The Early Sylvia Syms, Vol. 3

Following her spells at Atlantic and the small Version label, vocalist Sylvia Syms moved up to a major - Decca, where she would spend four years producing LPs and singles, along with a few guest appearances. Today we will present her first Decca LP (from 1955), arranged by the estimable Ralph Burns, her two guest vocals on Steve Allen albums (from 1954), and - on my other blog - her complete singles from 1956. These posts encompass all her 1954-56 recordings - 21 songs in all.

The biggest collection of tunes is on the LP, so let's start there.

Sylvia Syms Sings

The labels could not help themselves when naming Sylvia's LPs - Atlantic came out with Songs by Sylvia Syms and Decca with Sylvia Syms Sings. Alliteration must have been big back then.

But the important point is not the name on the package, it's the music, and that's excellent. Arranger Ralph Burns had made his name with the Woody Herman band, and was in demand for records until switching over to Broadway in the 1960s and then Hollywood. Burns has been featured on this blog previously backing Teddi King, Lee Wiley, Portia Nelson, the Anita Kerr Singers and Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. For this LP, Burns and Syms came together for three recording dates in August 1955.

Ralph Burns

Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin wrote the brilliant song "My Ship" for the 1941 musical Lady in the Dark. Burns' pastoral arrangement is lovely, even enchanting, but there's nothing here - or in Syms' singing - to signify the neuroses that marked Liza Elliott, the "lady in the dark." Sylvia and Ralph also are of two minds about the pacing.

She seem happier with Burns' harp and flutes in "Then I'll Be Tired of You," another airy arrangement of a fine Arthur Schwartz-Yip Harburg song dating from 1934.

"I Am the Girl" is just perfect, from the devastating verse through the rueful heartbreak that permeates the song. This LP apparently was the first recording of the James Shelton song.

Shelton's other relatively well-known song is "Lilac Wine" - which "makes me see what I want to see; be who I want to be." It's another futile love song, which Sylvia did exceptionally well. I believe this number was first recorded by Eartha Kitt.

"I Don't Want to Cry Any More" is another tale of lost love, handled brilliantly here. It's a great song, composed by the multi-talented film director Victor Schertzinger in 1940.

In later years: Kaye Ballard, Mabel Mercer, Sylvia Syms, Tony Bennett

Vernon Duke and John Latouche were the authors of the sly "Honey in the Honeycomb," which they produced for 1940's Cabin in the Sky, where it was sung on Broadway by Katherine Dunham.

Victor Young and Ned Washington wrote "A Woman's Intuition," possibly for Lee Wiley. (It in the Columbia collection I posted a while back.) These are all superior artists, but the song doesn't amount to much.

Cole Porter wrote the characteristic "Experiment" in 1933 for Nymph Errant. "Be curious, though interfering friends may frown / Get furious, at each attempt to hold you down."

"Let Me Love You" is one of Bart Howard's best-known songs (although overshadowed by the success of "Fly Me to the Moon"). Syms does it well. The song also in on the extensive collection of Howard's songs taken from Portia Nelson's albums, which can be found here.

Harry Woods' "We Just Couldn't Say Goodbye" was a hit in the 1930s - there's a memorable Boswell Sisters recording, for one. Sylvia doesn't quite have the elan of the sisters, but that may be because the tempo is slower than it should be.

"I'm So Happy I Could Cry" was the handiwork of comic Milton Berle (it says here) and pianist Nat Jaffe, with lyrics by Buddy Feyne, who also wrote lyrics for "Tuxedo Junction" and "Jersey Bounce." It's not a bad song, but Syms doesn't sound convinced.

The final song is that great Arlen-Harburg effort, "Down with Love." Sylvia sings the verse, which I don't think I've heard before. She's is in tune with the number, but the beat in her voice is noticeable here.

It may be worth noting that when this LP was released, Decca also came out with Ella Fitzgerald's Sweet and Hot, Jeri Southern's In the Southern Style and Carmen McRae's By Special Request. Tough competition for Syms on her own label!

Two Songs with Steve Allen and Friends

The comic-pianist-songwriter Steve Allen issued two LPs with traditional jazz bands in 1954, recorded live at New York's Manhattan Center. Sylvia fits in well with the two groups - she could be brash and brassy as required. 

