus came first. The vocalist would sing a chorus, dance-band style. Jenkins' single-finger piano solos can be heard on both the vocalist-led and bandleader sides.

The sound on most of these records is very good. The download includes brief Billboard reviews for most of these songs.

One final note: Jenkins apparently was not an exclusive Capitol artist - he also led the band for a June 1942 Dinah Shore session for Victor. I am preparing a post of the six resulting songs for my other blog. These include "He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings" and "Be Careful, It's My Heart," both of which he also recorded for Capitol at about the same time, but with much different arrangements.

Despite what the Billboard ad above implies, Jenkins apparently did not back Tilton on Moondreams

Hilding Rosenberg (1892-1985) has been called Sweden's first modernist composer, but there are strong links to tradition in his Symphony No. 3, presented here in a 1953 performance led by his contemporary Tor Mann (1894-1974).

When this recording came out, critics were divided. Harold Schonberg called it "pretentious academism." But Alfred Frankenstein praised "the dignity and refinement of the music, its strong lyric character, and its general sense of poise and technical accomplishment."

Far from being "academic" (a pejorative term in secular criticism), the symphony is deeply felt and absorbing to this listener, betraying the influences of Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen (perhaps via Rosenberg's teacher Wilhelm Stenhammar) and Paul Hindemith.

Hilding Rosenberg

The composer himself recorded the 1943 edition of the score in 1948, adding the recitations for a Swedish Society release decades later. The final version also has been recorded by the Stockholm Philharmonic twice, in performances conducted by Herbert Blomstedt and Andrew Davis. That ensemble also is heard here under its previous name of the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra.

Tor Mann

The download includes the brief reviews referenced above along with the usual scans and photos.

I am indebted to my friend Maris Kristapsons for his generous gift of this LP. He also sent me a disc of the music of Gösta Nystroem, which will appear here at a later date.

There were, and this post presents all such Victor recordings that have not previously appeared on this site, mainly drawn from two 10-inch LPs in my collection, Piano Program and Plays Harry Warren. Both albums came out in 1951, although the sessions were held mainly in the previous year. In addition to the LPs, we have two songs from a 1947 single that hasn't been offered here before.

As far as I can tell, if you combine this post with my previous efforts, you will have all of Previn's early piano sessions on RCA Victor. You also will have the even earlier recordings he did for the Sunset label, and a bunch of later material - a film score, songs, pop records and a classical date. Previn could - and did - do it all in the realm of music.

I also want to plug a related new post on my other blog - it consists of four live recordings released by the Modern label. These apparently came from a 1947 "Just Jazz" concert held in Pasadena. Also on the singles blog, you'll find an earlier post presenting several Previn V-Discs dating from 1946.

André Previn Piano Program

The André Previn Piano Program LP includes the following songs that will be new to those who have been collecting my Previn posts: "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year,""Dearly Beloved,""I've Got My Eye on You" and "September in the Rain." The other two songs on the album also appeared on Camden reissues I've uploaded previously.

Previn's accompanying trio on the LP includes Bob Bain, guitar, Lloyd Pratt, bass, and Ralph Collier, drums. Several of the songs also have string arrangements, which Previn presumably wrote.

The cover above may look familiar to those who have followed these posts. One of my earlier collections included an EP that had the same busy graphics as this LP, but different contents. This is the opposite of the usual record company approach, i.e., the same contents with different covers.

André Previn Plays Harry Warren

By 1950, Previn was an old Hollywood hand, having worked in the studios since he was in high school. For this LP, he paid homage to another LA luminary, the songwriter Harry Warren.

For a renowned songwriter, Warren was unusual in that he wrote primarily for the movies. All eight tunes in this collection were first heard on a sound stage. The liner notes mention that Warren did not achieve the same fame as other leading songwriters, even though he had won three Academy Awards. But his compositions were known far and wide, as you will discover when you scan the contents for this disc.

The following songs have not appeared here before in a Previn version: "I Only Have Eyes for You,""I'll String Along with You,""Lullaby of Broadway,""I Know Why and So Do You" and "Jeepers Creepers."

Bain, Pratt and Collier again compose the backing trio, but there are no strings arrangements in this set.

"I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and "Should I"

The backing musicians are Al Viola, guitar, Lloyd Pratt or Chic Parnell, bass, and Jackie Mills, drums.

This record comes to us from Internet Archive, cleaned up for posting here.

To close out, let me add one more plug for the post of Previn's four 1947 live recordings issued on the Modern label, new on Buster's Swinging Singles.

For some time, we've been presenting the works that Constant Lambert (1901-51) produced as composer, arranger and conductor. For today's post Lambert assumes the latter two roles. The main work is his arrangement of the music of the English baroque composer William Boyce for the 1940 Vic-Wells ballet The Prospect Before Us. Completing the program are his recordings of popular works by Gioachino Rossini, Jacques Offenbach and Franz von Suppé.

Boyce-Lambert - The Prospect Before Us

The Prospect Before Us - act drop

The ballet was suggested by a 1791 print of the same name by the English caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827), which depicts cavorting dancers on the stage of the Kings Theatre. (See below - I've brightened and clarified the faded original.)

Thomas Rowlandson - The Prospect Before Us

For the work, de Valois constructed a scenario pivoting on two rival theatrical managers who fight over the best dancers, with it all ending up with the calamity depicted on Roger Furse's act-drop at the top of this section.

Robert Helpmann

Lambert took the Sadler's Wells Orchestra into Abbey Road Studio No. 1 on August 1, 1940, less than a month after the ballet opened. The performance is as lively and high-spirited as the ballet must have been. The work was a popular success, serving as a diversion from the realities of wartime.

The download also includes reviews from The New Records and from The Gramophone, the latter of which provides a useful synopsis of the ballet.

Rossini - William Tell Ballet Music

Detail from 1939 Gramophone ad

Some parts of this music may be familiar from having appeared in re-orchestrated form in Britten's Matinées and Soirées Musicales. Much of it is delightful, although the Gramophone reviewer drolly and accurately noted that, "There is a cornet solo of the kind beloved of the pier on Part 2." The music is very well performed and recorded, and as always, Lambert's touch is sure.

Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld Overture

That's not to say that Offenbach actually wrote the overture per se - it was apparently concocted by the Austrian Carl Binder for a performance in Vienna. Nor was the concluding "can-can" originally devised as such. This galop from the score was co-opted by the Folies Bergère folks for their famous dance well after Offenbach's death.

Perhaps needless to say, Lambert and the orchestra do this to a turn - although I will note that the LPO's playing is not superior to that of the Sadler's Wells band in the recordings above.

Suppé - Overture Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna

Although I much admire Lambert, he did favor a few composers who leave me cold, notably Liszt but also Suppé, whose music strikes me as noisily insubstantial. That said, Lambert makes the most of the piece in this 1950 Kingsway Hall recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra, made near the end of the conductor's short life.

The transfers for all these works come to us through the good graces of Internet Archive, and were edited and remastered by me. The sound is uniformly excellent for its period.

I post the work of obscure vocalists from time to time, and here is one worthy of your attention. The singer's name is Marian Bruce, who had a relatively brief career in the New York cabarets, then went on to distinguish herself in the battle for civil rights.

Bruce's recording career lasted just a few years. I've only been able to find a single album, made in 1958 for Riverside, plus several numbers from 1957, one with Clark Terry and seven with Luther Henderson. I've assembled all these for this post.

The Halfway to Dawn LP

I transferred Bruce's Riverside LP, Halfway to Dawn, from a record in my collection. For that outing, she was backed by a talented group of jazz musicians - trumpeter Joe Wilder, pianist Jimmy Jones, guitarist Everett Barksdale and bassist Al Hall.

Her playlist is particularly well chosen, and likely reflects the repertoire she employed in such New York cabarets as Le Ruban Bleu and The Blue Angel. There are multiple songs by Rodgers and Hart/Hammerstein, the Gershwins and Duke Ellington. We also hear Bart Howard's "Let Me Love You," a favorite of the cabaret crowd, and the superb Coates-Attwood song "No One Ever Tells You." The latter is associated with Frank Sinatra, whom Bruce named her favorite singer. (I can't disagree.)

Joe Wilder

Closing the set is the wonderful "Don't Like Goodbyes," the Harold Arlen-Truman Capote song from House of Flowers that was introduced by Pearl Bailey. The song is certainly well done, but Bruce did not have the personality of a Pearlie Mae (who does?). and the result sounds cautious. But let's not make too much of this, because she was a talented singer, one with excellent diction who is often eloquent on her own terms.

Bruce had been introduced to Riverside records by trumpeter Clark Terry, then of the Ellington band and also a Riverside artist. Terry had used her on his Duke with a Difference LP, where she sang "In a Sentimental Mood." That effort is included in the download.

Songs with Luther Henderson

The distinguished arranger Luther Henderson was relatively early in his career when he recorded the Last Night When We Were Young LP in 1958. It appears to have been Henderson's first solo outing.

Luther Henderson

Henderson used Marian Bruce and Ozzie Bailey as his vocalists, Bruce on one side, Bailey on the other, with duets on two numbers. They are backed by an unidentified sextet.

Bruce's solo numbers are again similar to those you might have heard in a night spot of the period - "All in Fun,""Last Night When We Were Young,""Lonesomest Gal in Town" and "You Can Have Him," along with Henderson's "What Can I Say to You Now." On these selections, Bruce sounds more at ease than on her own LP. 

These numbers were remastered from lossless files found on Internet Archive.

Marian Bruce Logan and the Civil Rights Movement

Marian Bruce Logan and Coretta Scott King

Biographical information at the University of South Carolina notes that she first engaged in community work through the Student Emergency Fund, which helped African-American students make tuition payments. This effort came to the attention of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who asked for her assistance in raising funds for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 

She soon became the first Northern member of the SCLC board, remaining with the organization until 1969. She capped her career in 1977 when she was appointed as the Human Rights Commissioner of New York City by Mayor Abraham Beame.

Marian Bruce Logan died in 1993 at age 73. Her New York Times obituary is in the download, together with a few brief reviews of the LPs.

This 1951 album presents an unusual coupling, bringing together "Ancient Music of the Church" with ballads by the German Romantic composer Carl Loewe (1796-1869). I believe the latter songs may have been products of Warfield's first recording session.

William Warfield

The disparate program may have been designed to appeal to the enthusiastic audiences who had attended Warfield's first two Town Hall recitals. For his debut in March 1950, the singer had programmed three of the Loewe ballads and three of the "ancient music" settings as found on the LP, and he performed the other items during his 1951 recital.

The early music works elicited this reaction: "This revealed still another facet of his talent, for he also has the gifts of the oratorio singer" - foreshadowing Warfield's success in that field.

Warfield in the studio

Also on the program for Warfield's premiere recital were a Fauré song, a new work by John Klein and a spiritual, concluding with two jubilee songs for which Warfield provided his own accompaniment. Otherwise, his usual pianist, the excellent Otto Herz, was at the keyboard.

Although Carl Loewe's songs are not often heard today, he was a talented composer whose works have an immediate appeal. The settings heard here are of poetry by Friedrich Rückert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Aloys Schreiber. The LP did not provide texts or translations, but I've added them to the download.

The "Ancient Music of the Church" selections are by the 12th century composer Pérotin, the transitional figures Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz, and the Baroque composer Andreas Hammerschmidt. While I am certainly not an expert on such matters, I suspect these readings would be considered anachronistic these days. Performance practices have changed drastically in the 70 years since these recordings. Warfield's singing is expressive, nonetheless.

Andrew Tietjen

The download also includes both Times reviews mentioned above and three reviews of the LP, all laudatory.

The earlier installments in this series of Warfield recordings were:

• Schumann - Liederkreis and Brahms - Four Serious Songs
• Copland - Old American Songs and Dougherty - Sea Chanteys
• "Deep River" - folk and folk-influenced songs

Titling a film How to Murder Your Wife is probably not a maneuver that would succeed today, but in 1964 it was just fine as the name of a farce with Jack Lemmon as the prospective perpetrator and Virna Lisi as the intended victim.

