Bill Frawley Sings the Old Ones, Plus Reups

A quick post tonight to present one new item and a bunch of reups and remasters.

The new offering is by Bill Frawley, usually billed as William Frawley, and perhaps even better known as Fred Mertz of the 50s smash TV show I Love Lucy.

I confess that this is a record I transferred many years ago, and only resurrected because I wanted to listen to Frawley's version of "My Melancholy Baby" - a tune that he claimed to have introduced in 1912. Who knows if this is true, but Frawley was a vaudeville artist, and he probably did perform this number, and the other "Old Ones" on this LP as well. They all would have been heard in the music halls of 100 years ago, when Frawley was a trouper. The album dates from 1957, when Lucy was still on the air. Bill/William/Fred had little voice left at that time, but much style. You'll like this despite yourself.

Full disclosure: I only had mp3s of my original transfer, and I have no idea where the LP has gone to (they sneak away if you don't keep your eye on them). So I remastered the mp3s. This is something I usually don't do, but it is acceptable for material like this, I think, and the result sounds fine.

Here are the reups and remasters, by request:

Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Serkin, PO-Ormandy) (remastered). Superb pianism in Serkin's first recorded go at the Brahms First, one of three with Ormandy and the Philadelphians. From 1945.

Freddie Mitchell - Boogie Bash (remastered). Honkin' tenor sax from Mitchell and his band, taken from 1949-52 Derby 78s and an Label "X" LP reissuing Derby masters. I spent a lot of time getting the pitch right on these sides, which is more than I can say for the musicians. It's crude but vivid!

Ida May Mack and Bessie Tucker. Two obscure Texas blues singers as heard on a Label "X" reissue from 1955. mp3 only.

Jimmy Yancey - Blues and Boogie. More from Label "X" - this one from Chicago pianist Yancey as heard in 1938 and 1940 recordings. mp3 only.

Kings of the Blues. This final Label "X" offering presents mainly August 1928 Memphis recordings of Jim Jackson, Frank Stokes, Furry Lewis, and Ishman Bracey. mp3 only.

Julie Wilson and 'This Could Be the Night'

Cabaret legend Julie Wilson died this week, and I thought I might pay tribute to her by presenting this relatively obscure soundtrack recording from This Could Be the Night, a 1957 film where she played (what else) a nightclub singer. Wilson's vocal LPs of the period have been reissued, but not this item, as far as I can tell.

Wilson was 32 when the film was shot. She had already become a fixture at the posh La Maisonette at the St. Regis Hotel in New York, with her repertoire of standards and mildly risque material - a sophisticated mix for a high-end audience. She also had appeared in several shows, and this acting experience and her striking looks made her a natural for Hollywood.

Ray Anthony and Julie Wilson

Along with This Could Be the Night, Wilson was cast in the The Strange One (which soundtrack has also appeared here, although it does not feature her). The former film was set backstage at a nightclub. Quite a club - for a band, it employed Ray Anthony's ensemble, and for a stripper, it had the wonderfully attractive Neile Adams (who met her future husband Steve McQueen while making this film).

The movie sounds like fun, but the the soundtrack is nothing special, sorry to report. Anthony does a number of his set pieces - including two hits from 1952, "Trumpet Boogie" and "The Bunny Hop," that old-time wedding reception favorite. (The hop in this one is not as bouncy as the original version.) There also is something of a Sinatra flavor to the proceedings, with a cover of "The Tender Trap" and a rendition of "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die," which Anthony cut with The Voice back in 1954.

Neile Adams

The latter song has a solo by Julie Wilson, who admittedly did not have such a great voice herself. What she had was presence and personality. Her idol was Billie Holiday, who influence is apparent in two songs associated instead with other famous singers  - "I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)" (Ivie Anderson) and "Taking a Chance on Love" (Ethel Waters). She also lets loose with the flapper-era favorite "Sadie Green," and one of the two versions of the title song, written by Nicholas Brodszky and Sammy Cahn. There is a vocal for Neile Adams, who may have been a wonderful dancer and actor, but whose singing was more like squawking.

M-G-M's sound is uncharacteristically close and harsh, but good enough, I guess. (Note (August 2025): The sound has now been reworked and is somewhat better.) I don't have personnel for the band, unfortunately. The film credits suggest that at least some of the arrangements were by Billy May and Skip Martin.

LINK (remastered in ambient stereo August 2025)

Ray shows the chorus line his spit valve

Paul Weston's Melodies for a Sentimental Mood

I had a request for more from the estimable and inescapable arranger Paul Weston, so here we have his Melodies for a Sentimental Mood, from circa 1952.

These danceable, easy listening sides make a great contrast to the Elliott Carter sonatas I just presented, which may have many virtues, but certainly will not inspire you to roll up the rugs for a sock hop.

Paul Weston

One of the frustrations of records like this is that the excellent musicians are not identified. However, Weston did often work with a group of famous West Coast session hands, and other records he made for Columbia did specify the personnel, who included the following: Ziggy Elman, Clyde Hurley (tp) Joe Howard, Bill Schaefer (tb) Matty Matlock (cl) Babe Russin, Ted Nash, Eddie Miller (ts) Paul Smith (p) Barney Kessel, George Van Eps (g). The "Embraceable You" solo trumpet certainly sounds like Ziggy.

The sonics on this 10-inch LP are most vivid.

