More Historic Recordings of Gershwin

There may be no musician more popular on this blog than George Gershwin. It seems as though people - or maybe it's just me - can't get enough of his music.

Today we have three more historic recordings of the great Gershwin's music - two of the immortal Rhapsody in Blue, and one of the glorious Concerto in F.

Specifically, we have the first recording of the Rhapsody in orchestral guise - which is also the first nearly-complete recording - and the first recording of the work outside the United States.

As for the concerto, it appears in the initial recording that used Gershwin's orchestral arrangement.

The artists are pianist Jesús María Sanromá with the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler, and pianist Mischa Spoliansky with Julian Fuhs and a Berlin band.

Rhapsody in Blue - Sanromá and Fiedler

Jesús María Sanromá

The Sanromá-Fiedler Rhapsody dates from 1935. The 40-year-old Fiedler had been conductor of the Pops for five years at that time, and the 32-year-old Sanromá had filled the piano chair in the Boston Symphony for several years.

Their performance of the Rhapsody was touted as the first complete recording of the work. While it was indeed much longer - at nearly 14 minutes it was almost twice as long as the earlier recordings - it did reflect a few brief cuts, as my friend Bryan ("Shellackophile") points out in his Internet Archive post.

1937 album cover (courtesy Shellackophile)

This particular transfer comes from a 1950s reissue on a RCA Camden LP. The sound is quite good for its time.

It's not clear - to me anyway - who produced the orchestral arrangements, and the original notes for the 78 set do not say. I've seen speculation that Fiedler himself was the author. Ferde Grofé did not write his own orchestral arrangement until seven years later. (He also was the author of the original "jazz band" orchestration and a set of charts for theater orchestra.)

The performance itself achieved some renown in its day. In a 1956 review of the Camden record, the critic of High Fidelity wrote, "For some time it was considered the definitive performance, and even now it offers pretty stiff competition to a number of recordings, of later vintage, currently available."

Sanromá and Fiedler were compatible musically, sharing a bias towards hustling the music along, which suits this piece nicely and is well in tune with the piano recordings that Gershwin left us. Speaking of Sanromá's performance, High Fidelity opined, "It has tremendous drive, a fine rhythmic pulse, and is impeccably played."

Rhapsody in Blue - Spoliansky and Fuhs

An Australian pressing

Our next historical recording is from 1927, and uses the abbreviated jazz band version of the Rhapsody then standard. Emanating from Berlin, it apparently is the first recording of the piece to be made outside the US.

The pianist, Mischa Spoliansky, achieved a certain renown as a film composer later in life, and has been featured here several times. (This post of his music for the film Saint Joan summarizes those appearances.)

Mischa Spoliansky

Spoliansky had built a reputation in Berlin as a pianist and songwriter before emigrating to England upon the rise of the Nazis in 1933.

Julian Fuhs

Julian Fuhs was a German-born pianist and bandleader who was successful there before emigrating to the US.

The performance is very lively and almost idiomatic, and the sound is fairly good, although Spoliansky's piano is less to the fore than it might be.

I've had this transfer for some time; it's not my own although I did clean it up. It could well have come from Internet Archive.

Concerto in F - Sanromá and Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler

For the Concerto in F there is no question about who wrote the orchestrations. Gershwin himself did them, originally for the conductor Walter Damrosch, who commissioned the piece by the young wizard for his New York Symphony Orchestra. The work premiered in December 1925.

Its first recording was in 1928, using a re-scored version that Grofe produced for Whiteman, featuring Roy Bargy at the piano. The orchestral version did not merit a release until Sanromá and Fiedler took it up in 1940.

Through the years, this worthy effort has been somewhat eclipsed by the 1942 version by Oscar Levant and Andre Kostelanetz. Levant worked hard at making himself the heir to Gershwin and his piano work, to the point of appearing in a fantasy sequence in the film An American in Paris (which featured Gershwin's music) as not only the pianist, but the conductor, other musicians and the audience, applauding his own playing in the Concerto.

Three Camden covers

Reviewing the Camden reissue, the High Fidelity reviewer complained about the sound of the Sanroma-Fiedler Concerto. It was indeed distinctly inferior to the earlier Rhapsody. I've knocked some of the wooliness out of the sonics and create a bit of presence, and it now sounds much better.

Bonus - "Strike Up the Band"

The 78 album of Rhapsody in Blue included a performance of Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" as a fill-up. This was not included on the Camden LP, but I've added it from a HMV pressing cleaned up from Internet Archive.