Neal Hefti

How to Murder Your Wife

Lobby card

Terry-Thomas, Jack Lemmon, Virna Lisi

Bash Brannigan's fiendish plot

Jack Lemmon and Eddie Mayehoff

Hefti's music is well suited to this Richard Quine comedy. You will immediately recognize its resemblance to his other scores of the period, including pre-echoes of the theme to The Odd Couple - another Lemmon opus.

The Other 'Fatal Attractions'

As usual with such compilations, I'll present the constituent parts of the "other fatal attractions" in chronological order.

First we have "Murder in the Moonlight (It's Love in the First Degree)," a contrived title if ever I've heard one, courtesy of the unknown to me but impressively named Ray Nichols and His Four Towers Orchestra, with its nasal vocalist Billie Hibberd. Nichols started recording as far back as 1925; this waxing comes from his final session, in 1935.

Lil Armstrong

Speaking of good music, it doesn't get much better than "She's Killing Me" from Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, with a classic lineup including vocalist Tommy Duncan, fiddler Jesse Ashlock, trumpeter Everett Stover and pianist Al Stricklin, all of whom Wills name checks. The disc is a cover of a 1931 Nichols Brothers effort. Wills recorded his version the day after Hardin's session (September 28, 1936), also in Chicago.

Tommy Duncan and Bob Wills

J.B. Marcum

"The Murder of J.B. Markham" is an unusual outing for songwriter-singer Johnny Mercer. This folk ballad was apparently inspired by a field recording captured by Alan Lomax earlier that same year (1937). That was based on the true story of crusading attorney J.B. Marcum, who had been assassinated on the steps of a Kentucky courthouse in 1903. Mercer's record is the only one of our 78s that concerns itself with a real, as opposed to a figurative or fictional murder. His reading is lively but inappropriately jaunty.

From 1941 we have a hard-swinging instrumental, "Murder at Peyton Hall," from the big band of Charlie Barnet. The leader's alto is featured throughout the riff tune, with Cliff Leeman's powerful drums also much in evidence. Neal Hefti later would do arrangements for Barnet (notably "Skyliner"), but this chart is by the bandleader himself. The title's significance, if any, is a mystery to me.

Charlie Barnet serenades his pet Herman

Frank Loesser and Jimmy McHugh wrote "'Murder,' He Says" as a specialty for the hyper-kinetic Betty Hutton to introduce in the 1943 film Happy-Go-Lucky. Introduce she did; record she did not, at least not until this 1951 version with Pete Rugolo. By that time, the hep lingo had dated, but Hutton's knock-'em-down performance had not. She is far more lively than such genteel vocalists as Dinah Shore, who recorded the song back in 1943. You really only get the full Hutton effect from a video, by the way.

Dimitri Tiomkin

St. Louis Jimmy Oden

The How to Murder You Wife LP is from my collection; the 78s are courtesy of Internet Archive with restoration by me. The sound on all the singles is very good, except for some surface noise on Lil Armstrong's record. How to Murder Your Wife had the slightly shrill sonics that afflicted many 60s recordings. I've tamed that tendency a bit.

Gösta Nystroem

Sinfonia del mare

The LP comes to us courtesy of my friend Maris Kristapsons, who previously sent a gift of the Symphony No. 3 by Nystroem's contemporary Hilding Rosenberg. Both symphonies are performed by the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra conducted by Tor Mann. As with the Rosenberg, the Nystroem reading is impressive in its concentration and impact.

Ebba Lindqvist

The vocalist in the symphony is Ingrid Eksell, who sang in the 1949 premiere of the work. Sources differ on who led that performance (one says Mann, the other Sixten Eckerberg). Eksell also was known for her performances of Nystroem's songs.

Tor Mann

Nystroem was a painter as well as a composer until he was in his 30s. One of his works is below; the download includes several other examples along with an early portrait of Nystroem by Kurt Jungstedt.

Vårvinterlandskap (Spring-Winter Landscape) - 1916

The production probably originated with Swedish Metronome, with whom Dial had a licensing arrangement, per reseacher D.J. Hoek. Metronome itself issued the symphony on five 78s and LP. The Lundqvist poem is sung in an English translation, which seems odd if the recording had originated with Metronome. (The download contains the Swedish text and the singing translation used on the record.)

David Stone Martin with an Art Tatum cover

A Nystroem Song

Manja Povlsen

This 78, issued by the Danish Tono label, likely comes from the 1947-50 period. It was the flip side of Povlsen's cover version of "La vie en rose," the Edith Piaf song that was a 1947 hit in France and a 1950 favorite in the US.

My thanks again to Maris for his generosity in providing the LP. The 78 is courtesy of the Internet Archive.

The story goes that songwriter Jerome Kern (1885-1945) composed with a bust of Wagner overseeing his labors - smiling when Kern did well, frowning otherwise.

Judging by the 1941 caricature above by Jim Herron for the Cleveland Press, Kern had hit on a particularly lovely melody.

Jerome Kern

But what tunes he wrote! Their quality - and the brilliant success of Show Boat, the musical he composed with Oscar Hammerstein II in 1927 - gained him high regard among musicians of all varieties.

One such admirer was Artur Rodziński, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, who suggested that Kern prepare a symphonic version of themes from Show Boat. Kern had never attempted to write anything other than songs, unlike his contemporary George Gershwin, but he was pleased by Rodziński's suggestion. He replied, however, "I find myself unequipped with sufficient skill, technique or experience to create a symphonic arrangement of the melodies of ‘Show Boat’ worthy of your baton." So Kern proposed providing a "skeleton sketch" for Robert Russell Bennett (the orchestrator of Show Boat) to elaborate. It was on that basis that Rodziński prepared for a premiere in Cleveland in September 1941 and a second performance with the New York Philharmonic the next month.

