Griffes and Loeffler from Eastman

For a while now, this blog has been taking a leisurely tour through the "American Music Festival Series," which Howard Hanson and his Eastman-Rochester forces recorded for Mercury in the 1950s.

The object is to transfer all the 15 or so entries in the series. There are links to the previous installments at the end of the post. Today's contribution includes a disc devoted to Griffes and Loeffler, along with later recordings of those composers, also from Eastman and the Mercury label.

American Music Festival Series Vol. 13 - Griffes and Loeffler

The music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) and Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) is often described as "American Impressionism," although that label is perhaps more appropriately applied to Griffes.

Charles Tomlinson Griffes

This Hanson disk, recorded in 1954, presents some of Griffes' best-known works.

Here's Alfred Frankenstein's description from High Fidelity: "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan is Charles Tomlinson Griffes’ major orchestral work. Like the three short, orchestrated piano pieces with which it is associated on this record, it is a sumptuous, luxurious, impressionistic piece, strongly beholden to Debussy, but with sufficient originality of profile to justify its being kept alive."

That appears to Kubla Khan on the cover, cavorting with what appear to be two paper dragons, which might be the artist's conception of living in a stately pleasure-dome.

Griffes, born in the US, died young in the 1918 flu epidemic.

Charles Martin Loeffler

Charles Martin Loeffler was was born in Germany, although his family moved to several places on the continent, including near Kiev, which experience later inspired the composer's Memories of My Childhood. It is one of the two Loeffler works on this disk, both composed after he emigated to the US when he was 20. The other is his Poem for Orchestra, La Bonne Chanson.

Ad in High Fidelity

Loeffler was perhaps as much influenced by earlier French composers and the Russians as the Impressionists themselves. Alfred Frankenstein's view: "The two compositions by Charles Martin Loeffler ... are the products of one who was a far finer craftsman [i.e., than Griffes] but had much less to say. The early Poem for Orchestra, subtitled La Bonne Chanson, is a full throated, somewhat Straussian affair, magnificent in texture, subtle in form, but not quite first-class in its essential substance ... Memories of My Childhood recalls a sojourn in the Ukraine and is a kind of academic, professional Petrouchka."

There is much more about this colorful, impressive music in the detailed cover notes. This LP has been mastered in ambient stereo. The sound is typical of Mercury at the time - vivid and detailed, but with little bloom in the upper strings due to the proximity of the single microphone pickup.

More Griffes and Loeffler from Eastman

Following the 1954 disc above, Hanson and Mercury were to record the music of Griffes and Loeffler on at least two other discs. I've included these performances in the download along with the LP discussed above.

First we have one side of a 1958 stereo disc, which presents Loeffler's Deux Rapsodies (L'Etang and La Cornemuse), as performed by Eastman School faculty members Armand Basile, piano, Robert Sprenkle, oboe, and Francis Tursi, viola. Exceptional performances in truthful sound.

Francis Tursi and Robert Sprenkle portraits at Eastman

Finally, we have one of Griffes's best and best-known works, the Poem for Flute and Orchestra, as presented by longtime Eastman faculty member Joseph Mariano, in a 1963 stereo recording with the Eastman Rochester Orchestra and Hanson. They had recorded the same work some 20 years earlier for Victor.

Joseph Mariano

Also on this blog, the Poem can be heard by Maurice Sharp and the Cleveland Sinfonietta here and by Julius Baker and a chamber orchestra here.

The download includes an article on Hanson, Eastman and American music from a 1958 edition of High Fidelity, along with scans of all three LPs, etc.

LINK to music of Griffes and Loeffler from Eastman

Previous Installments in the American Music Festival Series

• Morton Gould's Latin American Symphonette; Samuel Barber's School for Scandal Overture, Adagio for Strings, Essay for Orchestra No. 1

• Barber's Symphony No. 1; Hanson's Sinfonia Sacra and Cherubic Hymn. LINK

• Music for Democracy: Randall Thompson's The Testament of Freedom and Hanson's Songs from Drum Taps.

• Edward MacDowell's Second Indian Suite

• Americana for Solo Winds and String Orchestra, including Hanson's Serenade for Flute, Strings and Harp

• Hanson's Symphony No. 4, along with an alternative recording led by Dean Dixon

• American Music for String Orchestra with works by Mennini, Foote and Canning

The Obsolete Collection (Food Division)

I hope you will indulge me as I venture into one more Obsolete Collection - this time the Food Division. You can find the first Obsolete Collection here; and the Retail Division here.

For the Food Division, I've chosen both the foods themselves and the means of delivery. Let me illustrate by moving on to the first category.

The Cafeteria

Oh, I'm sure that cafeterias still exist; there's possibly one in your local junior high school. But their popularity has declined.

