Brahms from De Vito and Baldovino

Brahms is one of my favorites, but his music has appeared here much too infrequently. So I thought I would make amends by this quick post of an excellent performance of the composer's Double Concerto. The distinguished soloists are the violinist Gioconda de Vito (1907-94) and cellist Amadeo Baldovino (1916-98). Rudolf Schwarz (1905-94) conducts the wonderful Philharmonia Orchestra in this 1952 recording.

Gioconda de Vito

Of the soloists, de Vito is the better known, although to call her famous might be stretching things. She is, however, renowned among violin aficionados, and her records sell for hundreds of dollars - or did at one time. Born in Italy, she moved to Britain after the war, where she had a very successful career until her 1961 retirement. 

De Vito had a narrow repertoire concentrating on 19th century composers and earlier. Among more modern music, she apparently performed only the concerto by Ildebrando Pizzetti, which she premiered.

Amadeo Baldovino

Baldovino was a talented performer, known primarily for his work with the Italian String Trio and the Trio di Trieste. As a soloist, he recorded Bach, Boccherini and Haydn. Born in Egypt, Baldovino was resident in Italy for most of his life. He first gained notice for his playing following a 1951 performance of this same concerto, also with de Vito but with Malcolm Sargent conducting.

Rudolf Schwarz by Louis Kahan

On this occasion, the conductor is Rudolf Schwarz, who was born in Austria. He emigrated to the UK after the war, after being held prisoner in a concentration camp. In Britain, he was successively conductor of the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the BBC Symphony and the Northern Sinfonia.

HMV recorded the concerto in perhaps the greatest recording locale of all time, London's Kingsway Hall, known for its glorious resonance. There is a little too much of that glory in the sound here, but not enough to detract from a enjoyable performance by all involved (although the central Andante becomes quite a leisurely stroll in their hands).

This recording comes from a lossless needle drop found on Internet Archive and cleaned up by me. The original was on UK HMV, but this transfer is from a US RCA Victor pressing, issued during the short time when Victor was the HMV licensee in the States.

Cellist Joseph Schuster in Schumann, Bruch and 'J.C. Bach'

Joseph Schuster (1903-69) was an exceptional cellist who was neglected by the record companies. To my knowledge, these are his only solo recordings with orchestra. [Correction: I'm told he also recorded Boccherini and Tartini concertos with Jonel Perlea.]

Schuster, born in Constantinople,  achieved prominence as the first cellist of Furtwängler's Berlin Philharmonic from 1929-34. He moved to the US after the Nazi ascension, becoming the leader of the New York Philharmonic cello section. He embarked on a solo career in 1944.

Joseph Schuster

Schuster moved to Los Angeles in 1947, where he came to the attention of film composer Franz Waxman (1906-67). The latter had formed the Los Angeles Orchestral Society in 1947, eventually recording two classical LPs for Capitol and one for US Decca as a conductor. Schuster never appeared in concert with Waxman's orchestra, suggesting that it was Capitol that brought the soloist and conductor together. The cellist was to record a second Capitol LP in 1953, Rachmaninoff with pianist Leonard Pennario.

Franz Waxman

This, the first of Waxman's Capitol LPs, dates from December 1952, and offers two standard items from the cello/orchestral repertory, and one unusual piece. The major work is Schumann's Cello Concerto, a gorgeous creation that here benefits from Schuster's golden, burnished tone and eloquent approach. Some find him emotionally cool; I think his style is ideal.

The Schumann is complemented by another treasurable cello work, Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei of 1880, which again finds an expressive advocate in Schuster.

The final work is announced as a Cello Concerto in A minor by J.C. Bach, supposedly found in the effects of Camille Saint-Saëns by Henri Casadesus, and introduced by Schuster to the US concert halls. Even back then there was some doubt as to its provenance. High Fidelity reviewer Paul Affelder guessed that Casadesus had a hand in composing it. It turns out Casadesus had both hands in it, and these days it is presented as a Henri Casadesus concerto "in the style of J.C. Bach." Also, the work was published as a viola concerto, but neither Schuster nor Capitol make mention of this fact. Regardless, it is an attractive anachronism that is an effective foil to the Bruch and Schumann works, and the cellist is again a persuasive proponent.

Such faux antiquities had a vogue in the early decades of the last century. Another example is a Toccata supposedly by the 17th century composer Girolamo Frescobaldi that turned out to be the work of 20th century cellist Gaspar Cassadó. It was recorded in 1940 as a Frescobaldi composition by Hans Kindler with the National Symphony, and can be found here.

