Paul Whiteman in the 20s, Plus Robison Collected

Paul Whiteman

Paul Whiteman has been heard from several times on this blog, mainly in service of George Gershwin's compositions.

Whiteman was an important musical force even outside of his Gershwin advocacy. He was very popular throughout the 1920s, and I thought some of you might enjoy hearing a small selection of his recordings from the Jazz Age, when he was promoted as "the King of Jazz." All transfers come from 78s in my collection.

There is little here that we would recognize as jazz at this late date, but keep in mind that at the time the term "jazz" was merely another word for the pop music that became popular in the wake of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's breakthrough 1917 recordings.

Whiteman made his first recordings in August 1920 with his "Ambassador Orchestra," so named because the bandleader was then appearing at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City. One of the songs Victor took down in those first sessions - "Whispering" - became an immediate sensation, and its flip side - "The Japanese Sandman" - was almost as popular. It's instructive to note that Whiteman, who soon would be earnestly trying to "make a lady out of jazz" had his first success with what amounted to a novelty record. "Whispering" featured what Victor called a "bosun's-pipe-slide-trombone-whistle instrument."

The two sides have a much smoother sound than the raucous ODJB, although "Whispering" does include a bit of the ensemble improvisation that is associated with the ODJB and the Dixieland sound.

By the time of the next record in our selection, "Homesick" from September 1922, Whiteman's ensemble had increased from nine to 12 musicians. They included trumpeter Henry Busse, clarinetist Ross Gorman and pianist Ferde Grofé, who arranged the three songs we have covered so far.

The Whiteman band in 1922. Seated from left: Mike Pingitore, Sam Lewis, Tommy Gott, George Unger, Henry Busse, Ferde Grofé, Hale Byers, Morris Speinson, Donald Clark, Herman Hand, Ross Gorman. Standing: Harold McDonald, Jack Barsby, Paul Whiteman, Phil Ohman.

Our next side is "Sittin' in a Corner" from September 1923, the final acoustically recorded performance in this set. Before 1925, musicians huddled around a recording horn, which fed a recording stylus. Thereafter, an electrical system using microphones came into use. This system's much wider frequency response produced dramatically better fidelity.

The first electrical recordings at hand are "No More Worryin'" and "Valencia" from March 1926. As was common practice, Whiteman used outside vocalists on many of his records of the time. The vocal on "Valencia" is by Franklyn Baur, one of the most prolific recording artists of the time. "No More Worryin'" features Austin "Skin" Young.

Young also appears on "Cheerie Beerie Bee," which was coupled with "Just a Memory," both coming from August 1927 sessions. By this time, the Whiteman ensemble boasted the Dorsey brothers and Matty Malneck, who arranged both of these numbers. You might have guessed that "Cheerie Beerie Bee" is actually "Ciribiribin," which was to become a big hit for Harry James in 1940. "Ciribiribin" was an oldie even in the 1920s - it dated back to 1898. The song was a waltz as written and in Whiteman's version, but James played it in four-four time.

We move on to May 1929, by which time Whiteman had assembled perhaps his most famous band. Its 32 members included cornetists Bix Beiderbecke and Mannie Klein, saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer, and the Rhythm Boys vocal group, starring Bing Crosby. Bill Challis was the arranger. The songs from this period are "I'm in Seventh Heaven" with the Rhythm Boys, and "Little Pal" with Crosby. Both songs were from a soupy Al Jolson talkie called Say It With Songs. Songwriters DeSylva, Brown and Henderson cloned the hyper-sentimental and highly successful "Sonny Boy" of 1928 to come up with "Little Pal."

By the 1929 session, Whiteman had moved from Victor to Columbia, who favored him with the colorful picture label above.

Record historian Tim Gracyk writes of Whiteman, "[His] most impressive records were those of the late 1920s when the orchestra - far larger than that of the early 1920s - included such outstanding musicians as Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, and Bing Crosby. But Whiteman's influence was arguably greatest in the early 1920s when his group helped establish - more so than Victor predecessor Joseph C. Smith - an orchestral sound as standard for the performance of popular tunes for the purpose of dancing." See Gracyk's article if you are interested in this period of Whiteman's recordings.

Finally, just a note that I have collected David Federman's terrific five-part Willard Robison anthology into one file, which includes David's illuminating notes. See the comments for a link.

More Robison and Gershwin, Plus Rodziński and Harry James

Our friends David Federman and 8H Haggis have been busy again, with more treasures coming our way.