For those not versed in cafeteria culture, let me explain that in each such establishment, you pick up a heavy plastic tray and push it along a set of rails that unites all the food stations and ends with the cashier. You help yourself to a prepared delight such as pudding, and at certain points you ask the attendant for an entree - say, mashed potatoes and meat loaf.

These places did have a sort of plebeian atmosphere, so they have fallen from favor with many people. For example, the art museum near where I live once had an excellent cafeteria, which they have now changed into a fancy restaurant and a lunch spot where you have to move among disconnected stations to find what you want. It doesn't work well, but then again - it's not a cafeteria! (Well, yeah, it is - only atomized.)

To memorialize this once-proud institution, we hear from Cal Stewart and his hayseed character Uncle Josh, via "Uncle Josh in a Cafeteria." Previously Josh visited a big city department store; this time he takes the train from his New England home to New York to visit a cafeteria - a questionable enterprise to be sure. The record is from 1919.

The Hot Dog Stand

In this section, I intend to honor specifically the hot dog stand, not the hot dog carts that clutter up urban sidewalks. (For all I know there are hot dog carts on the moon.) These stands were small buildings where you could get a dog, perhaps a burger, and something to drink. I can't remember the last time I saw such a place, although ice cream stands still abound.

Hot dog stands and the wiener itself have been celebrated in song for some time. Back in 1939, there was a popular number called "At a Little Hot Dog Stand," where of course two hearts met to enjoy an encasement of processed meats and fillers. The song was recorded by several artists, but today we have Dick Todd, the "Canadian Bing" complete with Crosby's mid-period mannerisms, in a charming rendition of the Sam Coslow-Larry Spier tune. Todd finishes by inviting the listener to his wedding celebration - at the hot dog stand. Big spender!

There are also songs honoring the frankfurter itself, so I've included a few of them. First we have Chris Powell and the Five Blue Flames in a 1949 record of "Hot Dog," in which they declare their affinity for this sausage, which to their taste has to be accompanied by a cola. A good record, but I wish they would have revoked that man's tenor saxophone.

Finally, a terrific 1935 disc from Texas' Roy Newman and His Boys called the "Hot Dog Stomp." It's advertised on the label as "Hot Dance" music, and so it is. The group is a string band with guitar, clarinet, fiddles and all the trimmings.

The Diner

A giant "EAT" sign is the universal insignia of fine dining

Diners are still around, but few are the type that I am describing here. Like Chicago's Burlington Diner above, these were marooned old streetcars or Pullmans that were converted for the food trade. The interior presented a lineup of stools at a long counter. On the other side of the counter were the attendants and food apparatus.

Such diners often appeared in movies. The one that comes to mind is the Owl Diner in the Goldwyn Follies of 1938, with short-order cook Kenny Baker serenading Andrea Leeds via the Gershwins' "Love Walked In." You can see the clip here.

We have two songs today that are set in a diner. First is "Dinky's Little Diner" from 1946, with ex-Harry James vocalist Connie Haines. She was an expressive singer, but her diction isn't so good, so you may have a hard time following her. I did learn that Dinky fashioned his diner out of an old caboose.

You'll have less trouble following Harriet Clark as she tells her tale of finding love "At a Dixie Roadside Diner," which songwriters Edgar Leslie and Joe Burke located in Carolina because it rhymes with "diner," sort of. Harriet was the vocalist with the Charlie Barnet band. This comes from 1940.

The Automat

These days - and even back then - most people who are familiar with the Automat were exposed to it not in person but as a movie setting - such as Doris Day and Audrey Meadows carrying on a conversation through the Automat's windows in 1962's That Touch of Mink.

Let me explain. In the Automat, rather than having the food handed to you cafeteria-style, you would be confronted by what seemed like hundreds of small windows, each offering a delicacy (or some such). You plugged coins into a slot so as to unlock the window of your choice. An attendant would then refill the station.

It's the sort of thing that appealed to me in my youth, so I did eat at one. I don't remember the food but I do remember reading a book I had just purchased from Scribner's, a gorgeous store on Fifth Avenue. So the Automat had to be around there somewhere.

Anyway, in New York the Automat was also referred to as "Horn & Hardart," its proprietor (see photo at top of section). The format was invented in Germany, I believe.

In 1965, musical satirist Peter Schickele decided to immortalize the chain with his "Concerto for Horn and Hardart," which married the solo horn with his own semi-musical invention, the "Hardart." This instrument was essentially a baroque Automat, where you plugged in your nickel and received a toy instrument that then would become part of the musical proceedings.

Schickele (in his persona of P.D.Q. Bach) started out by performing send-ups of 18th century music. The audience for this live performance sure seemed to enjoy it - you may as well. I've included an edited version of Schickele's introduction followed by the opening Allegro movement. This is from his first LP, from 1965.

Thanks to my friend Ernie for suggesting the Automat as a subject!