The performance is lively; indeed, it struck me as too lively. The percussion effects in the first chorus sounded frantic. I took the recording down half a step, and it now sounds much more natural.

I have no idea why HMV or Victor might have changed the pitch, if indeed they did so.

PS - More Gershwin

I mentioned that Gershwin has often appeared here. If you click on the George Gershwin label at the end of this post, you will be taken to all the 17 posts available.

These include two-piano and choral versions of the Rhapsody, several LPs by Oscar Levant, instrumentals from Kostelanetz and Gould, vocals by Lee Wiley, and more.

LINK to the Fiedler-Sanromá recordings

LINK to the Spoliansky-Fuhs recording

Lee Wiley Sings Gershwin

I introduced Lee Wiley to the blog a few months ago with her two Rodgers and Hart albums. That post was a great success with readers, so today we have a follow-up in the form of the singer's 1939 Gershwin set, augmented by three additional tunes from the 1940s.

That first Wiley post provided background on the vocalist, and an introduction to the songwriter-focused albums that came out on small labels in the late 30s and early 40s. Today's Gershwin album was issued by the Liberty Music Shop, which specialized in cabaret music and society bands but also had a hand in jazz.

Lee Wiley

Most of Wiley's records from this period were made in the company of the Chicago-style musicians whose gutsy sound suited her down to the ground. The striking cover above - by John De Vries, who inspired these various sets - depicts the some of the musicians: from bottom, Joe Bushkin (piano), Bud Freeman (tenor sax), Max Kaminsky (trumpet), George Wettling (drums) and Eddie Condon (guitar).

This Liberty Music Shop album was the first in the series of songwriter collections done by Wiley. It came out just a few months before the first Rodgers and Hart album covered in my earlier post. As with the R&H set, the Gershwin recordings are ascribed to Max Kaminsky's Orchestra or Joe Bushkin's Orchestra seemingly at random - the personnel mostly remained the same.

Max Kaminsky, Lee Wiley, Joe Bushkin

In his windy liner notes, Ernie Anderson asserts that four of the eight songs in the Gershwin set were first recordings. That seems to be true for three of them - "I've Got a Crush on You," "But Not for Me" and "How Long Has This Been Going On?" (The fourth, "My One and Only" was recorded several times after its 1927 introduction in Funny Face.)

Bud Freeman

But let's run down all the songs on the Liberty Music Shop album, starting with "How Long Has This Been Going On?" The label claims it comes from Funny Face, which is true, although it was cut from that show in the run-up to Broadway, and then used in 1928's Rosalie, where it was sung by Bobbe Arnst. Apparently this brilliant song did not merit a recording until Wiley and company entered the studio 11 years later. The rendition has a nice Bushkin accompaniment, a ripe Freeman tenor solo and some annoying clattering by Wettling.

"My One and Only" did indeed originate in Funny Face, where Fred Astaire, Betty Compton and Gertrude McDonald premiered it. The Wiley performance is distinguished by the inclusion of the excellent verse, which has a clever verbal segue to the chorus. The instrumental break with Kaminsky and Freeman is in double time.

"I've Got a Crush on You" was featured in two Gershwin shows - Treasure Girl of 1928 and Strike Up the Band of 1930. But it was otherwise ignored until the Wiley recording. Why was this so? Here are some thoughts from the University of Michigan's Gershwin Initiative:

Musicologists such as Walter Rimler have said that “Crush”’s failure was originally because Treasure Girl and Strike Up the Band were received so poorly; however, others, such as Howard Pollack and Philip Furia, have said that Wiley’s version became so beloved because she turned the song into a ballad . . . [She] softly cooed the words, rather than punching them, as was the style in Treasure Girl and Strike Up the Band.

Lee changed the verse's opening lines from "How glad the many millions of Annabelles and Lillians would be to capture me" to "How glad the many millions of Toms and Dicks and Harrys would be . . .", which doesn't scan. Today, female vocalists usually replace "Lillians" with "Williams." 

Note that the pianist on "Crush" was apparently Fats Waller, who also appears on the next selection in the guise of "Maurice" the organist. 

Fats Waller, aka Maurice

The song is "Someone to Watch Over Me," which Gertrude Lawrence first sang in 1926's Oh, Kay! (You can find her recording and others from the time here.) Wiley includes the verse - which for once is not a novelty, being heard on many other disks. Waller was a tremendous musician, but Lee misses the rhythmic backbone that the full ensemble lent her. She would return to the song five years later, as is discussed below.

