'Inside Sauter-Finegan' (and S-F Reups)

The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, circa 1954. Eddie Sauter is at the microphone.
The singers may be Anita Darian and Andy Roberts.

Fourteen years ago I posted four Sauter-Finegan Orchestra LPs and stopped there, although I have several others. Today we have a much delayed restart of the series - along with newly remastered versions of the S-F albums that have appeared here before.

Way back when, I offered the first and second S-F albums, recorded in 1952-53; the fourth LP, from 1953-54; and the Rolf Liebermann Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra, from late 1954. More about them below, along with a link to a collection of non-LP recordings.

But first, the new item.

Inside Sauter-Finegan

Today's post centers on the third S-F LP, Inside Sauter-Finegan, recorded in 1954. We might as well start the discussion with the first thing you see - the spectacular Jim Flora cover above, with caricatures of Bill Finegan and Eddie Sauter, who appear to have ingested a few musical instruments for lunch.

The arrangers were actually sober looking fellows such as you might have encountered at a local church service. They just happened to be two of the finest musicians of the day, whose music indeed sounded more like the Flora cover than the Metronome cover below.

Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan

Sauter and Finegan themselves provided extensive liner notes printed on three sides of the gatefold sleeve. For some reason known only to the producer, the notes on the pieces do not follow the order they appear on the LP. (Also, the type layout on the first page is all fouled up.) Enough griping; there is much good information here.

The title Inside Sauter-Finegan is designed to denote that the LP displays the individual talents of the musicians. Let me spotlight the soloists first; then I'll run down the rest of the numbers.

Nick Travis

The excellent trumpet player Nick Travis is featured on the Ralph Freed-Burton Lane perennial "How About You?", of Garland-Rooney fame, here called "How About Choo" for some reason. Travis is accompanied by a small ensemble selected from the band.

Bobby Nichols

Another trumpeter, Bobby Nichols, is heard in Bill Finegan's nocturne, "New York ... 4 A.M." The bandleaders commented, "Bobby has bushy red hair and looks like what most people think a trumpeter should look like." I dunno, he doesn't look a thing like Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie. Maybe Red Rodney.

Sonny Russo

Arthur Johnston and Johnny Burke didn't write "Pennies from Heaven" for Sonny Russo (it was for Bing in the film of the same name), but the trombonist does his best to make it his own on this recording, particularly in the spectacular cadenza.

Joe Venuto

Joe Venuto was the xylophone (I believe) soloist in "When Two Trees Fall in Love," which Sauter wrote for him. The bandleaders tagged Joe as a young man with "unlimited potential." He became a long-time studio percussionist. (There's a nice tribute to him here.)

Andy Roberts

Andy Roberts is the vocalist in Willard Robison's second-greatest hit, "Old Folks," written with Dedette Lee Hill. Roberts had excellent diction and a lovely voice, but may have been a touch too urbane for Robison's small-town ethos.

Also on this excellent LP are:

• Sousa's "The Thunderer," called "The 'Thundisbreak'" here, which adapted surprisingly well to the Sauter-Finegan manner.

• Bill Finegan called his "Finegan's Wake" a "mock wake." He writes, "This piece frowns - but if you look (or listen) closely you will see the twinkling eye beneath the frown." His words rearrange the features of the face, but you get the idea.

• "Four Horsemen" is a feature for Bobby Nichols, Nick Travis and lead trumpet Al Maiorca, along with Harvey Estrin on clarinet.

• The other vocalist on the record is Sally Sweetland, whom we recently featured here. Included in that post was "Autumn Leaves" from this LP, but I somehow missed her skillful vocalese contribution to "10,000 B.C.," which as Sauter himself notes, is at base stereotypical "Chinese" music.

• Finally, "September's Sorrow" is Sauter's attempt to "capture the forlorn quality of pleasure irretrievably lost."

LINK to Inside Sauter-Finegan

Reup - New Directions in Music

My original post combined the 10-inch version of the album with the four songs that were later added to make a 12-inch version.

The article includes a brief early history of the band. I wrote, "Although the popularity of the band didn't last, it did start off life with a promising record called 'Doodletown Fifers,' an arrangement of a Civil War tune that became the band's theme. This LP contains that song along with other pieces that are among Sauter-Finegan's best-remembered numbers - 'Moonlight on the Ganges,' 'April in Paris,' a fine arrangement of 'Azure-Te,' and their version of the Troika from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite, called 'Midnight Sleighride' here."

A newly remastered version of the LP in ambient stereo can be found via the original post here.

Reup - The Sound of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra

The band's second album was apparently slated to be another 10-incher, but was expanded to the 12-inch format late in the process by adding the bandleaders' "Extended Play Suite," which had appeared on an EP. To complete my post, old friend Ernie contributed the "Extended Play Suite, Vol. II," which did not appear on the album. 

From the original 2010 post: "The Sound of S-F, intended to appeal to the nascent hi-fi cult, was not designed to be a cohesive record. It offers up a potpourri of vocals, attempts to recreate the 'Doodletown Fifers' success, and even a rhythm and blues cover."

Notable are the three vocals by the great Joe Mooney, including the semi-hit "Nina Never Knew."

This LP also is newly redone in ambient stereo. The original post (and link) are here.

Reup - Concert Jazz

The Concert Jazz LP contains features for Joe Venuto, Nick Travis, Sally Sweetland and Andy Roberts (an elaborate take on "John Henry" that displays his acting ability). Also, Finegan riffs on Gershwin's Concerto in F. Vocalist Anita Darian is featured in the lengthy "Pictures from Sauter-Finegan Land," which has a narration by Roberts. It's a period piece that starts off "Busy, busy, busy highways," goes into generic bustling-city music, and proceeds from there to Vermont and other places.

You'll note that there is another Jim Flora cover on this album.

For some reason I wrote very little about Concert Jazz when I first offered it, so there's no sense sending you back to the original 2015 post. You can find the newly remastered version of the LP via the link below.

LINK to Concert Jazz

Reup - Liebermann - Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra

In late 1954, Sauter-Finegan got together with the formidable Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony for a recording of Rolf Liebermann's Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra. I posted the results as long ago as 2010, but have now reworked the sound in ambient stereo. 

Actually both the concerto and its disk mate, Richard Strauss' Don Juan, were recorded in stereo but not released as such until later. Back in 2010, a reader provided a link to the stereo tape version of the Liebermann (which still works), and I've now re-recorded the Don Juan from its first stereo release on LP, dating from 1968.

More information and the link can be found via the original post here.

Sauter-Finegan Obscurities

Earlier this year I collected nine non-LP selections from the Sauter-Finegan band for my other blog under the name "Sauter-Finegan Obscurities."

The selections are "Pale Moon" (with vocalese by Florence Fogelson), "Coco Bongo," "'O' (Oh!)," "Of Thee I Sing," "Joey's Theme," "Science Fiction," "Honey Babe," "Don't Be Angry" and "I Am a Camera."

Details on these pieces and the link can be found in the original post.

The LPs are all from my collection; the singles were cleaned up from Internet Archive.