The Bakery

Where I live, the shops that call themselves "bakeries" sell fancy cupcakes, fancy bundt cakes or fancy macarons. They ain't nothing like the old Indianapolis shop you see above. For that, you go to a supermarket, but it isn't the same. Instead of the uniformed attendants you see above, you get a adolescent in a cat t-shirt and ripped jeans.

There aren't a whole lot of songs about bakeries, but the young Jo Stafford did record "Bakery Blues" with her "V-Disc Play Boys" back in 1945. The bakery is an elaborate metaphor concocted by writer George Simon, and Jo presents the tale smoothly. She did have a tendency to croon, though, which is not exactly idiomatic to the blues, or to the style of  her "Play Boys," some of the finest traditional jazz musicians then active.

The Ice Cream Man

"Look like you're enjoying it. The photographer's paying."

He used to crawl down the street in a white truck, tinkling a bell or playing a jingle. He had to go slow to get the kiddies a chance to cadge money from mom or pop. He was selling ice cream along with popsicles and a few other delicacies.

The ice cream man was a beloved character with the young ones, if not mom or dad. After all, children are price-insensitive, so he almost could charge whatever he wanted.

This stealthy purveyor of treats has been the focus of a few songs. Today's selection is the highly enjoyable "Ivan, the Ice Cream Man" from the Kidoodlers, dating from 1939. Yes, this is a kids' record, but the Kidoodlers were a sophisticated novelty group that sang and played toy instruments, somewhat in the mode of the Foursome with their ocarinas. The whole record is great fun.

Ice cream is and was primarily sold as a packaged good, and in the days before snob brands, one of the major players was Sealtest, first as a franchiser and later as an operator of a chain of dairies. One of Sealtest's mainstays was ice cream, until that business was acquired by Good Humor-Breyers, which discontinued the Sealtest ice cream business five years ago.

But back at mid-century, Sealtest was busily producing promo records, including the "Sealtest Ice Cream Polka," with jingle specialists the Lande Trio, Julie Conway and "Johnny Cole's Music." It sounds like lots of other polkas, but you could make that statement about lots of other polkas.

Finally, the original version of "I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream," from 1927. This odd tune takes you to the land of the Eskimos, as they were then known, and introduces you to a football team whose fight song is "I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream." Paul Johnson is your guide to this strange land. Warning: ethnic stereotypes ahead!

Leg of Mutton

"Guess what we're having for dinner!" "That better be pot roast!"

And now we move on to some foods that have lost at least some of their market. (Actually, these are all foods that I roundly dislike, so I may be trying to hasten some of them off the market altogether.)

Mutton leg is definitely hard to find. Anyone who has had mutton can explain why - it tastes gamy. Mutton comes from older sheep; the more tender veal from the younger ones. At one time mutton was more widely available, when wool production was higher in the US, and thus there were more sheep.

As you might imagine, there are few songs that mention this meat, but I did find one called "Mutton Leg" from tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet and band, from 1947. The riff tune is by Count Basie and trumpeter Harry Edison, but the name is in honor of trombonist Ted Donnelly, whose nickname it was. Jacquet plays the piece as fast as possible without running out of the grooves. I enjoyed the solos by baritone saxophonist Leo Parker and the young J.J. Johnson on trombone.

Liver

"Woof - liver!"

In my view, liver is only suited for dogs. Trouble was that my mom would cook it up - for the dog AND her.

Liver is apparently a great favorite with the canines (and some people), although my mother's pooch actually preferred boiled kidneys. I learned early to stay out of the kitchen when the fire was under the kidney pot. A more disgusting smell is hard to imagine.

There actually was a song about liver (if not boiled kidneys), and predictably it involved a dog. "Jump, Fritz, I Feed You Liver" was recorded in 1924 by Billy Jones and Ernest Hare under their own names for Columbia and OKeh, and as the Happiness Boys for Victor. I've chosen a competing version from the English label ACO by the Webster Brothers, who have particularly ripe falsches Deutsch accents. Warning! Ethnic stereotypes ahead (and liver)!

 

Bologna

Swift had it all going on in 1956 - sausage, hot dogs, bacon and bologna

When I was young, there were few things I detested more than bologna (invariably pronounced "baloney" around here), unless it were its processed meat cousins Dutch loaf and chopped ham. My sense is that bologna's popularity is on the wane, although that may be wishful thinking.

Bologna was popular enough in 1930 to inspire "The Bologna Song," which is in the nature of an elaborate ethnic joke with the Flanagan Brothers getting the best of their companion - a "Hebrew," as they identify him. Warning - ethnic stereotypes ahead!

Buttermilk

Not even a famous cow could get me to try buttermilk

I'm sure there are people who like buttermilk, but by gosh, I'm not one of them. I don't think it's as popular as once upon a time, and may be even less so after I explain to you that it is fermented milk. The thought of it makes me sweat like Elmer the cow above.