The seldom-heard "Sam and Delilah" was premiered by none other than Ethel Merman in 1930's Girl Crazy. This number is in the vein of "Frankie and Johnny," although it is a much better song. Wiley and her backing musicians are perfect in the piece. Surprisingly, the first recording was by Duke Ellington, with a Chick Bullock vocal.

"'S Wonderful," unlike some of these tunes, was popular with recording artists pretty much from the time that Adele Astaire and Allen Kearns first sang it in Funny Face. Wiley's reading is a remarkable one, not least because she includes the verse and has sympathetic piano backing, by Joe Bushkin, I believe.

Ira and George Gershwin

A song that is not heard as often as it might be is "Sweet and Low-Down," the earliest number in this collection, dating from 1925's Tip-Toes. It did merit a recording at the time by the Singing Sophomores, but then not often until Lee took it up, after which it again receded into something like obscurity. The verse begins with brief, mournful solos from Kaminsky, Freeman and Bushkin, followed by Ira's superb intro, which Lee handles beautifully. The ensemble then switches into mid-tempo mode for this rousing piece - "Professor, stomp your feet!" Lee commands. Max Kaminsky has a fine muted solo.

Ginger Rogers and Willie Howard sang "But Not for Me" in Girl Crazy, but it doesn't look as though a commercial recording appeared before Wiley's. Thereafter, it hasn't lacked for admirers - there have been more than 700 recordings since Wiley took it up, including another by Lee that we will discuss in a moment.

So, this is truly a exceptional album. It is memorable artistically, it started the fashion for songwriter-themed albums and it revived several excellent Gershwin songs. It even has a striking cover, a year before Alex Steinweiss supposedly "invented the album cover" - one of the most nonsensical boasts ever to take hold in the music industry.

Eddie Condon with album cover

Now let's turn to the three additional Gershwin songs that Wiley recorded in the 1940s. The first two come from a George Gershwin Jazz Concert that Decca issued under the name of Eddie Condon in 1944, with many of the same musicians who appeared in the Liberty Music Shop set - Wettling, Kaminsky, Bushkin and clarinetist Pee Wee Russell. Wiley sang two songs - "Someone to Watch Over Me," a repeat of the LMS repertoire, and "The Man I Love."

Bobby Hackett

Both are sung well, but a bit more impersonally than on the LMS date, perhaps because this session was not focused on her. "Someone to Watch Over Me" benefits from not having Maurice's organ accompaniment, but the Bobby Hackett trumpet obbligatos are too loud and intrusive for Lee's sensitive vocal. Jack Teagarden's solo is more apposite.

The engineer dialed Hackett back for "The Man I Love," which has solos from Teagarden and baritone saxophonist Ernie Caceres. This song suits Wiley so well, it could have been written for her. For such a famous song, it had the dubious honor of being cut from Lady, Be Good, inserted in Strike Up the Band, which closed out of town, and rejected for Rosalie.

Lee Wiley and Jess Stacy

"But Not for Me" returned via a 1947 date with a band led by pianist Jess Stacy, during his tempestuous and short-lived marriage to Wiley. Again, a good performance, but not a match for the LMS version. It appeared on several labels, but first on Majestic, I believe.

Wiley and Hackett would turn to another of the LMS songs - "I've Got a Crush on You" - for their 1951 album Night in Manhattan, with backing by a Joe Bushkin ensemble. I hope to present that LP later in this series - but first will come her sets devoted to Harold Arlen and Cole Porter, and then perhaps a selection of her early recordings.

These recordings have generally vivid sound, remastered in ambient stereo from Internet Archive originals.

LINK to Lee Wiley's Gershwin recordings

Marion Harris

Finally, let me mention that Buster's Swinging Singles has a new post of three early Gershwin recordings by the sadly neglected singer Marion Harris - "Nashville Nightingale," "Somebody Loves Me" and "The Man I Love." These are very much worth hearing.

The Iturbis in Gershwin, Debussy and More

Those of you who have been paying attention to things around here will be aware that the music of George Gershwin is among the most popular of my subjects. The Rhapsody in Blue, in particular, has been the topic of many posts, including ones covering the original recording, a version with a chorus, jazz interpretations, and what have you.

But there is always more to discover, and today we have two different versions for two pianos - one with orchestra and one without. These are part of a collection by duo pianists Amparo and José Iturbi that also includes several unusual examples of mid-century Americana, plus their recordings of Debussy's En blanc et noir and two Andalusian Dances by Manuel Infante.

The 1949 Rhapsody in Blue recording

10-inch cover

Siblings Amparo (1898-1969) and José (1895-1980) were virtuoso pianists who often performed together.

