The Hudson-DeLange Orchestra

This post is devoted to an accomplished band from the 1930s that receives very little attention - the Hudson-DeLange Orchestra, founded by two young songwriters.

Will Hudson (music) and Eddie DeLange (words) had begun writing together in the early 1930s, achieving a huge success in 1934 with "Moonglow," their most famous piece. So they thought starting a band together might be a good idea.

The outgoing DeLange, a good singer, would front the band and the more reticent Hudson would stay off the road for the most part while writing songs and arrangements.

Will Hudson and Eddie DeLange

Musically this worked well. Almost all the titles in this collection were written by Hudson and one has DeLange lyrics. The musicians were skillful, and the group had a procession of fine singers - Ruth Gaylor, Fredda Gibson (later to become Georgia Gibbs) and Nan Wynn.

Hudson-DeLange - the leader is Eddie DeLange, the vocalist Nan Wynn

But eventually the two principals fell out and the band turned into the Will Hudson Orchestra, which continued until the leader joined the Armed Forces.

In its brief existence, the band made a succession of fine recordings, mainly for Brunswick. This post gathers 17 of them and adds a bonus recording of "Moonglow."

The first songs recorded by the band were made in January and March 1936. Those sessions yielded one of Hudson's most popular melodies - "Organ Grinder's Swing," based on a nursery tune. It was widely recorded at the time by the likes of Benny Goodman and Jimmie Lunceford. (Hudson had earlier written two popular numbers for Lunceford - "Jazznocracy" and "White Heat.") 

The other instrumentals from those dates include "Hobo on Park Avenue" and "Eight Bars in Search of a Melody." The latter song shows Hudson's predilection for whimsical titles, which may have influenced Raymond Scott, soon to be his label mate.

Ruth Gaylor

Even these early performances are notably smooth and professional - superior examples of what could be produced by a highly accomplished ensemble. The March date also included a specialty for the band's vocalist, Ruth Gaylor, a talented singer who did well with a variety of bands, finishing up with Hal McIntyre in the 1940s. The song is "You're Not the Kind," which credits Hudson and his manager Irving Mills as authors.

Fredda Gibson

By November, Ruth Gaylor had been succeeded by Fredda Gibson (called "Freddy" on the 78 label), who as noted would later achieve fame as Georgia Gibbs. She sings Hudson's "I'll Never Tell You I Love You" confidently, if not without a few mannerisms.

From the final session of 1936 we have Hudson's two-sided instrumental "Love Song of a Half-Wit." (I imagine Gibson was happy there were no lyrics for that one.) This again is an example of a highly polished band at work.

Bus Etri

Next are seven songs from three 1937 sessions. Two of these are tunes that Hudson did not write. (They were published by his manager, Irving Mills, however.) First was Hoagy Carmichael's hugely popular "Stardust," which Hudson presents as a bouncy instrumental. The other is "Bugle Call Rag," first recorded in 1922 by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Both are distinguished by terrific solos by the short-lived guitarist Bus Etri. Other fine soloists who can be heard on these discs include clarinetist Gus Bivona, tenor saxophonist Ted Duane and trumpeter Jimmy Blake.

Gus Bivona

Also recorded during the 1937 dates were Hudson's "The Maid's Night Off," "Mr. Sweeney's Learned to Swing" and "Sophisticated Swing," which was featured by other bands in a version with lyrics by Mitchell Parish.

By this time Ruth Gaylor was back with the band and singing "You're My Desire." DeLange himself croons "Back in Your Arms," which he and Hudson wrote.

Most of the 1937 recordings came out on Irving Mills' short-lived Master label. Soon enough, the orchestra was back with Brunswick.

The final recording under the Hudson-DeLange name is April 1938's "China Clipper," which notes that the band is "under the direction of Will Hudson." By the time the June 1938 sessions rolled around, there was no more DeLange in the band name. The instrumental "Hangover in Hong Kong" is billed as by Will Hudson and His Seven Swingsters.

Finally, we have Will Hudson and His Orchestra with the first recording of his excellent "There's Something About an Old Love," with a vocal by Jane Dover, an obscure artist who is nonetheless good in this number. This song recently appeared on this blog in Sylvia Syms' ingratiating 1952 recording.

