A (more or less) Tribute to The Fabulous Dorseys (Palace M-707, 1957)

 

My guess is that (Jaques) Fontanna's A Tribute to the Fabulous Dorseys is the least of the budget cash-ins--er, salutes--to the late Jimmy and Tommy to appear in the latter half of 1957 (though Coronet's effort seems unusually tacky, even by dollar-bin, er, standards).  Jimmy had left us in June, 1957, and brother Tommy had died in November of 1956.  So, it was a race to the racks.  Other low-to-no-budget tribute LPs appeared on Broadway, Hollywood, Sutton, Omega, Pickwick, Tops, Crown, Somerset, and of course Promenade (SPC).  Not to mention the tribute packages on RCA (naturally), Mercury, and other "actual" labels.  Behold the bargain batch, in part:

In September, 1957, Jimmy Dorsey had a decent-sized (#39) posthumous hit with June Night, whose absence here leads me to guess that this rush job was sped onto the (tape) spindles circa August.  My reasoning: The early-1957 Jimmy Dorsey hit (a huge one) So Rare is included, but not June Night, the posthumous Top 40 hit (of September) for the same leader.  That would put this release date at circa August, 1957.  Otherwise, why wouldn't Palace/Masterseal/Remington have added a junk-job June Night, too?  Of course, I'm operating under the notion (delusion?) that the cheap operations engaged in any form of planning whatsoever.

Most of today's twelve tracks were associated with Tommy Dorsey: Boogie Woogie, Swing Low, Marie, Swanee River, Opus No. 1, I'll Never Smile Again, Song of India, and (of course) I'm Getting Sentimental Over You.  Jimmy: Breeze and I, So Rare, and Green Eyes.  As for the clunky Sy Oliver-esque Battle Hymn of the Republic, I can't establish a Dorsey connection, save that the number also appears on the Promenade and Broadway Tributes. Maybe its Dorsey association is a rack-jobber urban legend.

The unidentified vocalists aren't bad, despite a painful out-of-range moment in Breeze and I, and, on Green Eyes, a Helen O'Connell imitator whose headphones must have been on tape delay.  She needed to drop the inflections and do another take, but extra takes cost money, so...

The Palace label is related to Remington, Masterseal, and Paris, but discovering this factoid at Discogs is an exciting journey.  At Discogs, we learn that Palace's parent label was Buckingham Records, whose parent label was Masterseal, whose parent label was Remington, whose parent label was Remington Records, Inc.  The latter evidently being the end (or top) of the lineage.

So... Palace's parent-parent-parent label was Remington Records, Inc.  And there were a number of Remington Records, Inc. sublabels (and sub-sublabels), including the Remington sublabel Paris International, Inc. the parent label of Paris.  Whatever I just typed.

The album's chief--and most endearing--shortcomings include musicians either not ideally suited (or ideally rehearsed) to tackle the charts, a generally awkward feel, a few inept intros (Green Eyes, especially), and the total bombing of the Helen O'Connell slow-swing portion of Eyes.  At first, I thought the problem was with the ersatz Helen, but in fact she's fine--almost terrific--but the band, for some ungodly reason, is playing a Bolero-style rhythm which clashes with the singer's swing inflections.  In the Annals of Dumb Band Chart Choices, this moment should be graced with its own special display.

And I love So Rare, maybe because it's the essence of a cheap-label knockoff: "Well, we barely got through that one.  Great job!"  It has "cash-in" written all over it (luckily, my Spin Cleaner took care of that, though I had to change the water), and it's delightfully almost-there.  The best parts of the J. Dorsey original were probably the dramatic opening and closing sections--here, they're these moments are stripped of their inspiration via a lazy transcription.  Why I find a dumbed-down So Rare so cool is so puzzling to me.  I guess that, once bitten by the junk-label bug, there's no cure.

