New Transfer of Knoxville: Summer of 1915

I had a request for a reup of the first recording of Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and decided to do a new transfer instead. My first attempt was done in the early months of this blog, and because the original LP was noisy, I used a reissued edition that had added reverb. This time I went back to the first 10-inch LP for the transfer, and the results represent a substantial improvement and are closer to the original intentions.

The piano pieces on the LP are also newly transferred, and there are fresh scans as well. All the noise problems have been addressed and the latest version (September 2023) is mastered in ambient stereo.

Samuel Barber and Eleanor Steber

Here is what I had to say about the music when first posted:

"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.

Rudolf Firkušný

"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 Firkušný. 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.

James Agee

"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."

I only want to add to my previous comments that the playing by the so-called Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra under William Strickland is fully equal to this extraordinary music.

Note (September 2023): the download now includes a 1949 interview with Samuel Barber about Knoxville: Summer of 1915, in an edition from NPR, which mixes it with excerpts from Dawn Upshaw's excellent 1988 recording of the work.

Early Gisele MacKenzie

The reaction to my recent Gisele MacKenzie post on my other blog surprised me. Far more people like Gisele than I realized. Most of you probably like her more than I do!

With so much latent interest in the singer, I thought I might transfer her rarest LP. It is Orchids from Gisele, a promotional item issued only in her native Canada by the sponsor of her radio show.

While the album came out in 1958, it collects singles issued on Capitol from 1952 through early 1954, before MacKenzie spent several years with RCA Victor and its offshoot Vik.

The songs themselves are what you might expect from the period - a mixture of ballads, novelties and covers of country tunes. I find this era fascinating, while realizing that others disagree.

A few notes:

"Whistle My Love" was from the the Disney film Story of Robin Hood, and was widely recorded at the time. I had one of the recordings (can't recall which) and don't think I had heard the song in the intervening years. I liked it when I was four, and I like it now. Arranger Buddy Cole takes the "whistling" literally and has violinist Paul ("The Hot Canary") Nero on hand to supply the high harmonics. I could have done without them - Cole has a tendency to overdo things. This shows as well in the next song, the familiar "Adios," which includes a female backing vocal that sounds like Mary Ford on phenobarbital. Cole  adds organ accompaniment that sounds remarkably like Walter Wanderley's records of 10 years later.

"Mississippi River Boat" is another novelty, and if you can handle the constant "tu pocketa, tu pocketa" refrain, you may enjoy this. It's not my thing.

Nelson Riddle's arrangements are definitely my thing, and he takes over for "A Letter and a Ring" and "A Walkin' Tune." Both are handled nicely by MacKenzie.

"The Best Things in Life Are Free" was apparently unreleased except for this compilation. "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" was a country hit for Slim Willet (the composer) among many others, and Gisele's cover is accomplished. "My Favorite Song" is a good Moose Charlap composition. Buddy Cole is back for the latter two songs.

Possibly the best effort on the LP is MacKenzie's version of "Gone," a legendary country song by Smokey Rogers. "Gone" was a giant hit for Ferlin Husky in 1957 - five years after this version was cut. Husky had recorded the song earlier (also for Capitol) under the name Terry Preston, and it was even issued on a promo record together with Gisele's recording. MacKenzie appears on the sheet music.

As a bonus, I have included the promotional version of "My Buick, My Love and I" recorded by Gisele and Gordon MacRae and given out by Buick dealers in 1952. It was the theme song for Milton Berle's second TV program, The Buick-Berle Show. The promo record also had a version by the Mellomen on the back. The Macs' version was issued commercially as well. The bonus is not my transfer, although I have remastered it, and is from a lossy original. The LP transfer is of course from my own copy.

Mood Ellington

Duke Ellington is one of my favorite musicians, but I have never posted anything by him here because his output is well known. I did want him represented so I chose this 10-inch LP from an underrated period, clad in a cover that may be unfamiliar, at least to Americans.

This recordings were among the first products of Ellington's  move to  Columbia in 1947. He had been with the small Musicraft label, but it dropped him and other artists upon running into financial problems.

The Musicraft and Columbia sides are thought to pale in comparison with the great Victor records made only a few years earlier with what is sometimes called the Blanton-Webster band, for short-lived bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster. Yet the late 40s band has its own charms, amply on display here.

Junior Raglin, Lawrence Brown, Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington, Ray Nance, Sonny Greer, Fred Guy, Harry Carney

Ellington was very interested in tonal colors at the time, and his song titles reflect that - here we have "On a Turquoise Cloud," "Golden Cress" and "Lady of the Lavender Mist". For Musicraft he had recorded "Transbluency," "Magenta Haze," and "Blue Abandon," among others. But there also are straightforward items like "Three Cent Stomp". All are unmistakably Ellington.

Columbia issued Mood Ellington with a variety of covers. The mid-1948 78 set had ominous piano keys emerging from a purple murk. An LP came out late that year with a generic music stand cover. This was replaced by a sticker cover that mixed the piano keys with string, for whatever reason. The 78 cover was then re-purposed, with the keys now floating over what looks like sulphuric acid (at left). All of these - and a particularly unattractive EP - are in the download.

