Love in the Afternoon

This certainly is not the best soundtrack album I own, but it's probably the shortest - 3 songs.

This is the only soundtrack ever issued for the Hepburn-Cooper-Chevalier opus Love in the Afternoon, a somewhat odious young girl - old man comedy. There sure were a lot of those in the 50s, with other examples also involving Chevalier (Gigi) and Hepburn (Funny Face).

I don't recall why, but the music features the cimbalom, which hardly seems the thing for its Parisian setting. There must have been a reason.

The listed musical adapter for the movie is Franz Waxman, but these songs were not written by him. The big hit here was Fascination. An old song, but its use in the movie inspired the recording of a vocal version by Jane Morgan, which became quite popular.

I confess that this is not a 10-inch record. It is a 7-inch EP, but there was no 10-inch or 12-inch version, and it's from the right era.

NEW TRANSFER

Elgar by Beecham

We've had a British thread underway here for a while without any contribution from the legendary Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and eccentric. Here's one that combines Beecham's talent with that of an English composer who is not Delius, for once. It's Elgar.

For many years I read that Beecham and Elgar did not mix. Beecham didn't like Elgar's music and seldom performed it.

It's true that he did not perform Elgar that often - but then there were quite a few holes in Beecham's repertoire. Whether he liked it or not I can't say, but I can say that he conducted the Enigma Variations beautifully - and here is the evidence.

When conducting Elgar he did not evoke a unique atmosphere, as he did with Delius. But then this is much different music. What you get is superbly performed, well shaped, and seemingly sincere. You can't ask for much more than that.

This performance is from 1954. Recording venue was Walthamstow Town Hall.

Three for the Show

I saw this 1955 musical a very long time ago and don't remember much about it, except it wasn't very good. But Mercury saw fit to issue a soundtrack album and here it is. It hasn't been reissued, as far as I know, so this is a rarity.

The music is a hodgepodge of contributions by the Gershwin brothers, Hoagy Carmichael, Tchaikovsky, and George Duning, who seemed to spend a lot of time on such thankless tasks.

This was Betty Grable's final musical, and she has quite a bit of singing to do, only passably. Marge Champion also sings, barely passably. And Jack Lemmon can be heard as well on I've Got a Crush on You.

Lemmon was a good musician (although, again, only a fair singer). In my collection are two records of his singing and piano playing and one other of solo piano, and he may have made more.

The person who owned this record before me was either a heavy smoker or was inclined to coat his or her records with shellac. I had a devil of a time cleaning the item, and some minor noise remains, but probably not enough to spoil whatever enjoyment you may derive from this tepid entertainment.

LINK

Jo Stafford, Part 1

With the recent death of Jo Stafford, we have lost one of the few remaining links to the golden age of pop singing. First with the Pied Pipers and then on her own, Jo set the standard for taste in pop vocalizing.

Jo tended to sing without vibrato, legato, in medium tempos, and mezza voce. This gave her interpretations a cool unapproachability that, while never chilly, could sound uninvolved. In this first installment of a brief series devoted to her more unusual 10-inch LPs, I've chosen a set of gospel songs whose simplicity, when combined with her faith, bring out an intensity that sometimes could be hidden by her impeccable technique. This material suits her approach beautifully.

More about Jo Stafford here, including an interview by Bill Reed of People vs. Dr. Chilledair, where there are other remembrances.

More to come.

Mewton-Wood, Part 4

We're completing our series of recordings that Noel Mewton-Wood made for Musical Masterpiece Society with this fine performance of Chopin's first concerto.

Fine on Mewton-Wood's part, that is. The orchestral contribution is a little wan, but then this music isn't really about the orchestral contribution.

The pianist displays his typical combination of sensitivity and combustibility here, making this a fitting end to our series.

I haven't exhausted Mewton-Wood's recordings in presenting this series, just the ones in my possession. Pristine Classical has started a new Mewton-Wood series that also includes the Tchaikovsky concerto. They also have several of the items here in professional remasterings and perhaps will be offering other performances that I don't have.

I hope this series has served to inform a few people about the legacy of recordings by this tragically short-lived artist.

LINK

Rose Marie

This is Hollywood's version of the Friml/Stothart/Harbach/Hammerstein operetta Rose Marie, produced 30 years from its 1924 debut. As was the usual practice, the movie producers bought a famous property and threw out a good chunk of the score. Friml was still around, so they got him to write some new tunes and Paul Francis Webster to give them lyrics. And for good measure music director George Stoll wrote a piece for Bert Lahr.

Bert Lahr in an operetta? Yes, and Marjorie Main too. Fernando Lamas and Ann Blyth are OK, but the main attraction here is Howard Keel as Mike the Mountie. I haven't seen this movie so I can't tell you who the coochie dancer is on the cover, but I suspect she is the maiden who loves Mike - or maybe it is Lamas' trapper character. I don't think it is Bert Lahr.

As far as I can tell, this record has been out of print for a long time. This is the original 10-inch album, with the exception of Ann Blyth's tunes, which had sustained groove damage on the high notes. I dubbed them from a 12-inch record with botched remastered sound, which I have tried to address.