Surprisingly, I found two songs with "buttermilk" in their titles. Let's start off with the better-known tune, "Ole Buttermilk Sky," written by Hoagy Carmichael and Jack Brooks for Hoagy to sing in the 1947 film Canyon Passage. There were several popular versions of this song, but I've selected the one by its composer. The piece was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost out to Judy Garland and "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe." Judy on the rails was tough to beat.

I never figured out what "buttermilk sky" refers to, so I asked the great god AI for enlightenment. "The small, puffy white clouds that make up a buttermilk sky are often said to resemble a pattern of clabbered milk." OK, so what is clabbered milk? "Clabbered milk is a type of cultured milk product that's made by letting unpasteurized milk thicken and sour through fermentation." You can have it.

The second song is something of a bonus - a lively tune called "Buttermilk Polka" by Chet Ososki and his Blue Diamond Orchestra. A pleasant diversion probably from somewhere in the 1950s.

Pigeon

I was looking at a fancy restaurant menu from the 1850s, and was surprised to find pigeon on the bill of fare. Perhaps I shouldn't have been. Back then, passenger pigeons were so numerous that in some places the flocks blotted out the sun. They were so easy to kill that all a hunter had to do is shoot at the flock and be sure of hitting something. The passenger pigeon was extinct by 1914.

As you might expect, few if any songs survive extolling the pigeon, so I have resorted to using a song called "Bayou Pigeon," which is not a song about a bird in the swampland, rather about a small, unincorporated place on the bayou in Louisiana. It comes from Lou Millet, a Baton Rouge musician who ran Lefty Frizzell's band for several years. Lefty probably got Lou a Columbia contract, thus this very accomplished record.

These selections all come from Internet Archive, as fermented by me. The sound is by and large very good.

LINK

Kempe Conducts Bruckner's Fifth Symphony

This is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824-96), so I decided to mark the occasion by posting one of the finest Bruckner recordings I know. It is this performance of the Symphony No. 5 in B major by the Munich Philharmonic, conducted by Rudolf Kempe (1910-76), its music director.

Kempe was a highly skilled conductor, who brings a notable sense of unity to this sprawling score even though he varies the pulse flexibly.

Rudolf Kempe

Abram Chipman wrote in High Fidelity: "Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony is an architectural masterpiece, nearly flawless in its symmetry and awesome in its contrapuntal rigor ... Despite his [Kempe's] basically flexible outlook, he manages the great finale with uncanny assurance and conducts the fiercely tricky three-against-two rhythm in the Adagio as securely as anyone on discs."

More quotes from Chipman's review, which is in the download: "Kempe’s Munich Philharmonic plays with a tautly contained, smooth sonority and an intensity of concentration that rival the Chicago’s ... The acoustical ambience is ideal, neither resonant nor dry. Everything is beautifully proportioned, and the heftiest pages of the finale project clearly."

Anton Bruckner

This is indeed a superior example of late-analogue recording, superbly integrated and natural sounding. I believe it was originally recorded and issued by the chemical company BASF during its 1970s venture into the record industry. Recorded in 1975, the performance was first issued the following year.

My transfer of the two-record set comes from a 1979 reissue on the American budget label Odyssey. I first tried transferring the set five years ago, but put it aside because of some obtrusive noise caused by a pressing fault. However, using a new turntable and stylus I've now been able to produce a noise-free version for this post.

The download includes scans from both the Odyssey and BASF releases.

The link below leads to the 16-bit, 44.1kHz version. A high-resolution transfer is available upon request.

LINK

Bruckner in his studio

The Obsolete Collection (Retail Division)

The recent post of "The Obsolete Collection" on my singles blog met with favor, so I decided to do a sequel. I've moved this new post over to the main site in the hopes that more people will see it, and perhaps investigate its predecessor.

The first "Obsolete Collection" covered songs having to do with lamplighters, kerosene lamps, steam locomotives, trolleys, rumble seats, telegrams, telephone party lines, cuckoo clocks, milkmen and typewriters.

This time we explore the retail trade, broadly considered, looking for records that have to do with formats that have had their time in the sun and are now looking a bit withered. Let's start off with that mainstay of my youth, the big city department store.

The Department Store

Macy's Herald Square, New York, back when there were horses and streetcars on the street, and the 6th Avenue El up above

Department stores have been around for more than a century, but seem to be experiencing a agonizingly slow death. Instead of the giant Macy's you see above, for example, the chain is now opening small format stores that would have fit in a old Macy's rest room. And that chain is one of the few survivors.

