Christmas 1955 with Beverly Sills

At Christmas 1955, the 26-year-old soprano Beverly Sills had already been a performer for more than 20 years and had just made her debut at the New York City Opera.

Her bel canto singing was beginning to attract notice, and the New York architectural firm of Fordyce and Hamby thought it might be a good idea to engage her for a LP to be sent to its clients as a holiday gift. This one-sided, 10-inch album is the result.

1956 photo by Carl Van Vechten

It contains five songs, of which only the "Cantique de Noël" could be considered familiar Christmas fare. "Bless This House" is well known, too, but not usually considered a Christmas song.

Sills went on to an illustrious career, although her fame was mainly in the US, where she largely confined her career and where she often appeared on television. After retiring from the stage, she became general manager of the New York City Opera, then chairman of Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera. She died in 2007.

The sound here is good. Howard Kubik accompanies Sills on an electronic organ.

A Nichols and May Rarity

For those of you who are WAAAY behind on your taxes, here are some income tax hints from 1959 from the then-fashionable comedy duo of Mike Nichols and Elaine May.

Although these tips may not be timely, the posting is. As you may have read, Nichols, who became a famed director, passed away last week. Elaine May is thankfully still with us.

This gem is courtesy of our great friend Ernie, a reformed blogger with a wonderfully eclectic collection of rarities that he shares with us from time to time.

May and Nichols

These four "income tax hints" are actually are nothing of the kind. They are one-minute comedy sketches broadly centered on a tax theme, and are typical of the Nichols-May act. Each vignette has different characters, who are typical of the team's repertoire - a married couple, a psychiatrist and patient, co-workers, and a imperious movie director and actor. While these brief routines might not represent the best examples of their art, Nichols and May's material strongly influenced comedians who came after them.

The promotional record was at the apex of the duo's popularity. They had only become an act together after leaving an improv troupe in 1957, and were to last only until 1961, when they went on to other things. Both ended up in theater and films, May as writer, director and actor, Nichols as director and producer.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants sent this record to radio stations for use as free public service announcements in the run-up to the US federal income tax deadline of April 15. Such gratis announcements for non-profits were common then; much less so now.

Thanks again, Ernie!

Christmas with Morton Gould

Let's begin the Christmas season a little early with some presents from longtime blog favorite Morton Gould.

First we have Gould's own Serenade of Carols and his Suite of Christmas Hymns in their original 10-inch LP packaging. This replaces my earlier posting of the 12-inch reprint. The earlier issue has much better sound.

As a substantial bonus, there is a terrific two-LP traversal of "The Serious Gershwin" in its original 1955 packaging, with Gould as pianist and conductor.

Gould recorded the Christmas works in April 1949 in Columbia's 30th Street studios in New York. His arrangements are felicitous and the sound is excellent. Alex Steinweiss did the cover.

The Gershwin album was Gould's first big assignment at RCA Victor after leaving Columbia. It was recorded in nine sessions from January 14 through April 6, 1955 and came out in the fall. The "Serious Gershwin" was accompanied by a "Popular Gershwin" set, with RCA artists taking on the composer's songs.

I believe the concert works were also parceled out into separate LPs, one with an improbable cover scene at the Arc de Triomphe, the other depicting a languorous woman reclining atop a piano while brandishing a cane and bowler hat.

The Gershwin set consists of the Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, An American in Paris, Three Preludes, the Jazzbo Brown piano music from Porgy & Bess, and Gould's own suite from that opera.

The Rhapsody's clarinet glissando is by Vincent "Jimmy" Abato, a veteran of many big bands (including Whiteman's),
who had also played in the Met orchestra and the CBS Symphony.

The Gershwin records were possibly taped in New York's Webster Hall, which had become RCA's main East Coast recording studio a few years before. The sound is exceptionally fine mono.

A Musical Celebration of the Edsel

When the Ford Motor Company introduced its new Edsel line for 1958, it expected a winner. What it got was a catastrophe.

The Edsel (named for a son of Henry Ford) quickly became another word for failure - a product scorned for its inability to live up to its advance promotion as a new kind of car. It turned out to be a fancy Ford with an ugly snout, overpriced and unreliable. Within three years it was dead.

This 10-inch record is a souvenir of the pre-release euphoria. An Edsel fan site explains, "In August 1957, Edsel Division staged the Dealer Introduction Show for Edsel dealers. Presented in five regional cities (and later in 24 more performances with touring companies) the production was billed as the first all-musical automobile introduction. The program cost $250,000 to stage and featured a 12 member chorus. Holding together the various presentations by Edsel Division executives, was a thin story line about 'Adam and Eve', the first Edsel customers. Looking back, the lyrics are quite ironic, depicting, as they do, unbridled optimism and visions of great success for the Edsel automobile."

"Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it": how true

As often happens with such industrial musicals, there are no credits on the sleeve or label, but the product is highly professional, with cheery if generic music and lyrics.