Hudson led the band until about 1941, when he began concentrating on arranging. He was attached to Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band in World War II, then studied classical composition after the war.

DeLange went on to write lyrics for quite a few well-known songs. With Jimmy Van Heusen alone he penned "Darn that Dream," "Deep in a Dream," "All This and Heaven Too" and "Shake Down the Stars."

To my knowledge, Hudson and DeLange never recorded their most famous song, "Moonglow." So as a bonus, I've appended the excellent 1934 recording by Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, with a relaxed vocal by the underappreciated Kenny Sargent. (This particular side has also appeared in a compilation on my other blog.) Note that the label at left attributes "Moonglow" to Hudson and Venuti, presumably Joe Venuti, who was the first to record the song.

Most of these recordings were derived from an ancient bootleg, which did have reasonably good sound that I have hopefully enhanced. The problem with most of these items was that the pitch was quite flat, which I believe was the fault of the original 78 pressings. I've adjusted the pitch; please let me know if anything still seems amiss.

LINK

Jean Sablon Remastered

For this post I've revisited four 10-inch LPs of Jean Sablon's singing that I first offered a decade ago.

Sablon (1906-94) was sometimes called "the French Bing Crosby," and there is a vocal resemblance, although the Frenchman had his own, highly romantic style. These recordings demonstrate some strikingly good singing from a robust baritone with excellent diction and an ingratiating manner.

Sablon had a long career, beginning in the Parisian cabarets with Mistinguett among others in the 1920s, continuing with Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, and then to the US for radio stardom in the 1940s.

These posts are almost entirely composed of American recordings made from 1942-52 for Decca, RCA Victor and Capitol.

The basic sound is very good and has been freshly remastered in ambient stereo. The links below are to the downloads.

Songs of Paris

This LP assembles Sablon's May and June 1942 recordings for Decca, concentrating on the vocalist's French repertoire. Leading off is the famous stepwise melody of "Ma mie," which may be more familiar to some of you under the title of "All of a Sudden My Heart Sings." Harold Rome wrote the English lyrics for Kathryn Grayson to present in the 1945 Sinatra-Kelly musical Anchors Aweigh.

The backing is by Paul Baron, a conductor who was on the radio at the time, and who also was on hand for some of the 1945-46 dates that we cover next.

LINK

Souvenir Album

These sides, also for Decca, date from December 1945 and February and April of the following year. Sablon sings in French and English, save for a superb rendition of Dorival Caymmi's "Porque" in Portuguese. (The singer had spent time in Brazil in the 1920s.)

On this LP, the orchestras are conducted by Baron and Irving Ross.

LINK

The RCA Victor LP

Sablon's RCA Victor LP got along without a title, unless you consider "Le Grand Specialiste de la chanson d'amour parisienne" to be such.

As with the Decca discs above, this was a compilation of singles that the vocalist made from 1938 to 1947, with Emil Stern, Toots Camarata and Lou Bring in charge of the orchestras - if the record labels are to be believed. (The information is incomplete.) A few numbers were made in France.

 The RCA disc includes different performances of two songs on the Decca Souvenir Album - "J'attrandrai" and "Symphonie."

LINK

Songs of a Boulevardier

Sablon recorded eight songs for this Capitol LP in 1952, with backing by the young Skitch Henderson. This is a beautifully recorded set with different material, except for a remake of "Le fiacre," which also appears on the RCA album above. Sablon's voice was showing some wear by this time, however.

The Capitol set broke precedent by not using the same photo of Sablon as the three others above, instead relying on a spectacular cover illustration and confining Jean's mugshot to the back.

LINK

Slatkin Conducts Schwantner and Schuman

This imposing recording of two leading American composers came out on LP in 1984 and has not been reissued, to my knowledge.

The record didn't receive much coverage at the time - I couldn't find a review in my usual sources - despite being beautifully performed and recorded.

I actually did not know of its existence until a reader alerted me to it a month or so ago. I then acquired it for the blog.

Leonard Slatkin

The record presents two works commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Leonard Slatkin, its music director from 1979 to 1996.