We can go back even to the 19th century and find records about the department store. The vaudeville comedian Cal Stewart made a living off his rural character Uncle Josh encountering city institutions, including the big store. Stewart first starting recording his "Uncle Josh in a Department Store" routine back in 1898, for the Berliner company. He took the same act over the Victor folks in 1901, then to Columbia and Zonophone before finishing up shortly before his death in 1919.

Our "Uncle Josh" version comes from a 1902 Victor session. Tastes were different then, and his yuck-yuck-yuck routine soon becomes annoying. 

I don't think the "country bumpkin" character was novel even back then, but it influenced comics up through Cliff Arquette and his "Charley Weaver" in the late 20th century.

As a bonus, I've included some "Radio Hucksters Store Spots," with a vocal group and combo limning the praises of notions, linens and so on. Each spot starts with a vocal, followed by a instrumental interlude designed so that local stores could add their specific plugs ("Yes, head on down to Blatnik's Boston Store, and find bargain after bargain ..." etc.), with a brief vocal outro.

The Five-and-Dime

This circa 1940 Phoenix postcard focuses on Woolworth's, but also helpfully points out its five-and-dime competitors Newberry's and Kress

The department store's less flossy cousin was the five-and-dime - Woolworth, Kresge, W.T. Grant and so on. These vendors tried to keep the prices low, but still had a wide variety of goods. The one near me when I was young had everything from birds to records. Some sold china and peanuts, and that's where our featured record comes in. It's one of the best known tunes in the set - "I Found a Million-Dollar Baby (in a Five-and-Ten Cent Store)." I've selected the 1931 hit version by Waring's Pennsylvanians, with a sincere vocal by Clare Hanlon and a trio. It also includes the seldom-heard verse, which was new to me.

Billy Rose found two million-dollar babies

But wait - there are two such "million-dollar baby" songs. An earlier one, with the same theme and title but different music and lyrics, had come out in 1926. Both seem to be the handiwork of lyricist-promoter Billy Rose, working with Fred Fisher on the earlier song, and with Harry Warren and Mort Dixon on the latter.

The 1926 song is represented by a snoozy Victor recording by tenor Henry Burr, apparently a John McCormack fancier. The peppier approach taken by Waring's band works much better.

The Pool Hall

Ya got trouble ... watch out for the guy with the meat hooks

Do pool halls exist nowadays? I haven't seen one lately. But they were an urban favorite way back when. The picture above (it's a pool room in Washington Court House, Ohio) is roughly contemporary with the time period of Meredith Willson's The Music Man, which set in 1912 in "River City," Iowa (a stand in for Willson's home town, Mason City). The 1957 musical includes the magnificent spiel "Ya Got Trouble," where con man "Professor" Harold Hill proselytizes the townfolk about the depths of de-gra-day [tion] involved with the forthcoming transformation of the genteel billiard parlor into a wicked pool hall.

The song was introduced on Broadway by the magnetic Robert Preston, but I thought you might like to hear Willson's own version, which comes from one of those "And Then I Wrote" LPs. He's almost as good as Preston. FYI - the LP was in awful early stereo with Willson's voice seeming to come from the far right of the sound stage. He needs to be front and center, so I've moved him there.

The Nickelodeon

A circa 1910 nickelodeon

A "nickelodeon" was a cheap place to watch the early silent films. Entrepreneurs would take over a storefront, add some chairs, a screen and a projector, and voila, the Comique in Toronto (above), which was one of the fancier operations, by the looks of it. 

The word "nickelodeon" is a portmanteau of "nickel" (the price of admission) and odeon (from the Greek word for a covered theater). But somehow, the term "nickelodeon" transmigrated to also describe a coin operated player piano, and to some degree, what we would call a jukebox (which we'll get to next).

How do you improve a player piano? Add a drum, a cymbal and an accordion!

I haven't discovered any songs celebrating the original meaning of the word, but there is a well-known number that deals with the coin-op piano - "Music, Music, Music," aka "Put Another Nickel In" and "The Nickelodeon." Quite an elaborate set of titles to describe a simple melody with a bridge swiped from Franz Liszt.

The big hit of this song was by Teresa Brewer, a record I have detested since I was a small child. So I've included the original version, by one Etienne Paree with Eddie "Piano" Miller, whose playing is so metronomic it sounds appropriately mechanical. Actually this version is as bad as Brewer's, and Etienne is a little creepy.

The nickelodeon as theater was supplanted by movie palaces as the audience for films grew. I've recognized the days of silent films by including a snatch of stereotypical "chase music" ("The Chase") as played on a theater organ such as you might heave heard in one of the more elaborate showplaces..

As for coin-operated player pianos, you may be able to find one in your local museum.

The Juke Box

Wurlitzer would have had you believe that even a rural hideaway could afford its fancy model 1015

When we think about "putting another nickel in," those of us of a certain age think of the jukebox, that coin-operated marvel where you could watch the machine grab the record, put it on a turntable and bring the tonearm down so the music would flow.

