Lee Wiley's Two Rodgers and Hart Albums

Lee Wiley sings with Eddie Condon, guitar, Cozy Cole, drums, Sid Weiss, bass, Jess Stacy, piano, 1943

Everything about vocalist Lee Wiley (1908-75) was distinctive - her singing style, her looks, her accompanists, even her choice of songs.

Not that she selected unusual numbers; rather that she pioneered the concept of albums devoted to one songwriter or songwriting team. Today's post is devoted to just such a team - Rodgers and Hart. They were the subjects of her second such compilation, dating from 1940, along with a later R&H album, which came out in 1954. While the former set has been reissued a number of times, the latter is more neglected - but still worthy.

About Lee Wiley

The young Lee Wiley

Born in 1908 in Oklahoma, Wiley (streamlined from "Willey") was in New York at a young age, and was engaged by one of the biggest bandleaders of the time, Leo Reisman, soon thereafter. She was making records with him as early as 1931, followed by dates with Victor Young and Johnny Green, along with radio work.

For whatever reason, following these early accomplishments, she moved back to Oklahoma for a period, returning to New York after a year or so. Her biggest successes followed, generally in the company of the so-called Chicago school jazz musicians, whose style was compatible with her own. The series of "songbooks" she made for small labels were all with those musicians - one of whom (Jess Stacy) she was to marry. The music was great; the marriage not so much.

Her career continued into the 1950s, when she made records for Storyville (the second album included here), RCA Victor and others. The market changed, and her career sputtered, like many others', but she was never forgotten, because she made memorable records.

"She moved easily in and out of the world of high society and the raucous, barrelhouse world of jazz. She often sought the sleek, sophisticated wealthy and brittle world of society, only to pull away to the warmth, love and uncertainty of the world of jazz," Frank Driggs wrote.

As for her legacy as a vocalist, critic Stanley Green wrote, "All Lee Wiley ever had to do was to sing a song and it was hers. For keeps. No one ever sang anything quite her way and no one ever could. And she managed this closeness of identity not through histrionics and bombast but through controlled nuances and phrasings."

Lee Wiley Rodgers and Hart Album

If you are at all susceptible to the Wiley magic, you will be enchanted before she makes it out of the verse on the first song on her first Rodgers and Hart album. The song is "Here in My Arms," a prime example of the songwriters' art and the singer's sorcery. Appropriately, it comes from the first R&H show, Dearest Enemy from 1925.

The Rodgers and Hart album was released on the Music Box label issued by Rabson's Music Shop of New York, which was then a new emporium on W. 52nd St. This was in a time when some record stores produced their own discs. In the recent past, we have encountered the products both of the Liberty and Commodore Music Shops, who were active in issuing Broadway, cabaret and jazz records.

The Rabson's album was a follow up to Liberty's album of Gershwin songs, which Wiley had recorded just a few months before. And three months thereafter she would be doing a Cole Porter collection for Liberty, followed by a Harold Arlen set for Schirmer in 1943. These boutique labels loved her, and its clear why - artistically, these are entirely successful records.

The songwriter sets were the idea of a young advertising artist and jazz buff, John DeVries. He came up with the expressionist cover above showing an 12-foot tall Wiley towering over Kaminsky and Bushkin, along with the covers for the other songbooks.

Max Kaminsky

The small groups that generally accompanied Wiley are one key to her success. They created an intimate, improvisatory atmosphere that set off her elegant, yet elemental singing. For some reason, the Rabson's records are attributed to two different leaders - pianist Joe Bushkin and trumpeter Max Kaminsky - although the same musicians appear on all items. The others are Bud Freeman, tenor sax, Artie Shapiro, bass, and George Wettling, drums. Two arrangers are credited, although the charts seem to be limited to who solos when. Regardless, those named are Brad Gowans and Paul Wetstein, later to become better known as Paul Weston.

Joe Bushkin

But back to the Rodgers and Hart songs. The second song is a contrasting fast number - "Baby's Awake Now," one of the more obscure items in the collection, derived from 1929's Spring Is Here. In that score it's overshadowed by the likes of the title song and "(With a) Song in My Heart."