When this 1949 recording of Rhapsody in Blue was made, they (particularly José) were at the height of their fame. They appeared together in several Hollywood films, with José taking a speaking role in most of them.

As sometimes happens, the more the performers became familiar to the general public, the less they were held in regard by the audience for classical music.

The pair took the Rhapsody into the recording studio twice, both in arrangements by José. The first was in 1938 in a duo piano arrangement without orchestra (discussed below); the 1949 version included orchestra.

Both are well worth hearing. The earlier version, made in New York, strikes me as a bit more refined than the 1949 orchestral arrangement. But then, José in particular was not known for subtlety and both can be brash. I will say that the 1949 version is dramatic, and is in excellent sound.

José Iturbi in Anchors Aweigh

In addition to his piano duties, José also conducted the orchestra in the 1949 Rhapsody, made in Hollywood. He had just appeared as himself in the Kathryn Grayson-Mario Lanza epic That Midnight Kiss, managing to be billed above Lanza, who was in his first leading role.

The 1949 version came out on EP and 78 sets, later migrating to 10-inch LP (cover above) and 12-inch LP. The LP versions included additional works, as described below.

Chambers - All American - A Satirical Suite

Both the LP versions included the duo's recording of a brief All American satirical suite by avocational composer J. Clarence Chambers, who at one time was the general medical superintendent of the New York City hospital system. Dr. Chambers' suite is perhaps the only work of his that has been recorded. It comes from a 1946 session in Hollywood, where José was appearing in the Jane Powell movie Holiday in Mexico.

The suite's titles will give you a good sense of what it's about - "Chicken in the Hay," "Lush," "Bloozey-Woozey" and "Parade of the Visiting Firemen."

Debussy and Infante

12-inch cover

The 12-inch version of the LP also included works by Debussy and Infante. The bigger LP came with a much better looking cover, the work of artist and illustrator Robert J. Lee.

Debussy's En blanc et noir is a turbulent wartime work, written in 1915, when the composer, afflicted with cancer, had but a few years to live. The work is dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky, Jacques Charlot (a business associate who was killed in the war), and Igor Stravinsky.

Debussy was passionately anti-German at the time; he deconstructs Martin Luther's hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, in the second movement.

The Iturbis' intensity is well suited to this work; at the same time they inject more light and shade into this recording than some of their other efforts. The 1950 sessions were held in Hollywood.

Manuel Infante

José championed the music of Spanish composer Manuel Infante (1883-1958). He and Amparo often played Infante's suites for two pianos. The LP includes two of the three Andalusian Dances - No. 1 and No. 2. (The LP sleeve gets the markings wrong - No. 1 is Ritmo; No. 2 is Sentimento.)

These are highly attractive characteristic pieces that are just right for the performers, who carry them off with panache. The recordings were made in November 1946 in Hollywood.

All the works discussed so far were transferred from my copy of the 12-inch LP.

Music by Gould and Reddick

Morton Gould

I've added three brief American works to the program. The first is the Blues movement from the American Concertette No. 1 by Morton Gould, here in a version for solo piano by José, for whom the work was written. The Concertette is usually called Interplay, after the ballet that Jerome Robbins produced using the score. You can hear the complete work in a recording by Cor de Groot that I posted many years ago.

Also from Gould is a highly idiomatic and convincing Boogie Woogie Étude that is powerfully played by José. The work dates from 1943. Iturbi recorded the two Gould pieces in November 1944 in New York.

Willam J. Reddick

Finally we have an unusual orchestral piece by William J. Reddick called Espanharlem. Not sure what program Reddick had in mind for this work, but it's an attractive piece in the Gershwin vein. This comes from a V-Disc with Iturbi conducting what the producers called the "Rochester Symphony." This is very likely the Rochester Philharmonic, which Iturbi conducted from 1936 to 1944. He made a few RCA Victor recordings on May 9, 1942 with that ensemble, per A Classical Discography. The V-Disc came from an unissued master from that date.

Reddick was known for his arrangements of spirituals and a collection of roustabout songs from the Ohio River. He was producer and director of radio's Ford Sunday Evening Hour from 1936-42, then again after 1945. This was probably the connection with Iturbi - José and the Rochester orchestra sometimes appeared on the program.

The 1938 Rhapsody in Blue

The Iturbis

Gershwin himself transcribed the Rhapsody in Blue for two pianos, but the Iturbis' 1938 recording was arranged by José. The pair made the recording in August and September 1938 for Victor. This transfer comes from HMV pressings.

