More New Year's Music, Plus New Items and Reups

Every year about this time, when the rest of you are busy with resolutions and revelries, I like to sink into my own little ritual and indulge a nasty viral infection. It's sort of a tradition around my place, as welcome and as comforting as being attacked by feral hogs.

And so, for the last week as I've been occupied by my physical miseries, I've had little time to inflict any musical miseries on you all. Today that changes. I have for you one additional collection of New Year's songs, two new/old transfers that have not appeared here before, and several reups. Details follow.

A Carpe Diem New Year's Eve

Just at about the time the bug hit me, David Federman graciously donated his latest collection to the comments page of my last post. While it was themed to New Year's Eve, the 35 well-chosen selections are beautifully timeless, I recommend them heartily - and let me clarify that I do not include his collection among the "miseries" threatened above.

As always, David ranges widely across pop music of the early- and mid-20th century. I noticed that he has included some favorite artists who have not appeared here before - folks such as Alice Faye, Lee Wiley, Ray McKinley, Hal Kemp and Milton Brown and His Brownies. Good stuff! The link is in the comments; David's notes are in the download.

Jack Sheldon

Trumpeter-vocalist-actor Jack Sheldon died late last year, and in remembrance I have uploaded one of his most elusive albums - The Cool World of Jack Sheldon, from 1969.

Sheldon is best known for television appearances as Merv Griffin's bandleader and on the 70s series Schoolhouse Rock, but his background was in the West Coast cool school. The LP on offer today was made during a time when music was changing rapidly, so it includes everything from "The Whiffenpoof Song" to the Turtles, Burt Bacharach, Randy Newman and other odds and ends. It ends up being less a collage than a hodge-podge, but it is distinguished by Sheldon's lyrical trumpet and gravelly vocals.

I transferred this one for Will Friedwald about 10 years ago but never uploaded it here. No scans on this one; sorry.

Link is in the comments.

This Is Kim (as Jeanne Eagles)

This 1957 LP is another transfer from a decade or more ago. I remember working on several soundtrack records featuring composer George Duning, but put this one aside because it didn't actually include much original music. For whatever reason, rather than producing a soundtrack LP, Decca decided to market a Kim Novak exploitation album in conjunction with her starring role in the Columbia biopic Jeanne Eagels, calling it This Is Kim (as Jeanne Eagels). The resulting album includes the theme from the film, a Duning tribute song for Novak, which shows up as a leitmotif throughout the album, and a bunch of easy-listening numbers including three Duke Ellington and two Ray Noble songs.

Poor Duning is identified only on the record label - Columbia music director Morris Stoloff has his name all over things, as was his wont.

Here too, the link is in the comments.

The Two Manhattan Towers

Oh, I know there were more than two Manhattan Tower LPs, but here we have the first two versions of Gordon Jenkins' popular suite, which I've reupped on request by loyal follower Kwork.

The original Manhattan Tower was a 16-minute piece that first came out in a 78 set in 1946. My transfer is from an early Decca LP reprint. That record also included the California suite that Jenkins wrote to Tom Adair's insipid lyrics. The download includes complete scans of the LP and 78 album covers and the 78 set's insert booklet. The wonderful radio actor Elliott Lewis is the protagonist, supported by Jenkins' wife Beverly Mahr.

In 1956, Capitol asked Jenkins to expand Manhattan Tower into a full-length LP, and in response Jenkins added some of the suite's best known excerpts - "Married I Can Always Get" and "Never Leave Me." Lewis and Mahr again take the lead roles, although Lewis is not as fresh as he had been 10 years earlier.

These records are available via the original posts - Decca and Capitol.

Art Hodes - Out of the Back Room

I am preparing a piece on pianist-singer Charles LaVere, and some of his work put me in mind of Art Hodes, who appeared on one of the first posts here. Hodes' Out of the Back Room, an early Blue Note LP, collected eight sides he made with a few Chicago-style groups in 1944-45.

The sound here was always a bit rough and not well reprocessed by Blue Note - I commented at the time that the added echo made the record sound more like "Out of the Bath Room" than "Out of the Back Room." I've now remastered things and the sound is presentable for the most part.

Again, find this one via the original post.