Happily, almost all of the principals involved here are still alive - Slatkin (b. 1944), composer Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943), poet Águeda Pizarro (b. 1941) and soprano Lucy Shelton (b. 1944). Composer William Schuman, from an earlier generation, died in 1992.

Joseph Schwantner

Schwantner, who won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1979, has been associated with Yale for many years. He is, however, at pains to distance himself from so-called "academic" music. He described his journey as composer to Bruce Duffie as follows: "In my early work ... I was interested in serial music and the most kind of demanding musical rhetoric played by highly specialized chamber ensembles, and there was a very limited audience for that kind of music, obviously. I’m part of a generation of composers, who, in the mid-seventies really began to look around and realize that a way to move forward was not only to abandon the past, but to embrace it ... Academia gives you skills and techniques and procedures, and a body of work that is important, but at some point in time you have to find out who you are as an artist, and move beyond your academic training."

Águeda Pizarro

His work Magabunda is a setting of four magical realist poems by the Colombian-American writer Águeda Pizarro. She is director of the Rayo Museum dedicated to Latin American drawing and engraving, in recognition of the painter Ómar Rayo, located in Roldanillo, Colombia.

The music (and poetry) is highly colorful and evocative, featuring a huge orchestra and a virtuosic singer in Lucy Shelton who specializes in contemporary music. True to his credo above, Schwantner makes use of an enormous fund of techniques, with some vocal passages harking back to Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire of 1912. There is nothing simple about this music, although some critics like to complain because it is more immediately communicative than Elliott Carter's intricate compositions.

Here is Andrew Porter in his book Musical Events: "The later works of his [Schwantner's] I've heard have struck me as pretty empty - conventional responses to poetic texts, carried out, admittedly, with confidence, technical skill, and an able command of color." In the same passage he took Slatkin to task for preferring such composers as Rouse, Adams and Reich to Carter's formidable works. "The 'new romanticism' draws close to old commercialism and old laziness," he insisted.

Lucy Shelton

To me, these are preferences, not matters of being "commercial" or "lazy." Goodness knows, this record was not "commercial." It is, however, communicative. Here is Shelton describing an audience member's reaction to one of Schwantner's settings of Pizarro's poems: "One time I did a new piece by Schwantner that had a very, very beautiful poem about a mother and a daughter.  After, this woman came up to me in tears and said, 'I’ve been having so much trouble with the relationship with my daughter, and that piece just hit me. Thank you so much.' If you strike feelings that way, you know that it’s worth doing."

William Schuman

William Schuman was one of the most distinguished composers of the 20th century. His American Hymn (Orchestral Variations on an Original Melody) is quite a contrast to Schwantner's work. Annotator Philip Ramey thought that American Hymn "is one of the highpoints of his [Schuman's] output - fresh, eloquent, continually inventive, impressive in architecture and in detail (among which might be mentioned the striking use of the cornet [in this recording, trumpet], both in the initial statement of the hymnlike theme and in the third section's amusingly bizarre waltz episode)."

Schuman himself wrote, "The development is a continuum - a huge arc, encompassing six discernible sections - that goes from the first note to the last without interruption." Ramey explains further: "A natural orchestrator, he produces symphonic works whose most notable features are long breathed melody, a bustling, often quirky rhythmic life, and arresting brass writing - music which, like that of his teacher Roy Harris, is imbued with a kind of no-nonsense masculinity that seems especially American in character. Schuman's instrumentation is seldom coloristic; rather, it is structural, best thought of as a part of the ongoing compositional process."

The works are handled remarkably well by the St. Louis Symphony in a glowing early digital recording by the team of Marc Aubort and Johanna Nickrenz, who had few peers.

LINK

Les Elgart - The Band of the Year?

There's no question that Les Elgart had a very popular big band in 1954. Was it the "band of the year" as this cover proclaims? Maybe!

Elgart started his first band with his brother Larry in 1945. It made a few records for Musicraft in 1946 and Bullet in 1948, which I have newly collected on my other blog. But postwar, band bookings were getting sparce, so the Elgarts went back to being freelance musicians.

Les Elgart

Larry Elgart and Charlie Albertine got the band itch again in 1952 while playing in the pit ensemble for Top Banana and watching Phil Silvers cavort on stage. Larry, Charlie and Les revived the Les Elgart band shortly thereafter.

