Axel Stordahl

Let's start a new series devoted to the vanished genre of easy listening records. This genre was a major factor in the LP era; it was sort of a hybrid of light classical and big band music, and its major practitioners would veer into one or the other depending on the record and their own proclivities and backgrounds.

Morton Gould has been featured several times already on this blog; he put out quite a string of easy listening items in the 10-inch LP era. Another exponent was Paul Weston, Jo Stafford's husband and accompanist.

Most of the easy listening items you find on the web are from its later phases, when it adopted hip and funky trappings that many people like these days (not me; that stuff makes my skin crawl).

But back in the postwar era, easy listening really was easy - so easy, it could lead to "Dreamtime," as this Axel Stordahl item is titled. It was pretty music for relaxation. Sort of like the function of new age music these days, I guess.

Stordahl, a former Tommy Dorsey arranger, made his name as Frank Sinatra's arranger during the Voice's first great era, when he recorded for Columbia. Stordahl's arrangements for Sinatra were consistently inventive and gorgeous, and he maintained a remarkably high standard throughout that period.

This album is not quite on that level, to my ears; just as Nelson Riddle's work on his own was not as consistently inspired as it was when he worked for Sinatra. Not sure why this should be the case, and perhaps I am over-generalizing.

Stordahl died young, at age 50 in 1963, soon after one last recording session with Sinatra, for the Capitol album Point of No Return.

This post is in response to a request by Mel. Sorry, there are a few sonic burbles in the mix, but it's generally quite listenable.

The Desert Song (Grayson)

As a follow-up to the very popular Kathryn Grayson collection, here is the 10-inch LP she made of songs from her 1953 starring vehicle, The Desert Song.

Warner Bros. paired her with Gordon MacRae for that operetta, but since MacRae was a Capitol artist, she did a "songs from" collection for RCA with Tony Martin. Meanwhile, MacRae paired up with Lucille Norman for his own competing collection.

Being non-partisan, I'll be presenting both versions, neither of which have appeared since their original issue, as far as I can tell. This post presents the Grayson collection, here from the 2-EP version of the LP.

This is a good collection sure to please admirers of these artists. It contains seven sings from the film and one Martin bonus song.

Mewton-Wood, Part 5

I'm very excited to be able to present an addition to our collection of recordings by pianist Noel Mewton-Wood. I recently found an unplayed copy of his recording of Chopin's second piano concerto. This record gives the best rendition yet of his beautiful tone, and is a spectacular performance as well.

As always, the conductor is the reliable Walter Goehr, who on this occasion leads the Radio Zurich Orchestra, which has a subtle tonal allure reminiscent of Spike Jones' City Slickers. But no matter - the piano is the attraction in Chopin, and no small attraction when the pianist is Mewton-Wood.

I can't recommend this highly enough.

LINK

Digression No. 9

Very big thanks to reader Jeff for letting us know more about the provenance of the Richard Rodgers recordings below. It turns out that my late 30s guess was correct about the recording date - it was 1938. But, much more interesting, the original issue of four 78 rpm disks came in the first record album ever issued by Columbia Records with the first cover ever designed by the eminent Alex Steinweiss.

Jeff points us to this article on the album, from which comes the image below of the original cover. He's not convinced that this is the first record cover ever issued. I am completely unconvinced - I have a HMV album of Horowitz playing Rachmaninoff in my basement that dates from 1930, and it certainly has a designed cover!

Rodgers Conducts Rodgers

I was surprised to discover recently that Richard Rodgers conducted not one but two LPs of his own music. I've had the 1954 12-inch LP for many years - that's the one made with the New York Philharmonic. But here is a 10-inch LP I'd never seen before.

I haven't yet been able to find out when it was recorded, so I'm going to resort to some informed guesswork. The LP was published in 1949, but I suspect these sides were made about a decade earlier. Why?

- Rodgers worked with Hart through 1942's By Jupiter, but the latest show represented here is 1938's The Boys from Syracuse.