Just as with the 1949 version, the performances are skillful and forthright, conveyed in very good sound from Victor's New York studios. The 1938 recording, issued on 78s, has not been reissued, to my knowledge. However, a set of Iturbi's complete RCA Victor recordings will be released this week, I believe.

This version of the Rhapsody in Blue, along with the Gould and Reddick works, come from cleaned-up transfers found on Internet Archive.  

Fiedler Conducts Grofé, Gershwin and Copland

This post is the result of a request for my help in cleaning up a noisy Internet Archive transfer. The record is Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, in the recording by the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler.

It seems that this is something of a rare item, at least in its stereo incarnation. Apparently it has appeared only twice - on a stereo tape and then on this RCA Victrola reissue.

The original mono issue

The suite was a relatively early exercise in stereo recording by the RCA engineers. It dates from a June 25, 1955 session in Symphony Hall that also produced a reading of Copland's El Salón México, its discmate on the original Red Seal mono issue. You may well have seen the mono LP. It was popular, with its striking photo of the Grand Canyon - much to be preferred to the stereo cover, which has a fuzzy photo of the Pops superimposed on a denatured Grand Canyon.

So, you may ask, why didn't the Victrola reissue include the Copland? I'm not sure, but I don't believe the Copland has ever appeared in stereo, and the Victrola folks must have wanted to include another two-channel recording as a coupling. Thus the inclusion of the 1963 Pops recording of An American in Paris.

RCA has reissued El Salón México in the ersatz "electronic stereo" format, so its stereo master may have been lost or damaged. Or the work may have not been recorded in stereo, although that seems unlikely.

Too bad, because the Grand Canyon Suite is quite a good early stereo recording. These early examples of two-channel recording used simple microphone setups and can provide a convincing facsimile of an orchestra in a concert hall. That's more than can be said of the Gershwin recording, which, while punchy, sounds nothing like the "real thing."

Arthur Fiedler

The download includes the Grofé, Gershwin and Copland works, the latter in unmolested mono, along with the usual scans and reviews. The performances are good, with the characteristic Fiedler drive that never turns brusque.

Gershwin's Oh, Kay! - The 1926 Recordings

Original cast recordings of Broadway shows may seem like they have been around forever, but they didn't come into vogue until 1943 and the stunning success of Oklahoma! both on stage and as a cast album.

For earlier shows - even those of such luminaries as George Gershwin - we have only an sketchy indication of how they sounded on the stage. Yes, at times the stars or even the composer would make recordings, but these often were not of the original arrangements or with their original co-stars.

In addition, the record companies had their own stars put down their interpretations of the most popular songs, and these would shape the impressions of the average person far from Broadway and its theaters.

Today I want to look at one of those Gershwin musicals - Oh, Kay! from 1926, a Broadway success with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and a book by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. For that show, we have two recordings made by its star, Gertrude Lawrence, and the four by Gershwin himself at the piano, along with several by the popular artists of the day.

Ira and George Gershwin, Guy Bolton

About Oh, Kay!

Oh, Kay! was written for Lawrence, a West End favorite who had appeared on Broadway in revue in 1924 and 1925 to great acclaim. Hers was to be the first starring role for a British performer in a Broadway musical. The show ran in New York from November 1926 through July 1927, then went to London's West End for another seven months.

The musical was very much of its time, a farce involving comical bootleggers mixed up with some English aristocrats, including the Duke of Durham and his sister Lady Kay (Lawrence). Kay's love interest was Jimmy Winter, played by Oscar Shaw, and the main comic foil was the inevitable Victor Moore as Shorty McGee.

Oscar Shaw, Gertrude Lawrence, Victor Moore

On stage, Lawrence sang three of the show's four big tunes - a solo on "Someone to Watch Over Me" and duets with Shaw in "Do, Do, Do" and "Maybe." The quasi-minstrel number "Clap Yo' Hands" was handled by Harlan Dixon and the ensemble.

1927 West End program

When the time came for recordings, only Lawrence was asked into the studio, and then only for "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "Do-Do-Do," done for Victor. Columbia engaged Gershwin to supply piano versions of the main songs. Plus there were other recordings handled by artists under contract to the various labels.

Let's take a look at these contrasting recordings, all of which date from October-December 1926.

Oh, Kay! Medley

Although Victor invited Lawrence to record only two songs, it also engaged other artists to set down the best numbers. We start off the collection with an "Oh, Kay! Medley" from the two-piano team of Edgar Fairchild and Ralph Rainger. Both were composers as well as instrumentalists, and Rainger would go on to become quite well known in Hollywood for his work with Leo Robin, before perishing in a 1942 plane crash.