The group put together some demos, interested Columbia records, put out an LP, and the next thing they knew, they were popular.

That first LP was called Sophisticated Swing, the next Just One More Dance (newly remastered here), and the third today's specimen. The Band of the Year was actually a compilation of the group's singles from 1954, except for "East Is East," which as far as I can tell was not otherwise issued. (Update: musicman1979 found another source that confirms the song was released as a single.)

As a set of singles, Band of the Year is less cohesive than Just One More Dance, which showed off the sleek form that made Elgart a favorite on college campuses. A good number of the singles on The Band of the Year were novelty items.

It seems likely that Albertine was the main arranger for the band. He had a close relationship with both Elgart brothers, and composed and arranged a suite for Larry and his alto sax called Music for Barefoot Ballerinas, also in 1954. (It has appeared here, and is now newly remastered.) Albertine also worked for other bands and is known for his charts for the Three Suns.

Charles Albertine

Other arrangers associated with the band, at least according to one source, were Kermit Levinsky (Kermit Leslie) and Hubie Wheeler.

Whatever the source of the arrangements, they exhibit the smooth musicianship that characterized the band. There are not many solos, although the excellent tenor sax player Boomie Richman can be heard here and there. Danceable, professional and easy to hear - it was a recipe for success. The band still exists, although Les himself has been gone for 30 years.

A few words about the other numbers on the LP:

"Zing! Went the String of My Heart" is a James Hanley oldie from 1935, introduced by the wonderful Hal LeRoy and Eunice Hanley in the revue Thumbs Up!, which also gave us Vernon Duke's "Autumn in New York."

"Wedding Bells (Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine)" is even older than "Zing." Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal and Willie Raskin wrote it in 1929. 

Elgart also revived two of the dance crazes of the 20s - DeSylva, Brown and Henderson's "Varsity Drag" from Good News, and James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack's "Charleston" from Runnin' Wild.

Larry and Les Elgart at a Columbia session

Moving to the 1930s, the Elgart crew brought back "Flat Foot Floogie," a hipster anthem for Slim & Slam in 1938.

Albertine gave in to the irresistible allure that the classics seem to have for big band arrangers, turning Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor into "Rocky's Prelude," which is actually highly amusing. Just as much fun is the transformation of the Basie band's theme into the "One O'Clock Jump Mambo."

And then we have two nods to our fellow creatures on this earth. The first is "Roo Roo (Kangaroo)," which seems to be a kiddie tune the band hoped would be as successful as Ray Anthony's "Bunny Hop" of 1953. Then there is "The Little White Duck" by Bernard Zaritsky and Walt Barrows, first recorded by Burl Ives in 1950.

Finally, the best-known number on the record - Albertine's "Bandstand Boogie," which Dick Clark adopted as the theme song of his popular TV program American Bandstand a few years later. The flip of the "Bandstand Boogie" single was "When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba," Herman Hupfeld's second greatest hit and here the subject of a band vocal, which is less objectionable than most of its ilk.

Now, to answer the question way up top - was Elgart's troupe the "band of the year?" Well, yes, in at least one poll. For example, Billboard's 1954 DJ Poll had the group as the top swing band - but the number five "all-around" band. In Down Beat's popularity poll, the group placed third. But any way you look at it, the year was a huge success for a new band.

If you like the band, don't forget to peruse the earlier posts and the new compilation of its 1946-48 singles on my other blog.

LINK

Bergund Conducts the Popular Sibelius

Today, a stirring and vividly recorded program of popular works by Jean Sibelius, in 1972 performances by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under the Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund.

Berglund (1929-2012) was devoted to Sibelius' music, having recorded three cycles of the symphonies during his long career.

Paavo Berglund

Today's recordings were made before his first set of the symphonies, also with the Bournemouth orchestra. Berglund would go on to sets with the Helsinki Philharmonic in the 1980s and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe the following decade.

These particular recordings were first issued in UK Columbia's Studio Two series, which was a rival to UK Decca's better-known Phase 4 releases. They both aimed for big, bold sound with the microphones close to the instrumental choirs. The benefit was clarity; the downside a lack of depth in the soundstage.