"I've Got Five Dollars" is one of the two hits from 1931's America's Sweetheart, the other being the little-remembered but excellent "We'll Be the Same." I recently posted this particular Wiley recording on my other blog in conjunction with the Arden-Ohman single that came out when the show was new. Her personable interpretation was something of a corrective to the stiff Frank Luther vocal on the Arden-Ohman record.

"Glad to Be Unhappy" was still a relatively new song when Wiley recorded it, dating from 1936 and On Your Toes. It remains one of the enduring R&H favorites, seldom done better than here.

The next number is perhaps the best known in the set - "You Took Advantage of Me," from 1928's Present Arms, where it outshone such fare as "Crazy Elbows" and "Kohala, Welcome."

None of the songs from the next show, 1926-27's Peggy-Ann, are remembered today, but perhaps "A Little Birdie Told Me So" should be. It is entirely charming, sung with much grace by Wiley.

One of the selling points for this set was the presence of a new, unpublished Rodgers and Hart song, "As Though You Were There," a particularly fine example of Lorenz Hart's writing that amazingly may still be unpublished.

The final song is one of the duo's best, "A Ship without a Sail," with a soaring melody allied to one of Larry Hart's most personal set of lyrics. As he writes in the verse, "I go to this or that place / I seem alive and well / My head is just a hat place / My breast an empty shell / And I've a faded dream to sell." The number is from 1929-30's Heads Up!

The Rabson's recordings also came out on the Gala label in addition to Music Box. These transfers are a mix of pressings from the two original sets, restored from Internet Archive needle drops. "You Took Advantage of Me" and "A Little Birdie Told Me So" were mastered (or transferred) very sharp, which I've corrected.

The liner notes of the original album claim that Rodgers dropped everything to help ensure the success of this collection, which seems unlikely. Other observers have marveled that the composer approved a jazz approach to his songs, given that he reputedly preferred them to be sung as written.

Then again, as Rodgers himself pointed out in his notes to an Andre Kostelanetz collection, "Let it never be said that I resist the idea of large sheet music and record sales. Mr. Kostelanetz and I have formed the habit of eating and we like it." A practical man.

Lee Wiley Sings Rodgers and Hart

For this 1954 set on Storyville records, Wiley's song choices were more mainstream, perhaps reflecting the taste of producer George Wein. (He fancied himself a singer, making a vocal album for Atlantic in 1955.) "You Took Advantage of Me" and "Glad to Be Unhappy" are repeat choices from the 1940 album. The other songs are mainly items you might find on any Rodgers and Hart collection, then or now.

Lee Wiley, c1952

That's not to say they are unwelcome, and Wiley does them beautifully, if more cooly than in the 1940 album. Some of that was probably due to her vocal chords being 14 years older. Some may have to do with the musicians on hand. Pianist Jimmy Jones was an experienced vocal accompanist, having worked for years with Sarah Vaughan. But he was a much different stylist and much more linear pianist than others who had recorded with Wiley, such as Jess Stacy and Joe Bushkin.

Jimmy Jones

Ruby Braff was a young trumpeter who was contracted to Storyville. His playing is closer to what Wiley was used to hearing, but he was not always a distinctive player as yet. On "It Never Entered My Mind," for example, his obbligatos seem almost perfunctory (and are under-recorded). Meanwhile, on the verse Jones tries to stay out of the singer's way, and they end up sounding of two minds about the tempo.

Ruby Braff

But the next song, "Give It Back to the Indians," is much better. The trumpet obbligatos are more positive, and Braff provides a very good solo. Then too, Jones' support throughout is a plus. This is the best item on the LP; unfortunately it also is the last. (Mary Jane Walsh introduced "Give It Back" in Too Many Girls; her recording can be found here.)

About the other songs on the LP: "My Heart Stood Still" (written for a 1927 London revue) is done very well, including the verse, as was Wiley's usual practice. "My Romance" comes from 1935's Jumbo. The contrast here between Jones' horizontal playing and Wiley's more rhetorical singing is marked.

Hart assures Rodgers that beans could get no keener reception in a beanery

"Mountain Greenery," from 1926's Garrick Gaieties, can be heard on what seems like three-quarters of the R&H albums ever issued. Vocalists love to sing "Beans could get no keener reception in a beanery." It's an up-tempo song, so it makes a good change of pace for such ballads as "Spring Is Here." Wiley does it well.

