The Young David Allyn - 1946-49

Two recent posts here celebrated the vocal artistry of David Allyn - presenting one of his best LPs, from 1959, and his earliest recordings, from 1940-45. Today we complete the survey of Allyn's work in the 1940s, including work with Boyd Raeburn, Johnny Richards and others dating from 1946-49 - 24 sides in all.

These include all his commercial discs from that period (to my knowledge) along with a number of transcriptions. These came from my collection, with a few additions from Internet Archive.

As I wrote about Allyn in the first installment of this series, "He was a warm, flexible and intelligent artist who was as comfortable with ballads as he was with jazz ensembles." In short, he was one of the finest vocalists of the 20th century, still too little known.

With Boyd Raeburn, Part 2

We start with seven circa 1946 transcriptions with Boyd Raeburn's band, and it's immediately clear that the 27-year-old Allyn had already become a secure artist, comfortable at all tempos and with varied material. The first item, "I Don't Care Who Knows It" is a standard pop song of the time, but Allyn puts it across convincingly, with the assist of a good boppish chart from an unnamed arranger.

We do know who did the next chart - 20-year-old prodigy Johnny Mandel handled "If I Loved You" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's new show, Carousel. It's proficient work, but the real interest is in Allyn's caressing vocal, warm and wistful. The bass sax solo is by bandleader Raeburn (shown above on tenor sax, accompanying Allyn).

David Allyn

George Handy returns with one of his best-known songs, "Forgetful," heard in the first set in its commercial recording. As I wrote before, "'Forgetful' is not a good tune, but Allyn puts it across with authority."

Allyn was to return to Handy's hipster "Where You At?" in 1963 with Bob Florence, but here is supported by a good chart from the composer, a vocal from Ginny Powell (sounding like Peggy Lee), and a trumpet solo from Ray Linn.

Next is the excellent Arlen-Mercer song, "Out of This World," introduced by Bing in 1945 and a hit for Jo Stafford. Considering the title, Handy's surrealistic arrangement may be appropriate, but how Allyn could sing so beautifully with such distracting backgrounds is a mystery.

"Picnic in the Wintertime" also was included in the first collection in a live recording. This transcription is mercifully without that version's Ernie Whitman announcements.

"Blue Echoes" appears in this set in two versions - first the transcription and then a commercial recording for Jewel made in June 1946. It's not a great song, especially with a Handy arrangement that seems to throw in effects at random. Both editions use the same chart, but the Jewel performance is smoother.

The Jewel side is taken from an album called Innovations. The cover below is an amusing period piece, with Boyd shown in the center with a plant thing coming out of his head and the bearded Handy next to him. You are welcome to examine this artwork for any meaning you can derive from it.

The more straightforward inside cover below has several excellent photos of the band. That's Raeburn on the lower left with his wife, Ginny Powell.

The final Jewel single was recorded in February 1946. "I Only Have Eyes for You" has a relatively restrained Handy arrangement (still loud but with not as many peculiar interjections) and a sensitive Allyn interpretation. 

The First Solo Singles

The Raeburn band was to break up late in 1946, but by then Allyn had begun recording as a single artist for small labels.

Atomic records issued four songs under Allyn's name. Bandleader Frank Devenport and label owner Lyle Griffin collaborated on the first composition, "Chinero." It's an OK song, with better melody than words (e.g., "Like the stars shining in the heavens above, you shine"). The record features good guitar work by Al Hendrickson, himself a singer who later recorded an LP as Tommy Hendrix. The other star of this date was tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, one of the best instrumentalists of the time.

Lucky Thompson

"Sweet and Lovely" is another song Allyn later returned to, although with an up-tempo interpretation. It's on a 1964 Everest album that also contains a revival of "Forgetful." Here he and Thompson take their cues from the song's title, with satisfying results. 

"Snowbound" is a fine song by Lyle Griffin and bassist Red Callender. The tenor obbligato is by Thompson. The pianist for these sides is one "G. Style." The speculation is that Mr. Style is actually Dodo Marmarosa, who was more or less Griffin's house pianist at the time.