1948 Musical America ad

Capitol's recording is kind to the soloist, while seemingly indifferent to the orchestra, which is set in a boxy acoustic. I have added an ambient stereo effect to help address the cramped sonics. Ambient stereo usually has little to offer, but here it does lend a bit of space to the orchestral sound without altering the mix.

Waxman's only other Capitol recording with the Los Angeles Orchestral Society involved settings of love duets from Romeo and Juliet by Gounod and Tchaikovsky-Taneyev. I have the record and will transfer it later on. The Waxman-LA recording on Decca was offered here years ago and is still available. It couples works by Lukas Foss and Waxman himself. 

Also available here on this blog is an LP of Waxman conducting his music for the 1946 movie Humoresque. The record features Isaac Stern in several arrangements, and Oscar Levant in a Tristan und Isolde concerto that Wagner never contemplated.

Schuster recorded a fair amount of chamber music for Vox, along with the Brahms double concerto and Beethoven triple concerto. This is his first appearance on the blog.

The download includes reviews from The Gramophone, The New Records, Saturday Review and New York Times, along with the High Fidelity article mentioned above.

Spade Cooley's Complete Columbia Recordings

Donnell Clyde ("Spade") Cooley (1910-69) remains one of the best known exponents of the Western swing genre, even though his greatest successes, both artistically and commercially, came early in his career and spanned only a few years.

Way back in the first few months of this blog I posted Cooley's sole Columbia LP, Sagebrush Swing, which captured some of his band's finest work during its 1944-46 peak. Recently reader dave_bruce asked me to repost those files. Instead, I decided to expand upon that old effort for two reasons - one, I couldn't find the originals, and two, Sagebrush Swing is not entirely characteristic of Cooley's Columbia output. 

So today I am presenting all the Cooley Columbias, 24 in all, from his first hit, "Shame on You," through to his departure for RCA Victor at the beginning of 1947. These are mainly collated from lossless needle-drops found on Internet Archive and refurbished by me. They include two recordings with Dinah Shore and one Columbia master only issued on V-Disc.

The Cooley Prehistory

Western swing is generally considered to be a branch of country music, but its name also conveys two other influences. First, it is "Western" because it was produced by musicians who lived in the West, primarily California, with the best of them also appearing in Western films. And it was "swing" because it reflected the swing music of the time. The great Western bands - Cooley's among them - played for dancers, just as the city swing bands did. Some people believe that Cooley's promoter popularized the term "Western swing."

The first, best and remarkably talented Cooley ensemble was an outgrowth of singer-actor Jimmy Wakely's band, which was resident at the Venice Pier near Los Angeles and popular with dancers. At some point in 1942, Jimmy wanted to add horns to his band, but the dance hall management said no. So Wakely left the band in the hands of fiddler Cooley, and went off to make cowboy films for Universal.

The band that appeared at Venice Pier featured many of the leading musicians who would record with Cooley, as shown in the 1942 photo above. Among them were vocalist Tex Williams, guitarist-vocalist Smokey Rogers, and accordionist Pedro De Paul. The lone woman in the band was vocalist Ella Mae Evans, whom Cooley would eventually marry, and would murder 20 years later.

The 1944-5 Recordings and Instant Success

By 1944, the band's local renown had led to a recording contract with Columbia Records, which initially released Cooley's 78s on its OKeh label. The bandleader's first session yielded his all-time greatest hit - "Shame on You," with a vocal from the resonant baritone of Tex Williams and harmony from Smokey Rogers.

Rogers, who already had a serviceable nickname, was identified on the label as "Oakie." It's not clear where the latter name came from; Rogers was from Tennessee. Later on, he would make records under the name Smokey (Buck) Rogers. Also odd is that Rogers recorded a competing version of "Shame on You" for Four Star.

The solos on the famous OKeh record are by the sterling steel guitarist Joaquin Murphey and the underrated guitarist Johnny Weis, a Charlie Christian disciple.

Joaquin Murphey and Johnny Weis

All Cooley's early records feature Tex Williams, who was heavily influenced by Bob Wills' singer Tommy Duncan. Their mellow style would in turn be reflected in such later artists as Ray Price and Johnny Cash. 