Artur Rodziński and Charles Miller at the premiere

For some reason, Bennett did not end up preparing what turned out to be a "Scenario for Orchestra" on themes from Show Boat. Veteran Broadway orchestrator Charles Miller did that work. (One source says another experienced hand, Emil Gerstenberger, helped out.) Kern did not attend the premiere; accounts differ as to why - either he was sick or a friend had died. He did make it to the first New York performance.

Flyer for a 1941 children's concert with the Kern work

After the first performances, the critics were pleased if not ecstatic. Both the Cleveland and New York writers stressed the work's popular appeal while noting that it amounted to a string of tunes with no particular shape or climax; the result didn't have the emotional punch or poignancy of the widely admired theatrical work. (The New York Times' Olin Downes had stressed Show Boat's superiority even to Porgy & Bess in his advance article.)

Cover of the 78 album

Program book

The Show Boat Scenario was not the final orchestral work that Kern produced. In 1942, Andre Kostelanetz commissioned him to produce Mark Twain - Portrait for Orchestra, subsequently recorded for Columbia and previously featured here.

This particular recording was refurbished from a lossless transfer on Internet Archive. Many of the news clippings and images above were cleaned up from the original Cleveland Orchestra scrapbooks held by the Cleveland Public Library.

Next, I'll continue this theme of classical artists exploring Kern's music with a selection of his songs  performed by opera and operetta artists.

Jerome Kern by Bettina Steinke (National Portrait Gallery)

For at least the first 60 years of the last century, it was not unusual for classical vocalists to sing popular songs. Those days, singers could appear at the Met, in film, operetta and on the radio performing a variety of repertoire.

Today's post presents 13 of those crossover classical-popular vocalists in the Kern repertoire, via recordings dating from 1919 to 1951. We start with an album by mezzo Risë Stevens, and continue with singles from John McCormack, Lawrence Tibbett, Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Grace Moore, Eleanor Steber, Gladys Swarthout, Jeanette MacDonald, Lauritz Melchior, Dorothy Kirsten and William Warfield. Finally, we have a reupload of an album by Irene Dunne, who appeared in several Kern films.

This is a companion to my recent post of the Show Boat Scenario for Orchestra from the Cleveland Orchestra and Artur Rodziński.

Risë Stevens in Songs of Jerome Kern

The Kern songs formed the first album she would make with the Shulman brothers - Alan providing the arrangements and Sylvan conducting them. The Shulmans were notable crossover artists themselves - when they were not performing in the NBC Symphony, they formed one half of the Stuyvesant String Quartet and were the motive force behind the jazz group the New Friends of Rhythm. Alan wrote for both classical and pop ensembles.

The New Friends of Rhythm: Alan Shulman is the first violin, Sylvan the cellist

For her Kern album, Stevens selected prime examples of the composer's artistry; only "Don't Ever Leave Me" might not be considered among his greatest hits. It is, however, one of his best songs and is especially well done here. Overall, I find the performances pleasing, although critics of the time took issue with both the singer and the accompaniments. The New York Times insisted that Stevens was "an operatic singer and not a crooner." And the formidable Max de Schauensee in The New Records declared that he had never heard such "elaborately saccharine arrangements." (He was not paying attention to the pop music of the time - swooning romanticism was the vogue.) Well, for what it is worth, I enjoy the singer and her accomplices a great deal. It helps to have songs the quality of Kern's compositions.

Stevens was popular with the advertisers as well as the record buyers. Below, she touts GE radio-phonographs: the better to hear her with.

Please forgive some surface noise on a few cuts.

Kern Songs by Classical Vocalists

John McCormack

The earliest recording in the group is also perhaps the least well-known song. "The First Rose of Summer" comes from the 1919 show She's a Good Fellow, with book and lyrics by Anne Caldwell.John McCormack (1884-1945) made his record the same year, with his usual exceptional diction, control and involvement. The acoustic recording is one of the best of its kind. More McCormack can be found in these earlier blog collections.

Lawrence Tibbett

Richard Tauber

Gladys Swarthout

Grace Moore

Jeanette MacDonald RCA promo

Eleanor Steber

At long last we return to Music in the Air and a rendition of "The Song Is You" by the vocally and physically imposing Lauritz Melchior (1890-1973). In 1947, the Danish titan had left Wagner behind for a second career in Hollywood as a singing character actor. His studio, M-G-M, kept him busy recording as well, pairing him with Georgie Stoll for this production. Melchior also occupied his time endorsing products, including at least two brews, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Rheingold (below). I like to think he switched to the latter because of his Wagnerian background, but it probably had more to do with free beer. You can hear more from Melchior in these earlier posts.

Dorothy Kirsten

William Warfield in Show Boat

I have saved the best for last. To me, one the greatest recordings of all time is William Warfield's performance of "Ol' Man River" in the 1951 film version of Show Boat. The vocal quality, emotional involvement, control, and sheer beauty of his singing are overwhelming. His tempo is slow but the concentration and tension never slacken. I've featured all his early Columbia recordings here; this single came out on M-G-M. Kern wrote the song for Paul Robeson - and his version appeared on the blog many years ago, but it was not finer than this.

Performances of Show Boat and its songs have always been sensitive, increasingly so as time goes on. Please see this 2018 Boston Globe article for an illuminating discussion of some of the issues faced by performers and their views of the subject.

Reup: Irene Dunne in Songs by Jerome Kern

Unlike the artists mentioned above, Dunne never appeared in opera or operetta. She had wanted to become an opera singer when young, but was told her voice was too small. She did well, however, as a singing lead in films, then achieved her greatest successes in screwball comedies, where she excelled. She was an endearing performer.

Melchior touted beer; Dunne stuck to cola

Mischa Spoliansky

The Russian-born composer Mischa Spoliansky (1898-1985) has made a few appearances here, but this is the first post entirely devoted to one of his scores, and its a good one - music for the 1957 film of Shaw's Saint Joan.

In addition to the music from that film, I have two other Spoliansky posts that may be of interest: one involves Patrice Munsel songs from the 1954 Melba biopic, the other a fascinating set of songs Spoliansky wrote for Paul Robeson. Details follow.