She performs one tune with the Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band, the other with a Billy Butterfield band.

With the former aggregation, she sings "Love Me or Leave Me," the Walter Donaldson-Gus Kahn song from 1928, written for Ruth Etting. It's good, but the real attraction is the second song - Sylvia's own composition, "The Only Man Blues," which she handles with great panache.

These songs came out on two LPs - Steve Allen's All Star Jazz Concert, Vol. 1 and 2 - which otherwise contain instrumental numbers that are not included here. The bands sound under rehearsed, but Syms seemed to like appearing with this type of backing - also true, for example, of Lee Wiley.

LINK to Sylvia Syms Sings and two songs with Steve Allen et al (corrected link)

The Complete 1956 Singles

As mentioned, in 1954, Sylvia recorded two songs with Steve Allen and in 1955 the LP Sylvia Syms Sings. For 1956, Decca had her record seven songs for release on singles, which I have collected on my other blog. Fortunately for Syms, her first single was a big chart hit - her take on "I Could Have Danced All Night."

Here's a link to that post:

LINK to the complete 1956 singles

On the Town with David F., Plus Two Spy Soundtracks from the 60s

Our friend David Federman has come up with another imaginative compilation, called "The Great Escape: Days & Nights on the Town," with the setting being Manhattan. Today I am presenting his collection along with my own offering - two more of the soundtrack records I transferred many years ago and recently found lurking on an old backup drive. Previously I posted two Bob Hope soundtracks from the 50s. Today we have the scores from two of the lesser spy movies that were so popular in the 1960s.

The Great Escape: Days & Nights on the Town

As usual David has skillfully mix-mastered 30-some songs from the last century into something more than the sum of its parts. The selections date back to 1930, and include many favorites - the Boswell Sisters, Mabel Mercer and Blossom Dearie - along with newer artists such as Meredith d'Ambrosio and unexpected delights such as the Washboard Rhythm Kings.

Says David, "I took my trusty time machine for some bumpy rides into the recent and distant musical past for a great escape to New York City. I steered my contraption toward times and places my parents would have fled to - mostly Manhattan, Broadway and Harlem, but with some familiar side steps and stops to lower Manhattan, Central Park and Fifty Second Street."

Wonderful stuff!

The Spy with a Cold Nose

The Spy with a Cold Nose (its name is a take-off on John le Carré's seminal 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold) was a 1966 British comedy with a dog as a principal character, thus the title.

The producers brought in prolific film composer Riz Ortolani to provide a score that could not be more 60s-sounding. One of Ortolani's specialties was spaghetti westerns, so you should know what to expect, although this material is lighter in tone. Ortolani's biggest hit was "More" from the cult film Mondo Cane (another dog reference, I guess). That was a few years before this movie came out.

Riz Ortolani

The Spy with a Cold Nose is an enjoyable score, if, as usual with such records, you don't mind the same few themes reappearing dressed in different sonic outfits. The sound is typical 60s; so is the pressing.

A Man Called Dagger

Next we have the low-budget spy film A Man Called Dagger, dating from 1968. As far as I can discern, this one is not a comedy, although you could not tell that from the cover, which manages to depict the bad guy firing his wheelchair-mounted machine gun at our hero, who is bound to a bikini-clad accomplice and is casually lighting a smoke. They all seem to be suspended in mid-air. The cover may be more entertaining than the movie.

Steve Allen

The soundtrack is notable as the only film score composed by comic-pianist-composer-author-etc. Steve Allen. Here he seems to have had the help of Ronald Stein, credited as adapting and arranging the material as well as conducting it. Stein was an immensely prolific film composer, not least during his time with low-brow American-International Pictures.

The music is probably better than the film deserves. Stein takes care to insert references to the James Bond scores; for the vocal version of the film theme, he has Maureen Arthur do her best Shirley Bassey imitation.

In case you are wondering, the male actors depicted on the cover are Nazi bad-guy Jan Murray (who made his name as a Borscht Belt comedian) and hero Paul Mantee (a prolific television actor). I am not sure about the woman's identity, although she may be Eileen O'Neill.