Cooley wrote or co-wrote most of the band's songs, including "Shame on You." He collaborated at times with Rogers, Weis and DePaul, as well as other writers. The songs generally concerned themselves with the standard country topics, as indicated by their titles - "Forgive Me One More Time," "I Guess I've Been Dreaming Again," "I've Taken All I'm Gonna Take from You," "A Pair of Broken Hearts," "Troubled Over You," "You'll Rue the Day," and so on.

The band's only unissued side from this period was the war-themed "Hari Kari," a jaunty number that invited the then-foe Japanese to disembowel themselves. Both the subject and the presentation are tasteless and the song would not be issued to the public, mostly because it was recorded just a few weeks before V-J Day. It was, however, dispatched to the troops via V-Disc 841, and I've included it in the collection. The band's only other V-Disc was a reissue of its "Three Way Boogie," discussed below.

Another Hit and a Session with Dinah

Cooley's second hit was a cover version of "Detour," written by steel guitarist Paul Westmoreland and recorded with vocalist Jimmy Walker in early December 1945. (I suspect that the title was inspired by that year's film noir of the same name.) Within a month, Cooley was in Columbia's KNX Hollywood studios for a remake. The song perfectly suited Williams, backed on vocals by Rogers and bassist Deuce Spriggins. (Spriggins was another fellow who had many names - the label calls him "Arkie.")

KNX

Cooley's next session was with Dinah Shore, then at the height of her popularity. Shore was versatile, so Columbia had her cover everything from blues to Betty Hutton songs. Here she takes on Cooley's "Heartaches, Sadness and Tears" and Irving Berlin's "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," from the then current show Annie Get Your Gun. Dinah, as was her habit, charmed her way through both numbers, but they would have been better left to Tex Williams or Ethel Merman. respectively.

Dinah made your worries melt away

Finally, Some Hot Instrumentals

When Cooley's usual aggregation entered the studio on May 3, 1946, they had not yet recorded an instrumental, even though such numbers surely would have been a mainstay of their band book. So, after dispatching the Tex Williams vocal "I Can't Help the Way You Feel," the group launched into four instrumental sides that would eventually find their way onto the Sagebrush Swing album. That 10-incher contained only one vocal, Spade's big hit "Shame on You."

The first instrumental to be recorded was "Three Way Boogie," in which the guitars, accordion and fiddles display section writing similar to the way trumpets, saxes and trombones were deployed in a conventional swing band. This propulsive piece - one of the best records of the swing era - was co-written by Weis, Murphey and accordionist George Bamby (spelled Bamley on the label and Barmby in the discography).

The other instrumentals are as enjoyable - "Oklahoma Stomp," "Cow Bell Polka" and "Steel Guitar Rag."

Pedro DePaul

Cooley's next Columbia session was in June 1946, split between Williams vocals and instrumentals, including the superb "Spadella" and "Swingin' the Devil's Dream." The latter was the band's exciting take on a traditional tune, here attributed to Cooley and Pedro DePaul.

That was the end of the Columbia contract and Cooley's greatest period. By the beginning of 1947, the bandleader had left Columbia for RCA Victor, most of the musicians had departed to form Tex Williams' Western Caravan, and one of the great Western swing bands was no more.

As Cooley had done, Tex and his crew met with immediate success in the recording studio. In March 1947, the band recorded Merle Travis' "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," which became a massive country hit for Capitol. Playing on the record were many of the former Cooley musicians - Johnny Weis, Smokey Rogers, Deuce Spriggins and Pedro DePaul among them.

Cooley, Williams et al on Screen

Cooley, Williams and several of the other musicians may have spent as much time making movies as records. Their output included both Soundies and even more frequently, appearances and even lead roles in the inexpensive Westerns that were so much a part of big-screen fare back then.

Cooley himself had appeared on film as far back as 1938 as a member of Walt Shrum and His Colorado Hillbillies. His own band's first featured appearance seems to have been in the Joe E. Brown-Judy Canova film Chatterbox in 1943. In 1944, Spade, Tex and the band were seen in the Soundie "Take Me Back to Tulsa," appropriating the Bob Wills hit. This clip features Murphey, DePaul and a terrific Weis solo; also, for some reason yodeler Carolina Cotton pretends to play bass throughout the piece.

More of Bob Wills' repertoire can be seen in an "Ida Red" clip, again with Murphey and Weis starring. Carolina Cotton provides a solo yodel, this time leaving the bass playing to Deuce Spriggins.