Finally, "My Funny Valentine," a no-doubt great song that suits Wiley down to the ground, although her limited vocal range comes into play on the higher notes. The song comes from Babes in Arms.

As for the album cover, we go from the giant Wiley on the Rabson's album cover to a photo of her singing in a darkroom for the Storyville LP. This second image is the handiwork of art director/photographer Burt Goldblatt, who specialized in murky covers featuring underexposed photos further obscured by a saturated color overlay (cf., the Joe Derise Sings album).

I transferred the Storyville LP from a slightly later reissue with very good sound. If you have a few moments, read over the garrulous liner notes on the Storyville back cover by the journalist George Frazier, in which he admits he wants to have sex with Wiley, laments the end of his marriage, and criticizes the clothing choices of author and radio personality Clifton Fadiman. He even writes a bit about the record, which he likes.

And in that regard, let's give Frazier the last word: "Wiley is one of the best vocalists who ever lived, with a magical empathy for fine old show tunes and good jazz. Indeed, I know of no one who sings certain songs so meaningfully, so wistfully."

I expect to post more of her records as time goes by.

'I Married an Angel' - The Early Recordings

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart formed a wildly productive partnership - from 1925 to 1940, they opened a show on Broadway in every year except 1934, and usually more than one. One fertile period was 1936-38, when their productions were On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, I'd Rather Be Right, The Boys from Syracuse and I Married an Angel.

Not long ago, I explored the early recordings from Babes in Arms. The subject of today's post is a lesser hit, but still a popular show: I Married an Angel, which ran from May 11, 1938 to February 25, 1939. Its score is not as bountiful as Babes in Arms, but it has its moments, and there were interesting recordings from the time, which I've gathered for this post.

Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers

The contrived but amusing plot is from a play by the Hungarian writer János Vaszary. It involves the complications that ensue when banker Count Willy Palaffi (Dennis King) marries an angel (Vera Zorina), whose unvarnished honesty becomes a business and social problem for him.

The production involved some of the finest talents of the 20th century theatre - director Joshua Logan, choreographer George Balanchine (Zorina's husband at the time) and scenic designer Jo Mielziner, with Rodgers and Hart writing the book as well as the music.

One reason why the score is less impressive than Babes in Arms among other Rodgers and Hart shows is that the pivotal character, played by Zorina, was a dancer, not a singer. Even so, most of the 10 original songs in the score merited a recording, and a few can still be heard today.

Vera Zorina and ensemble

Let's examine the score, in running order.

Wynn Murray

The first song is Count Palaffi's "Did You Ever Get Stung?" which is nor heard today outside of a few cabarets. No member of the cast recorded it, but Rodgers and Hart veteran Wynn Murray did do so. (She had appeared in both Babes in Arms and The Boys from Syracuse.) Her accompaniment is by the Walter-Bowers Orchestra - cabaret legend Cy Walter and duo-piano partner Gil Bowers. Murray and the band are lyrical at first, then "get hot," in the musical fashion of the time.

Palaffi's "I Married an Angel" was not recorded by a Broadway cast member either, but it did merit a disc from Nelson Eddy, who played the Count in the 1942 film version. That production kept the main songs from the stage score, but added much more music, primarily by operetta veteran Herbert Stothart. He was well suited to providing songs for Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, in their last film together.

Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald

For this number, Eddy's singing was tuneful, but not especially colorful or flexible. For contrast, I've added a contemporary recording by the more relaxed Buddy Clark. Unlike the latter, Eddy includes the verse - a plus for his version. I believe this song still gets an occasional performance today - I was familiar with it, anyway.

Eddy returns for "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," a beautiful song with a tricky melody that he tosses off effortlessly. He again scores points by performing the verse, which adds greatly to the song. 

I could not resist adding a much different interpretation to the end of the playlist, even though it is from 25 years after the musical's run on Broadway. This is the remarkable version of "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" from Barbra Streisand's debut LP. (No verse, though!)

