Ronnie Deauville, Part 1

I wrote a few days ago about the late singer Ronnie Deauville, and Bill Reed's attempt to stimulate interest in his little-known records. Deauville is a long-time interest of mine, so I am proud to do my part.

Hard luck was Deauville's companion. In 1956, he was in an auto accident that left him in a wheelchair, then contracted polio that confined him to an iron lung for an extended period.

Amazingly, he continued his career for a time and made several excellent records, among them this superb story-ballad.

At the time this record came out, Jerry Lewis featured Deauville's story on his television show and Era sent the single out to radio stations with a message from Jerry on the flip side (see below) asking them to play the record in advance of the show. This is the copy that went to WCKR of Hornell, New York.

More from Ronnie Deauville later.

LINK

A Record for Christmas, 1925

If this were 1925 and you were a prosperous Cleveland music lover, you may have headed down to S. Kohn & Sons furniture store to look at the selection of records and perhaps pick up a new Victrola for yourself or for a Christmas gift.

The Clevelander who owned this recording of the Columbia Novelty Orchestra performing Oh, Baby! and Why Did I Kiss That Girl? apparently did just that, and may have taken his or her prize home in the envelope on the right, which featured a wreath full of the Victor Company's leading lights, from Alma Gluck to Ernestine Schumann-Heink. (I think these records are somewhat earlier, which may signify that the S. Kohn Co. had some envelopes left over from earlier seasons. Or maybe things just got switched around.)

I believe the Columbia record at left was acoustically recorded in 1924, and later placed in the 1925 sleeve touting the company's New Process, which I think was electrical recording. Regardless, it is a vivid performance of an excellent band, which seems to have been composed of Joseph Samuels and his associates. Very little is known of them, even though they were a prolific recording orchestra under a variety of names. The fine lead trumpet may have been Jules Levy, Jr. The vocalist is the ubiquitous Billy Jones.

I don't know whether the buyer didn't like the record or forgot about it, but it was little played and remained in this envelope until I found it. Through the years, I have discovered several 78s in store bags (among them, apropos the season, the Drifters' version of White Christmas). I'll be featuring another one soon. It is from the early 50s and the bag also contains promotional flyers from Capitol and RCA Victor.

Below is the label of the record at hand, which features the distinctive flag motif that Columbia used from 1923 until it switched over to electrical recording.

REUPLOAD - DECEMBER 2014

Chant at Christmas

We've reached the holiday season, and it's time to present the first of several Christmas recordings we plan to feature here.

Our initial offering is this recording of the Christmas Eve vespers from the monks of the Franciscan Abbey of St. Martin, Beuron, conducted by Dr. Maurus Pfaff. It was issued on DGG's Archiv Produktion label, one of the first early music imprints, in 1952.

The sound and performance are both excellent. Hope you like this one - and happy thanksgiving to those in the US! 

Digression No. 12

One of my favorite singers is Ronnie Deauville, a superb vocalist who started out in the post-war big bands (Tex Beneke, Ray Anthony) and then had a solo career. Deauville was capable of creating an intimate mood and achieving a personal connection with the lyric rivalled only by the very finest singers. Yet he is almost unknown today.

Some of us who are among a small band of Ronnie collectors are getting together to make his out-of-print recordings available again. We're led by that indefatigable promoter of fine but neglected vocalists, Bill Reed, via his blog the People vs. Dr. Chilledair. I've mentioned Bill before in connection with two of my other enthusiasms, Page Cavanaugh and Jackie Paris.

Bill has already posted several sides, with more to come, including contributions from me. You can find much more about Deauville by doing a search on Bill's blog.

Also, Bill has graciously sent along a contribution to this blog, his rare copy of a 10-inch record devoted to the music of Alec Wilder (see below). These Octets were a specialty of the great songwriter/composer, whose style combines jazz and neoclassical influences, with perhaps a small piece of Raymond Scott. (The first item is titled Jack, This is My Husband.) Delightful stuff and highly recommended - as are the Ronnie Deauville recordings!