"Penthouse Serenade," a popular song of the time that has become a standard, gets another heartfelt reading with celeste by Devenport. Thompson and "Style" lay out for this one.

Allyn also recorded two sides with Griffin as leader and trombonist. "Deep in the Blues" is a terrific record with a quasi-R&B sound and growl trumpet from Al Killian. Hal McKusick received a label credit for his alto work.

"It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream" is a conventional ballad, with the love object traipsing through the singer's dreams, a la "It's the Same Old Dream," recorded by Frank Sinatra at about the same time. 

Also in 1946, poet Fran Kelly engaged Allyn to record two songs for her Fran-Tone label. Arranger Tom Talbert brought in everyone but an ophicleide player for the date, including (according to one source) oboist Ray Still (later the Chicago Symphony principal), hornist Vince DeRosa (a Hollywood studio stalwart) and pianist Erroll Garner. 

Kelly's songs are more interesting than you might expect. "Black Night and Fog" is a film-noirish essay in loneliness, with an appropriate early-exotica backing by Talbert. "Please Let Me Forget" is another downer, but again with a chart worth hearing. Allyn was not in particularly good voice for this date.

With Johnny Richards and Paul Smith

Allyn did not record in 1947 or 1948. (The latter year was lost to a musicians union strike.) Things picked up in 1949, with two dates for the Discovery label.

For the first date, in September, Allyn was in excellent voice and backed by a large ensemble led by arranger Johnny Richards. His rendition of "It Never Entered My Mind," one of the greatest Rodgers-Hart songs, is definitive vocally, and the busy arrangement is not too distracting.

Another Rodgers and Hart standard, "Wait Till You See Her," gets a sensitive reading, if lacking the sense of exhilaration implied by the lyrics. Harry Bluestone fiddles like he is in a salon orchestra.

Johnny Richards

Allyn is appropriately impassioned in Max Steiner's "Wrong" (formally, "It Can't Be Wrong") from the recent film Now, Voyager, with lyrics added by Kim Gannon.

The final number was "When Love Comes," a good song by arranger Phil Moore that gets a superior vocal from Allyn and a hyper arrangement from Richards.

Paul Smith, the pianist on the Richards date, led the second Discovery session, held in late December and devoted to three standards.

Paul Smith

"The Touch of Your Lips" is an excellent Ray Noble song first recorded by the composer with Al Bowlly in 1936. Allyn's version is ardent, backed by the fluent Smith piano. This session also featured a Novachord, a sort-of electric harpsichord that polluted the occasional record in the 1940s.

Also from the 1930s is "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking," a 1933 hit for Harry Revel and Mack Gordon. Not one of my favorites, but here in a good reading.

Allyn's 1940s recordings ended with Jimmy McHugh's 1926 "I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me," with both Allyn and Smith in high spirits and the Novachord under control.

Despite the excellence of these 1949 vocals, Allyn did not venture back into the studios until the late 1950s. For him this period was marred by drug addiction and a prison sentence for forging prescriptions. He rose above these troubles and was to make many excellent records in the years to come.

Buster's Smoochy Valentine Collection

I reckon that I am as romantic as the next blogger, and to prove it, I have put together Buster's Smoochy Valentine Collection. It consists of 23 songs from 1908 to 1955, all with "cupid" or "valentine" in the title, except for a couple of renegades as discussed below.

This is a wonderfully varied collection, but I want to caution you that even though my namesake above has been caught in the grasp of overwhelming emotion, these records are not designed to induce romantic feelings. That is, unless you and your significant other can find some erotic interest in old vaudeville routines, polkas with the likes of Bedrich Smeage and His Eight Aces, and records featuring Arnold Stang. If so, these songs will be just the thing for your special night and my best wishes to you both.

As is my custom with these assemblages, let me discuss each selection in chronological order.