- The solo singers here were both active in the 1930s.

- The uncredited arrangements are characteristic of the dance band sound of the 1930s.

Whatever its provenance, this is a very good set, with the female vocals by former Hal Kemp singer Deane Janis and the male vocals by Lee Sullivan, perhaps best known these days from being in the original Brigadoon cast.

Digression No. 8

I was surprised to find this blog showing up a PCL Link Dump the other day. Anybody coming here from there - welcome! The tone of the post there may lead you to think that we deal only in ironic hipster stuff like Mickey Spillane and Raymond Scott, but that's really not true (although we do have those tendencies here, admittedly). Whatever you would find on 10-inch LPs in the early 50s, you can find here, although I do ignore the records that are easily found elsewhere (Sinatra, Cole, Crosby, the more popular soundtracks and shows, etc.). Rather than Cole, you will find Page Cavanaugh. Rather than Sinatra, Herb Jeffries. Etc.

I did also want to mention a few things that I did in response to requests elsewhere. These are 12-inch LPs that may be of interest.

First, the Sons of Sauter-Finegan, which rip formed part of the Jazzman's extravaganza of albums by the recording band that was led by arrangers Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan. The "sons" are the soloists from the band. Some of this LP is good and some of it is tepid, like many jazz albums from that era. Link below.

And then there is Bill Frawley Sings the Old Ones (also known as Fred Mertz Sings). Here's the way I described this gem over at Rocket from Mars' Vinyl Adventures at Franklynot:

"A word of warning - this album contains the following: wavering and hammy vocals by Bill/Fred/Bub, quasi-barbershop background singers, tack piano, banjo solos (had enough yet?), and a cover photo of Bill in straw boater and striped blazer.

"Vaudeville did not survive this kind of thing, and it's a wonder that Dot Records did."

Now I'm quoting myself, so it's time to go. The cover and link are below.

SONS | FRAWLEY

First Recording of Knoxville, Summer of 1915

Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is one of the high points of American music. It is a setting of a prose poem by composer Samuel Barber's exact contemporary, James Agee. Both the music and the words are inspired.

This is the first recording of the work, done by the distinguished American soprano Eleanor Steber, who commissioned it and first performed it with the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky in 1947. This November 1950 recording is of the revised version for smaller orchestra.

The modest LP above is also notable for including what I believe to be the first recording of Barber's Four Excursions, in a jaunty performance by Rudolf Firkusny. These items are based on familiar idioms, somewhat akin to the Copland and Gershwin piano pieces that are discussed below. Composed in 1944, they also were recorded in November 1950 in Columbia's 30th Street studio in New York.

Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is often considered a nostalgic idyll, but it is much more than that. in 1915, Agee was 5 years old, and the piece is a memory and meditation on an evening that summer, in the year before his father's death. Agee's words were set to music by Barber when his own father's death was near.

Agee places the themes of family, self, time, and place in a context that is at once extraordinarily specific and timeless, minute and cosmic; full of love for his family, the poem ends nonetheless with the remarkable observation that the members of his family "treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am." This unusual, rapt, evocative piece is set to music that could not be more right.

Steber also recorded the Barber composition later for her own Stand label; an intense live version. This version is cooler, with Steber's ample soprano and cloudy diction making the interpretation seem a little distant.

For this post, I have taken the soprano item from the 12-inch LP below (which has an excellent line drawing of Steber on the cover) because the source is much less noisy than the original issue. True to the usual form, the transfer engineer for the reissue has apparently added reverb. The piano pieces are from the 10-inch LP.

More Morton Gould

We've encountered Morton Gould here before, both as a composer and conductor. This time, he performs both functions.

All these compositions were recorded in June 1946 with the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra, which either is the Philadelphia Orchestra, or a variant of it.

These compositions are generally based on familiar tunes. The Cowboy Rhapsody includes both Home on the Range and a melody very familiar to those who know their Copland. The American Salute, composed during the Second World War, is based on When Johnny Comes Marching Home. There also are two homages to other Allied forces, the Red Cavalry March and the New China March. And finally two settings of spirituals.