Edgar Fairchild and Ralph Rainger

I've included this record as a kind of overture, but also because it includes another song from the show besides the big four tunes named above - "Fidgety Feet" (not the ODJB number).

Clap Yo' Hands

"Clap Yo' Hands" provides the first opportunity to hear Gershwin in this score. The rousing number is well suited to his energetic approach to his own music on the piano, which I have otherwise observed can be brisk to the brink of brusque. He seldom attempts to convey sentiment through his playing - not that this is particularly relevant in "Clap Yo' Hands."

But what he does instrumentally is fascinating; he frequently uncovers new aspects to the music by introducing asides and counter-melodies. This number in particular also demonstrates his roots in ragtime.

Sam Lanin

The second version of "Clap Yo' Hands" is a Cameo recording done by the prolific Sam Lanin (Lester's brother), with an anonymous vocal. (Discographer Brian Rust identifies him as the little-recorded Arthur Hall.) Lanin passes the melody back and forth between the saxes and brass, and Hall is an effective advocate for the lyric.

Do-Do-Do

With "Do-Do-Do" we come to the first recording by the show's star, Gertrude Lawrence, accompanied by pianist Tom Waring (Fred's brother). We can speculate that this performance may be similar to what she presented on stage, and some of her coy phrasing would have worked better there in a duet setting, I imagine.

The second "Do-Do-Do" is also the second appearance by the composer, again fascinating in how he phrases his melody.

The third version is by another bandleader who was seldom out of the studios - Bob Haring, whose staccato trumpets attack the melody, with the unnamed vocalist right in tune with that march-band approach. This is another release from Cameo.

Maybe

Franklyn Baur arrives

After that assault by Haring, it's nice to hear the sweet-toned Franklyn Baur, one of the busiest recording vocalists of the time, in "Maybe." Baur is one of my favorites among the tenors who were in the studio at the time, although modern ears will be distracted by his rolled R's, among other vocal traits long out of vogue.

Baur recorded more of this score than even Gershwin. Beside "Maybe," he did a medley from the show under his own name, separate medleys with the Revelers and with the Columbia Light Opera Company, and two duets with Virginia Rea. The latter had a backing by pianists Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, who were part of the pit band on Broadway. Baur's solo side was the best of the lot, so I used it in preference to the other sides.

Next is "Maybe" with the composer at the piano. At one point he features a counter-melody that was later lifted for a well-known theme by another composer - one that I can't place, to my annoyance.

Jesse Crawford

For the final "Maybe" I could not resist transporting you to what sounds like a skating rink for a serenade by organist Jesse Crawford, along with Nat Shilkret and his Victor Orchestra. The echoey ambiance was actually created by recording these forces in an empty hall in the New York's Wurlitzer Building with Crawford at the console.

Someone to Watch Over Me

"Someone to Watch Over Me"

Before we close with Lawrence's show-stopping ballad version, let's hear "Someone to Watch Over Me" in two of the typically bouncy renditions that were popular then.

First was a fine arrangement from one of the best-regarded bands of the day, that of George Olsen. I am particularly partial to bass sax solos; there's a good one on this record.

The second version is another fascinating example from Gershwin himself.

After all this peppiness, we conclude with Gertrude Lawrence indulging in some emotion and rubato in her big number from the show. Lawrence sang the number to a rag doll in the staging. Originally, this song was near the beginning of the show, but Oh, Kay! ran so long in tryouts that scenes were cut and shifted around so much that the star did not appear on stage until 40 minutes into the production and this number ended up in the second act. In the studio, Tom Waring is again Lawrence's accompanist.

These records were remastered from lossless needle drops found on Internet Archive. The sound is generally quite good. The download includes labels and more production photos.

A more complete version of the score can be found in the 1994 Nonesuch recording with Dawn Upshaw in the Lawrence role and Eric Stern conducting. There also was a 1955 studio version from Columbia with Barbara Ruick and Jack Cassidy, and a 1960 revival cast that I don't have in my collection.

The chorus admonishes Kay

Paul Whiteman's 1946 and 1954 Gershwin Recordings

This post brings you yet another Paul Whiteman version of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," adding the Cuban Overture and "'I Got Rhythm' Variations" for good measure.

It's a "Rhapsody in Blue" with a difference, though - Whiteman added a cooing vocal ensemble at several places in the piece. The voices add nothing to the piece,to my ears, but Whiteman told pianist Earl Wild that he had run the idea past Gershwin before the composer's death and received his blessing. The arranger was Glenn Osser, per the pianist.

