George Williams Remembers Jimmie Lunceford

A few weeks ago the blog presented a Ray Anthony record that was almost certainly arranged by George Williams. At that time, I said I would upload this LP that RCA Victor issued under the arranger's own name in 1957.

I wish I had chosen Williams's Brunswick LP instead, because it has a spectacularly repulsive cover showing a gentlemen in a ratty fox costume conducting the band - in honor of Williams' nickname, "The Fox".

Then again, this cover isn't bad, what with the gentleman grasping his impressively large instrument between the lady's legs.

George Williams

But what of the music? Williams (or RCA) decided to do a tribute to band leader Jimmie Lunceford, on the tenuous premise that Williams was a Lunceford arranger for a few months back in the late 1930s. Homages of this kind were popular in the late 50s, as people looked back fondly on the vanished swing era.

The results are what you might expect - streamlined versions of Lunceford standards played by a talented group of studio musicians who appeared on hundreds of other records of the time. The cover details the performers. Two of them are given pseudonyms - trombonist Jimmy O'Heigho is presumably Jimmy Cleveland and trumpeter Swede Enlovely is Harry "Sweets" Edison. This peculiar custom of fanciful renamings, common at the time, was probably done for contractual reasons.

The music is enjoyable, if not characteristic of the records that had been issued under Williams' name in earlier years. Those recordings, mainly in a quasi-R&B mode, are collected on the Brunswick album I mentioned above. Maybe I'll present that one as well, if people are interested.