Saint Joan

LP cover, based on Saul Bass' title design

Producer-director Otto Preminger cast the unknown Jean Seberg in the title role of Saint Joan, claiming to have tested the absurd total of 18,000 people for the role. In the end, neither the film nor the actor (or screenwriter Graham Greene) won favor with the critics, although the production is more highly regarded these days. Seberg confessed, "I have two memories of Saint Joan. The first was being burned at the stake in the picture. The second was being burned at the stake by the critics. The latter hurt more."

Lobby card

Despite this critical drubbing, Seberg did go on to star in several noted films, including Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse in 1958 (Georges Auric's score for this film is available here) and Godard's Breathless in 1960.

The download includes any number of production photos and other ephemera from Saint Joan. I am particularly fond of the publicity photo below of Richard Widmark as the Dauphin, looking devious and addled, as Widmark's characters were wont to look.

Richard Widmark in scheming mode

Saint Joan featured a superior score by Spoliansky, who had been resident in England since the mid-30s. (The production was mounted at Shepperton Studios, near London.) The composer, born in Russia, had migrated to Germany in 1914. He achieved some renown as a songwriter and pianist in Berlin, then moved on to England upon the accession of the Nazis.

Spoliansky was a gifted melodist; his Saint Joan music is testimony to his facility. At least on the evidence presented by the LP, he spends little time with the thunderous scoring then characteristic of period epics, and makes no effort to simulate 15th century music. Any "antique" touches are contributed by harpsichord and organ music that would be more at home in the 17th century than the 15th.

Despite these anachronisms, Spoliansky's work - starting with the gorgeous theme music - is entirely enjoyable, and the sound is excellent mono. I believe this is still the single most extended example of his film music available. A 2009 Spoliansky compilation from Chandos consists of bits and pieces from many films; from this score, it includes only the Toccatina for organ.

On this LP, the organist for the Toccatina is the famed George Thalben-Ball (identified by Capitol as H. Thalben-Ball). That piece is thought to have been recorded in his Temple Church.

Spoliansky's Songs for Paul Robeson

HMV issued the songs on 78 in 1935, and I've newly added them to my singles blog, where you can read more about the production and Robeson's denunciation of the final film as colonialist propaganda.

Spoliansky's Songs for Melba

Now, thanks to Internet Archive, I've discovered that RCA did record the "Melba Waltz" along with Spoliansky's "Is This the Beginning of Love?", but only issued them on a single, with Melba star Patrice Munsel as vocalist on both sides.

I've now added these songs to the Melba package, and revised and augmented the post otherwise. You can find it here.

More Spoliansky

The set also encompasses music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Allan Gray, Lord Berners, Arthur Benjamin, Arnold Bax, William Alwyn and Richard Addinsell. It's available here.

Tor Mann

We've had a few vintage recordings conducted by the fine Swedish maestro Tor Mann recently, courtesy of Maris Kristapsons, and today I'm adding one from my own collection. It is the first symphony by Ture Rangström (1884-1947), made just a few years after the composer's death. As a bonus, I've added the Little Suite for Strings by Lars-Erik Larsson (1908-86) in another early Mann recording. 

Rangström - Symphony No. 1, "August Strindberg in Memoriam"

Ture Rangström

Ture Rangström, a Swedish composer, conductor and critic, wrote four symphonies in common with many other works, and was particularly known for his songs. All his symphonies have been issued at least a few times, but I believe this 1951 reading with the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra was the first recording of Rangström's symphonic work. (The orchestra is today called the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.)

That's the composer, not Johnny Depp, on the cover

The location of the 1951 recording is not known, although Decca discographer Philip Stuart suggests it may have been the Stockholm Concert Hall. Whatever the locale, the sound was titled toward the bass, making the work seem even more brooding than the composer may have intended. In his Gramophone review, Lionel Salter complained that "the tuba's every note booms through while the strings lack weight." I've adjusted the sound, and the result is much better balanced, if hardly transparent.

As always, Mann conveys the essence of the work, while never drawing attention to his clever baton wizardry. The Stockholm orchestra plays well, although the attacks are not always in sync.

The download includes contemporary reviews from The Gramophone, New York Times, Saturday Review and The New Records.

Lars-Erik Larsson - Little Suite for Strings

Lars-Erik Larsson

In this work, Mann leads the Gothenburg Radio Orchestra. As was the case with the Stockholm ensemble, the Gothenburg orchestra was both a radio and concert entity, switching names as appropriate. 

Mann was the conductor of both ensembles at various times. He led the Gothenburg Symphony from 1925-37 - in succession to Rangström, who apparently wasn't much of a conductor, if the orchestra's website is to be believed. Mann conducted the radio orchestra from 1937 until 1939, when he ran afoul of the board.

Larsson published the Little Suite in 1934, and Mann programmed it that same year with the Gothenburg Symphony; it may well have been the work's premiere.

This recording dates from 1941, and despite the falling out with the orchestra's board, was made with the Gothenburg Radio Orchestra. The Swedish Radio issued the work on its own label, Radiotjänst (Radio Service). I remastered the recording from 78s found on Internet Archive, and the sound is good for the time.

This may be the extent of my recordings with Tor Mann, but I have other vintage recordings of music by Rangström and Larsson, if there is interest.

What we have here is a 1960 promotional LP issued by Republic Steel. It spends 15 minutes telling the listener about the glories and many uses of stainless steel. Republic  thought that manufacturers were sleeping on the potential of its product - and thereby on its potential for steel company profits.

On one side, the LP presents the soundtrack of a Republic film called "The New World of Stainless Steel." The other has the score from the film sans narration and sound effects. Presumably the promo flick would be projected at trade shows and other sales events, and the LP given away at the same time. I imagine the records also found their way into the hands of Republic's personnel.

By the way, I have no idea what the object on the cover above is supposed to represent. Looks like a rocket-powered snail.

Republic's film showed how stainless steel could be used to make boxy office buildings and dangerous sculptures

The Chicago Film Archive has rescued the film from obscurity; you can see it via Internet Archive or the Film Archive's Facebook page.