LINK

Hershy Kay and Virgil Thomson Ballets

Here we go with one of my favorite discs of American music. Ignore the clunky cover - it has nothing to do with the music.

The works inside are two ballet scores written for the New York City Ballet. Hershy Kay's Western Symphony on very familiar western tunes, and Virgil Thomson's Filling Station, one of his lesser-known pieces from the 1930s.

The cover cites the choreographers as well as the composers - George Balanchine along with Kay, and Lew Christensen along with Thomson. I don't recall another record doing this for ballet scores - after all you are not getting the ballet along with the music itself.

Kay was mostly known as an orchestrator, and this piece is delightful in that regard. Thomson's contemporaneous works were The River and The Plow That Broke the Plains, which have been recorded several times. There is a modern recording of Filling Station, but I don't think it could be much better than this 1954 version by Leon Barzin and his New York City Ballet Orchestra, which was made shortly after the premiere of the Kay-Balanchine ballet.

The back cover of the record has informative notes by Balanchine, which I've included in the file. It also has a fuzzy photo of Barzin smoking a cigarette and leading the band.

NEW LINK (JUNE 2014)

Neal Hefti Plays Friml

Here's a tribute to the arranger-conductor Neal Hefti, who died last month. Hefti was best known for his charts for the Basie band and for his TV and movie work, perhaps the most notorious being the Batman theme from TV.

This 10-inch record from circa 1953 is like none of those pieces. Instead, it is in a semi-easy listening mode that Hefti also adopted for several albums in the 1950s. In these, he used wordless vocals as an instrumental choir, a little like Ray Conniff or even Esquivel. Here, he applies the concept to the operetta tunes of Rudolf Friml. The result is not as cloying as you might think - and I am someone who lunges for the off switch when they start with the "doo-doo-doody-doo-doo" business.

On the bright side, the sound is good and the record is rare.

NEW LINK

The Original Dixieland Jass Band

The first side of this EP contains what is usually cited as the first jazz record, made by the Original Dixieland Jass (later Jazz) Band in February 1917. The claim is debatable, not least because this music (in common with all other types of music) is an outgrowth of earlier styles. The Wikipedia article about the ODJB (as the band is often called) notes that the first item on this record is actually a version of a ragtime tune written in 1909.

These records are by no means obscure, and actually I've included them to continues the series derived from the "X" label's Vault Originals series, a jazz/blues reissue program from the mid-50s. As before, the RCA engineers did a fine job on the transfers. These are some of the best acoustic recordings I've heard. (Pre-1925 acoustic recordings were made through a recording horn instead of a microphone.)

Similar to the previous "X" recordings seen here, this has a cover by Paul Bacon, much more to my taste than the previous items. Bacon worked in several different styles, and this scratchboard drawing is a evocative rendering of a 1917 promotional photo that you can see on Wikipedia's ODJB page.

The ODJB was a sensation in its time, and you will find it sensational too if you go for hectic ensembles, barnyard effects and clattering percussion. It's easy to scoff at this stuff 90 years later, but it was the precursor of much great music.

Yeomen of the Guard with Barbara Cook and Alfred Drake

Today we have a very unusual item - a promotional record made for a 1957 televised presentation of Gilbert & Sullivan's Yeomen of the Guard, with a cast that included Alfred Drake and Barbara Cook, fresh from Candide.

I'm no expert on G&S, but I have not seen this record noted elsewhere, including the on-line Gilbert & Sullivan discography. (The Yeomen page has a very good article on the production.)

The record is a 7-inch EP issued by the NBC publicity department. My copy does not have a cover, and I doubt it came in one.

These songs are not excerpts from the televised production itself, which probably was transmitted live. These were pre-recorded with piano accompaniment in place of the Franz Allers-led orchestra that was featured on the Hallmark Hall of Fame program.