Jukeboxes are not extinct, but there was a time when they were ubiquitous. So to celebrate them, let's begin with perhaps the most famous such record - the Glenn Miller version of "Jukebox Saturday Night," from 1942. The vocalists are Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke and the Modernaires. The original includes an impression of Harry James' "Ciribiribin" and Ralph Brewster's droll send-up of the Ink Spots' "If I Didn't Care."

Two of the Modernaires' three recordings of "Juke Box Saturday Night"

The Mods knew they were onto a good thing, so they made a Soundie version in 1944, remade the single record for Columbia in 1946 and put together a "New Jukebox Saturday Night" for Coral in 1953. I've included the latter in the package - it features their takes on Don Cornell, Les Paul and Mary Ford, the Four Aces and Johnnie Ray.

Juke boxes were still the thing later in the 1950s, when Perry Como treated us to Joe and Noel Sherman's "Juke Box Baby." Mr. C continued the Modernaires' habit of name checking other songs, including any number of current hits in passing.

This ditty, which shows off Perry's keen sense of rhythm, was on the flip side of another famous Como epic, "Hot Diggity." You will realize this is an old record when Perry complains to Juke Box Baby, "You don't dig Latin like ya dig that crazy sound." Latin? Talk about obsolete! Mine was probably the last generation that had to relieve Caesar's Gallic Wars.

The Road House

A "swanky" road house

Now, where did one find these juke boxes? Well, they were common, but certainly one place would be at the old road houses, a bar or club out on a country road. These sometimes were venues where you could find gambling and other once or still-illegal pastimes. 

Road houses have inspired several excellent songs. We'll start off with the wonderful "Road House Boogie," a 1949 R&B opus by Big Jay McNeely, with an uncredited vocal by (I believe) Ted Shirley. (Big Jay is the honkin' tenor sax player.) As always with these adventures, the singer ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. ("Saturday Night Fish Fry" is perhaps the most famous example.)

The next year brought another classic, this one from the honky-tonk giant Lefty Frizzell - "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time," his first record. Louche Lefty picks up a lady with some money, and tells her they'll drive out to all the hot spots and "dance, drink beer and wine." (He insists, "Bring along your Cadillac, leave my old wreck behind.") But, the denouement comes - "If you've got no more money, honey, I've got no more time."

The title is an example of country artists turning an off-color catchphrase into a song. Another was Hank Penny's "Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma'am!"

Finally, the more innocent "Down the Road Apiece," which Don Raye wrote in 1940 for him and Ray McKinley to sing with the Will Bradley Trio. Just a short while ago, we heard McKinley's remake with his big band, but today let's jump ahead a few decades to the insanely rocking version from the young Rolling Stones. In this reading, Mick Jagger rewrites the lyrics so that instead of calling on "Eight-Beat Mack" (i.e., McKinley), he calls out "Charlie McCoy, you all remember that rubber legged boy." Not sure how he came up with McCoy (or rubber-legged), but he's surely referring to the Stones' own drummer, Charlie Watts.

The Drive-In

Orange you glad you went to the Orange Drive-in?

If you were going to drive out to the sticks, you might want to take in a movie in the questionable comfort of your car. Drive-ins are still around, but they are not as popular as they once were. Back in 1964, they were still the place for a couple to canoodle in the dark. The Beach Boys immortalized the drive-in experience on their "Drive-In," which was a cut on their All Summer Long LP.

The term "drive-in" also encompassed the type of restaurant where you ordered from your car and the uniformed attendant brought you your food. These spots are still around, but again, not nearly as plentiful as they once were. Where I lived many years ago, there was a drive-in restaurant right down the street from a drive-in theater, so that was convenient on a Saturday night.

Joe - er, Dolores' - Drive-In 

In 1947, veteran singer-songwriter Seger Ellis praised "Joe's Drive-In" as the place to head after seeing a show, "so I can feed this face of mine." A fun record from the author of "Little Jack Frost, Get Lost" (written with Al Stillman) and "You're All I Want for Christmas" (with Glenn Moore).

The estimable Nelson Riddle also put out a record called "Drive In." I don't know whether the title refers to the film or food variety (presumably not drive-in banks or churches), so I've parked it in between the Beach Boys and Seger Ellis.

The Gas Station

Service with a smile, but try not to drip from your nozzle

Now, if you were going on a road trip, presumably you would have needed gasoline, so let's memorialize these palaces of petroleum before they are replaced by charging stations.

Gas stations are still common on the roadways, but they are much different enterprises from when I would gas 'em up, change the oil, sell you tires, replace your muffler, do a tune up or brake job, etc. That was nearly 60 years ago when gas stations were self-styled "service stations." Today they are a combination of convenience store, fast food vendor, THC emporium and car wash. And no one but you pumps the gas (in most places).