Larger-than-life sound surely works well with such pieces as Sibelius' patriotic Finlandia, with its heraldic brass. To me, it also suits the composer's famed Swan of Tuonela, with its important part for the English horn. However, Robert Layton in The Gramophone disagrees: "I think the close balance does not help in The Swan of Tuonela particularly the very opening entry of the lower strings. The upper strings sound too meagre when subjected to so close a scrutiny. This may well serve to rob the opening of some of its magic for I did miss here the feeling of poetic intensity The Swan calls for."

Jean Sibelius circa 1899, when Finlandia was first performed

Layton, an authority on Scandinavian music, was impressed by the disc, however: "The performance of Finlandia has plenty of rumbustiousness and fire, and the Bournemouth orchestra play with evident enthusiasm, as indeed they do in Lemminkäinen's Return. This had really splendid dash and attack and ... is really one of the most vivid and spirited versions of it we have had on LP for a very long time. 

"The three movements from the King Christian Suite are all given unfussy, straightforward readings that can be strongly recommended even though the recording balances the wind too closely for my taste in the 'Musette'."

I transferred this disc on request because it is encoded in SQ quadrophonic form, a four-channel format that had a brief vogue in the 1970s. (Discs such as these were stereo compatible.) This pressing is on the German Electrola label.

LINK

Ad in The Gramophone; I don't think the photo pertains to Sibelius

Teddi King - the RCA Victor Singles

After making recordings for Atlantic, Coral and Storyville, the vocalist Teddi King landed at RCA Victor in 1956 - and was immediately successful.

These blogs have already chronicled some of her earlier career:

• Her 1952 dates with George Shearing, along with a few of her earliest recordings with Nat Pierce's band

• Her 1954 Brunswick EP, which recently appeared on my other blog

Now I've gathered together all her singles issued by RCA from 1956-58 - 16 selections in all. Teddi was fortunate that her first record was a hit. Victor continued to give her relatively good material to record over the next few years.

Hugo Winterhalter

Here's a rundown of the RCA sides, which are conducted by Hugo Winterhalter unless otherwise indicated.

In 1956, one of the big openings on Broadway was a showcase for Sammy Davis, Jr. called Mr. Wonderful. Unusually, the title tune was about him, not by him. Olga James had the honor of introducing "Mr. Wonderful" the song, written by Jerry Bock with his early collaborator Larry Holofcener and George David Weiss. King's single release of the song did so well that RCA took out a full-page trade ad proclaiming her "one of the world's great women." Not sure about that, but she did show signs of being one of the world's great pop singers.

"Mr. Wonderful" was backed by the country-tinged waltz "Are You Slipping Thru My Fingers" Not bad, but not "The Tennessee Waltz."

My transfers of the two songs above and the two that follow come from the RCA promotional EP (at left), issued by General Electric to promote its flash bulbs. For any of you young pups out there, indoor photography at the time was illuminated by disposable bulbs, rather than a flash built into your camera or phone. These bulbs had a tendency to explode, which added an air of danger to the process.

The EP's second side was taken up with another successful single coupling. The better known was Steve Allen's "Impossible," a memorable song even if the lyrics are a little contrived. I can't imagine that Steve was unhappy with King's effort.

The final song on the EP was Irving Gordon's "I Can Honestly Say It's a Lie," one of those "sure, we went dancing, but there was no romancing" songs, and a good example of the species.

The always-reliable Ralph Burns provided the orchestral backing for those two songs.

Ralph Burns

The next single was yet another success. Teddi is completely convincing in Gordon Jenkins' "Married I Can Always Get." This paean to female independence came from the composer's newly augmented Manhattan Tower, which was the subject of a television show and a Capitol LP, the latter of which you can find here, freshly remastered.

The single's flip side was another fine item - "Traveling Down a Lonely Road," Nino Rota's theme from the film La Strada, with English lyrics by Don Raye.

Next, we have a surprising recording of an obscure Rodgers and Hart song - "There's So Much More," introduced in 1931's America's Sweetheart, which was only a moderate success. Teddi will have you thinking it's lost gem. Two better known songs from America's Sweetheart - "I've Got Five Dollars" and "We'll Be the Same" - can be found here in recordings made at the time of the production.