Audrey Christie and Charles Walters

We now come to the only member of the original cast to merit a recording (actually, two). The fortunate artist is Audrey Christie, then a singer and dancer, later a film actor. Her first number is "How to Win Friends and Influence People," a title pinched from the 1936 best seller by Dale Carnegie. 

Christie isn't a great singer, but she does exude energy, essential for this lively number. In the show, he sang the piece with Charles Walters. On record, she is backed by Walter, Bowers and ensemble, again for the Liberty Music Shop label. 

The enduring hit from the show is the eloquent "Spring Is Here." Despite its quality and staying power, no one from the cast recorded it, to my knowledge. So I have again turned to Buddy Clark for a contemporary recording. To it, I've added an unexpectedly terrific version from cabaret singer Eve Symington, issued by the invaluable Liberty Music Shop. Cy Walter leads the band without Gil Bowers, who must have missed his train. Symington includes the verse; Clark does not.

Eve Symington

A parenthetical note about the unfamiliar (to me) Symington: born Eve Wadsworth, she married businessman Stuart Symington in the 1920s, and embarked on a career as a singer. On this evidence, she was quite a good one, but her career was short. It was at about this time that she and her husband moved to St. Louis, where he became the head of Emerson Electric. He later became a well-known US Senator - as Eve Symington's father had been. I've posted three of her other recordings on my singles blog.  

Wynn Murray returns for the clumsily risqué "A Twinkle in Your Eye," not one of the best songs from Rodgers and especially Hart. Murray, Walter and Bowers do their best.

The Roxy

Audrey Christie then performs her second song from the score, "At the Roxy Music Hall." The Roxy was a 6,000-seat behemoth of a movie theater on W. 50th Street. I had no recollection of the place until reader hkitt42 reminded me that it's referenced in the title song of Guys and Dolls. Oh, yeah - "What's playing at the Roxy?"! In this earlier number, Christie assures us, "Oh come with me, you won't believe a thing you see!" and "Don't be shy if a naked statue meets your eye!" among other marvels. It's a fun piece and Christie is the right person to sing it, but the song is now recherché considering that the Roxy has been dust since 1960.

Cy Walter and Gil Bowers

The playlist is completed - save for the Streisand reprise of "I'll Tell the Man in the Street" - by a two-sided medley from Walter and Bowers and their pianos. It includes "Spring Is Here," "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," "I Married an Angel" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

The download includes a restored version of the souvenir program along with production stills, a few Jo Mielziner scenery sketches, and two reviews from Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times. The program and stills are cleaned up from originals on the New York Public Library site, and the resolution is not as fine as one might desire. Most of the recordings were cleaned up from Internet Archive transfers. The Liberty Music Shop items were not well recorded; I've done my best to help them out.

The Early 'Babes in Arms' Recordings

Cover of souvenir booklet

The Rodgers and Hart score for 1937's Babes in Arms is a brilliant achievement - memorable melodies and clever lyrics abound. While several of its songs are still familiar, we don't know much about how they sounded on the stage in 1937 because there was no original cast album. This, of course, was a shame - the musical featured talented young performers who made just a handful of recordings in general, and only a few of the songs from this production.

The 1939 film version is not much help, either - Hollywood in its wisdom threw out almost all of the Rodgers and Hart songs, substituting songs by producer Arthur Freed and his close associate Roger Edens, and adding everything from "Oh! Susanna" to "Ida! Sweet as Apple Cider." In fact, there are more of the original Babes in Arms songs in the 1948 Rodgers and Hart biopic Words and Music than there were in the filmed musical.

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

However, there are enough early recordings of the Babes in Arms songs to allow us to assemble a collection that, while not a facsimile of what the audience in the Golden Theater heard in 1937, is an interesting artifact in its own right.

Let's take the songs in the order of their appearance in the score.

Mitzi Green and Ray Heatherton

The juvenile leads in 1937 were Mitzi Green as Billie and Ray Heatherton as Val. Green, who made few if any recordings (although we have an aircheck of "The Lady Is a Tramp" below), was known primarily as a Hollywood child star. Heatherton was a band and radio singer with some stage experience.

Fortunately there is what seems to be an aircheck of Heatherton singing one of the score's major hits, the wistful "Where or When" with an unknown orchestra, and that fine version leads off the collection.