First Recording of Ives' Three Places

It's been a while since we had a post of American music. This is a notable one - it includes the first recording of Charles Ives' best known composition, Three Places in New England. This was one of the few Ives recordings to be made in the composer's lifetime.

The orchestra, which may be the Vienna Symphony under another name, plays this difficult music quite well under the leadership of the talented Walter Hendl. His fluid approach seems to suit this music, which can sound overblown with so many things are going on at once.

Walter Hendl

With Ives' music, it helps to have a scorecard, and there is an excellent article on this composition on Wikipedia.

The violin concerto by Robert McBride is a complete contrast. Breezy and virtuosic, it is nicely played by Maurice Wilk, who was active as a soloist, chamber player, and studio musician. This surely must be the only concerto whose three movements are subtitled in show-biz lingo a la Variety - "Sock 10-G," "Lush PixWix," and "B.O. Hypo." McBride taught at the University of Arizona and is perhaps best known for the Mexican Rhapsody that Howard Hanson recorded. He passed away only last year, as did Hendl.

A Classical Discography does identify the orchestra for the McBride as the Vienna Symphony. The sessions were in 1952.

This disk was issued in the same grant-funded American Recording Society series as the first record we featured on this blog a few months ago.

LINK to Ives and McBride

Georgescu Conducts Enescu

Here is a coda to the short series of recordings that George Enescu (Enesco) made for Remington circa 1950. This is not an Enescu recording, rather an LP made by the Bucharest Philharmonic, the orchestra renamed in the composer's honor after his death.

On the program for the venerable conductor George Georgescu are Enescu's first and second Romanian Rhapsodies. These performances are considered authentic and who am I to disagree. The sound is vivid as well. And I love the cover. Nice package.

ADDENDUM: the online Georgescu discography suggests that the conductor recorded these works only once, in 1942.

Spade Cooley

Well, I admit this isn't really folk, early jazz, or blues, although it has elements of all three. It's Western swing and I love it.

This is one of those records I am posting more because I am fond of the music and the cover than because of the inaccessibility of the recordings themselves - although this 10-inch LP is in itself pretty rare.

These sides were made during Spade Cooley's apex of success in the mid-1940s, when he was probably the hottest thing on the Los Angeles country scene. And were these records hot - listen to Three Way Boogie and you can just imagine the dancers stomping the Riverside Ballrooms off its foundation. The accordion solo - by George Bamby, I believe - is almost surreal.

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

LINK

Warner's Color TV Fashion Show

This is one of the more unusual LPs I own. It is a promotional record sent to stores in advance of a television program that was broadcast on September 22, 1956 and called Warner's Color TV Fashion Show. It was a musical presentation to promote women's undergarments made by Warner's (which was and I think still is a manufacturer of said undergarments).

The idea was that stores should play the record in advance of the TV show with the thought that people would come into the store to watch the program, which was in color - quite a novelty back then. The premise sounds unlikely to me, but then what do I know about it. Maybe it sold a lot of brassieres. TV promos seem to work for Victoria's Secret even today.

Unlike the Victoria's Secret extravaganzas, I don't think this program showed the undergarments at all, and it's not as though this record has music in praise of girdles on it. What it does have is music involving "famous figures" - the Empress Josephine, Sheherazade, and the Ziegfeld girl. The music is by Michael Brown, perhaps best known for composing a song about Lizzie Borden ("Lizzie Borden took an ax/And gave her mother 40 whacks"). At least I assume it is the same Michael Brown, who did music for industrial shows and cabaret reviews, among other purposes. The music is tuneful enough, although some of the lyrics are clunky. Josephine pining away for the absent Napoleon? ("There's nothing here you have to win/For I'll surrender; I'll give in.")

The cover says the program's plot involves "a young artist and his search for the ideal figure" in the company of his "devoted secretary." This sounds a little creepy. And did artists have secretaries in 1956?

The singers are Jack Haskell, who was on TV a lot and made records, and Margot Cole, who is new to me. Skitch Henderson directs the small ensemble. The TV program itself apparently used different singers - the cover mentions Broadway stars William Tabbert as the young artist and Doretta Morrow as the devoted secretary. Jinx Falkenburg entered into the proceedings, as well.

One final note - this is the only single-sided 10-inch record I've ever seen. It's very short as a result.

Ginger Rogers as Alice

At one time, Walt Disney contemplated a version of Alice in Wonderland with Ginger Rogers as a life-action Alice interacting with cartoon characters.

Well, that version never got made, but these records did, in 1944, featuring Rogers and the songs and other music that apparently had been written for the film by children's music specialist Frank Luther and composer Victor Young.

This information comes from an excellent Alice in Wonderland site, which shows the much more colorful artwork that was on the original 78 rpm album - artwork thatwas done by Disney. What you see here is the 10-inch LP reissue from 1949.

To portray Alice, Rogers seems to be doing a sort-of Shirley Temple imitation and speaking as rapidly as possible. An unusual approach. But what's more unusual is the voice of the White Rabbit - it is, with perhaps deliberate irony, Arthur Q. Bryan doing his Elmer Fudd voice. Children must have found this very confusing!