Earl Wild and Paul Whiteman

Wild himself made something of a specialty of the piece. The young pianist was a staff artist with NBC at the time of the recording, and had broadcast the Rhapsody with Arturo Toscanini in 1942, to much acclaim. He would go on to tape it with the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler for a 1960 RCA release.

Wild and Whiteman recorded the piece in December 1946 for the small Signature label, which had high hopes for the venture. It issued the 78s in an attractive album as number 1 in its "Great Performances" series. The set sold well enough to appear as number three in Billboard's classical chart for 1947. (Number two was another "Rhapsody in Blue" - from Levant and Ormandy. Number one was the Rubinstein-Golschmann Rachmaninoff Second Concerto.)

10-inch LP cover

But apparently the records did not sell well enough for Signature to continue the Great Performances series or offer more recording dates to Pops Whiteman. When the label foundered a few years later, Decca bought its masters. It gave the Wild-Whiteman Rhapsody new life by issuing it on a Coral 10-inch LP in 1952.

Buddy Weed

Decca-Coral invited Whiteman back to the studio in October 1954 to record the additional Gershwin works on offer today - the "Cuban Overture" and "'I Got Rhythm' Variations." The soloist in the latter piece was Buddy Weed, a studio pianist who appeared on dozens of records during the period, and who had been associated with Whiteman since the beginning of his career. This is the only Whiteman recording of the Variations, according to his biographer, Don Rayno. The Overture is presented in a much different arrangement than the 1938 version that featured pianist Rose Linda. I haven't been able to determine who arranged the 1954 recordings.

In 1956, Coral issued the three pieces in a 12-inch LP it dubbed "Great Gershwin" (cover below). This is the source of my transfer. I've moderated Coral's glaringly bright sound. The performances throughout are fluent and enjoyable. The download includes covers for the Signature set, the 10-inch and 12-inch Coral LPs, and a Coral 45, which used the familiar Whiteman caricature.

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More Robison and Gershwin, Plus Rodziński and Harry James

Our friends David Federman and 8H Haggis have been busy again, with more treasures coming our way.

David has added three volumes to his Willard Robison retrospective, covering recordings from the 1930s through the 1950s devoted to this poetic songwriter. The artists involved include Mildred Bailey, Bea Wain, Fats Waller, Bing Crosby, Dick Todd, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller and Tex Beneke, Tommy Dorsey and Jack Leonard, Stan Kenton and Gene Howard, Randy Brooks, Charlie Barnet and Kay Starr, Ella Logan, Artie Shaw and Martha Tilton, Tony Pastor, Gene Autry, Dolph Hewitt, Phil Harris, Rosemary Clooney, Jimmy Dean, Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman and Peggy Lee. You can find all three collections plus David's notes in the comments to the post immediately below. Please note that his links will only be good for a few days, so hurry. I will collect all these recordings into one download at a later date.

Awhile back David prepared an anthology of Rhapsody in Blue recordings, all but one released within a decade of the work's 1924 premiere. To me, the highlights are Oscar Levant's first attempt at the piece, dating from 1927 and helmed by NBC orchestra leader Frank Black, and two deconstructions of the piece from the jaunty Leroy Smith and (once again) Willard Robison bands. David mentioned that a few of the sides were in less-than-pristine condition, so I have taken the perhaps unforgivable liberty of remastering them. A link is in the comments to this post.

Also in a Gershwin mood was 8H Haggis. He has contributed a set from the Symphony of the Air conducted by the now-obscure Alfonso D'Artega including An American in Paris, a somewhat altered version of the Porgy & Bess suite, plus a peculiar Rhapsody in Blue that opens with a piano solo from "Suzanne Auber" (probably Sondra Bianca), joined halfway by the orchestra. He also uploaded a French Columbia LP of the Rhapsody and the Three Preludes from Jose Iturbi and the Concerts Colonne Orchestra. You can find those in the comments to this post.

8H also took his tools to my transfer of Artur Rodziński's New York recording of An American in Paris, with the aim of counteracting the compression and peak discoloration on the recording. This effort can be found in the comments to my original post.

Two additional 8H contributions: Rodziński's long-unavailable version of Wolf-Ferrari's Secret of Susanna Overture (in the comments to this post) and Howard Hanson's Samuel Barber LP, containing the Symphony No. 1, Adagio for Strings, Essay No. 1, and School for Scandal Overture. Go to the comments of this post for the Barber.

As always, the 8H Haggis uploads are only available for a limited time.

I have one reupload of my one - my friend Mel contributed Harry James' Soft Lights and Sweet Trumpet LP many years ago, and I have now remastered it and reupped it here.