David has added three volumes to his Willard Robison retrospective, covering recordings from the 1930s through the 1950s devoted to this poetic songwriter. The artists involved include Mildred Bailey, Bea Wain, Fats Waller, Bing Crosby, Dick Todd, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller and Tex Beneke, Tommy Dorsey and Jack Leonard, Stan Kenton and Gene Howard, Randy Brooks, Charlie Barnet and Kay Starr, Ella Logan, Artie Shaw and Martha Tilton, Tony Pastor, Gene Autry, Dolph Hewitt, Phil Harris, Rosemary Clooney, Jimmy Dean, Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman and Peggy Lee. You can find all three collections plus David's notes in the comments to the post immediately below. Please note that his links will only be good for a few days, so hurry. I will collect all these recordings into one download at a later date.

Awhile back David prepared an anthology of Rhapsody in Blue recordings, all but one released within a decade of the work's 1924 premiere. To me, the highlights are Oscar Levant's first attempt at the piece, dating from 1927 and helmed by NBC orchestra leader Frank Black, and two deconstructions of the piece from the jaunty Leroy Smith and (once again) Willard Robison bands. David mentioned that a few of the sides were in less-than-pristine condition, so I have taken the perhaps unforgivable liberty of remastering them. A link is in the comments to this post.

Also in a Gershwin mood was 8H Haggis. He has contributed a set from the Symphony of the Air conducted by the now-obscure Alfonso D'Artega including An American in Paris, a somewhat altered version of the Porgy & Bess suite, plus a peculiar Rhapsody in Blue that opens with a piano solo from "Suzanne Auber" (probably Sondra Bianca), joined halfway by the orchestra. He also uploaded a French Columbia LP of the Rhapsody and the Three Preludes from Jose Iturbi and the Concerts Colonne Orchestra. You can find those in the comments to this post.

8H also took his tools to my transfer of Artur Rodziński's New York recording of An American in Paris, with the aim of counteracting the compression and peak discoloration on the recording. This effort can be found in the comments to my original post.

Two additional 8H contributions: Rodziński's long-unavailable version of Wolf-Ferrari's Secret of Susanna Overture (in the comments to this post) and Howard Hanson's Samuel Barber LP, containing the Symphony No. 1, Adagio for Strings, Essay No. 1, and School for Scandal Overture. Go to the comments of this post for the Barber.

As always, the 8H Haggis uploads are only available for a limited time.

I have one reupload of my one - my friend Mel contributed Harry James' Soft Lights and Sweet Trumpet LP many years ago, and I have now remastered it and reupped it here.

I might add that I do occasionally transfer records myself, and you can look forward to a superb Marian Anderson LP of Brahms and Mahler in the days ahead.

Celebrating Willard Robison

Willard Robison

"I have come to think that Willard Robison, whose birthday it is today (9/18), is the Thomas Wolfe of the 20th century American song. So many of his songs are about a longing for a past or a home that cannot be reclaimed. This affinity with Wolfe makes him, for me, the agrarian George Gershwin--as prolific as a song writer, as gifted as a composer and arranger." This is David Federman's eloquent description of Robison's artistry on the composer's 124th birthday.

If you have any affinity for the so-called Great American Songbook, you likely are familiar with Robison's songs, if not his name. He wrote "A Cottage for Sale," "Old Folks" and "Don't Smoke in Bed," among many others.

To honor his memory, David has put together a collection of early recordings of Robison compositions, along with helpful notes, while promising more to come. His selections include renditions by Fletcher Henderson, Charlie Barnet, Paul Whiteman, Bix Biederbecke, Bing Crosby, Nat Shilkret, Jimmy Noone, Smith Ballew, Phil Spitalny and Robison himself. You can find the link and David's descriptions in the comments to the "Historic Gershwin Recordings" post below. Please note that these recordings will be available only for the next week via David's upload, although I will reupload them if there is demand.

I am happy to contribute to the celebration by posting an LP that David requested because it contains a couple of Robison songs not otherwise recorded. Teresa Brewer's 1964 LP Moments to Remember is mostly an homage to the songwriter. Among the better-known works, it includes "A Cottage for Sale," "Old Folks," "Don't Smoke in Bed," and "Guess I'll Go Back Home This Summer." It also features the lesser-known "Moonlight, Mississippi" and the even lesser-known "I See Wheatfields in the Moonlight" and "Old Brownstone in Brooklyn."

Brewer is far from my favorite singer, but she does well by the rare songs and the others are listenable. The generic Alan Lorber arrangements and indifferent recording quality don't help matters, but don't hurt much either.

For contrast, I've added the classic Peggy Lee recording of "Don't Smoke in Bed," which she commissioned from Robison in 1948. It's been said that Lee and her then-husband, Dave Barbour, actually wrote most of the song, but I wonder about that. It's a startlingly bleak piece in Lee's reading, tilting into melodrama in the accompaniment. Nonetheless, it displays the depths that Teresa Brewer doesn't reach, whatever her merits.