Ada Jones and Len Spencer

The oldest comes from 1908 and is straight from the vaudeville stage. Ada Jones and Len Spencer, two of the stars of the day, present a well-honed German ethnic routine, "Katrina's Valentine," a "descriptive specialty" in the not-terribly-descriptive description on the Victor label. It's amazing to me how clear this 112-year-old recording sounds, but the acoustic method was better with voices than instruments.

Herbert L. Clarke

That said, cornet virtuoso Herbert L. Clarke also sounds very good in his 1909 disc of "Ah! Cupid," a number from Victor Herbert's first operetta, Prince Ananias, dating from 1894. I raised the pitch of this one - it dragged as transferred. I believe brass bands of the time did use a high concert pitch.

From 1911 comes another instrumental, "Spying Cupid," written by the "Boy Trumpet Wonder," B.A. Rolfe, here in a version by the English Gramophone Company's house band, the Peerless Orchestra.

Grace Kerns, Andrea Sarto, Reed Miller

"When Cupid Calls" was the closing number from Victor Jacobi's 1916 musical Sybil, on Broadway when this record was made. It was done for Columbia by three noted vocalists of the time, Grace Kerns, Andrea Sarto and Reed Miller.

Next is a group that has appeared before on my other blog - the English Singers, who were important both for reviving the madrigal repertoire and for championing contemporary composers such as Peter Warlock. This 1922 recording of Thomas Bateson's 17th century madrigal "Cupid in a Bed of Roses" was one of their first, made for HMV. At the time, the group included tenor Steuart Wilson, who has appeared on this blog as a solo artist.

Moving away from valentines and cupid for a moment, I did want to include an example of the famous tune "Hearts and Flowers," a sugary specialty if ever there was one, in what is perhaps the only straight-faced version I have ever encountered, dating from 1923 and coming from the Aeolian String Trio. In case you have ever wondered (and I would wonder why if you did), this melody was published by Theodore Moses-Tobani in 1894, but was lifted from a march by the Hungarian composer Alphons Czibulka.

Billy Murray

I've included two versions of "Hearts and Flowers" in this collection, also two versions of the less familiar song "Jimmy Valentine." This song-story seems to have been taken from, or at least inspired by, the 1928 film Alias Jimmy Valentine, based on a famous O. Henry story. The amazingly prolific recording artist Billy Murray and Nat Shilkret's Victor Orchestra present a polished version of the Edward Madden-Gus Edwards song. This is the first electrical recording in the collection.

"Valentine" is a ribald and somewhat distasteful song made somehow irresistible by Maurice Chevalier in this 1928 recording issued in conjunction with the film Innocents of Paris, Chevalier's first American film. This was near the beginning of the singer's career and only a few years after he introduced the song, which would be thereafter identified with him.

Fats Waller and admirers

"Valentine Stomp" is a 1929 recording from its composer, the fabulous stride pianist Fats Waller. These days the short-lived Waller is known for his outsized personality, entertaining vocals and small combo recordings, but in a just world his astonishing pianism would be the main source of his fame.

Marion Harris

The next selection, "He's My Secret Passion," is just an excuse for me to include one of my favorite vocalists, Marion Harris. This Brunswick record, made in 1930 when Harris was 34, was near the end of her recording career. Her detailed interpretation, excellent diction and complete involvement are ideal, in my view.

Cole McElroy was more of an impresario than a musician - he ran dance halls and led dance bands in the Pacific Northwest for years. Cole McElroy's Spanish Ballroom Orchestra took its name from the leader's Portland dance emporium. The vocal on its 1931 recording of "Cupid's Holiday" is by Myer Alexander, who later became Jeff Alexander, a well-known conductor and composer for radio, television and films.

Cole McElroy and band

"Hearts and Flowers" makes its second appearance in a 1938 jazz interpretation from Matty Malneck, ex-Whiteman violinist who was then leading a swing combo. It sounds like he employed harp, accordion, vibes and muted trumpet along with his violin in the attractive ensemble sound here. The discography doesn't list the an accordionist, but perhaps pianist Bobby Van Eps handled the wheeze box.

