Siravo Swings in Hi-Fi and Stereo

When I recently reupped three early LPs by arranger-conductor George Siravo, my friend Scoredaddy sent in a polite plea for more.

SD is one of the blog's earliest and most loyal supporters, so I made it a priority to unearth more Siravos from the cartons in my cavern of a basement. Here is the result of my search.

George Siravo

This one is an unusual post because I am offering both the mono and the stereo versions of the record, while stating my strong preference for the single-channel version.

The cover you see above is from the LP's original incarnation on RCA Victor's subsidiary Vik label. Recorded in July 1957, it probably came out later that year under the title "Swing Hi Swing Fi." A good example of hi-fi it was, too, with a wide range and good instrumental balance. My only niggle would be that because it is a multi-miked but single-channel recording, the musicians sometimes sound like they are standing on top of one another.

Stereo was supposed to address this phenomenon, and when it came along in a big way in 1958, people were astounded by what they heard. The tendency back then was for engineers to park some of the instrumentalists over on one side and some over on the other, with nothing in the middle, so as to emphasize that you were hearing two-channel sound, let there be no doubt about it.

So when RCA decided to put out a stereo version of the Siravo LP in 1959, that's exactly what it did - hole-in-the-middle stereo. Too bad the ham-handed engineer in charge used a 14th generation tape for a master and then added clumsy reverb to the whole thing, resulting in a sonic horror that does not do justice to the performances.

Since "hi-fi" was dated as a marketing gimmick and "stereo" in vogue, RCA renamed the mess "Siravo Swing Session" and issued it on its budget line, Camden, in the cover below. (You may think that's the same photo as on the mono release, but look closely and you will see it's from a different negative. I just wonder how the drummer managed to play his kit with the the pieces scattered all over the place.)

On to a few words about the music. Siravo reached way back for his repertoire choices, with all tunes composed in the first three decades of the century. I imagine some of this was impelled by royalty considerations, but the arranger did have a taste for the real oldies. His previous LP for Vik was music by Stephen Foster and his 19th century contemporaries.

Siravo of course updated the material, turning the "Twelfth Street Rag" into a rhumba, and using an R&B motif to intro "Margie." (I might note that he then turns that figure into a riff that is suspiciously similar to Kenyon Hopkins's famous theme from the film The Strange One, which came out a few months before "Swing Hi" was taped.) Otherwise, you will hear many echoes of Siravo's big-band background, including one arrangement that sounds a lot like a Benny Goodman recording with Charlie Christian that I can't place.

As usual I've included a run-down of personnel where known. Soloists are not noted, but my guess is you are hearing (among others) Buck Clayton on trumpet, Boomie Richman on tenor, Toots Mondello on alto, and Buddy Weed on piano. Terry Snyder is on vibes, and is probably also the xylophone player on "Twelfth Street Rag."

One final note: the title "Siravo Swing Session" predates "Sinatra's Swingin' Session!!!" by a few years. Somewhat ironic, since half of the Sinatra LP (arranged by the irreproachable Nelson Riddle) was a remake of the "Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra" album that Siravo arranged for Columbia. That was probably not lost on Siravo, who by that time was on the outs with the Voice. (See this good article on the arranger.)