Finally, please don't miss the two Robison LPs that have been shared here. Willard Robison's Deep River Music, with Johnny Mercer and Loulie Jean Norman on Capitol Records, can be found here. And on Coral Records, Willard Robison and His Deep River Music can be found in the comments to this post. (I'll also include direct links in the comments below.)

Thanks to David for this great contribution. He also has prepared a Gershwin compilation, which I will feature soon, along with additional Gershwin delights from the indefatigable 8H Haggis. I will compile all these in a few days, I hope.

Historic Gershwin Recordings

I know what you're thinking - what, another Gershwin record? But some of you may not have heard these, the original versions of several famous compositions. So here they are for those who think too much Gershwin is not enough.

This compilation contains the first recordings of the Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and the Three Preludes. Also included are Gershwin's piano versions of songs from the shows Oh, Kay! and Tip-Toes.

Ferde Grofé, George Gershwin, producer S.L. (Roxy) Rothafel, Paul Whiteman

Gershwin and Paul Whiteman recorded Rhapsody in Blue just a few months after the February 1924 Aeolian Hall concert that introduced the work. (By the way, Aeolian Hall was in a still-existing building on 42nd Street across from Bryant Park. I didn't know that until recently, even though I worked a block away for many years.)

Whiteman called his concert "An Experiment in Modern Music," concocting an unwieldy program starting off with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's "Livery Stable Blues" and ending up with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. Gershwin's hurriedly composed Rhapsody stood out for its originality and flair, becoming so famous that Whiteman soon took the whole program on tour.

The recorded version is much abridged, but the Rhapsody's quality is strikingly evident even in this acoustic recording with its constricted frequency response. Ross Gorman's famous opening clarinet glissando is just as outrageous sounding today as it was then. Today's clarinetists use a much smoother tone quality than Gorman produces, and few of them would put forth his braying and laughing effects with the same gusto. It's said that at rehearsal Gorman inserted those effects as a joke on Gershwin. The composer actually liked them and wanted them included in the concert. I wonder if their intent was to mock the "Livery Stable Blues." The point of the concert was to show that the ODJB's style of music had been supplanted by Whiteman's smoother, more dignified type of jazz music. Whiteman had his first hit in 1920, and in a few years had become massively popular. He had already literally been crowned the "King of Jazz." That ceremony had taken place as a publicity stunt upon the the band's return from a 1923 European tour. To the general public, "jazz" had become the modern pop music that Whiteman's dance band purveyed, in succession to the ODJB's raucous sound.

An American in Paris was Gershwin's third major concert success, following the Rhapsody and the Concerto in F. Commissioned in 1928 by conductor Walter Damrosch of the New York Symphony, the first recording was in 1929 with an orchestra led by the immensely prolific Nat Shilkret, then Victor's director of light music. The recording session was not without its difficulties. Supposedly Shilkret banned the meddling Gershwin from the studio until the conductor realized he needed a celeste player for the score. At that point the composer was asked to return. Or so the story goes. It strikes me as a good tale that is highly unlikely.

Several important Gershwin piano solos make up the rest of the selections. The Three Preludes, from a 1928 session in London, are dispatched more briskly (and somewhat less accurately) than the the recording by the composer's acolyte, Oscar Levant, which can be heard via this post. Speaking of brisk, Gershwin hustles through eight songs from his shows Oh, Kay! and Tip-Toes in a bracing fashion - even the torch song "Someone to Watch Over Me" rattles by quickly. In his liner notes, Gershwin expert Edward Jablonski avers that the quick tempos adopted in these 1926 recordings were designed for dancers. (Jablonski must not have tried dancing to them.) Gershwin's metronomic manner likely reflects the ragtime tradition that he grew up with. The young composer's first success in fact was a rag. Still and all, his pianism is winning, even though listening to the eight songs all at once can be tiring. The selection concludes with one of my personal favorites, "When Do We Dance?"

I transferred these items from a indifferently produced LP reissue of variable sound quality. After some refurbishing, Rhapsody in Blue comes up very well considering its acoustic origins. The recording horn did not reproduce any frequencies above 3 kHz, blunting the ring of Gershwin's piano. But the pungent effects produced by Whiteman's fine musicians come through clearly.

