Mexican Hayride

I've been very busy for a long time, but I wanted to slip in a quick post, in this case the 1944 Cole Porter musical Mexican Hayride.

This is not one of Porter's best known scores, nor is the cast the starriest, but the record is entirely agreeable and worthy of your attention.

The star of the show was June Havoc, who was best known for being Gypsy Rose Lee's sister, called Baby June on the vaudeville stage. Havoc (née Hovick) was also apparently known for her legs. Producer Mike Todd commissioned Alberto Vargas to design a gargantuan billboard of Havoc recumbent, which appeared outside the Winter Garden theatre when the musical was in residence. That is co-star Bobby Clark ogling June through his painted-on eyeglasses.

The block-long June Havoc

Somehow Clark got left out when it came time for the Decca cast album, here presented as "selections from" Mexican Hayride "featuring members of the Original New York Production." Beside Havoc, those members were Wilbur Evans and Corinna Mura.

Evans made his name on the operetta stage. On Broadway, he also appeared in Up in Central Park, later By the Beautiful Sea. He can be heard in a few Decca operetta albums.

This was Mura's only Broadway show. She had appeared in Casablanca (singing the Marseillaise) and other movies.

I transferred the songs from the 10-inch LP of 1949, and included scans, as usual, but since I also have the 78 set, I have added scans from that album's inside front and back covers, which present photos from the show and the recording session, respectively. (The latter is below.)

Meredith Willson and 'Modern American Music'

Paul Whiteman's 1924 Aeolian Hall concert is famous primarily for having introduced Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. But that event was just the beginning of what the conductor called his "Experiments in Modern American Music," with concert music commissioned from composers with pop and jazz roots. There were to be a total of eight such concerts, the last being held in 1938.

Whiteman's efforts inspired at least one other bandleader to undertake a similar endeavor, and this album is the result. In 1939, Meredith Willson was a radio conductor on the show Good News, which was primarily a showcase for M-G-M talent. For the show, Willson commissioned 10 notable pop composers to produce new works in a variety of forms, including the minuet, waltz, march and so on. Participating were Harry Warren, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Peter DeRose, Duke Ellington, Louis Alter, Sigmund Romberg, Morton Gould, Dana Suesse and Ferde Grofé. Ellington, Gould and Grofé had all contributed compositions to Whiteman's 1938 concert.

Meredith Willson

Willson convinced Decca to make an elaborate album of the resulting commissions, which contained two 10-inch and three 12-inch 78s. Willson and band (or "concert orchestra," as both he and Whiteman were then calling their ensembles) recorded the compositions in one session in early January 1941. The results are certainly listenable, although none of the pieces has become well known. But that was the case as well with the works that Whiteman commissioned - he never achieved a success to match Rhapsody in Blue, at least not with anyone but George Gershwin.

Willson's biggest triumph was to come many years later, with the hit musical The Music Man, which has at least five songs that became better known and loved than any of the compositions on this album. His own concert pieces, while enjoyable, will never be considered his main contribution to music.

Cover of 78 set

This transfer is from an early LP reissue of the 78 set, with good sound, now (March 2024) newly remastered in ambient stereo.

LINK to ambient stereo remaster

'Just for You' and Other Remastered Soundtracks and Shows

Many more reups today, all remastered and in much superior sound, and all from movies or shows.

The feature presentation is the Bing Crosby-Jane Wyman musical, Just for You, from 1952, with a Harry Warren score. The film is a favorite of mine, and I went on at length about it in my first post, drawing parallels between the plot and Crosby's life, and even introducing a discussion of Mamie Eisenhower's hairdo.

Otherwise, we have a studio version of the Rodgers-Hart show On Your Toes, three scores from the underrated George Duning, a Kenyon Hopkins score, and the soundtrack of The French Line with a singing Jane Russell.

Here's the roster. Find the links in the comments to this post, or my looking up the original posts.