The movie and LP came from Wilding Studios, a major, Chicago-based producer of industrial films, shows, exhibits and ads. Wilding is no longer in business, but at the time was cranking out dozens of such industrial productions every year.

Lloyd Norlin

If you have seen any promotional films from the period, you will know what kind of music to expect - peppy, upbeat sounds rooted in the big band era. Much if not all of it involves a brass choir and rhythm section. (Expect to hear a lot of trombones.) Even though the music was not intended to be an end in itself, it does make for pleasant listening.

Norlin was a very good tunesmith. I've been able to locate a few other pieces by him to include in the download, as described below.

The Young Adults (Hamm's Beer)

The J's with Jamie

The J's with Jamie are favorites of mine - they have appeared on two LPs that are available here. Jamie with her previous group, the Mello-Larks, was featured in this post.

An Academy Award Nominee

It's a good song, even though it never was commercially recorded to my knowledge. I've included the audio from Langford's film performance in the download. It's derived from a YouTube clip.

It's not clear why Norlin didn't get more opportunities in Hollywood. He spent almost all his working career in Evanston, IL, where he had a piano studio and where he was an instructor at Northwestern University, in addition to his commercial work.

Northwestern and 'To the Memories'

The Waa-Mu Show, as it is called (it was founded by the Women's Athletic Association and the Men's Union), has a remarkable roster of alumni. The 1945 show, for instance, featured Paul Lynde, Charlotte Rae and Cloris Leachman.

The download includes a 1954 recording of "To the Memories" by the Northwestern Band. This was cleaned up from a noisy transfer on YouTube.

This post is the latest in a very occasional series presenting industrial promotional records - the most recent involved Les Baxter selling AC Spark Plugs; other posts have included records extolling the products of Budweiser, Schlitz, Westinghouse, Ford, Edsel, Yolande lingerie and Warner bras.

Way back in the first few months of this blog I posted Cooley's sole Columbia LP, Sagebrush Swing, which captured some of his band's finest work during its 1944-46 peak. Recently reader dave_bruce asked me to repost those files. Instead, I decided to expand upon that old effort for two reasons - one, I couldn't find the originals, and two, Sagebrush Swing is not entirely characteristic of Cooley's Columbia output. 

So today I am presenting all the Cooley Columbias, 24 in all, from his first hit, "Shame on You," through to his departure for RCA Victor at the beginning of 1947. These are mainly collated from lossless needle-drops found on Internet Archive and refurbished by me. They include two recordings with Dinah Shore and one Columbia master only issued on V-Disc.

The Cooley Prehistory

The first, best and remarkably talented Cooley ensemble was an outgrowth of singer-actor Jimmy Wakely's band, which was resident at the Venice Pier near Los Angeles and popular with dancers. At some point in 1942, Jimmy wanted to add horns to his band, but the dance hall management said no. So Wakely left the band in the hands of fiddler Cooley, and went off to make cowboy films for Universal.

The 1944-5 Recordings and Instant Success

By 1944, the band's local renown had led to a recording contract with Columbia Records, which initially released Cooley's 78s on its OKeh label. The bandleader's first session yielded his all-time greatest hit - "Shame on You," with a vocal from the resonant baritone of Tex Williams and harmony from Smokey Rogers.

Rogers, who already had a serviceable nickname, was identified on the label as "Oakie." It's not clear where the latter name came from; Rogers was from Tennessee. Later on, he would make records under the name Smokey (Buck) Rogers. Also odd is that Rogers recorded a competing version of "Shame on You" for Four Star.

The solos on the famous OKeh record are by the sterling steel guitarist Joaquin Murphey and the underrated guitarist Johnny Weis, a Charlie Christian disciple.

Joaquin Murphey and Johnny Weis

All Cooley's early records feature Tex Williams, who was heavily influenced by Bob Wills' singer Tommy Duncan. Their mellow style would in turn be reflected in such later artists as Ray Price and Johnny Cash. 

Cooley wrote or co-wrote most of the band's songs, including "Shame on You." He collaborated at times with Rogers, Weis and DePaul, as well as other writers. The songs generally concerned themselves with the standard country topics, as indicated by their titles - "Forgive Me One More Time,""I Guess I've Been Dreaming Again,""I've Taken All I'm Gonna Take from You,""A Pair of Broken Hearts,""Troubled Over You,""You'll Rue the Day," and so on.

Another Hit and a Session with Dinah

Cooley's second hit was a cover version of "Detour," written by steel guitarist Paul Westmoreland and recorded with vocalist Jimmy Walker in early December 1945. (I suspect that the title was inspired by that year's film noir of the same name.) Within a month, Cooley was in Columbia's KNX Hollywood studios for a remake. The song perfectly suited Williams, backed on vocals by Rogers and bassist Deuce Spriggins. (Spriggins was another fellow who had many names - the label calls him "Arkie.")

KNX

Cooley's next session was with Dinah Shore, then at the height of her popularity. Shore was versatile, so Columbia had her cover everything from blues to Betty Hutton songs. Here she takes on Cooley's "Heartaches, Sadness and Tears" and Irving Berlin's "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," from the then current show Annie Get Your Gun. Dinah, as was her habit, charmed her way through both numbers, but they would have been better left to Tex Williams or Ethel Merman. respectively.

Dinah made your worries melt away

Finally, Some Hot Instrumentals

When Cooley's usual aggregation entered the studio on May 3, 1946, they had not yet recorded an instrumental, even though such numbers surely would have been a mainstay of their band book. So, after dispatching the Tex Williams vocal "I Can't Help the Way You Feel," the group launched into four instrumental sides that would eventually find their way onto the Sagebrush Swing album. That 10-incher contained only one vocal, Spade's big hit "Shame on You."

The other instrumentals are as enjoyable - "Oklahoma Stomp,""Cow Bell Polka" and "Steel Guitar Rag."