I don't think these recordings have been reissued since the 1940s or shortly thereafter, when they came out in 78 and 45 rpm albums and a 10-inch LP. This dub is based on an unplayed old store stock 45 box. I want to add, though, that "unplayed" does not mean "perfect." There is some minor pressing noise. The set has a nice Alex Steinweiss cover.

I wish that Gould were better remembered. He produced excellent music in a variety of genres - these sides included.

Digression No.7

Here are a couple of late-breaking bonus items related to a few of our earlier posts. 

First, Jane Morgan's hit version of "Fascination" from the movie Love in the Afternoon, complete with picture sleeve of Coop in ascot and Hepburn in pigtails. Old chic and young chick. The flip side of the single is the same arrangement, sans Jane. This is from a 1957 45.

And related to the Raymond Scott LP, we have another commercial ditty that he wrote, this one for Duquesne, a beer that was made in Pittsburgh. The song is insistent and quite repetitive. It sticks in your head - in other words, it's effective. The ad dates from 1955. I think it's something of a rare item - I don't see it in the Scott discography, but I could be wrong. The label of the promotional 78 is below.

2022 update: The Duquesne song mentioned above ("It Outsells...Because It Excels") is newly remastered and sounding much better. Listening to it again, I am virtually certain that the uncredited singers are the J's with Jamie. There's a download link in the comments to this post.

The Red Army Band Plays for You

Who wouldn't want to own a record of the Military Band of the Chinese People's Liberation Army playing such gems as "Be Vanguards in Criticizing Lin Piao and Confucius," "We Are Miners, and Soldiers Too," and "Thousands of the 'Iron Men' Boldly Forge Ahead"?

OK, I guess that group includes most everyone, except perhaps the Gang of Four and me. I don't suspect this platter set any sales records even at the height of the Cultural Revolution, when it was issued in the early 1970s.

The wonder is that despite its agitprop trappings, this record is actually a tuneful listen - conservative Western-style music, at times reminiscent of Gustav Holst's wind band music. So while I can't claim that it will revolutionize either your musical tastes or political beliefs, this LP isn't as awful as I expected it to be either.

REUPPED LINK (JUNE 2014)

Jo Stafford, Part 3

Here's the final installment in our tribute to the late Jo Stafford, presenting some of her less well-known recordings.

Stafford often was teamed with fellow Capitol artist Gordon MacRae, and you only need to listen to the first song here to understand why. It is Wunderbar, and wonderful it is.

Too bad there aren't more duets here; but the other items are split between the two, with one allotted to a chorus accompanied by arranger Paul Weston.

This album represents their version of the songs from the then-current Broadway musical Kiss Me Kate.

As often happened in the transition among formats in the late 1940s, these songs were issued in three formats - 78 rpm album, 45 rpm box, and 10-inch LP. This post is from an unplayed, old store-stock 45 box. I had prepared this for the blog thinking that it had been unreissued since its 1949 appearance, but I see it has just come out on CD.

I believe that this cover was created by the eminent designer Saul Bass early in his career. It is signed "Bass," it has some of the hallmarks of his later style, and he was active as an art director in Los Angeles when this design was produced.

LINK

Conrad Salinger

Here's the second in our series of favorite or requested 12-inch LPs.

If the name Conrad Salinger is unfamiliar to you, think of the sounds of the classic MGM musicals, and you will have a pretty good idea of what's in store for you here. Some of the most beloved numbers in those movies - the ones universally acclaimed as the high points of the American musical, such as The Trolley Song and Singin' in the Rain - were as much a credit to the orchestrational genius of Conrad Salinger as they were to the performing genius of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, or the writing skills of Martin/Blaine and Brown/Freed.

This is the sole LP ever issued under Salinger's name, and it is in effect a tribute by Verve A&R man Buddy Bregman to Salinger and his orchestrations. The genesis of the record is detailed in a fascinating article on the Robert Farnon Society web site.