Jabbo Smith by R. Crumb

The next song, "How Can Cupid Be So Stupid," also from 1938, comes from one of the unsung greats of the swing era, Jabbo Smith. As a trumpeter, Smith was notable for his beautiful tone and lyrical approach. Smith also sings on this record. While his playing as clearly influenced by Louis Armstrong, his vocals are nothing like that of Pops. This enjoyable side marked Smith's last swing-era recording. He was to make a comeback 30 years later.

The fine swing band of ex-Miller reed man Hal McIntyre provides this set's first, inevitable reading of "My Funny Valentine." It boasts strong vocal work from Ruth Gaylor, whose singing brightened many of the big bands of the day without her ever becoming famous. Gaylor clearly has been listening to Helen Forrest - not such a bad model to follow. This Decca side dates from late 1944. Some of Hal's later recordings have appeared here.

Ruth Gaylor sings, Hal McIntyre beams in approval

Now on to a polka, which I know you have been waiting for. Bedrich Smeage and His Eight Aces were a Czech group from (I believe) Michigan. He recorded his "Valentine Polka" for Signature circa 1945. Smeage later did a few numbers for RCA and small Michigan labels.

The prolific trumpeter-vocalist Louis Prima weighs in with "My Valentine," which Majestic released in 1946. Louis surprises us (me, anyway) by turning the vocal duties over to Jack Powers, not that I am complaining.

Next, another polka (or "polka-mazurka"), this one from Joseph Snihur, proclaimed as the "Polka King" on this circa 1946 Sonart release. The decidedly more popular Frankie Yankovic would soon wrest the royal title away. Snihur, of Ukrainian descent, was based in New Jersey and often advertised in the local ethnic newspapers. This rough-and-ready performance is enjoyably gusty.

Arnold Stang

Remember "Jimmy Valentine," whom we covered back in 1928? Nineteen years later, the Lyn Duddy Swing Choir thought it might be a good idea to resurrect the song, give it some new lyrics, and employ the nasal squawk of Arnold Stang as the title character for this M-G-M recording. Stang was even then a star on the radio, and would become an even bigger star on television, where his tiny stature and bug-eyed appearance was a perfect complement to his uber-nerd voice.

Now on to a few songs that could actually be accused of being romantic. First is a 1947 recording from the great Gordon Jenkins, a superior reading of "My Funny Valentine" with a casual yet intimate vocal from Charles LaVere. The singer was by trade a pianist, whose day job at the time was in John Scott Trotter's band on the Bing Crosby radio show. Somehow he started singing with Jenkins on record, and soon they had a hit with "Maybe You'll Be There." I am preparing a post highlighting both LaVere's vocal and jazz talents.

Vocalist Jack Carroll joins us for "The Valentine Song," assisted by the Honeydreamers and Bill MacCrae's band. This was done for the small VITAcoustic label in 1947. Carroll would later become a busy studio singer. His Christmas LP appeared on this blog a number of years ago. The Honeydreamers also have been featured here.

The excellent pianist Paul Smith taped his composition "Cupid Took Me for a Ride" for the Discovery label in 1950. Tony Rizzi is the fine guitarist you hear.

Now on to one of my favorites from the set - Blackie Crawford and the Western Cherokees with their Western swing recording of "Stupid Cupid" (not the Connie Francis tune, I probably don't need to add). Blackie and the gang did this one for the Coral label in 1950. Although I doubt many of you have heard of this group, they did have a distinguished pedigree, having served as the backing band for Lefty Frizzell, George Jones and Ray Price. Read more about them in this excellent article.

We close with "Cupid" from the little-known McDonald Sisters, recorded for Modern in 1955. Although the artists' name might be unfamiliar, their sound is not - they were a vocal clone of the Chordettes.

All recordings were remastered by me from lossless originals found on Internet Archive. The sound is generally quite good - even from the acoustics.

Have a nice Valentine's Day, everyone!