The balance of the program was recorded electrically and has a wider range. An American in Paris was not especially well balanced, however. Although Gershwin composed the piece for a full orchestra, and Victor grandly promoted its "Victor Symphony Orchestra" on the label, the recorded evidence is that the string complement is decidedly underpowered. The early going sounds like a concerto for taxi horn and xylophone, with the stringed instruments barely audible. I have added a small amount of convolution reverberation to the mix so as to provide some air to the dead sound and resonance to the strings. The performance is otherwise quite good.

On the solo works, the sound of Gershwin's piano comes across well after some adjustments, although its tone is not entirely clean.

Despite my reservations about the sound, it's wonderful that these historic items are available to us today in such remarkable performances.

Kostelanetz Conducts Grofé and Kern, Plus Many Bonus Items

The recent post of Paul Whiteman recordings led to a lively discussion on the comments page, including  uploads of the Whiteman recordings of Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite and Mississippi Suite.

As that was transpiring, I ran across an Andre Kostelanetz LP in my collection with his take on the Mississippi Suite. This 10-inch album couples the 1946 recording of the Grofé work with Kosty's 1942 rendition of Jerome Kern's Mark Twain (Portrait for Orchestra). Both suites are notable contributions to the then-popular vein of musical Americana.

Ferde Grofé

The Mississippi Suite dates from 1925, and was the Grofé's first attempt at such an extended composition. Whiteman recorded his version in 1927, minus the first movement. Grofé later arranged the piece for a larger ensemble. This may be the first recording of that version, although I would not swear that Kostelanetz used the composer's own score. It is possible the conductor edited or even rearranged it.

The fourth section of the Mississippi Suite ("Mardi Gras") spawned a popular song in 1942 called "Daybreak," with lyrics by Harold Adamson. Tommy Dorsey had a hit with the tune, with a vocal by his boy singer of the period, Frank Sinatra. On my singles blog, I've uploaded another fine rendition, the 1955 version by Al Hibbler.

Cover of 78 set

Kostelanetz himself commissioned Kern's Mark Twain along with Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait and Virgil Thomson's Mayor LaGuardia Waltzes, introducing them during a 1942 Cincinnati Symphony concert. The Copland piece can be found on this blog in the Rodziński/New York recording. I don't think Thomson's ode to Fiorello has been recorded, and I've never heard it.

Mark Twain is an enjoyably melodious work. It's not clear who handled the orchestration, although the published version available from the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization was orchestrated by Amadeo De Filippo, who was a staff arranger for CBS and other media organizations during the mid-century years.

Jerome Kern

The LP sound is reasonably good for the Kern; better for the Grofé. [Note (May 2023): I've now rebalanced the Kern and mastered the files in ambient stereo. The sound is much improved.] The performances are splendid.

1943 Life Magazine ad

Bonus uploads

Now for a bonanza of bonus items, courtesy of our friend 8H Haggis. As before, the links below take you to one of my posts. Once there, look in the comments for 8H's commentary and a download link or links. Also as before, these are limited-time uploads, available for a month or less.

First we have the aforementioned Grofé Mississippi Suite in the historic but truncated Whiteman recording. LINK

Tchaikovsky's Hamlet and Glazunov's Stenka Razin, in classic performances conducted by blog favorite Constant Lambert. Also, From Arthur Bliss, his 1955 recording of the Colour Symphony, and his 1935-36 and 1957 performances of the suite from Things to Come. LINK

The famous recording of Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony under Rafael Kubelik. Plus a concert performance of Berwald's Sinfonie Singulière with Louis Lane and the Cleveland Orchestra. LINK

Stokowski's 1950 recording of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite with 8H's valiant attempt to fix its squashed dynamic range. LINK

Copland's El Salón México in both the live Toscanini-NBC broadcast of 1942 and Guido Cantelli's 1945 performance with the New York Philharmonic. Also, the underrated Walter Susskind conducting Morton Gould's Spirituals with the London Symphony. LINK

A Toscanini/NBC broadcast from 1945 with music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Vittorio Rieti, Paul Creston and Elie Siegmeister, plus interviews with Creston and Siegmeister. LINK

Early recordings from conductor Eugene Goossens: a suite from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, Balakirev's Islamey, Dvořák's Carnival Overture, Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, Massenet's Le Cid ballet music, Borodin's Polovtsian Dances and Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or suite. LINK

A notable 1962 broadcast recording of Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony from the Boston Symphony and Charles Munch. LINK

The classic mono recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and a fantastic performance of the Kodály Concerto for Orchestra, both from Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphians. LINK

Don Gillis' tone poem, Tulsa, in the interesting Remington recording led by H. Arthur Brown. LINK

Finally, in honor of the centenarian, a live 1949 performance of Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, with Lenny as pianist and the Boston Symphony under his mentor, Serge Koussevitzky. LINK

So much here - thanks 8H!