The article delves into Salinger's influences, citing various Impressionists. Well, maybe, but to me the driving force behind the sound he produced in Hollywood was the many years he spent working on Broadway. In the MGM movies, you hear an exceptional Broadway pit band playing beautifully balanced and paced orchestrations. When added to the stunning array of on-screen talent at MGM - well, let's just say I don't think we're ever going to hear or see anything like it again.

I have to say that this LP is not quite on that level, to my ears - although it it undoubtedly good, and Bregman is complimentary of his own work in the article mentioned above. But it is a rarity, and I highly recommend it to all fans of Hollywood's golden age.

By the way, Salinger died not long after that golden age ended, in 1961.

Raymond Scott

Raymond Scott enjoys quite a reputation these days among certain cognoscenti, and why? Mostly because some of his tunes were used repeatedly in classic Warner Bros. cartoons.

Perhaps that's a little unfair to the bandleader, whose original arrangements on this record are quite witty and enjoyable. But it contains a kernel of truth.

This 1949 release was the first LP devoted to Scott. It contains the records that brought him latter day fame - In an Eighteenth Century Drawing Room, the Toy Trumpet, and especially Powerhouse. I'm tempted to say it's all anyone would need of Scott, but I am sure many people would argue that in his later recordings he was an innovator, iconoclast, etc. And maybe that's true. But to them I riposte by presenting the Society National March, a promotional recording he made for a Cleveland bank in 1960, which I have appended as a bonus of sorts. I love it - but it's about as far away from musical innovation as you can get. The cover is below.

Digression No. 6

First of all, something that isn't so much a digression as a correction. Reader Steve Waldee was kind enough to point out in the nicest possible way that the post of Hovhaness' St. Vartan Symphony had its two parts reversed. (The record was mastered incorrectly. Honest!) And oh by the way, I had the symphony's numbering wrong, too. It's not number 7, it's 9.

Well, so much for my thin veneer of infallibility. Hearty thanks to Steve for his note - and to all who comment on these pages. It is so appreciated, even when you point out the error of my words or deeds.

The link on the post has been corrected.

A couple of other notes...

In putting together the (very popular) Kathryn Grayson post, I had the distinct sense that a few of the tracks were not pitched correctly, judging by her vibrato. I am guessing that they were sped up slightly to make her voice brighter. If anyone has any information (or even opinions) on this, I'd be happy to hear them.

Finally, loyal readers, assuming there are such folks, know that I am very interested in record graphics. A new and very expensive book called Classique looks at (guess what) classical record covers. Some of you might want to check it out here.

Kathryn Grayson

Here's a tribute to one of MGM's great stars, Kathryn Grayson, and her recordings on the MGM label, starting with the 10-inch record Kathryn Grayson Sings, and adding other titles.

Making this compilation was a little confusing because, in the time-honored tradition of record companies everywhere, MGM issued two different records called Kathryn Grayson Sings, with partially overlapping contents, and its subsidiary Lion issued another called Kathryn Grayson, again with overlapping contents.

The 10-inch Kathryn Grayson Sings (above) has the best sonics of the three, so I used its contents where possible. But since it also was in the worst condition, I have substituted dubs from the two 12-inch albums (covers below) as needed.

The first eight songs are the ones that appeared on the 10-inch album. To these I've added the items on the 12-inch records that weren't on the 10-inch, so we ended up with 15 tracks in all. (I wanted to mention that the last track has some peak distortion, so please skip it if your ears are sensitive.)

If the explanation above hasn't put you to sleep, let's move on to discussing the voice, and it's spectacular. I've always loved the way she sings. She was a star; it's surprising she isn't more remembered today.

These songs are a combination of soundtrack recordings and sides made with a studio orchestra directed by Philip Green. The soundtrack recordings that are documented on the album covers are led by Georgie Stoll.

I'll be back later on with the recording of Desert Song that Grayson made with Tony Martin.