Fortunately, Columbia licensee Philips saw fit to issue the same record with a cover actually depicting Duke himself, and that is the source of this post. My copy originated in Singapore, proving once again that fine music is cherished the world over.

I remember several decades ago being frustrated by the poor sound on most RCA LP issues of their records of the great man; and the Everest reissues of the Musicraft material were even worse. I hope this present transfer does justice to the splendors of the postwar band. [Note (June 2023): This is now available in vivid ambient stereo.]

Ray Anthony and Swing Fox Trots

I've featured many dance bands of the 1950s, but never one of the most popular, Ray Anthony's ensemble.

Some of Anthony's records have been reissued, but not this one, as far as I know. This is one of his collaborations, if you can call it that, with Arthur Murray, who started a chain of dance studios that is still teaching 'em to tango. Murray lent his name to a series of records on Capitol that were devoted to different types of dances, usually with the steps illustrated. Not here, alas, although Murray did include a certificate for a free lesson; mine is missing so may have been put to good use.

I was taught to dance by my dear mother, the former Shirley Temple of Cleveland (or so she claimed), and had no need of Murray's ministrations. I don't recall Mama suggesting that I tackle the "swing fox trot," and frankly I am not sure what that means, and have actually been baffled by the term "fox trot" since I first saw it on a 78 way too many years ago.

Anthony and his knockout wife, Mamie Van Doren

Those of you intrigued by this record don't need to worry about such things; there is no requirement that you dance if you download. You only need to listen to Anthony's band assay some fairly basic arrangements of medium-tempo dance tunes, taped in August 1954. No arranger is listed, but I suspect it was Billy May, who worked on at least one other Anthony LP and was recording and arranging for Capitol at the time. The arrangements sound like his work, although there are no slurping saxophones, thank goodness. Anthony was known as a Glenn Miller-type band, but there is no hint of that sound here.

By the way, the first song ("Poor Butterfly") ends with a "duh-duhduh-duh" cadence; for those of you who did not grow up on US television programs of the early 1950s, this was the motto theme of Jack Webb's Dragnet. Anthony had a hit with the theme in 1953, and I suppose this was the arranger's droll take on the end of the Butterfly saga.

Swing Fox Trots was the second LP that Anthony recorded under the Murray imprint, and he did at least one more later on. The sound here is not Capitol's best, but is listenable.

The Mary Kaye Trio

The Mary Kaye Trio was a staple of Las Vegas nightlife for many years. Mary Kaye herself was an expressive singer with a superb voice. Those skills are in evidence here as well, although they are subordinate to the vivid, larger-than-life presence that the Trio exhibited in its day-to-day battle to be heard above the din of a lounge bar, where they made their name and living. That means elaborate and sometimes explosive vocal arrangements where subtlety was not a consideration. A few generations of cocktail lounge groups copied the trio's approach.

1948 ad (click to enlarge)

The Mary Kaye Trio is sometimes said to have invented the lounge act in Las Vegas in the early 1950s, which seems unlikely. The ad at left in fact shows them as appearing in the Theatrical Grille in Cleveland in 1948, and the Theatrical certainly was a lounge bar. Mary, her brother Norman Kaye and Frankie Ross were probably no different from many other acts that appeared on the nightclub circuit, sometimes appearing solo and sometimes as an opener to a bigger act. What is likely is that the trio was the first to be booked into a Las Vegas lounge as overnight entertainment for the drinkers and gamblers who didn't want to go home. And it is there that they found a following.

As you will note in the ad, the Mary Kaye Trio was originally the Mary Kaaihue Trio. The Ka'aihues were Hawaiians, supposedly of noble extraction, although I couldn't tell you if that was truth or publicity. Their father played the ukelele professionally, and they followed him into the musical trade. They must have had Hawaiian music in the act at the beginning, and made an album of it for Apollo in 1947. The trio filmed a Soundie in 1946, but I couldn't find it on YouTube.

What can be found on that site is their appearance in the 1957 film Bop Girl Goes Calypso doing "Fools Rush In" using the same arrangement that is on Music on a Silver Platter. This then segues into a piece of their act, with clowning from Frankie Ross and a Liberace impression from Norman. Next is "Calypso Rock," mercifully not on the LP. I don't think that Mary was the bop girl who went calypso; that was the talented but short-lived Judy Tyler.

1956 ad

"Calypso Rock" may be as close at the trio ever got to rock 'n' roll, although Mary Kaye somehow became known as the "First Lady of Rock 'n' Roll," at least in the Fender guitar promotional materials. The group appeared in a 1956 Fender ad, and the model guitar shown was later named for Mary Kaye. Nonetheless, she usually played D'Angelico guitars, as she does in the YouTube clip.

Music on a Silver Platter (what came first: the title or the awful cover concept?) was their second Decca LP. They had recorded earlier for Columbia, Capitol, M-G-M and RCA Victor, as well as Apollo, and would go on to Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, if I recall correctly. The Silver Platter songs were probably intended as singles, although I have only been able to trace a few of them having been issued that way. There are arrangements by Jud Conlan and Russ Garcia (including the trombone-heavy "Fools Rush In"), but most are anonymous. The sound is reasonably good. This is presented by request.