Don't expect much of a story. "Adam and Eve," perhaps reflecting FoMoCo marketing confusion, don't have much of an idea of what they want in a car, nor what the Edsel offers them. Side two switches perspective; we hear from a proud Edsel dealer, as well as his wife, who celebrates the status attached to being the spouse of an Edsel retailer. Their hauteur that would be short-lived, to be sure.

I enjoy industrial musicals and have a number of examples of the genre. This is one of the rarer items, although mp3s can be found elsewhere on line. My transfer is lossless, if that makes a difference to you.

Back cover: scenes from the Edsel spectacular

Two Early Recordings of Ives' Third Symphony

The third symphony of Charles Ives had to wait about 40 years before its first public performance in 1947, but within the next decade it had earned the two commercial recordings, presented here.

Ives had written the symphony circa 1904, basing it on earlier organ compositions. He revised it later in that decade. But it wasn't until Lou Harrison and the New York Little Symphony took it up in 1946 that it gained notice and a subsequent Pulitzer Prize.

The young Charles Ives

The first recording was led by Richard Bales and his National Gallery Orchestra on August 6, 1950. A local publicly supported radio station, WCFM, issued it on its own label.

This was followed in 1955 in a version for the Vanguard label by the Baltimore Little Symphony and Reginald Stewart.

Richard Bales

Both are worth hearing; the Bales recording made while Ives was still alive, and the Stewart shortly after his death. Bales leads what sounds like a very small orchestra in a careful rendition. The Stewart reading is smoother.

The symphony is sometimes called The Camp Meeting, and the movements "Old Folks Gatherin'," "Children's Day" and "Communion." I don't believe that the documentation for either recording mentions this.

Composer-critic Arthur Berger wrote that the work "was prophetic of the hymn-tune style Copland and Thomson later developed as one means of being American in idiom. Though prophetic, it is far more conservative than the next Ives symphony. It goes on too long at too even a temper, but certain given sections ... must be considered music of quality."

For his fill-up, Bales chose his own arrangement of "Music of the American Revolution," which has less to do with the revolution and more to do with the apparent evidence that all the pieces that Bales arranged were once heard by George Washington. They are pleasant.

Reginald Stewart

Stewart selected a neoclassical Suite for Strings and Oboe by the fine American composer Richard Donovan. Alfred Genovese is the soloist.

While longing for a recording of the fourth symphony, Berger lamented "we must be content with his Third Symphony, which Stewart did well to record in Baltimore (Vanguard 468) now that the older [i.e., Bales] version has been withdrawn. Richard Donovan's suite for strings and oboe on the overside is a serious effort, robust and motory, but a bit short on ideas in the finale."

Both covers include imagery of colonial churches, which must have been considered the right approach for Ives, who had been an organist in a Presbyterian church. The Vanguard artwork is by Rockwell Kent, like Ives a transcendentalist. Kent's sketches graced other Vanguard covers of the time.

Good sound on both. 

Note (November 2024): These recordings have now been remastered in ambient stereo. The download includes complete scans and a number of reviews.

LINK to Bales recording

LINK to Stewart recording

Jackie & Roy Sing Dory and André Previn

For a final salute to the music of Jackie & Roy, we have this 1963 LP of songs by André and Dory Langdon Previn. It's a fine record that languishes in obscurity and has not been reissued, as far as I can tell.

This may be the best introduction to the Previns as songwriters, along with Michael Feinstein's recent Previn CD. André had of course already made his name as a Hollywood prodigy and virtuoso pianist in the pop, jazz and even classical modes. He had begun working as a classical conductor as well, and in 1962 issued his first recording in that role, with the St. Louis Symphony.

In 1958, Dory Langdon had recorded an album of her songs (improbably titled The Leprechauns Are Upon Me) with Andre's accompaniment. She went on to record several albums as a singer-songwriter in the 1970s and 80s, under the names Dory Previn and Dory Previn Shannon.

By the time of this recording, the Previns' songs were being used in films (they received two Oscar nominations already by the time of Like Sing), and such artists as Doris Day had taken up their work. Day's LP with André, Duet, featured "Yes" and "Control Yourself," which are also on this record, as well as "Daydreaming."

Dory and André Previn

Jackie & Roy are at one with the Previns' material. Jackie is, as always, extraordinary, with her exquisite performance of "Where, I Wonder" a particular highlight. It is a gorgeous (and difficult) song that should be much better known.

The title song is a close relative of André's 1960 instrument hit with the similar title of "Like Young." Both songs, along with such other hit compositions as Nelson Riddle's "Route 66 Theme" and Cy Coleman's "Playboy Theme," were under the spell of Bobby Timmons' influential "Moanin'" of 1958.

We don't know for certain who is responsible for the piano backing or the arrangements. The pianism does not sound like André Previn, so it is probably Roy Kral. The backings are possibly by André. In his notes to his Previn CD, Feinstein makes reference to the arrangement of "Change of Heart" as being by Previn, although I suppose that may just be the singer's assumption.

The cover shows the two couples as being very much in the Kennedy mode of the time, with Roy and André in their sack suits and Dory in a Jackie-esque pink ensemble. A handsome group - and so talented!