Victor did have Heatherton in the studio to record "Where or When," but it teamed him with stodgy society bandleader Ruby Newman, who saw the piece as a tango, and made Heatherton wait until the song was nearly over to introduce Lorenz Hart's fascinating lyrics.

Douglas McPhail and Betty Jaynes

"Where or When" is one of the two original songs that appears in the 1939 film, sung by Douglas McPhail and Betty Jaynes, with a very brief appearance by Judy Garland. These are presented as two separate files in the collection. (Note that the out-of-tune string playing is deliberate - the vocalists were supposedly being accompanied by a band of children.)

Douglas McPhail leads the 'babes in arms'

The show's title song, "Babes in Arms," is a stirring march, and is another thing that the film got right. There it was sung primarily by McPhail, who possesses the proper heroic quality for the piece. So heroic that whoever did the orchestral arrangement inserted more than a little Wagner into the mix.

'I Wish I Were in Love Again'

The filmed version dropped the enduring standard "I Wish I Were in Love Again," but the film's stars, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, did eventually record it, for Words and Music (Garland's last film for M-G-M). Rooney is hammy in the piece, and even Garland mugs too much for me. She also recorded it in 1947 for Decca (her final song for that label), but the tempo there is too fast.

Edgar Fairchild and Adam Carroll

The Babes in Arms songs go from strength to strength - next up is the perennially popular "My Funny Valentine." Here we call on the duo pianists Edgar Fairchild and Adam Carroll, who were in the Babes in Arms pit band, and who recorded several songs from the score for the Liberty Music Shop label. There is orchestral backing on this and all their sides. (Fairchild has been heard on the blog before - in a piano duo with Ralph Rainger with a medley from Oh, Kay!.)

As far as I can tell, none of the revival cast albums include the next number, for reasons that the title will make clear - "All Dark People Are Light on Their Feet." In the original production, this number was a specialty for the amazing Nicholas Brothers, who played the DeQuincy brothers. One Babes in Arms subplot was the discrimination faced by the DeQuincys. The only recording I have found is by the Bunny Berigan orchestra, with a vocal by white singer-trombonist Ford Leary. Neither the Nicholas brothers nor this song are in the film version.

The clever "Way Out West" ("Get along little taxi / You can keep the change / I'm ridin' home to my kitchen range / Way out west on West End Avenue") is not heard these days, but is always fun to encounter. In the musical, it's a specialty for the character of Baby Rose, played by the 16-year-old Wynn Murray. There is a good live recording of her singing the piece, which I've included in the download.

Teddy Lynch

Next in the collection, Fairchild and Carroll reappear, bringing along the mannered cabaret artist Teddy Lynch as vocalist in "Way Out West." Lynch wasn't a great singer, but she was talented enough to attract the attention of the world's richest person, J. Paul Getty, whom she would marry a few years later.

Ruth Gaylor and Hal McIntyre

The standard "My Funny Valentine" was introduced by Mitzi Green. In absence of a recording by her, we again turn to Fairchild and Carroll for our first interpretation. I've added a superior 1944 recording by Hal McIntyre's big band, with a good vocal by Ruth Gaylor, betraying the influence of Helen Forrest. The McIntyre arrangement is in a different sound world from Ruby Newman or Fairchild and Carroll.

Wynn Murray and Alfred Drake

Wynn Murray did make a commercial record of her number "Johnny One Note," one of the best-known songs in the score. It appeared on the flip side of the record that Ray Heatherton did with Ruby Newman. To me, Murray's clear voice is just right for this song, which can be annoying if belted.

Murray, Alfred Drake (making his first non-operetta appearance on Broadway) and Duke McHale presented the underrated "Imagine" in the original production. The song has a Depression subtext ("Imagine your bills are paid / Imagine you've made the grade," etc.). I can find no better version than the one by the obscure Mardi Bayne, from the 1952 studio cast recording. She is so appealing it's surprising she did not do more on Broadway. (She was about to appear in Wish You Were Here with Jack Cassidy at the time of this recording.)

Jack Cassidy

Val and Billie returned for "All at Once," but neither Mitzi Green nor Ray Heatherton recorded it. So I have turned to the 1952 studio album again for the splendid singing of Bayne and Cassidy.