To recognize the old days, we have a lively piece called "Gas Station Mambo" by the fabulous Pérez Prado and his band, from 1953. In this station, the proprietor greets you by shouting "uh!" and "dilo!" The band sings about something or other, but I don't habla español. (I studied Latin, remember.)

And to get you in the mood to hang around the old grease rack, as I once did, we have a "Filling Station Effects" transcription featuring a very loud grease gun followed by the racket of an old-school gas pump, complete with periodic dings. The gas pump sounds like it could have used some lubrication itself. I would not recommend that you have this one on repeat play.

The Motel

Circa 1940s postcard 

We finish our survey with the motel, also still around, but much different from what it once was. A case in point is the Lazy Acres Motel above, once a modest motel, today primarily an RV park. And it's a survivor. Most of these rural retreats are long gone.

Lazy Acres did some radio advertising back circa 1950 on the Los Angeles radio program of Western Swing's Spade Cooley. We have a promotional record appropriately titled "Lazy Acres Motel." The song is performed by the Prairie Schooner Boys, who suggest you "take Route 99 and look for the sign - Lazy Acres Motel." Note that author of the song is one "Stan Feberg," probably the future musical satirist Stan Freberg.

I've heard worse promos - the department stores spots above, for example.

Bonus Track - "The Lamplighter's Serenade"

Dave Federman asked me if I would try to resuscitate a song that I could have included in the original "Obsolete Collection" - "The Lamplighter's Serenade." 

In my collection, I had chosen the slightly later "Old Lamplighter," but the Serenade is a fine record, too, written by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster.

I was familiar with the Miller and Sinatra versions, but Dave has uncovered a first-rate example by Woody Herman in an uncharacteristically mellow mood.

I found two copies of the 1942 78 on Internet Archive, but neither was in particularly good shape, offering an explosion of noise punctuated by peak distortion. I've taken the best parts of each disc, moderated the noise and mostly ameliorated the distortion so that the record now sounds acceptable.

The selections in this post came from IA and my collection. The sound is generally very good, even for Uncle Josh and his 1902 visit to the big city.

LINK to The Obsolete Collection (Retail Division)

Ray McKinley and Eddie Sauter - the Majestic Recordings

Eddie Sauter and Ray McKinley

The great arranger Eddie Sauter made his name with Benny Goodman, but the many songs he arranged for Ray McKinley's excellent postwar band deserve to be remembered as well.

Previously I've posted McKinley's complete RCA Victor recordings, including a number of Sauter compositions. I've now remastered that set in ambient stereo.

Today we'll explore: 

• The sides that McKinley made for the small Majestic label just before joining Victor, specifically the 19 songs that Sauter arranged for the band, including many of his own works

• As a bonus, excerpts from a radio appearance from the same time period, with two additional Sauter arrangements

The Ray McKinley Band, 1946

I want to acknowledge my friend and frequent collaborator, the indefatigable Dave Federman, who first covered these recordings in his new Substack site, Dave's Desk, which I heartily recommend. Before Dave hipped me (as they said in the 40s) to these recordings, I had not heard them. What a revelation!

Let me quote here from Dave's essay on Sauter and McKinley: "His [McKinley's] recordings for the Majestic label in 1946-7 are, for me, pinnacles of progressive jazz - mainly because they feature Eddie Sauter arrangements. These are so surrealistic and free-form that they represent a parallel to the abstract expressionist art then being developed by the likes of Arshile Gorky and Hans Hoffman. The arrangements often seem goofy and Keatonesque, and are mindful of the playfulness of abstract art before it left the realms of form and representation entirely."

The Majestic Recordings

Here, we'll examine the McKinley-Sauter Majestics in chronological order, as is our usual practice. The set includes all the Sauter arrangements that I know about; there may be more.

Eddie arranged more than his own compositions for the band, and we start off with something far afield from Sauter's own works, Ivor Novello's end-of-war ballad, "We'll Gather Lilacs," in a strikingly good arrangement with a vocal by Ann Hathaway. (She is probably the same vocalist who later issued a well received LP on Motif.)

[Note (November 2024): I discovered that this is not true. There were two singing "Ann Hathaways" in the late 1940s. One was Ann Baker, who appears on this record, a former Louis Armstrong and Billy Eckstine vocalist who also recorded a single for Keynote. She is the artist on "We'll Gather Lilacs." The other "Ann Hathaway" was Betty Ann Solloway, who recorded a single for Avalon and an LP for Motif in the 1950s. I plan to feature both of them later on.]

"Ann Hathaway" (Ann Baker)

Next is one of the many novelties that featured McKinley's genial singing: "In the Land of the Buffalo Nickel," lyricist Bob Hilliard's wacky visit to the old West. This was at about the time that Hilliard was tasting success with "The Coffee Song."