Oh, and there's the dreadful vocal chorus on Marie--no fault of the singer, but more the draggy backing of the percussionist, who sounds like he's 1) half-awake, 2) angry at the gig and thus determined to ruin any semblance of swing, 3) both, or 4) listening to the orchestra on delayed feed.  But had this album been competently carried out, it would be just another middling memorial of the dollar-bin kind, and not nearly as diverting (even as it diverts from the tone of the originals).  And, again, I'd have to pick the two-different-pages close to Green Eyes (a fitting sendoff) as the most genuinely hilarious moment here.  And, again, the tragedy is that the singer nails Helen O'Connell's classic vocal, only to be tripped up by the backing. The insertion of Ravel was clearly a choice made while rushed or drunk--or both.  At any rate, there's too much rubato in the O'Connell-esque vocal to allow for a strict triplet backing, but the mark is so memorably missed, it's one of the all-time best budget botches in my book.

The LP condition is pretty iffy, forcing me--for once--to bypass VinylStudio's declicker filter, since it was removing tiny portions of the audio.  First time ever, and I imagine it's because the mastering was marginal to start with--it may not sound that much better in a clean copy, but I'm too cheap to find out.  I manually removed the worst of the clicks and pops: What remains adds junky provenance to this labor of quick and cheap profit.  But I'll need to at least get my hands on the SPC and Pickwick tribute knockoffs (unless I already have them), if only to hear their versions of So Rare, though I imagine those are too close to competency to begin to compete.  Or, when is viability not a virtue?

DOWNLOAD: A Tribute to the Fabulous Dorseys--(Jacques) Fontanna and His Orch. (Palace M-707; 1957)

Boogie Woogie

Swing Low Sweet Chariot    

Breeze and I

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Marie

Swanee River

Opus No. 1

I'll Never Smile Again

Song of India

So Rare

I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

Green Eyes

Lee

More post-WII nostalgia: "Do You Remember?"--Morton Gould and His Orchestra, 1948

 

Internet sources give 1949 as the release year for this boxed set, despite the 1948 date on the cover.  And, in fact, the matrix numbers for the 78 rpm set reveal that these were recorded in 1947.  Anyway, I'll go with the release year, though I sometimes favor the recording date.  It's always a toss-up.

"Music has many powers, but scarcely any more potent than the ability to evoke in the listener dozens of personal memories, some of them romantic, some amusing, some poignant, and many of them half-forgotten until brought to vivid life by some melody."  In the realm of liner notes, this is a literary device called "filling space with words."  And, yes, half-forgotten memories: After all, On the Sunny Side of the Street was a whole 17 years old come 1947.  Ancient history!

In older times, ironically, people had a greater sense of "old."  "Old" was older.  Nowadays, everything is kept in rotation, and audio recording copyrights go back to 1924, ludicrously.  But, prior to the abolishment of "old," mass-culture products enjoyed a much shorter shelf life.

So, instead of a sing-along or Lawrence Welk/Sammy Kaye/Paul Whiteman rehashing of older material (and, to an extent, older styles), we have the floating-on-air character of mood music, a genre which filled the airwaves of the 1930s and 1940s but which was, for some unknown reason, greeted as a new style by pop music critics when Mantovani's Charmaine made the 1951 charts.  Short-term memory issues?  The critics never listened to the radio during childhood?  

And I suspect, minus any hard evidence, that the classic mood style didn't gel well with the "old songs" format.  And here, the majority of the tracks (much as I like Gould's arrangements) lack much of a beat.  Exceptions: Twelfth Street Rag, practically a send-up of the 1914 Euday Bowman classic, which of course was a monster 1948 hit for Pee Wee Hunt.  Plus, The Sheik of Araby, though the rhythm is hardly pronounced, save in the clever, Grofe-esque opening.

I can find no evidence that this Gould album made the transition a from ML- (Masterworks) status to a CL- (popular) release, which suggests less than excellent sales.  It apparently first appeared as a 78 set, then a 10-incher, and then as the EP set featured today.  But no CL- release in sight.  Just in case it had known life in the CL- series, albeit with a different title, I checked out each track at Discogs.  And zero indication of a popular release.

Oh, and there was this catchy edition of the 10-incher (image swiped from Discogs):

By contrast, nearly all of Ander Kostelanetz's Masterworks material made it into the CL- series.  My guess is that the languid, seamless, just-sit-back-and-take-a-nap approach to the "old songs" didn't fly with the public.  In the realm of faux-1890s-1920s, people wanted a glee-club approach--preferably with a banjo or three--or anything else with a beat.  Even if it meant the "Mickey" (Mickey Mouse) styles of Sammy Kaye, Art Mooney, or Guy Lombardo.  Maybe, especially if.