One of the score's most famous songs is "The Lady Is a Tramp," not least because it was in Sinatra's repertoire for many years. It was introduced by Mitzi Green and this collection includes what sounds like an aircheck of her singing the piece with a great deal of personality. It must have come across well on the stage.

Mitzi Green sings 'The Lady Is a Tramp'

I've also added a version by Teddy Lynch with Fairchild and Carroll and orchestra.

The final number in the score is the neglected "You Are So Fair," which has a lovely melody but not one of Hart's best set of lyrics. Jack Cassidy makes the most of it for the 1952 album, which was conducted by Lehman Engel. The orchestrations are by Carol Huxley.

Lee Sullivan

I thought it might be helpful to include Richard Rodgers' own recordings of a few songs from the score, which are drawn from his album Smash Song Hits by Rodgers and Hart, released in early 1940. For "Where or When," he turned to the talented vocalist Lee Sullivan (who would later originate the role of Charlie Dalrymple in Brigadoon). These recordings were made "under the personal direction of Richard Rodgers," and if that is accurate, I can attest that he favored a rapid tempo for "Where or When." Sullivan also appears in "Johnny One Note," where his part consists of only that one famous note. This Johnny is more mellifluous than most - somewhat similar to Wynn Murray, in fact. The complete Rodgers album can be found here.

The recordings come from Internet Archive and my collection. The sound is good; even the airchecks are listenable. The download includes a number of production stills other than the ones above. It also has my restoration of the original 16-page souvenir booklet, from the New York Public Library site. As usual with such library files, the resolution lacks the detail that one might wish, but the booklet is fun!

Andre Kostelanetz's Complete 1940s Recordings of Richard Rodgers

As might be expected from someone who recorded so much music, Andre Kostelanetz returned several times to the works of Richard Rodgers during his long tenure in the studios.

Kostelanetz made a number of 78s in the 1930s, but his recording career began in earnest with a move to Columbia records in about 1940. His first album for that company was titled Musical Comedy Favorites, and it was a hit, quickly spawning a sequel. Both included songs by Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

Today we will present all the Kostelanetz-Rodgers recordings from the 1940s, notably the 1946 album Music of Richard Rodgers but also several other items. Let's take things in chronological order, starting with that 1940 album.

Musical Comedy Favorites

Kostelanetz's two volumes of Musical Comedy Favorites date from 1940 and 1941-42, respectively. The earlier set included Rodgers' "Falling in Love with Love" from The Boys from Syracuse, a 1938 production.

The conductor reached back to 1929's Spring Is Here for the Vol. 2 selection, "With a Song in My Heart," which has been interpolated into many films since then, and even was the title song of the 1952 Jane Froman biopic.

FYI - Columbia combined the two volumes of Musical Comedy Favorites on an LP. My transfer can be found here.

Oklahoma! Medley

Rodgers had a huge (and highly influential) success with his 1943 show Oklahoma!, with book and lyrics by his new partner, Oscar Hammerstein II.

Kostelanetz surely wanted to record the music from the score immediately, but the 1942-44 Musicians Union strike presented him from doing so. On November 11, 1944, Columbia finally capitulated to the union, and the next day, Kostelanetz and orchestra were in the studio to record a two-sided medley of songs from Oklahoma!

The Music of Richard Rodgers Album

In May and September 1946, Kostelanetz and his forces assembled in New York's Liederkranz Hall for their most extensive look yet at Richard Rodgers' compositions. The sessions resulted in a set of eight 12-inch 78s entitled Music of Richard Rodgers. My transfer comes from the corresponding LP issued a few years later.

The album includes 11 songs, all standards with the possible exception of the title song from 1926's The Girl Friend, the biggest hit show to that time for the 24-year-old composer.

The album closes with one of the ballets from Rodgers and Hart's superb On Your Toes, the enduringly popular "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," here abridged (as it generally is).

Kostelanetz generally did not repeat himself in his various recordings. So there is nothing in this set from Oklahoma! And while he included "It Might as Well Be Spring" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's much-underrated 1945 film musical State Fair, he saved the irresistible waltz "It's a Grand Night for Singing" for a later album (see below).