Pedro DePaul

That was the end of the Columbia contract and Cooley's greatest period. By the beginning of 1947, the bandleader had left Columbia for RCA Victor, most of the musicians had departed to form Tex Williams' Western Caravan, and one of the great Western swing bands was no more.

As Cooley had done, Tex and his crew met with immediate success in the recording studio. In March 1947, the band recorded Merle Travis'"Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," which became a massive country hit for Capitol. Playing on the record were many of the former Cooley musicians - Johnny Weis, Smokey Rogers, Deuce Spriggins and Pedro DePaul among them.

Cooley, Williams et al on Screen

Cooley, Williams and several of the other musicians may have spent as much time making movies as records. Their output included both Soundies and even more frequently, appearances and even lead roles in the inexpensive Westerns that were so much a part of big-screen fare back then.

Cooley himself had appeared on film as far back as 1938 as a member of Walt Shrum and His Colorado Hillbillies. His own band's first featured appearance seems to have been in the Joe E. Brown-Judy Canova film Chatterbox in 1943. In 1944, Spade, Tex and the band were seen in the Soundie "Take Me Back to Tulsa," appropriating the Bob Wills hit. This clip features Murphey, DePaul and a terrific Weis solo; also, for some reason yodeler Carolina Cotton pretends to play bass throughout the piece.

More of Bob Wills' repertoire can be seen in an "Ida Red" clip, again with Murphey and Weis starring. Carolina Cotton provides a solo yodel, this time leaving the bass playing to Deuce Spriggins.

The Cooley contingent made a 10-minute short for Warner Bros. in 1945, "King of Western Swing," with featured vocals from Rogers, Spriggins, Williams, and another Carolina Cotton yodel. Also in 1945, Universal shorts presented Rogers singing "My Chickashay Gal" (which he later recorded for Capitol) and the unknown Patricia McMahon doing Tex's specialty "Shame on You" with the Cooley band.

Finally, I'd recommend a version of "Miss Molly" from the 1945 Three Stooges feature, Rockin' in the Rockies. This has Tex, Oakie, Arkie, Weis, DePaul and even harpist Spike Featherstone, who appeared on several Cooley records about this time, all in prime form.

Carolina Cotton and Deuce Spriggins

Some of the musicians had active recording careers as leaders. Beside Williams with his many records for Capitol and other labels, Spriggins had a number of solo Capitol singles, and Smokey Rogers did fairly well with Four Star, Capitol, Coral and other companies, including this 1950 gem with Ann Jones.

The Later Years

Cooley had his own program on Los Angeles television from 1948-56. He made a large number of records for RCA, then moved on to Decca in 1951. He made his final LP for Raynote in 1959.

The sad story of Spade's later life is well known - convicted of murdering his wife Ella Mae in 1961, then dying of a heart attack backstage at a benefit concert in 1969, shortly before he was to be paroled.

Schuster, born in Constantinople,  achieved prominence as the first cellist of Furtwängler's Berlin Philharmonic from 1929-34. He moved to the US after the Nazi ascension, becoming the leader of the New York Philharmonic cello section. He embarked on a solo career in 1944.

Joseph Schuster

Franz Waxman

This, the first of Waxman's Capitol LPs, dates from December 1952, and offers two standard items from the cello/orchestral repertory, and one unusual piece. The major work is Schumann's Cello Concerto, a gorgeous creation that here benefits from Schuster's golden, burnished tone and eloquent approach. Some find him emotionally cool; I think his style is ideal.

The Schumann is complemented by another treasurable cello work, Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei of 1880, which again finds an expressive advocate in Schuster.

The final work is announced as a Cello Concerto in A minor by J.C. Bach, supposedly found in the effects of Camille Saint-Saëns by Henri Casadesus, and introduced by Schuster to the US concert halls. Even back then there was some doubt as to its provenance. High Fidelity reviewer Paul Affelder guessed that Casadesus had a hand in composing it. It turns out Casadesus had both hands in it, and these days it is presented as a Henri Casadesus concerto "in the style of J.C. Bach." Also, the work was published as a viola concerto, but neither Schuster nor Capitol make mention of this fact. Regardless, it is an attractive anachronism that is an effective foil to the Bruch and Schumann works, and the cellist is again a persuasive proponent.

Such faux antiquities had a vogue in the early decades of the last century. Another example is a Toccata supposedly by the 17th century composer Girolamo Frescobaldi that turned out to be the work of 20th century cellist Gaspar Cassadó. It was recorded in 1940 as a Frescobaldi composition by Hans Kindler with the National Symphony, and can be found here.

1948 Musical America ad

Capitol's recording is kind to the soloist, while seemingly indifferent to the orchestra, which is set in a boxy acoustic. I have added an ambient stereo effect to help address the cramped sonics. Ambient stereo usually has little to offer, but here it does lend a bit of space to the orchestral sound without altering the mix.

Waxman's only other Capitol recording with the Los Angeles Orchestra Society involved settings of love duets from Romeo and Juliet by Gounod and Tchaikovsky-Taneyev. I have the record and will transfer it later on. The Waxman-LA recording on Decca was offered here years ago and is still available. It couples works by Lukas Foss and Waxman himself. 

Also available here on this blog is an LP of Waxman conducting his music for the 1946 movie Humoresque. The record features Isaac Stern in several arrangements, and Oscar Levant in a Tristan und Isolde concerto that Wagner never contemplated.

Schuster recorded a fair amount of chamber music for Vox, along with the Brahms double concerto and Beethoven triple concerto. This is his first appearance on the blog.

The download includes reviews from The Gramophone, The New Records, Saturday Review and New York Times, along with the High Fidelity article mentioned above.

Gioconda de Vito

De Vito had a narrow repertoire concentrating on 19th century composers and earlier. Among more modern music, she apparently performed only the concerto by Ildebrando Pizzetti, which she premiered.

Amadeo Baldovino

Rudolf Schwarz by Louis Kahan

HMV recorded the concerto in perhaps the greatest recording locale of all time, London's Kingsway Hall, known for its glorious resonance. There is a little too much of that glory in the sound here, but not enough to detract from a enjoyable performance by all involved (although the central Andante becomes quite a leisurely stroll in their hands).