Just for You (with Bing and Jane)

Me and the Colonel (Duning's score for the Danny Kaye film)

Naked City (Duning's music for the television show; this actually is a narrated musical on record a la Manhattan Tower, featuring the fantastic singer Jo Ann Greer)

On Your Toes (Jack Cassidy and Portia Nelson are featured)

Salome (with Duning's superb score)

The French Line (music by Josef Myrow; Russell stars with Gilbert Roland)

The Strange One (interesting Kenyon Hopkins score with a great jazz theme)

Mitropoulos Conducts Vaughan Williams and Rachmaninoff

I transferred this LP because I have been reading William Trotter's vivid, if melodramatic biography of Dimitri Mitropoulos, Priest of Music.

The conductor was indeed an unworldly sort who was a mismatch with the all-too-worldly New York Philharmonic. But before his ill-fated Phil follies, he was the long-time maestro in Minneapolis, and a beloved figure there.

Mitropoulos' commitment to modern music extended from the more conservative works heard here (and previous uploads such as compositions from Gian Carlo Menotti and Elie Siegmeister), through the second symphony of Roger Sessions (also previously featured here), to Schoenberg's Erwartung (which I will transfer when I locate the record in my collection).

Mitropoulos was famous for his remarkable memory, control and intensity. These traits serve the Rachmaninoff very well. But his febrile approach may be less suited to the Tallis Fantasia, which needs more room to breathe.

Columbia recorded these works in March 1945 in Minneapolis' Northrup Auditorium. The sound is adequate. This transfer is from an early LP issue.

Mitropoulos in his Minneapolis days

Remastered and Reupped, Vol. 2 - featuring Matt Dennis

Here is a second selection of recordings that I have remastered and reuploaded. These have far superior sound in all cases.

First of all, I want to showcase my redo of the nine singles that singer Matt Dennis made for Capitol in 1946 and possibly early 1947, all with Paul Weston. These are excellent records - Dennis was a terrific singer even relatively early in his career, the arrangements were fine, and the songs were well selected, although I could do without "A Trout, No Doubt." (Hey, that rhymes!) He even makes me like "Linda."

As mentioned, I have remastered these sides and the sound is much improved. I also have carefully repitched the recordings, which were sharp, making Dennis sound adolescent (he was 32). The transfers are from my collection of 78s.

These days, Dennis is mostly known for his compositions - "Angel Eyes," "Violets for Your Furs," "The Night We Called It a Day," "Everything Happens to Me," all available in superb Sinatra renditions - but he also was one of the finest singers of the post-war era. Unfortunately, none of the songs here are his compositions.

The rest of today's remastered selections:

Virgil Thomson - The River; Otto Luening - Prelude on a Hymn Tune by William Billings; Two Symphonic Interludes. ARS recordings led by Dean Dixon.

Written on the Wind; Rhapsody for Four Girls in Town. Soundtrack recordings of music by Frank Skinner and Alex North. The latter piece features Andre Previn on piano.

Nielsen - Symphony No. 3. The classic rendition led by Erik Tuxen.

Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae - Sunday Evening Songs. Really old oldies in treasurable versions from the beloved pair.

See the original posts for more on these selections. Links to the downloads are in the comments.

Quincy Porter Conducts Quincy Porter

When I recently asked readers to vote on whether they wanted me to post a variety of music I had transferred, this was one of the most frequently requested items.

There is a lively interest around here in American music of the last century, and Quincy Porter is one of the leading composers of conservative, tonal music from that era.

Porter was literally a son of Yale; a grandson, too - both his father and grandfather were professors there, and Porter himself both was educated at the New Haven school and spent a good part of his career there.

Overtone Records, which issued this disc in 1955, was located in New Haven and drew upon the Yale faculty for its performers. For this particular production of Porter conducting his own works, it contracted the Concerts Colonne Orchestra of Paris, and noted engineer André Charlin.

On the program are two middle-period compositions, Porter's Symphony No. 1 and Dance in Three Time, both from the 1930s, and his Concerto Concertante, which had won a Pulitzer Prize the year before this record was made.

Quincy Porter

I can't say the results met my own expectations, which may be more a commentary on me than anything else. The music left little impression and the sound, while good and no doubt truthful, lacks impact. Porter's grim look on the cover just about sums up my personal reaction. I am sure many of you will enjoy this more than I did.

[Note (May 2023): This is now available remastered in ambient stereo, which has made a marked improvement in the sound - and gave me a far more positive view of the music as a result.]

The download includes cover scans, as always, along with a copy of the detailed program note insert that came with the record.