The sound is good, and reveals fine performances by Alfred Drake, Barbara Cook and Bill Hayes, and a soggy one from Celeste Holm.

NEW TRANSFER

Tony Martin

Here's another of the ageless pop music veterans who, like Herb Jeffries, is still with us. He is 95-year-old Tony Martin, whose career goes back far enough for him to have appeared in an Astaire-Rogers movie.

Tony's hit records and movie appearances began in the 1930s, and his vocal style, although a little dated sounding even in these late 1940s recordings, was a precursor of the romantic balladeers who were ascendant in the post-war years.

This album also allows us to revisit the work of my cover art "discovery," Fred Steffen, who did a number of odd and outrageous covers for Mercury Records way back when. This one, possibly inspired by Cot's The Storm (I know my kitsch), is tame by Steffen standards. It might even be considered attractive, if not for the obtrusive cartouche.

These are very fine records of their type, and well recorded for the time. They are wildly out of style, but I love 'em anyway.

Rodzinski Conducts Rachmaninoff

Let's feature a few records led by Artur Rodzinski, a talented conductor of the 20th century who is not well remembered these days. I've been listening to some of the symphonies he recorded with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra (he was music director of each at different times), and they are worth anyone's time.

Here is an early recording of Rachmaninoff's second symphony, in a strong, sympathetic, perceptive, and persuasive performance by the alert New Yorkers. Rodzinski makes the cuts that were usual at the time.

The recording was made in early 1945 in Carnegie Hall. It was originally issued on 78s, and reissued on Columbia's early budget label Entré, encased in the ungainly cover above. The sound is OK for its time.

Rodzinski was apparently quite a character; there are brief bios on the web, but the best account of his life is the biography written by his wife Halina, Our Two Lives. I read it many years ago and recall it as being very lively.

George Greeley

Here's an LP requested by my friend Mel (welcome back!).

This the first time we've encountered George Greeley here as a pianist, but we've already seen him a couple of times as an arranger and conductor.

Greeley, who died only last year, was quite a talent - he also composed, with perhaps his greatest hit being the theme from the TV show My Favorite Martian. (See his obituary here.)

He was an exceptional pianist, as you can hear in these sides, which are from about 1954.

Love the cover, which reminds me of the elegant soirees in my own drawing room. (Of course, I have to move the records out of the way first.)

Shelly Manne and Russ Freeman

The other day I was in the mood to listen to jazz, for once, and flipping through the collection I came across this one - two of the notable West Coast jazz artists of the 50s, pianist Russ Freeman and drummer Shelly Manne.

This is an unusual duo LP - no bass, no other instruments. For the most part, Manne plays an equal role with Freeman. The music is not really to my taste, but this kind of jazz is at least as popular today as it was in September 1954, when this record was made, so who am I to judge.

One of the reasons I chose this item was the fact that it was recorded with a single AKG mike, and my copy of the record is mint. So I was hoping for some good sounds. And they are good - but only just that.

The cover is unsigned, but along with the piano and drums includes a steam jet blower and a fish, which otherwise do not make an appearance on the record, as far as I can tell.

LINK

The Eddie Cantor Story

Younger readers (if there are any at a blog that specializes in the music of 60 years ago) may not know who Eddie Cantor was. Well, son/daughter, he was a very famous entertainer in his day, was on Broadway, on the radio and later television, and made movies. This is his life story as told by the Warner Bros. in 1953.

That's Eddie on the cover, although he wasn't the star of the movie (the dreaded Keefe Brasselle was), but it's his voice on the soundtrack and on this record, doing his most famous numbers.

Forgotten today, Cantor was famous enough to have made records even into the stereo era. His contemporaries included George Jessel, Al Jolson, and Jimmy Durante, and who remembers them today?

It certainly has a colorful cover, done by Karlis or Karlin, who I believe did other covers from that era.