The Cooley contingent made a 10-minute short for Warner Bros. in 1945, "King of Western Swing," with featured vocals from Rogers, Spriggins, Williams, and another Carolina Cotton yodel. Also in 1945, Universal shorts presented Rogers singing "My Chickashay Gal" (which he later recorded for Capitol) and the unknown Patricia McMahon doing Tex's specialty "Shame on You" with the Cooley band.

Finally, I'd recommend a version of "Miss Molly" from the 1945 Three Stooges feature, Rockin' in the Rockies. This has Tex, Oakie, Arkie, Weis, DePaul and even harpist Spike Featherstone, who appeared on several Cooley records about this time, all in prime form.

I mentioned that Western swing musicians found a natural home in the Western programmers of the time. Tex Williams had his own series for Universal, featuring Smokey Rogers and Deuce Spriggins.

Carolina Cotton and Deuce Spriggins

Meanwhile, Spriggins (often spelled Spriggens by the studios) was teamed with Carolina Cotton for a number of film appearances.

Some of the musicians had active recording careers as leaders. Beside Williams with his many records for Capitol and other labels, Spriggins had a number of solo Capitol singles, and Smokey Rogers did fairly well with Four Star, Capitol, Coral and other companies, including this 1950 gem with Ann Jones.

The Later Years

Cooley had his own program on Los Angeles television from 1948-56. He made a large number of records for RCA, then moved on to Decca in 1951. He made his final LP for Raynote in 1959.

The sad story of Spade's later life is well known - convicted of murdering his wife Ella Mae in 1961, then dying of a heart attack backstage at a benefit concert in 1969, shortly before he was to be paroled.

Sing a Song of Stainless Steel

I couldn't resist the alliteration in the headline above, but in truth there aren't any vocals on this record - although it does "sing the praises" of stainless steel.

What we have here is a 1960 promotional LP issued by Republic Steel. It spends 15 minutes telling the listener about the glories and many uses of stainless steel. Republic  thought that manufacturers were sleeping on the potential of its product - and thereby on its potential for steel company profits.

On one side, the LP presents the soundtrack of a Republic film called "The New World of Stainless Steel." The other has the score from the film sans narration and sound effects. Presumably the promo flick would be projected at trade shows and other sales events, and the LP given away at the same time. I imagine the records also found their way into the hands of Republic's personnel.

By the way, I have no idea what the object on the cover above is supposed to represent. Looks like a rocket-powered snail.

Republic's film showed how stainless steel could be used to make boxy office buildings and dangerous sculptures

The Chicago Film Archive has rescued the film from obscurity; you can see it via Internet Archive or the Film Archive's Facebook page.

The movie and LP came from Wilding Studios, a major, Chicago-based producer of industrial films, shows, exhibits and ads. Wilding is no longer in business, but at the time was cranking out dozens of such industrial productions every year.

Lloyd Norlin

One of Wilding's leading lights was composer Lloyd Norlin, who was its music director from 1950-58. Norlin contributed the music to this film and many others. I suspect that the music heard on this LP was actually a stock music bed that Norlin penned for Wilding's library.

If you have seen any promotional films from the period, you will know what kind of music to expect - peppy, upbeat sounds rooted in the big band era. Much if not all of it involves a brass choir and rhythm section. (Expect to hear a lot of trombones.) Even though the music was not intended to be an end in itself, it does make for pleasant listening.

Norlin was a very good tunesmith. I've been able to locate a few other pieces by him to include in the download, as described below.

The Young Adults (Hamm's Beer)

Norlin wrote his song "The Young Adults" for the 1965 Hamm's Beer centennial meeting, memorialized on an elusive souvenir LP  - "Hamm's '65 - Bursting with freshness!" - that I would love to own. Since I don't, we'll have to make do with this highly enjoyable number, which is courtesy of a long-ago post on WFMU's site. It exhorts Hamm's distributors and sales people to get out there and sell more to young people, who apparently weren't drinking enough beer.

The J's with Jamie

The artists are unidentified, but it's virtually certain that they are the J's with Jamie. That group was active in Chicago at that time, and the lead voice of Jamie Silvia is all but unmistakable. Checking the back cover of the LP, the J's (there called the Jays) and Jamie were given as the vocalists on several of the ad tracks, although not this piece, which was intended for the distributors' ears, not the consumers'.

The J's with Jamie are favorites of mine - they have appeared on two LPs that are available here. Jamie with her previous group, the Mello-Larks, was featured in this post.

An Academy Award Nominee

One of Lloyd Norlin's greatest successes was his first - he wrote a song called "Out of the Silence" that somehow made it into the 1941 film All-American Co-Ed, where it was introduced by Frances Langford. The tune was nominated for an Academy Award that year.