Mewton-Wood, Part 3

This is perhaps the only misfire in the Noel Mewton-Wood canon that I have heard. It isn't his doing; his performance is fine, even though Stravinsky's neo-classical style doesn't play to all the pianist's strengths. The recording is, however, congested and somewhat strident, and Walter Goehr's pickup band sounds a little discouraged.

The orchestra and recording are both better for the Firebird suite (which, of course, doesn't involve Mewton-Wood).

See earlier posts for more about this wonderful pianist.

LINK

Johnny Smith

I was going to offer a two-for-one deal on Johnny Smith today. That was before I discovered I have two copies of the same LP - one in the wrong sleeve.

Fortunately, Johnny recorded these records for Roost, which, being a record company, did not hesitate to put out the same product in multiple packages - 10-inch, 12-inch, different covers, different combinations, whatever.

So as a result, I am able to offer the compete LP you see above and five-eighths of the LP you see below. That's because Roost took most of the items from the pink album and added them to five other items from the white album to make a 12-inch LP, which exists with a couple of different covers. I have that record - actually both of them.

I'm sure all the above is not very clear and even less interesting, so let's move on to the music. I wish the situation were straightforward but it is not. Stan Getz is prominently mentioned on both covers (even showing up graphically as a little buddy for Johnny on the top item), but he does not appear on all the cuts. If I read the discography correctly, Zoot Sims is the tenor on My Funny Valentine and Vilia, and Paul Quinichette is on Cavu and I'll Be Around.

These sides are by no means rare, so I might as well confess that, despite the painful exposition above, my motivation here is really to highlight the covers. They are prime examples of the art of Burt Goldblatt, much active as a artist and photographer for record companies. Even with his seeming emphasis on the musicians' left feet, these are really dynamic covers.

But don't let my fascination with the graphics put you off the music. Johnny Smith is a wonderful guitarist who was perhaps too much taken for granted and Stan Getz is Stan Getz. Most interesting and most enjoyable.

Herb Jeffries

This record is about as late-40s sounding as you can get. It's Herb Jeffries in an apparent "magenta mood" - and if by that Mercury meant music of an oversaturated romantic hue, the title is apt.

Jeffries is quite a fascinating fellow (he's still around - a 96-year-old with a MySpace page). In the 30s, he made cowboy movies for the African American audience. In the early 40s he was a vocalist for Duke Ellington during one of that great musician's greatest periods. And thereafter he made many records as a romantic balladeer. These are excellent examples.

The song Flamingo has been Jeffries' calling card ever since he recorded it with Ellington. This is a different version from that one, and he recorded it again in the early 1950s. (There's an LP on Coral by that name.)

The anonymous arrangements are in the hyper-romantic style popular back then, and there are a number of cool period touches, like the Porgy and Bess-style street cries in Basin Street Blues and the Warsaw Concerto-style piano in When I Write My Song.

Almost none of Herb Jeffries' records are available these days. It's too bad that such a talented person is not better remembered - and even celebrated.

REUP (May 2014)

Enescu Conducts Enescu

Continuing a series of the recordings that composer/violinist/conductor George Enescu (Enesco) made for the Remington label circa 1952 . . .

Here is an example of Enescu conducting his own music, in this case his greatest hit, the first Romanian (Rumanian) Rhapsody. It's a fine performance, to be sure, but in somewhat hectic sound - and hoo boy those Remington pressings!

Remington coupled the Enesco with a good version of Liszt's Les Preludes from George Singer and a thin-sounding Austrian Symphony (actually the Tonkünstler orchestra, per Michael Gray, who suggests the recording took place in 1951).

Addendum: my remastering sounds much better than the original transfer.

Ballet Music from MGM Films

This record is titled for the well-remembered "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" dance that Vera-Ellen and Gene Kelly did in Words and Music. But most of its contents are from the more obscure dance pic Unfinished Dance. That one starred Cyd Charisse, who just died, and Margaret O'Brien. Also Danny Thomas, who didn't dance, as far as I know.

As was common in Hollywood, the music for Unfinished Dance was a sort of stew combining themes from the great clawsics in new, unexpected, and unwelcome ways. Here we have Kreisler, Smetana, Gounod, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Chopin, and Thomas as viewed by music director Herbert Stothart and orchestrator Albert Sendray.

Actually, it's not as bad as I make it sound, and the M-G-M Studio Orchestra is always a delight to hear.

Also on the disk is the ballet from The Pirate. Lennie Hayton conducts that music as well as the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" adaptation.

I happen to love the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" music. Richard Rodgers wrote it for On Your Toes, and my favorite version is from the 1983 revival of that show, which used the original orchestrations.

Digression No. 2

Thanks to Scoredaddy for the nice things he says about this site on his blog Fanfare for Aaron Copland. "I urge everyone to spend some time browsing through and sampling his eclectic collection," he said. He's an erudite fellow, so I'm proud of that comment and his calling this little place with the little records "fascinating."

Scoredaddy asked if he could feature on his blog the Copland piano music I wrote about a while back, and I said sure, being agreeable and all that. If you like Copland, his blog is a must.