One of the recurring themes in this blog has been paying tribute to musical figures who have recently passed on. Sad, but I guess it's to be expected when a blog covers music of 50-60 years ago.
Today's tribute is to arranger and film composer Angela Morley, who died last week. She was one of the best ever at her craft, in my view, and had been so for more than a half-century.
The early records presented here were made under her birth name of Wally (Walter) Stott soon after she joined Philips Records in London as music director in 1953. This issue is a repackaging on the American Epic label, which licensed Philips' product.
The LP contains music by Kern, Gershwin, and Berlin - four songs each. I suspect it may have originated as three EPs, but who knows. Whatever the origin and whoever the composer, each arrangement is very imaginative and just plain lovely.
For more on Morley, see an appreciation on the Robert Farnon Society site
NEW LINK
13 comments:
Buster, as I mentioned on Franklynot, thanks so much for this one (and all the great stuff on your blog)! Ya know, it wasn't until her obituary that I realized that Angela and Wally were one and the same! It's wonderful to know her better now; I don't know how I managed to never realize this before.
I remember Wally Stott as the orchestra leader of the Goon Show.
He started as an Alto player with Oscar Rabin's band.A friend of mine was the vocalist in the band at that time.
Buster, me again (blush)
I've tried to download this a few times and I wonder that perhaps the link has been copied incompletely? There's no usual suffix on it so my puter doesn't know what to do with the file. I tried adding a .zip to the end, which did convert it to a zip file...but it fails to decompress. Anyhow, no worries. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention in case I'm the first to download/notice it. And thanks as always.
Thanks for posting this in Angela Morley's memory. She was one of the very finest arrangers ever, from the early years when she was still Wally Stott. Right up there with Robert Farnon.
She was a nice person too - I wrote to her at her website a few times and she always replied most graciously. I will miss her.
P.S. I didn't know of the existence of the album. It will be the first Wally Stott in my collection in which he was not accompanying a vocalist.
Mel
Luckymike, you have to extract the files with 7-Zip. Go download it here:
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
It helps extract these types of files. Once it is installed, all you have to do is right click on the folder, and you'll see 7-zip in the choices- click on it and click extract- it will extract it without any problems. It is totally free.
All,
Thanks for your comments!
@Luckymike,
The file archive was made in the 7z format. It uses a more efficient compression algorithm than zip. I use it for 12-inch LPs because it allows me to keep the archive under 100mb so I can use Rapiduploader. 7z is freeware that also will unpack zip and rar archives. You can find it here:
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html
I gotta say, I had no idea what was going on here until I read that bio page. I didn't know there was another Walter/Wendy Carlos story out there in the musical world. Just shows what I know, doesn't it. Thanks for sharing!
@ mel, @ buster
THANK YOU for teaching me about 7z. I figured it was something like that as soon as I realized no one was having a problem but me. I'm on it.
@ Ernie
Like you, I didn't know the story until her obit...and also like you I thought "hey, Walter/Wendy/Wally..." Next thing you know I'd find out Danny Elfman was once Danielle Elfwoman. LOL, but seriously, it does nothing to diminish my admiration, in fact it increases it. In the era these people were working, it's incredible to me that they were able to overcome certain bias and succeed as brilliant musicians! Also, now that I see you in here, been meaning to tell you I have a wonderful share for your next years' Christmas haul, I'll send it to you @ E.(N.B.) When I've got the scans and all together!
@Luckymike,
I couldn't agree with you more.
Also, on 7z, I had to ask someone about it myself the first time I encountered it.
@ Buster
Hey just wanted to say thanks again...I'm a mac user and I chose a decoder for use on OSX. The album decoded perfectly and it's just gorgeous. Thanks for the music and for expanding my understanding of yet another type of software!
Buster, many thanks for the new link. :)
Buster, I only just happened upon this entry and have just downloaded it (yay, the link works 7 years later!), having come to your blog after this date.
I'm a big Angela Morley fan, largely through her orchestrations for the movie "The Slipper and the Rose" -- some of the best orchestrations for a musical ever, in my opinion. She was nominated, and might very well have won the Oscar for them -- but she was up against Jonathan Tunick for "A Little Night Music," and, I mean, who can compete with that??
I find that the website she maintained during her later years is still being kept open. Her autobiographical page there http://www.angelamorley.com/site/bio.htm is rather touchingly candid about first becoming "rather seduced by the California lifestyle" when she would show up for her nominations, and then "not being able to get arrested" (her words) as a feature film composer, and eventually moving to Scottsdale AZ. There she got occasional piecework for the Boston Pops, and did some choral arrangements. I always worry about freelance workers in their later years; I hope she managed OK.
MUCH belated thanks
Post a Comment