It's a good song, even though it never was commercially recorded to my knowledge. I've included the audio from Langford's film performance in the download. It's derived from a YouTube clip.

It's not clear why Norlin didn't get more opportunities in Hollywood. He spent almost all his working career in Evanston, IL, where he had a piano studio and where he was an instructor at Northwestern University, in addition to his commercial work.

Northwestern and 'To the Memories'

Students at Northwestern have been mounting a musical or musical review annually since 1929. Norlin was involved with the show during his time on campus; his notable contribution was the song "To the Memories," which traditionally concludes the program, and has become a well-known school song.

The Waa-Mu Show, as it is called (it was founded by the Women's Athletic Association and the Men's Union), has a remarkable roster of alumni. The 1945 show, for instance, featured Paul Lynde, Charlotte Rae and Cloris Leachman.

The download includes a 1954 recording of "To the Memories" by the Northwestern Band. This was cleaned up from a noisy transfer on YouTube.

This post is the latest in a very occasional series presenting industrial promotional records - the most recent involved Les Baxter selling AC Spark Plugs; other posts have included records extolling the products of Budweiser, Schlitz, Westinghouse, Ford, Edsel, Yolande lingerie and Warner bras.

Tor Mann Conducts Rangström and Larsson

Tor Mann

We've had a few vintage recordings conducted by the fine Swedish maestro Tor Mann recently, courtesy of Maris Kristapsons, and today I'm adding one from my own collection. It is the first symphony by Ture Rangström (1884-1947), made just a few years after the composer's death. As a bonus, I've added the Little Suite for Strings by Lars-Erik Larsson (1908-86) in another early Mann recording. 

Rangström - Symphony No. 1, "August Strindberg in Memoriam"

Ture Rangström

Ture Rangström, a Swedish composer, conductor and critic, wrote four symphonies in common with many other works, and was particularly known for his songs. All his symphonies have been issued at least a few times, but I believe this 1951 reading with the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra was the first recording of Rangström's symphonic work. (The orchestra is today called the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.)

That's the composer, not Johnny Depp, on the cover

The composer completed the work in 1914, dedicating it to the memory of the author August Strindberg, who had died a few years before. The composer provided a title for each movement - "Ferment," "Legend," "Troll Rune" and "Battle" - but nevertheless disavowed any program for the work. As the titles may suggest, however, it is a dark-hued, atmospheric composition. The work has been described more as a series of romantic tone poems than a true symphony, but however it might be categorized, it is impressive and expressive.

The location of the 1951 recording is not known, although Decca discographer Philip Stuart suggests it may have been the Stockholm Concert Hall. Whatever the locale, the sound was titled toward the bass, making the work seem even more brooding than the composer may have intended. In his Gramophone review, Lionel Salter complained that "the tuba's every note booms through while the strings lack weight." I've adjusted the sound, and the result is much better balanced, if hardly transparent.

As always, Mann conveys the essence of the work, while never drawing attention to his clever baton wizardry. The Stockholm orchestra plays well, although the attacks are not always in sync.

The download includes contemporary reviews from The Gramophone, New York Times, Saturday Review and The New Records.

Lars-Erik Larsson - Little Suite for Strings

Lars-Erik Larsson

The music of Lars-Erik Larsson has appeared here before in the form of his modernist Violin Concerto, in its first recording, with soloist André Gertler. The Little Suite for Strings, an earlier work, is in the neo-classical style.

In this work, Mann leads the Gothenburg Radio Orchestra. As was the case with the Stockholm ensemble, the Gothenburg orchestra was both a radio and concert entity, switching names as appropriate. 

Mann was the conductor of both ensembles at various times. He led the Gothenburg Symphony from 1925-37 - in succession to Rangström, who apparently wasn't much of a conductor, if the orchestra's website is to be believed. Mann conducted the radio orchestra from 1937 until 1939, when he ran afoul of the board.

Larsson published the Little Suite in 1934, and Mann programmed it that same year with the Gothenburg Symphony; it may well have been the work's premiere.

This recording dates from 1941, and despite the falling out with the orchestra's board, was made with the Gothenburg Radio Orchestra. The Swedish Radio issued the work on its own label, Radiotjänst (Radio Service). I remastered the recording from 78s found on Internet Archive, and the sound is good for the time.

Both these recordings are now remastered in ambient stereo.