But I'm very fond of this set, and I like the novelty of the "midnight strings" approach as applied to Whispering, Nola, and The Sheik of Araby (the arrangement of which has more than a hint of exotica). 

DOWNLOAD: Do You Remember?--Morton Gould and His Orchestra, 1948

My Blue Heaven

Nola

Dardanella

On the Sunny Side of the Street

Poor Butterfly

The Sheik of Araby

Whispering

Twelfth Street Rag

(All arrangements by Morton Gould)

Lee

No bummed-out banjos here: "Those Happy Banjos"--Art Mooney and His Orch. (Lion L-70062; 1958)

So, what do we call phrases like "happy banjos"?  Are they an example of anthropomorphizing or personifying?  (Clock ticking; buzzer.)  Right!  Personifying!  In this case, we're talking the happy sound of banjos, which is a human perception/experience.  As personified in the form of "happy banjos."

Aren't you glad I cleared that up?  And this was a problem LP.  Namely, with some bad engineering on Side 1, plus all-over-the-place Googling required to determine the probable recording dates.  I had to do some comparison listening, at least for one track, to determine the precise version.  But the banjos were smiling all the while!

Seven of these tracks were carried over from a 1953 ten-incher called Banjo Bonanza.  The carried-over tracks consist of the entirety of Side 1, plus 1949's Paddlin' Madelin' Home.  For some reason, 1948's Baby Face was not retained. 

So, the four unique-to-this-LP tracks--Barefoot Days, Pal-ing Around With You, In the Twi-Twi-Twilight, and Joshu-ah--were either recorded in 1958, specifically for his LP, or... they're earlier, unreleased tracks.  And there's 1953's "O" (Oh!), which was not on Banjo Bonanza, but was released as a single (45 and 78 rpm).  There'll be a quiz.

The sloppy. slapped-together quality of this enterprise suggests a quick release--namely, a cash-in on Sing Along With Mitch.  The tracks have the same general vibe, obviously, though Miller's choruses were all-male, while only three of these are men-only (Row, Row, Row; "O," and Barefoot Days).  Had all four of the unique-to-this-LP tracks been men-only, we'd have positive proof of a cash-in attempt.  But I'm nevertheless pretty sure.  

It's tempting to classify Mooney's 1947-1949 glee-style releases--Four-Leaf Clover, in particular --as part of a postwar trend of reviving the "old songs" of the 1890s-1920s, but said songs and styles were in a constant state of revival (and re-revival) prior to the late 1940s.  Beatrice Kay's Naughty 90's dates back to 1940, and Frankie Carle recorded versions of Stumbling and Twelfth Street Rag in 1942.  And there's the 1941 John Scott Trotter recording of Kitten on the Keys which I posted back in 2019.  In short, the neo-Dixieland/-Twenties/-ragtime period didn't start with Del Wood or Pee Wee Hunt.  As far as that goes, the novelty numbers of Zez Confrey were the neo-ragtime of their time, and we're talking back to 1920.  And people were assessing Dixieland as old hat as early as 1924!  ("Old hat as early..."?  Hm.)

Maybe the sing-along genre is simply a reflection/acknowledgement of an ongoing style of community singing, which would include glee and close-harmony vocalizing (Barbershop).  From the 1800s to the present, glees, church choirs, and Barbershop choruses have been happening behind the scenes of mainstream popular music, but because it rarely show up on recordings, outside of the private type (one notable exception: 1955's Alabama Jubilee), such music seems hopelessly dated.  And I think I've set the world's record for overthinking the sing-along genre!  But it has me puzzled.

Note: Heartbreaker is a 1948 number inspired by the Ferko String Band (!) and cowritten by Max (Rock Around the Clock) Freedman.  And could that group have inspired Mooney?  (The FSB did a 1948 version of Four-Leaf Clover which could almost pass for the 1947 hit.  Hm.) And Pal-ing Around With You appears to be from 1949.

