A Few More Remasters - and One New Transfer

A quick follow-up to last week's group of remasters - here are a few more for you, along with one new transfer that I neglected to include in the previous post.

The two new remastered reups, both in Apple lossless format, are as follows:

Jimmy Blythe - South Side Blues Piano. Surprisingly good sounding (mainly) acoustic recordings by the short-lived blues and boogie-woogie artist.

Rawsthorne - Piano Concerto No. 2. Clifford Curzon's suave and satisfying recording, the first of this fine work.

Here's the one new transfer:

Adolph Hofner - Dude Rance Dances. Early LP by the notable Western swing meister, but please note that this was in Columbia's square dance series, so allemande to the left if you can't handle such things.

Links are in the comments to this post.

Mark Murphy - The Raw 'Rah'

I was unaware until recently that all reissues of jazz singer Mark Murphy's first Riverside album, Rah, had been bowdlerized. Two of the songs were deemed offensive and diluted or dropped altogether.

When I learned this from fellow collector Progress Hornsby, I decided to transfer my nice stereo copy of the record for those who hadn't heard it, and for those who are unfamiliar with Murphy, a talented vocalist.

In my melodramatic way, I call the result the "raw Rah," but I admit that is an overstatement. There was nothing scandalous about the content, even for 1962, when this came out.

Mark Murphy in the early sixties

Progress explains that Richard Rodgers threatened a law suit because Murphy's version of "My Favorite Things," name-checked any number of jazz artists, and Rodgers did not like having his creations altered. Then there was Murphy's version of the usually sentimental "I’ll Be Seeing You," As Progress relates, "Instead of 'In that small café, the park across the way/The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well,' Murphy sings, 'In that damp café, the parking lot across the way/That beat-up carousel where we used to sell cheap muscatel.'" Apparently this offended someone's sensibilities as well. So the reissues of Rah have trimmed "Favorite Things" and zapped "I'll Be Seeing You" altogether.

The cover shows Murphy in collegiate garb holding what appears to be a protest sign. This, however, was a few years before the first big college protests of the sixties - the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Murphy's sign was intended to depict college spirit. (I went to college in that decade and don't recall any such signs.) In his notes, Ira Gitler writes, "Mark Murphy appeals to the hip collegian - youthful and vigorous but cool, too. Hence Rah minus the exclamation point."

As for the musical quality, this is surely one of the singer's best records. Highlights include a number of the jazz and hip vocal standards of the time: a superb version of "Milestones" with scat singing that even I can enjoy, "L'il Darlin'," "Green Dolphin Street," and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most." There is even a good but superfluous homage to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross via "Twisted" and "Doodlin'." Ernie Wilkins contributes apt arrangements that often are little more than muted brass chords and rhythm. Good sound.

Mitropoulos Conducts Malipiero and Bach-Casella

Dimitri Mitropoulos made his first postwar tour of Italy in 1950. One stop was for a concert in Turin on June 2, where he also recorded two compositions for the Italian company Cetra.

With the RAI Orchestra in that city, the conductor set down scores by two contemporary Italian composers, Gian Francesco Malipiero and Alfredo Casella. According to his biographer, William Trotter, Mitropoulos programmed Malipiero's Seventh Symphony during the tour, presumably during the stop in Turin. Also taped during the June 2 session was Casella's transcription (actually more a reworking) of the Chaconne from Bach's violin Partita in D.

Malipiero (left) and Casella flank Manuel de Falla

Malipiero and Casella were almost exact contemporaries, although Casella had died at age 63 in 1947, and were leading figures in 20th century Italian musical life. The two were colleagues and both were instrumental in reviving the music of Vivaldi, but they were very different composers.

The RAI Turin orchestra was not a great ensemble - Trotter says that Mitropoulos found the orchestral playing in postwar Italy in considerable disrepair - but the Greek conductor was able to elicit committed playing, especially in the Malipiero.

The recording is lively, but the pressing has a few thumps. This is from the US Cetra-Soria issue of the set.

I could not resist including the Stokowski transcription of the Bach Chaconne in the download, for the sake of contrast. There is little of Stoky's ostentatiously reverential approach in Casella's transcription. The Stokowski is from the His Symphony Orchestra recording of 1950 - it's not my transfer.

A Spring Crop of Reups and Remasters

The crocuses (croci?) are in bloom in these parts, and spring is two days hence. So let's celebrate with a new crop of reups and remasters, some by request, and some blogger's choice.

As usual, where I have lossless files in my archives, I have remastered these, and the resulting sound is generally far superior to my original work and presented in Apple lossless format. It's buyer-beware with the mp3s, I'm afraid.

Links to all the files are in the comments to this post.

The lineup:

Albert Wolff - Massenet and Saint-Saëns (remastered). Two overtures led by the outstanding and now forgotten French conductor. Dashing and full of life. (I'll have to upload more of his artistry.)

Art Hodes - Out of the Back Room (mp3). The Chicago style pianist on an early Blue Note LP.

Canta Maya - A Long, Long Kiss (remastered). An obscure and highly stylized German cabaret singer who somehow ended up on Roulette records.

Chuck Wagon Gang - Favorite Country Hymns (remastered). The first LP by the famous country gospel group.

Dizzy Dean, Don Drysdale and Hey Mabel! (remastered). To welcome the impending baseball season, a reup of singles by Hall of Fame pitchers Dizzy Dean (his signature "Wabash Cannonball") and Don Drysdale (an excellent crooner!), plus a promotional 78 of the Carling Beer jingle "Hey Mabel! Black Label!" in both dixieland and big band versions. (See original post.)