I might add that I do occasionally transfer records myself, and you can look forward to a superb Marian Anderson LP of Brahms and Mahler in the days ahead.

Historic Gershwin Recordings

I know what you're thinking - what, another Gershwin record? But some of you may not have heard these, the original versions of several famous compositions. So here they are for those who think too much Gershwin is not enough.

This compilation contains the first recordings of the Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris and the Three Preludes. Also included are Gershwin's piano versions of songs from the shows Oh, Kay! and Tip-Toes.

Ferde Grofé, George Gershwin, producer S.L. (Roxy) Rothafel, Paul Whiteman

Gershwin and Paul Whiteman recorded Rhapsody in Blue just a few months after the February 1924 Aeolian Hall concert that introduced the work. (By the way, Aeolian Hall was in a still-existing building on 42nd Street across from Bryant Park. I didn't know that until recently, even though I worked a block away for many years.)

Whiteman called his concert "An Experiment in Modern Music," concocting an unwieldy program starting off with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's "Livery Stable Blues" and ending up with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. Gershwin's hurriedly composed Rhapsody stood out for its originality and flair, becoming so famous that Whiteman soon took the whole program on tour.

The recorded version is much abridged, but the Rhapsody's quality is strikingly evident even in this acoustic recording with its constricted frequency response. Ross Gorman's famous opening clarinet glissando is just as outrageous sounding today as it was then. Today's clarinetists use a much smoother tone quality than Gorman produces, and few of them would put forth his braying and laughing effects with the same gusto. It's said that at rehearsal Gorman inserted those effects as a joke on Gershwin. The composer actually liked them and wanted them included in the concert. I wonder if their intent was to mock the "Livery Stable Blues." The point of the concert was to show that the ODJB's style of music had been supplanted by Whiteman's smoother, more dignified type of jazz music. Whiteman had his first hit in 1920, and in a few years had become massively popular. He had already literally been crowned the "King of Jazz." That ceremony had taken place as a publicity stunt upon the the band's return from a 1923 European tour. To the general public, "jazz" had become the modern pop music that Whiteman's dance band purveyed, in succession to the ODJB's raucous sound.

An American in Paris was Gershwin's third major concert success, following the Rhapsody and the Concerto in F. Commissioned in 1928 by conductor Walter Damrosch of the New York Symphony, the first recording was in 1929 with an orchestra led by the immensely prolific Nat Shilkret, then Victor's director of light music. The recording session was not without its difficulties. Supposedly Shilkret banned the meddling Gershwin from the studio until the conductor realized he needed a celeste player for the score. At that point the composer was asked to return. Or so the story goes. It strikes me as a good tale that is highly unlikely.

Several important Gershwin piano solos make up the rest of the selections. The Three Preludes, from a 1928 session in London, are dispatched more briskly (and somewhat less accurately) than the the recording by the composer's acolyte, Oscar Levant, which can be heard via this post. Speaking of brisk, Gershwin hustles through eight songs from his shows Oh, Kay! and Tip-Toes in a bracing fashion - even the torch song "Someone to Watch Over Me" rattles by quickly. In his liner notes, Gershwin expert Edward Jablonski avers that the quick tempos adopted in these 1926 recordings were designed for dancers. (Jablonski must not have tried dancing to them.) Gershwin's metronomic manner likely reflects the ragtime tradition that he grew up with. The young composer's first success in fact was a rag. Still and all, his pianism is winning, even though listening to the eight songs all at once can be tiring. The selection concludes with one of my personal favorites, "When Do We Dance?"

I transferred these items from a indifferently produced LP reissue of variable sound quality. After some refurbishing, Rhapsody in Blue comes up very well considering its acoustic origins. The recording horn did not reproduce any frequencies above 3 kHz, blunting the ring of Gershwin's piano. But the pungent effects produced by Whiteman's fine musicians come through clearly.

The balance of the program was recorded electrically and has a wider range. An American in Paris was not especially well balanced, however. Although Gershwin composed the piece for a full orchestra, and Victor grandly promoted its "Victor Symphony Orchestra" on the label, the recorded evidence is that the string complement is decidedly underpowered. The early going sounds like a concerto for taxi horn and xylophone, with the stringed instruments barely audible. I have added a small amount of convolution reverberation to the mix so as to provide some air to the dead sound and resonance to the strings. The performance is otherwise quite good.

On the solo works, the sound of Gershwin's piano comes across well after some adjustments, although its tone is not entirely clean.

Despite my reservations about the sound, it's wonderful that these historic items are available to us today in such remarkable performances.