DOWNLOAD: Those Happy Banjos--Art Mooney and His Orch. (Lion L-70062; 1958)

I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover, 1947

Toot, Toot, Tootsie! (Goodbye), 1949

Somebody Stole My Rose Colored Glasses, 1949

Row, Row, Row, 1949

Heartbreaker, 1952

Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Girl), 1949

"O" (Oh1), 1953

(Oh Boy!  What a Joy We Had In) Barefoot Days

Pal-ling Around With You

In the Twi-Twi-Twilight

Joshu-ah

Paddlin' Madelin' Home, 1949

Lee

Easter 2024!! Eddie Brandt, Jerome Hines, Smith's Sacred Singers, Collegiate Choir, "Hoppy" the Bunny, Haydn Quartet

 

Joyous Easter music, rescued from Workupload exile.  As you can see, the bunnies are excited.  A mix of secular and sacred, though many (most?) details of Easter were, at some point in time, religious.  In All Around the Year (1994), Jack Santino (a former prof of mine) writes about Easter eggs as "natural symbols of birth, new life, resurrection, and renewal," and we won't even mention bunnies (rabbits) as symbols of fertility.  Except, I just did.  But Easter eggs, come 2024, are regarded as "secular" in nature.  (Actually, most eggs have no professed religion.)  Or an unpeeled egg, once peeled, can be regarded as a symbol of Christ's rebirth--a victory over death.  It's your call.

Meaning that any and all controversy over religious holidays (at least in my culture) is a matter of sacred vs. popular rather than sacred vs. secular.  Approximately 80 percent of U.S. citizens celebrate Easter, and it's closer to 90 percent for Christmas.  Which means, obviously, that a hefty number of non-Christians are happily engaging in Christian events.  This, of course, inevitably leads to debate over whether or not these holidays are, in fact, Christian.  My take is that, if we celebrate them in the (so to speak) mode of Christianity, they are Christian.  Historically, that is. This fits in with my "The past can't be conveniently jettisoned" cultural-history stance.  To put it another way, Silent Night doesn't cease to celebrate the Nativity, even if sung by an atheist or a religiously-undecided person as part of the popular celebration.  That is, unless the text is radically altered to eliminate that central reference--in which case, it's an utterly new number, since the removal of the Nativity theme would necessitate a title change and the elimination of "holy," among other details.  It's enough to know that millions of Americans annually sing Christmas carols and hymns with little or no thought to the sacred nature of caroling.  It's simply something people do during "the holidays."

As to whether the spring equinox, the winter solstice, and other vital planetary events are the property of a given faith, or any faith at all, my take (forgive me) is that the planetary events take precedent.  Holy details are "scheduled" around the seasons, and obviously not vice versa, so...

How did I end up on that tangent?  I guess I'm saying that, even as a Christian, I'm overjoyed by the fact of any Christian holiday pulling popular duty--i.e., becoming a holiday of and for the people.  Such as Easter.  Hence, I feel that How Great Thou Art conveys the joy of the event (birth, rebirth, the return of leaves and flowers, "longer" days) as legitimately as Eggbert, the Easter Egg, though I would argue that the former is a more inspired work of art.

And any excuse to put Eddie Brandt (of Spike Jones fame) and (His) Hollywood Hicks, Jerome Hines, Smith's Sacred Singers, "Hoppy" the Bunny, Ray Heatherand the Cincinnati Baptist College Quartet in the same playlist is an excuse to be cherished.

And the "Anthony Auletti" credit for Bunny Hop (by the Peter Pan Orch. and Singers) is actually, "Anthony, Auletti," but we believe in keeping typos as they originally appeared.  And my all-time favorite gospel songwriter, Charles H. Gabriel, is represented by three selections, including the gorgeous 1925 Homer Rodeheaver--Mrs. William Asher duet, Love Led Him to Calvary.  Incredibly vivid fidelity on a nearly 100 year old 78.  And we close with two joyous Gabriel anthems, by way of conveying the joy of the season.  And nothing says "joy" quite like joyousness.