A Motion Picture Favorite and an All-Time Hit

Following the success of his Musical Comedy Favorites sets, Kostelanetz turned his attention to Hollywood in 1947 with a set of Motion Picture Favorites. Despite Rodgers having done little work for film, he was favored with a spot in this eight-song album. "It's a Grand Night for Singing" is a marvelous piece that was introduced by Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine et al.

The conductor's final project of the decade was an album of Eight All-Time Hits, recorded in late December 1949 and early January 1950. Rodgers was represented by "The Carousel Waltz" from the 1945 show. The number opens the musical, but Kostelanetz saved this spectacular piece for the end of his program.

As I mentioned above, the Music of Richard Rodgers LP comes from my collection, and "The Carousel Waltz" is from my LP of Eight All-Time Hits. (A complete transfer of Eight All-Time Hits is available here.) Otherwise, I went back to the original 78s, cleaned up from transfers available on Internet Archive.

I wish I could tell you who arranged the various songs in this collection, but Kostelanetz seldom if ever credited his arrangers. He did mention in his biography that his radio arrangers included Carroll Huxley, Nathan Van Cleave and George Bassman. We also know that Amadeo De Filippo, a CBS staff arranger, did some work for him. And I have read elsewhere that Jimmy Carroll, Leo Addeo and Bill Finegan arranged for him at various times.

An amusing article on the Space Age Pop site likens listening to Kostelanetz records to being "gently anesthetized." But I find the listening to be absorbing. The arrangements are ingenious; the conducting and playing are wonderfully alive; the recordings are sonorous. Kostelanetz' métier was (as I have written before) conducting popular classical music and classy popular music, and at that he succeeded brilliantly.

Interestingly, Rodgers himself chose to gently distance himself from the Kostelanetz approach in his liner notes to the Music of Richard Rodgers album. He explained that he wrote the music to function in a dramatic setting, adding, "Its popularity has been a corollary, and a decidedly welcome one." Rodgers also admitted to the lure of compensation - "let it never be said that I resist the idea of large sheet music and record sales. Mr. Kostelanetz and I have formed the habit of eating and we like it."

Kostelanetz was not done with Rodgers' music. In 1951 he would record Robert Russell Bennett's South Pacific Symphonic Scenario and a repeat of the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" music for a Columbia LP made with the Philadelphia Orchestra Pops. The Kern Show Boat Scenario for Orchestra also is on the disc. I have the record and hope to transfer it soon.

Later in the mono era, Kostelanetz came out with The Columbia Album of Richard Rodgers, a mix of new recordings with some from the 1940s. And there were a few more excursions into Rodgers' music later on.

Kurtz Conducts Rodgers and Porter Suites

Let's return to the 10-inch LP format and to conductor Efrem Kurtz for today's selection. This is the other album resulting from Kurtz's six-year tenure as the music director in Houston - suites from the mega-musicals South Pacific and Kiss Me, Kate.

Efrem Kurtz with members of the Houston Symphony

Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate had appeared on Broadway in late December 1948, with Richard Rodgers' South Pacific in April 1949. Kurtz and the Houston Symphony recorded the two suites from these tremendously popular scores on December 14, 1949, the day all the Kurtz-Houston records were made. Their coupling of Satie and Auric ballets appeared here in February of this year. The only other work taped that day was Fauré's brief Pavane. The latter work became, incongruously, a fill-up for the 78 set of the Rodgers and Porter suites, but was jettisoned for the LP release.

Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett, the orchestrator of both shows, assembled the suites contained on this LP. He called the Kiss Me, Kate suite a "Selection for Orchestra," but grandly titled the South Pacific potpourri a "Symphonic Scenario," whatever that might mean. Both are smoothly done, as you might expect from Bennett, and well handled by the Houston Symphony and by Kurtz, who could not have had much experience with this type of material.

Columbia had issued the original cast albums for both South Pacific and Kiss Me, Kate, and may have seen this 10-inch LP as an attractive alternative for those who didn't want or couldn't afford the full albums.

Columbia's sound is good. The album sports a characteristic cover by Alex Steinweiss.

A reader requested this LP a few months ago - I didn't have it then, but, as sometimes happens, I stumbled across a nice copy not long ago.

The Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, 1949

Follow @BusterBig10Inch

The 'Original' Slaughter, Plus Related Bonuses

Tamara Geva, George Church
and Ray Bolger in 1936

After I posted a soundtrack making use of themes from Richard Rodgers's "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," the question came up, what was the original version of this music? We discussed it in the comments section of that post, but I thought I would go over the matter here on the main page, post the original ballet music in its original scoring and add some bonus material from my archives and from generous blog followers.

Richard Rodgers composed "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" as one of the two ballets incorporated into the 1936 Rodgers-Hart musical, On Your Toes. (The other was "La Princesse Zenobia".) Both were choreographed by George Balanchine. Slaughter takes place in a West Side New York dive, with Ray Bolger and George Church contesting the affections of stripper Tamara Geva, who is eventually killed in a struggle. The ballet echoes the plot of the musical, explained well on the Lorenz Hart website.

Natalia Makarova and Lara Teeter in 1983

In 1983, the legendary George Abbott, who co-wrote the musical and directed the 1936 production, directed a Broadway revival. Abbott was 96 at the time. For the revival, the original orchestrator, 89-year-old Hans Spialek, supervised the use of his original charts, which were heard on the cast album conducted by John Mauceri. For this post, I've transferred that recording of Slaughter, which is in effect the original version.

Those of you who are used to pop versions of Slaughter, or the orchestral arrangement by Spialek's close associate Robert Russell Bennett, will find this approach to be much different. Spialek was arranging for a relatively small pit band. Its pungent sound takes some getting used to, if you are accustomed to lush orchestrations. But it quickly became my favorite version upon its release - and also is much longer than any other recording I know, which I consider to be a good thing. Blog reader Jeff sent along a link to an illuminating New York Times article on Spialek.

Now for a few bonuses.

Cover of 78 set

In conjunction with the last post, reader Kostrow asked me to reupload a post from the early days of this blog, Richard Rodgers conducting selections from Rodgers and Hart shows, circa 1939-40. Originally in an early Columbia 78 album, these were collected into a 10-inch LP, which was the source of my transfer. It's a highly engaging set, with 1930s-style dance band orchestrations, pleasing period vocals by Deane Janis and Lee Sullivan and excellent sound.

Also following the last post, longtime reader RonH was kind enough to contribute a stereo version of the Slaughter on Tenth Avenue soundtrack, which you may find very worthwhile if you like this Herschel Burke Gilbert version of the music.

Links to all items are in the comments to this post.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, the Soundtrack

Back in August, I brought you an Arthur Fiedler LP centered on Richard Rodgers's ballet music, "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." At that time I noted, "This marks the fifth time I've presented some version of the music on this blog. in the wings is the soundtrack album from the 1957 film Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, in which stolid prosecutor Richard Egan takes on a waterfront mob boss, improbably played by Walter Matthau, to solve a killing on the docks - to the accompaniment of Herschel Burke Gilbert's arrangement of Rodgers's music."

Today is the day when I make good on that promise of said album. In it, Gilbert expands Rodgers's themes out to some 38 minutes or so, and makes them into convincing film noir background music. In doing so, the playful and lyrical aspects of the ballet score are shunted aside, perhaps or necessity, with the result being one dimensional, although enjoyable nonetheless.

Mobster Matthau confronts crusader Egan

Gilbert had begun his career as a Hollywood composer and arranger about 10 years before this assignment. His first soundtrack LP was for The Moon Is Blue, which I have around here somewhere, followed by Gunsmoke, Comanche and then Slaughter. He went on to score hundreds of films and television shows.

Gilbert

IMDb tells us that Henry Mancini assisted with the arranging duties on this film. Joseph Gershenson conducted the Universal-International Orchestra.

Decca's sound was characteristically strident and overbearing, which I have attempted to tame, with good results, I think. This LP did come out in a stereo version, but my copy is mono only, I'm afraid.

The cover may have been one of the first times that two legs were used as a framing device for a cover. The Empire State Building provides a convenient phallic symbol for the imposing male figure, presumably crusading district attorney Richard Egan. It's not clear why a Manhattan DA trying to clean up the NY docks is in Brooklyn (or is it Jersey?), but I guess they couldn't get the right angle on the Empire State from the West Side.