Early Elliott Carter: Cello and Piano Sonatas

As a follow-up to my post of Elliott Carter's Piano Sonata and Pocahontas Suite, here is the composer's 1948 Cello Sonata and a second version of the piano work. This is from a circa 1952 American Recording Society LP.

Bernard Greenhouse

Carter wrote the cello score for Bernard Greenhouse, then a young soloist. This was several years before the instrumentalist's long and illustrious association with the Beaux Arts Trio. Greenhouse and pianist Anthony Makas gave the premiere of the work in Town Hall in 1950.

On the other side of the LP, Beveridge Webster makes the Piano Sonata his own in a version that I prefer to the Charles Rosen account that appeared here a while back, not that the Rosen isn't a tremendous accomplishment in its own right. But Webster's approach in the stormier passages of the second movement does make the later reading seem deadpan.

Beveridge Webster

Like Rosen, Webster recorded the sonata twice - the second time for Dover, for which he produced seemingly the entire piano literature in low-priced editions that once were commonly found in bookstores.

I am certain this is the first recording of the Cello Sonata; I believe that is true of the piano work as well. The sound is very good.

A Few More Remasters - and One New Transfer

A quick follow-up to last week's group of remasters - here are a few more for you, along with one new transfer that I neglected to include in the previous post.

The two new remastered reups, both in Apple lossless format, are as follows:

Jimmy Blythe - South Side Blues Piano. Surprisingly good sounding (mainly) acoustic recordings by the short-lived blues and boogie-woogie artist.

Rawsthorne - Piano Concerto No. 2. Clifford Curzon's suave and satisfying recording, the first of this fine work.

Here's the one new transfer:

Adolph Hofner - Dude Rance Dances. Early LP by the notable Western swing meister, but please note that this was in Columbia's square dance series, so allemande to the left if you can't handle such things.

Links are in the comments to this post.

Mark Murphy - The Raw 'Rah'

I was unaware until recently that all reissues of jazz singer Mark Murphy's first Riverside album, Rah, had been bowdlerized. Two of the songs were deemed offensive and diluted or dropped altogether.

When I learned this from fellow collector Progress Hornsby, I decided to transfer my nice stereo copy of the record for those who hadn't heard it, and for those who are unfamiliar with Murphy, a talented vocalist.

In my melodramatic way, I call the result the "raw Rah," but I admit that is an overstatement. There was nothing scandalous about the content, even for 1962, when this came out.

Mark Murphy in the early sixties

Progress explains that Richard Rodgers threatened a law suit because Murphy's version of "My Favorite Things," name-checked any number of jazz artists, and Rodgers did not like having his creations altered. Then there was Murphy's version of the usually sentimental "I’ll Be Seeing You," As Progress relates, "Instead of 'In that small café, the park across the way/The children's carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well,' Murphy sings, 'In that damp café, the parking lot across the way/That beat-up carousel where we used to sell cheap muscatel.'" Apparently this offended someone's sensibilities as well. So the reissues of Rah have trimmed "Favorite Things" and zapped "I'll Be Seeing You" altogether.

The cover shows Murphy in collegiate garb holding what appears to be a protest sign. This, however, was a few years before the first big college protests of the sixties - the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Murphy's sign was intended to depict college spirit. (I went to college in that decade and don't recall any such signs.) In his notes, Ira Gitler writes, "Mark Murphy appeals to the hip collegian - youthful and vigorous but cool, too. Hence Rah minus the exclamation point."

As for the musical quality, this is surely one of the singer's best records. Highlights include a number of the jazz and hip vocal standards of the time: a superb version of "Milestones" with scat singing that even I can enjoy, "L'il Darlin'," "Green Dolphin Street," and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most." There is even a good but superfluous homage to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross via "Twisted" and "Doodlin'." Ernie Wilkins contributes apt arrangements that often are little more than muted brass chords and rhythm. Good sound.

Mitropoulos Conducts Malipiero and Bach-Casella

Dimitri Mitropoulos made his first postwar tour of Italy in 1950. One stop was for a concert in Turin on June 2, where he also recorded two compositions for the Italian company Cetra.

With the RAI Orchestra in that city, the conductor set down scores by two contemporary Italian composers, Gian Francesco Malipiero and Alfredo Casella. According to his biographer, William Trotter, Mitropoulos programmed Malipiero's Seventh Symphony during the tour, presumably during the stop in Turin. Also taped during the June 2 session was Casella's transcription (actually more a reworking) of the Chaconne from Bach's violin Partita in D.

Malipiero (left) and Casella flank Manuel de Falla

Malipiero and Casella were almost exact contemporaries, although Casella had died at age 63 in 1947, and were leading figures in 20th century Italian musical life. The two were colleagues and both were instrumental in reviving the music of Vivaldi, but they were very different composers.

The RAI Turin orchestra was not a great ensemble - Trotter says that Mitropoulos found the orchestral playing in postwar Italy in considerable disrepair - but the Greek conductor was able to elicit committed playing, especially in the Malipiero.

The recording is lively, but the pressing has a few thumps. This is from the US Cetra-Soria issue of the set.

I could not resist including the Stokowski transcription of the Bach Chaconne in the download, for the sake of contrast. There is little of Stoky's ostentatiously reverential approach in Casella's transcription. The Stokowski is from the His Symphony Orchestra recording of 1950 - it's not my transfer.