Jane Powell - Date with Jane Powell (remastered). Speaking of pitching, I think I finally have the pitch of this LP right. You have to hear Powell's superb version of "Over the Rainbow"!

Josh White (mp3). An early album, originally on Asch Records, devoted to the pioneering folk singer.

Leonard Bernstein and NYPO in Venice (remastered). A promotional LP issued by the Ford Motor Company's ad agency to mark one of the television specials that Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic did in 1959. Music-making and Lennie talking, in about equal portions.

Genie Pace - Round and Round She Goes

Here's another in the long-running series devoted to obscure vocalists.

This LP, from about 1957, showcases probably the only person who made a living both as a lounge singer and roller derby competitor.

This is Genie Pace's first LP, beginning a brief recording career that encompassed one other album, which appears to be from a few years later, and singles on three labels, including one outing on Capitol.

This record was the first on the small Jade label, which also had her inscribe a quasi-rock single, which can be heard here. There is none of that new-fangled rock-n-roll rhythm on this disc, however. As the title says, Genie is "in a midnight mood" for the most part, although she adopts a bolero approach for "I'll Remember April" (a good idea) and a cha-cha backing for "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" (a bad idea). For the most part, Frank Metis' charts are accomplished. He did manage to borrow the swirling harp arpeggios from Peggy Lee's "Street of Dreams" record for Genie's "One for My Baby."

Ira Gitler's notes mention that Pace's early influence was Kay Starr, and the Starr style is readily apparent on the LP. But Genie is accomplished in her own right. She has a good voice with an attractive, rapid vibrato, and the songs come off well. I particularly enjoyed "In the Wee Small Hours," where she takes the verse, which is absent from the famous Sinatra rendition.

Genie Pace in 2010

Gitler discusses Pace's roller derby career, giving the impression that she left it behind to become a singer. I'm not sure that's the case - Genie has a "player tribute" page on a site called Banked Track Memories, and she was photographed at a roller derby reunion as recently as 2010 (photo at right).

The sound is reasonably good. Unfortunately I don't have Pace's second LP, which has backings by Mat Mathews, a musician I admire.

Schuman's Concerto on Old English Rounds

I had a request for this record, which is outside the blog's usual time frame. But I decided to post it anyway because it is such a exceptional product.

The LP contains the first, and I believe only, recording of William Schuman's Concerto on Old English Rounds. The young violist Donald McInnes commissioned the work under a Ford Foundation grant. Its premiere was in 1974 with the Boston Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas. Leonard Bernstein heard the broadcast, through the intercession of the composer, and programmed the piece with the New York Philharmonic in April 1976. The recording was made a few days later.

Donald McInnes

McInnes recalled an after-concert conversation with Bernstein: "He said during the performance he had a dream of me playing Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, which he was conducting in New York and Paris in 1976." The violist did go on to record the Berlioz work with Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France. It too is a fine achievement.

The Bernstein-McInnes team is just right for this work, which is itself of considerable interest. McInnes is wonderfully secure soloist, and Bernstein is fully in command of the proceedings. In the liner notes, Schuman admits to being a disciple of Roy Harris in his early years, but I have always thought this work was influenced by Benjamin Britten. That may be because I purchased Andre Previn's recording of Britten's 1949 Spring Symphony at about the same time as acquiring this LP upon its release in 1978. Britten and Schuman both set archaic texts in a conservative modern idiom, although this work has a significant solo instrument, which is lacking in the Britten.

McInnes has pursued a career in academia and the West Coast film studios.

The sound from Columbia's 30th Street Studios is excellent, but the thin vinyl pressing was slightly warped, leading to some momentary image instability that shouldn't be noticeable unless you use headphones.

Felicia Sanders Sings Kurt Weill

I am belatedly filling a request from some time ago with this fine recording from Felicia Sanders, performing the songs of Kurt Weill.

This is an exceptionally good record, with Sanders is excellent voice and in total sympathy with the material. The opposite of the cool singers then in vogue (although she may have picked up a trick or two from Chris Connor), her intense approach is much more along the lines of Judy Garland.

Felicia Sanders

The repertoire is drawn from Weill's American works, starting with 1935's Johnny Johnson. (Side note: the jacket doesn't mention it, but the lyrics for that play were by Paul Green.) "Mon Ami, My Friend" from Johnny Johnson is the closest in its sound world to Weill's German works. The liner notes aver that Sanders is evoking the music hall singers of Weimar Germany in her approach, but I also think she may be paying homage to her idol, Edith Piaf, and perhaps Lotte Lenya, who had recorded the song for the musical's 1955 studio cast.

Sanders' husband, Irving Joseph, authored the excellent arrangements, which stay away from the Die Dreigroschenoper sound for the most part, except for "Mon Ami, My Friend."

Original cover

The Time label marketed this LP in 1960 with a cover mimicking the minimalist style that Josef Albers had developed for Command records. My copy is from the Mainstream reissue of a few years later, which had a more appropriate cover. Unfortunately my pressing is mono, although the sound is well balanced and pleasing.

Felicia Sanders first came to public notice in 1953, with her vocal on Percy Faith's hit recording of "The Song from Moulin Rouge." She went on to be a popular cabaret singer at The Blue Angel and other New York boîtes. She died of cancer at a relatively early age.