Jack Kane

Teddi is at her best in the next song, a standard for once: "Say It Isn't So." This number and the next two are in the hands of Canadian arranger Jack Kane, who had been brought to the US by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. His arrangement is very much like the work of Nelson Riddle.

Kane leaves the Riddle sound behind for "A Ride on a Rainbow," a good new song written by Jule Styne and Leo Robin for the 1957 televised musical of Ruggles of Red Gap, where it was sung by Jane Powell. (Her recording is here.)

King and Kane pull a surprise with the next item - an R&B/R&R song called "Should I Ever Love Again." Kane's backing is the usual simplistic rock 'n' roll formula heard on many records of the time. Teddi, however, has seemingly assimilated many of the R&B vocal techniques of the day, and is almost entirely convincing in her effort.

We're back in pop territory with "Every Woman (Wants to Make Her Man Over)," a cocktail jazz piece by composer Don Gohman and lyricist Mort Goode. It's very much of its time, but even so a good song that is done superbly by King.

"Then It Starts Again" leads off with a quasi-Rachmaninoff piano intro. The key is a bit too high for Teddi; she sounds uncharacteristically ill at ease in this grandiose piece.

The next song is by Gloria Shayne and Noel Paris (possible Shayne's husband Noel Regnery). It's a rollicking piece called "I Was a Child Until Tonight," with a bravura performance by King. Shayne later had hits with "Goodbye Cruel World" and "The Men in My Little Girl's Life."

Teddi is at her best with Johnny Parker's "A Lot in Common," an enjoyable catalog song that finds King sounding exhilarated with her new love. She also gets to show off her imitations of labelmates Perry Como and Harry Belafonte.

Speaking of Perry, King's next song was written by the authors of "Catch a Falling Star," one of the Groaner's greatest hits - Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance. King's "Baisez-Moi" was not among their other hits, but for an assembly-line tune, it's not bad and Teddi is fine, even some with Patti Page-style vocal doubling. [Addendum: friend and francophone Ravel writes the following: "the song «Baisez-moi» is a terrible translation. It should have been something like «Embrassez-moi»... as the other title means «F*** Me» in French... I'm not kidding :-)"]

"Say a Prayer (and Light a Candle)" is very much of its time, a quasi-religious item with King backed by a heavenly choir. The singing is good, but Hugo Winterhalter doesn't seem to know what to do with the simplistic melody.

These transfers are from my collection of King singles; the sound is generally excellent.

LINK

Abravanel Conducts Bloch's 'Sacred Service'

Today we're continuing a series of Maurice Abravanel's late-career recordings for the Angel label. The subject is Ernest Bloch's important, beautiful and moving Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh).

As always in this series, the performances by the Utah Symphony and Chorale are both splendid and well recorded.

Here is Abran Chipman of High Fidelity on the significance of this work: "Despite the substantial Jewish contribution, creative and re-creative, to Western music, a combination of socio-economic, theological, and aesthetic factors has limited to a handful the number of specifically liturgical Jewish works, among which Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) of 1930-33 stands pre-eminent."

Ernest Bloch

When this work was written, Bloch was mid-career. Born in 1880 in Switzerland, he came to the US in 1916. The composer became the founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1920, and the head of the San Francisco Conservatory five years later. He returned to Switzerland in 1930, where he composed Avodath Hakodesh, moving back to the US in 1939.

Bloch was a superb composer, whose works I should feature more often. Previously he has been represented only by his Piano Quintet, which is newly remastered and available here along with other 20th century works.

Maurice Abravanel

Douglas Lawrence

Here is what Chipman had to say about the performance on this LP: "Angel's Douglas Lawrence is close to ideal, bringing special ecstasy and sadness to his fervent singing (cf. the closing pages of the first movement). The brief solo soprano and alto parts, angelically sung on [Bloch's own recording on] London, are not quite as distinguished on either Columbia [the Bernstein performance] or Angel, but none of the choral groups has a significant edge over the others. 

"I have already praised Angel's skill in handling overall balances; that applies to smaller details as well (an overly spotlighted celesta excepted). The pressing is good, and a text is provided - though only in English. That, however, is the only jarring note in this intelligently conceived and executed production of a landmark work."