DOWNLOAD: Easter 2024

Peter Cotton Tail--Meadowlarks (Irene Records)

Old Rugged Cross--Mac MacFarland--(Same)

Easter Parade--Eddie Brandt and (His) Hollywood Hicks, V: Ruthie James (Same)

Christ Arose--Collegiate Choir, 1920

Easter Bunny Polka--Eddie Brandt and (His) Hollywood Hicks, V: Eddie Brandt and Ruthie James (Irene Records)

Jesus Died for Me--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1929

Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1929

Power in the Blood--The Cincinnati Baptist College Quartet, c. 1971

How Great Thou Art--Jerome Hines, 1965

The Old Rugged Cross--Jerome Hines, 1965

Unknown Choir, Word Records--He Lives

He Arose--Haydn Quartet With Orchestra, `1908

Victory in Jesus--Church of the Nazarene Male Quartet, 1959

Bunny Hop--Peter Pan Orch. and Singers, Dir. by Vicky Kasen (1955)

Love Led Him to Calvary (Webster-Gabriel)--Mrs. William Asher-Home Rodeheaver, With Pipe Organ, 1925

Funny Little Bunnies--The Cricketts, Feat. "Hoppy" the Bunny, Peter Pan Orch.

Reapers Are Needed (Charles H. Gabriel)--A.T. Humphries and Lee College Choir, c. 1959

Awakening Chorus (Charles H. Gabriel)--Same

Peter Cottontail--Ray Heatherton (The Merry Milkman), 1951

Eggbert, the Easter Egg--Same

Lee

Stardust Melodies: Raymond Paige and His Orchestra, Raymond Paige's Young Americans, 1940-41 (RCA Camden CAL-153)

Sorry for my longer-than-planned absence.  Today's offering is from the mood-music/easy-listening radio heyday, though these are reissued 78s, not airchecks.  This appears to be the second edition of this reissue, and I have a dim memory of once owning the earlier Camden LP.  As ever, I love the "How This Record Value is Possible" bit on the RCA Camden back jacket: It amounts to, "We're doing you a favor by offering back catalog material."  No, we're doing RCA a favor by keeping its back catalog profitable.  Then again, "Here's some older stuff, priced down because charging a current tab would be unethical" wouldn't have the same ring.

For once, LP-wise, I did a good deal of equalizing, dynamic adjustment, and even added very slight reverb, just to pump more life into the sound.  It seemed a bit too "flat."  Normally, I would have pushed up the treble slightly and let things be, but I felt these transfers needed more punch.  My plan was to retain the main file, in case I didn't like the changes--but I blew that.  I should have used the "save as..." option for the original file and not the extra-doctored "project."  Live and learn.  I had the right idea, only in reverse.

These tracks, recorded in 1940 and 1941, originally appeared on two 78 sets by Raymond Paige and His Orchestra and Raymond Paige's Young Americans (falsely credited here as "American Youth Orchestra").  These images come courtesy of eBay:

No idea if "Young Americans" refers to a youth orchestra or if Paige simply used it for a catchy handle.  However, going for youth association while performing older songs: That's kind of odd.  But no one asked me.  (I was nowhere to be found in 1941.)

Because Paige was an RCA artist, his performances, while Kostelanetz-esque (how's that for an adjective?), lack the lovely spacious, distant-miked sound that graced Kosty and Morton Gould's Columbia recordings from the same period.  And the arrangements, while perfectly good, aren't quite up to Kosty's or Gould's.  On the other hand, all examples from the first wave of mood/easy-listening have historical significance, even if nowadays it's hard to picture folks relaxing to soothing music from 12-inch 78s as they plopped, one after the other, onto the turntable platter.  (These sets were typically designed for changers.)  Then again, a good phonograph would have produced better fidelity than a radio set, despite the lesser ease of use.

And, checking just now, I didn't enter "Endearing Young Charms" as "Enduring Young Charms."  Whew!  I often think one thing and type another.

To the radio-era easy-listening sounds of Raymond Paige...

DOWNLOAD: Stardust Melodies: Raymond Paige Orch. and Young Americans, 1940-51

Rhapsody in Blue

When Day Is Done--La Cumparsita

Mood Indigo

Donkey Serenade (Chansonette)

Night and Day

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Star Dust

Andalucia

My Moonlight Madonna

Believe Me, If All These Endearing Young Charms--A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody

Thru' the South (Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Turkey in the Straw; Deep River)

By the Bend of the River

Lee