Drummer Paul Kashishian, trumpeters Nick Travis, Chuck Genduso, Joe Ferrante and Curly Broyles

Our first Sauter composition is "Sand Storm," which begins in a bop vein, then settles into an eventful band instrumental with breaks for (possibly) trumpeter Chuck Genduso and clarinetist Peanuts Hucko.

Next, another McKinley specialty - his remake of Gene Raye's "Down the Road Apiece," which had been a hit for Ray, Gene and the Will Bradley Trio in 1940. When Ray sings, "The drummer man's a guy they call Eight Beat Mack," he of course is referring to himself. It's worth hearing, but in truth, Sauter's arrangement could have had more of a boogie-woogie feel.

Teddy Norman

Another ballad was Burke and Van Heusen's "That Little Dream Got Nowhere" from the comedy film Cross My Heart, where it was sung by Betty Hutton. Here it gets a smooth rendition by the talented Teddy Norman.

Next we have three consecutive Sauter compositions, starting with "Tumblebug," a somewhat surreal exercise that starts off in a bop vein, but has guitarist Mundell Lowe throwing in interjections throughout. This is the "abstract expressionism" that Dave mentioned above.

"Hangover Square" was the title of a creepy 1945 film, but Sauter's namesake composition is rather a band tour de force, with the title possibly referring to the musicians' drinking habits.

Trombonists Vern Friley, Irv Dinkin and Jim Harwood

Trombonist Vern Friley was credited on the label for his solo work on "Borderline," another Sauter composition.

Sauter produced a fairly standard but still accomplished big band arrangement for McKinley's "Jiminy Crickets." I'm not sure about the trumpeter, but the alto saxophonist is probably Ray Beller,

In case there is any doubt who leads the band ...

We're back in McKinley specialty territory with his "Howdy Friends (E.T.O. Curtain Call)." (I have no idea what "E.T.O" stands for.) The label credits Ray four times - as the singer, composer, bandleader and via a second subtitle to the title - "Ray McKinley's Theme Song." It's a good piece that allows Ray to credit some of his notable band members. In this version he mentions Ray Beller, Mundell Lowe, Vern Friley, Peanuts Hucko and pianist Lou Stein. The lineup in the live version discussed below is different. 

Next, and moving into 1947 recordings, we have the Harold Arlen-Ted Koehler standard "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues," first recorded by the young Ethel Merman in 1932. Sauter provides space for some appropriate hot obbligatos and McKinley permits himself a few brief scat passages a la Louis Armstrong. The few instrumental choruses are much the most interesting part of this piece. Parenthetically, I'm an admirer of the composers, but this is not one of my favorite songs.

"Red Silk Stockings and Green Perfume" is another off-center adventure from lyricist Bob Hilliard, perfectly suited to the talents of McKinley and Sauter.

Guitarist Mundell Lowe, Ray McKinley, baritone sax Deane Kincaide, vocalist Teddy Norman

"Comin' Out" is a rocking instrumental from the band, featuring McKinley on drums. This, "Red Silk Stockings" and the next number, "The Chief," were apparently unissued on Majestic, but later came out on Savoy and Allegro Elite. The transfer of "Red Silk Stockings" is from a Hit pressing, the others from an Allegro 10-inch LP in my collection.

The following two numbers amount to Bob Hilliard's ventures into ethnic stereotypes - then taken as comic, today as questionable to say the least - "Pancho Maximilian Hernandez (The Best President We Ever Had)" and "Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)." The latter song was a big hit. The McKinley version did well, but not as well as the Andrews Sisters/Danny Kaye disc.

The bandleader's contract with Majestic was running down but there was time for two more numbers before he and the band were off to Victor. First we have Sauter's "Mint Julep" (not the same song as the Clovers' "One Mint Julep" of several years later).

Finally, a pensive Lynn Warren sings "Over the Rainbow," dragging the beat out so much that the band seems to be getting impatient.

A Band Remote from 1946

Finally, we have several items from a June 25, 1946 radio remote from Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook, a well known club in New Jersey. This comes from a long-ago bootleg with fairly good sound.

Ray predictably starts out with "Howdy Friends," this time with a shout-out to Sauter. He then segues into a really fine performance of Sauter's "Hangover Square," a bit looser than the Majestic recording above.

Sauter then contributes a dynamic arrangement of "The Carioca," an impressive workout for the band. The set ends with another Sauter arrangement, this one of "Tuesday at 10."

These materials were remastered from items on Internet Archive and from my collection. Majestic's sound was not as polished as Victor's, but is still reasonably good.

Sauter of course went on to form the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra with Bill Finegan. The band's output has been covered on this blog fairly extensively. The most recent post is here; it will lead you to all the previous articles on the band that I've published.

LINK to Ray McKinley and Eddie Sauter - the Majestic Recordings