The recording, in the Mormon Tabernacle, dates from May 1977. As with several of Abravanel's Angel recordings, it is SQ-encoded if there are any die-hard quadrophonic listeners out there.

LINK

Chet Baker Plays and Sings

Trumpet player Chet Baker had a tumultuous life and career, with some highs and many lows, the latter mainly caused by substance abuse. Today we'll hear one of his most neglected LPs - dating from a generally fallow period in the 1960s - and his first vocal album, from the 1950s. Both are enjoyable, if very different.

Chet Baker Sings

Baker became a singer almost by accident. Supposedly his mother heard him vocalizing, and she encouraged him to record. So he did.

The first people (beside Mom) to hear him were his band mates, who were not impressed. Russ Freeman, the pianist depicted on the cover above, thought he had no feeling for lyrics and sang in a wispy, high voice like a girl.

This may have been envy - Freeman was well regarded but Baker was a star on the West Coast cool jazz scene and (when young) was almost absurdly good looking. Now he sings?

Well, Chet could sing. He even became influential - the vibratoless and emotionless voice of Astrud Gilberto comes to mind. (They said she couldn't sing, either.)

To me, Baker's model was the young Frank Sinatra, at least the Frank who sang tender ballads. Chet even includes two of the Voice's signature songs among the eight selections on this 10-inch LP from 1954 - "I Fall in Love Too Easily" and "Time After Time," both by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. Baker's signature song became "My Funny Valentine," which he had recorded as an instrumental with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1953.

Then again, it was said that Baker had no vocal repertoire when he began recording; that the songs were suggested to him by Freeman and others, and he needed many takes to record them successfully. Paradoxically, Baker sounds both relaxed and innocent, which he certainly was not.

The other songs on the LP are standards - "But Not for Me," "There Will Never Be Another You," "I Get Along without You Very Well," "The Thrill Is Gone" and "Look for the Silver Lining."

This transfer comes from my two-EP version of the 10-inch LP.

LINK to Chet Baker Sings

Chet Baker and the Carmel Strings - Into My Life

Blog follower Keek asked me for one of Chet's 1960s LPs with the Carmel Strings. I was going to transfer my mono copy of 1966's Into My Life, but then I found a good stereo copy on Internet Archive that I cleaned up for this post.

From 1954 to 1966, the musical zeitgeist had changed from Sinatra to the Beatles, so instead of two Frankie songs, the later LP includes two by the Fab Four - the lovely "Here, There and Everywhere" and the grating "Got to Get You into My Life."

These presumably were chosen by Baker, producer Richard Bock or arranger-conductor Harry Betts, a former big band trombonist.

The idea apparently was to produce an easy-listening, jazz-inflected instrumental LP featuring Baker on fluegelhorn. Baker was a relatively early adopter of this brass instrument that is pitched like a trumpet but has a more mellow tone.

It's said that Chet took on these dates to pay the rent, but the results are pleasing, even though the arrangements are very much of their time. The program encompasses:

• A few clunkers (Francis Lai's maddeningly repetitive "A Man and a Woman," Jerry Herman's "If He Walked into My Life," which can be bombastic, but is thankfully toned down here)

• A few oldies (Irving Berlin's "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," Leroy Anderson's lovely "Serenata")

• A folk song of sorts ("Guantanamera," actually a Cuban patriotic song taken up by the Weavers and then the Seekers)

• A French tune (Louiguy's "Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)," a hit in the US by Pérez Prado in the 50s)

• A cabaret favorite (Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman's "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men")

• A now-forgotten tune ("All" by Nico Fidenco, Marian Grudeff, Nino Oliviero and Raymond Jessel, which was recorded by many artists at the time)

• A Herb Alpert-associated number (Sol Lake's "More and More Amor," which appeared on the trumpeter's mega-popular LP Going Places)

• And, of course, Bacharach and David ("Trains and Boats and Planes")

You will enjoy this one if you like the sounds of the 60s melded with easy listening and a tinge of jazz. The sound is excellent.

LINK to Chet Baker and the Carmel Strings - Into My Life