This one came out in stereo, but my copy is mono.

Pavane for Two Dead Airlines

I enjoy at least some promotional LPs, and here are two good ones, both honoring now-defunct airlines.

Above we have "The Name of the Game Is Go," issued to celebrate a new advertising campaign, circa 1970, for Pan Am, at the time the largest international airline serving the U.S. The audience was likely travel agents, among others.

Below is a 1965 LP, "Images in Flight," which took the unusual step of having three conservative American composers gussy up the Eastern Airlines theme music into an aural travelogue depicting some of the destinations Eastern served. The cover notes imply that the record was a giveaway for Eastern employees, but I have seen the LP many times over the years, so I suspect its circulation was wider.

Both albums come from a time when air travel was rather more glamorous than it is nowadays. My own flying experience spans the period from when these records were issued until today, and I can tell you the only things I don't miss from those earlier days are cigarette smoke in the cabin and the less sophisticated weather forecasts of the time, which often led to bumpy if not dangerous flights.

But rather than going off into a reverie about the old days, let's look at each of the albums in turn.

Pan Am

The Pan Am record is listed online as coming from 1969, but since it references the Boeing 747, which Pan Am did not fly until 1970, I believe it is from a little later. The first side is devoted to several iterations of "Name of the Game is Go" advertising spots, which feature the catchy theme developed for the campaign and various versions of the clever lyrics. Each spot ends with a segue into the older "Pan Am Makes the Going Great" tagline music.

As usual with advertising jingles, the composer and copywriter for the "Name of the Game" spots are anonymous. However, "Goin's Great" music is also present in two recordings made of the music as adapted into song form, as performed by Sammy Davis, Jr. and Steve Allen circa 1969. The credits ascribe the music to Stanley Applebaum and lyrics to Sammy Cahn. Allen helpfully quotes "Shortnin' Bread" in his piano solo, suggesting where Applebaum may have found inspiration.

Gatefold - click to enlarge

The album's covers and gatefold display the ad campaign's print element. The artwork is by Henry "Hank" Syverson, a cartoonist with a very distinct style who worked for magazines and advertisements.

The music, arrangements, lyrics and artwork are all redolent of the time, and were largely aimed at the tired businessman looking to get away from it all. As was the custom then, women were mainly stereotyped as housewives.

Note (October 2024): this LP has now been remastered.

LINK to The Name of the Game Is Go

Eastern Airlines

The Eastern LP is the result of a collaboration between the airline and Andre Kostelanetz, a high-toned mood music maestro and the conductor of the New York Philharmonic's pops concerts. Kostelanetz then commissioned three reputable composers - Alan Hovhaness, Paul Creston and Henry Cowell - to produce a suite, "Images in Flight," making use of the airline's theme music. As with the Pan Am music, the composer of the Eastern theme is anonymous.

The result, as recorded by the New Yorkers in 1965, is surprisingly palatable in its easy-going way. The album is filled out by an instrumental version of the Eastern theme music, called "Bermuda Concerto" for some reason, as arranged by Clay Wernick (I believe) and performed by studio pianist Dick Hyman and the Kostelanetz ensemble. The balance of the LP consists of reissued Kostelanetz sides mainly on the travel theme.

The sound on these records is generally above average for promotional items, which often have dim sonics. The "Images in Flight" suite sounds quite good.

Note (October 2024): this LP has now been remastered.

LINK to Images in Flight

Another James Dean Story

The second in my mini-series of James Dean exploitation records (and the second to be called The James Dean Story) is this paean written and partially narrated by Steve Allen. The other narrator is Cleveland DJ Bill Randle, whose concept this is.

What we have here are a number of Dean exploitation singles ("Jimmy, Jimmy," "His Name Was Dean," "James Dean" and "The Ballad of James Dean" - I think they have most of the possible titles covered), music from his films, and a poem written by a teenage fan, stitched together by narration.

Amazingly, the poem is not the worst thing on the record - the dreadful choral rendition of "The Ballad of James Dean" takes the prize of dishonor. The other ballads are done by country/pop singer Jimmy Wakely.