This recording comes from a lossless needle drop found on Internet Archive and cleaned up by me. The original was on UK HMV, but this transfer is from a US RCA Victor pressing, issued during the short time when Victor was the HMV licensee in the States.

If your heart doesn't go dancing at the thought of another spring-themed compilation, I hope this collection, "Buster's Unusual Spring," will at least start your feet tapping.

In these 28 selections, I've avoided the usual spring songs - "Spring Is Here,""It Might as Well Be Spring," and so on - in favor of more esoteric fare. Multiple genres are represented - pop, classical, jazz and country among them. I myself was unfamiliar with most of these numbers. The best known are probably "It Happens Every Spring" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" - and you will recognize a few classical melodies in new settings.

As usual, the recordings are discussed below in chronological order.

The following year, HMV had the incomparable John McCormack in London's Queen's Hall for a session devoted in part to settings by Granville Bantock of poems by Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng (the name itself is poetry) that were based on ancient Chinese texts. "A Dream of Spring" is from a work by the eighth century writer Ts'en Ts'an. McCormack sings with his usual penetrating intelligence, sympathy for the text, sweet tone and faultless diction.

Harry McClintock by R. Crumb

Harold aka Scrappy aka Burt

From 1930, Waring's Pennsylvanians give us "It Seems to Be Spring," written for the film Let's Go Native. With a title like that, the movie had to be offensive in some manner, but the plot summary just sounds inane, as does the casting - Jack Oakie and Jeanette MacDonald. One hopes that MacDonald rather than Oakie introduced the song. In either case, they had to be better than the anemic Three Girlfriends who assist Fred Waring on the record.

Ray Noble

Ella and Chick

Peg LaCentra

Teddy Wilson

Fletcher Henderson

Earl Robinson and Paul Robeson

Jerry Mazanec

Larry Green led a Boston society band in the Eddy Duchin mold. He offers "Spring Is Really Spring This Year" (as opposed to being autumn, I suppose). It's a nice song and the leader's florid Carmen Cavallaro-style piano playing occasionally gives way for a good Gil Phelan vocal. This one comes from 1946; I have a Green LP on Vik from about 10 years later, but it tells us nothing else about him.

Charlie Spivak

Old friend Johnny Johnston peeks in with "I Bring You Spring" with the assistance of the Crew Chiefs and bandleader Sonny Burke. This is a good tune with a sonorous vocal that wasn't included in my 2019 compilation of Johnston's recordings. It comes from 1947.

Hal McIntyre

Fans of Frank Sinatra and Dick Haymes may be familiar with "It Happens Every Spring," which originated in the 1949 film of the same name. The tune is nothing special, but Mack Gordon's lyrics paint a charming American scene at mid-century. This interpretation is from the future talk-show host and media mogul Merv Griffin, working with Freddy Martin's band.

Bill Farrell

At the same time and also for M-G-M, Russ Case recorded instrumentals under his own name, including an inoffensive "Symphony of Spring," which is our next selection.

Early the following year, the popular Four Aces Featuring Al Alberts did "Spring Is a Wonderful Thing" for Decca. Al's vocal gyrations have never been a favorite of mine, and here he is at his most elaborately emotive.

The Four Freshmen

Kitty Kallen came out of a big-band background for a successful solo career, with her biggest hit being "Little Things Mean a Lot" in 1954. "Come Spring" is from the next year, about the same time that Kallen began having the vocal problems that impeded her career for several years. I don't know if this is why Decca turned the vocal reverb up to 11 for this record; I do know that the sound would be better without the intrusion.

Jimmie Rodgers

Except for the final number, these files have been remastered from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive.

Hope your spring is going well; it snowed here today.

Andor Foldes Plays Contemporary American Music

In addition to the three Americans, the Vox collection includes short works by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and William Schuman. These were among the first recordings of these compositions.

The album was also among the first from the now-venerable American Vox label. (There had been a German Vox earlier in the century.) The US company started up in 1945, and made this recording the following year, per A Classical Discography. The resulting set apparently did not come out until 1947, when it was reviewed late in the year both in the New York Times and Saturday Review. Both brief notices are in the download, along with reviews of Foldes' 1941 and 1947 recitals.

Andor Foldes

Copland - Music for Movies; Weill - Music for the Stage

Aaron Copland's Music for Movies, which comes from 1942, assembles themes he wrote for The City, Of Mice and Men and Our Town. The best - and best known - are "New England Countryside" from The City and "Grovers Corners" from Our Town. I believe this was the first recording of this suite in orchestral form, although "Grovers Corners" had been recorded on piano twice - including by Andor Foldes in the album above, under the name "Story of Our Town." The other recording, by Leo Smit, is available on this blog in a newly remastered version. It is from a 1946-47 Concert Hall Society album Smit shared with Copland himself.

Arthur Winograd at work

Kurt Weill's Music for the Stage was arranged for this recording by M-G-M recording director Edward Cole and composer Marga Richter, whose own music has appeared here. The arrangers followed Weill's own procedure, utilized in Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, of employing the theater arrangements while substituting a solo instrument for any vocal lines. It works seamlessly for this suite assembled from lesser-known (to me, anyway) items from Johnny Johnson (three pieces), Lost in the Stars and Lady in the Dark (one each).

Contemporary reviewer Alfred Frankenstein pronounced the Copland suite to be effective and the Weill "trash," strange considering that the latter composer influenced the former. Reviewers were more to the point back then, and held (or at least expressed) stronger opinions.

Frankenstein also opined that the "recording and performance are of the best." I can agree with the latter judgment, but the recording is another matter. It was close and harsh, so I have added a small amount of reverberation to moderate those qualities.

By the way, Winograd had almost no conducting experience when he began recording for M-G-M. Edward Cole had turned up at a Juilliard concert that Winograd conducted, was impressed, and offered him a recording session. This anecdote is contained in an interview with the conductor included in the download. Also on this blog, Winograd can be heard conducting music by Paul Bowles.

Both these recordings were cleaned up from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive.