As promised, the cover to "Castle House Rag"

I bought my copy of Castle House Rag in San Diego many years ago, if memory serves me correctly (it often doesn't). I paid a buck for it, maybe:


















Not the world's most exciting cover, I know, though Irene and Vernon Castle do make a cute couple. The cellophane tape-job was not my doing, please note. I have nothing against repairing sheet music with magic tape, but cellophane tape--no. (Insert "sticky issue" pun.)

The music, not to my surprise, is notated in cut time, aka alla breve, aka 2/2. And Gunther Schuller refers to it as 2/4, which is also how I think of cut-time, but people are always correcting me. Well, guess what, folks--Gunther Schuller is on the same page as Lee. So, there. Yes, technically, a C with a slanted line through it means 2/2. But 2/2 is, basically, shorthand for 2/4, and if we hear something in 2/4, we should visualize it in kind. Why should we have to look at quarter notes and say to ourselves, "These look like quarter notes, but they're really eighth notes"? Is that convenient? Does it make reading the notes and thinking about the pulse any easier? I say no. And I'm sure the late Gunther Schuller agreed with me. And I'm sure that none of this has anything to do with anything.

Sorry.

Actually, it is a fairly significant issue, because a certain number of rock songs in sheet music form are (incorrectly) in cut time, a meter which, in all cases, should be used only for a two-beat pulse, regardless of tempo or "feel" (gospel, swing, etc.). Yet, Hoyt Axton's Joy to the World was published in cut-time. "Jeremiah was a bullfrog (da-da-daaaant!)" does NOT occupy four beats; it occupies eight. Two measures of 4/4, in other words. Who on earth decided to notate it as two beats per phrase? The same thing happened to Carole King's Up on the Roof and Traditional's House of the Rising Sun. I'm looking at a songbook called Sensational 70 for the 70s, in case you're wondering. Its cover sucks, too, so I won't bother posting it.

Why can't publishers be more careful about these things? Their job is not to make money, but, rather, to educate the public on musical matters. I mean, that is their motivation, right? (No?)

And here's Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, which, as you can see, is in really good condition. That's because it was printed on really high-quality paper. The cover has a real second-grade-art-project look to it:


















The great thing about printed music is that it sounds the same, regardless of condition. Unless, of course, part of the music is missing.

And here's a really cool cover whose date I didn't write down. Dang it. And I just put it back in storage. Double-dang-it.



















Go, cat, go!



Lee

(James Reese) Europe's Society Orchestra, 1914

You might be able to find Castle House Rag elsewhere, but, by and large, James Reese Europe's Victor sides have been neglected, reissue-wise. Big-time. MYPWHAE has no idea why, because Europe's Victor material is magnificent. As you are about to hear.

Castle House Rag is a four-part James Reese Europe composition written for dancers Vernon and Irene Castle and recorded by Europe's fourteen-piece (thanks, Redhotjazz.com) band in 1914. Most people describe this as ragtime, as in not jazz, but I hear it as 1) ragtime on the verge of becoming jazz or 2) ragtime that recently morphed into same. Listen to the jazz polyphony that's all over the final strain. I think that my restoration brings out most of the activity--I worked long and hard to get every detail as sharp and clear as possible, and I hope it sounds as good as I think it does. It's impossible to do complete justice to something as magnificent as this recording, but that's all the more reason to try:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/627209.html The Castles in Europe (aka Castle House Rag), Europe's Society Orchestra, 1914 (from 12" Victor 78).

The flip side, also a Europe composition, is just as nice in its own way, sounding like a sophisticated product of the yet-to-come (?) Jazz Age:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/627293.html Castle's Lame Duck, Europe's Society Orchestra, 1914 (from same 12" Victor 78).

I'll have to dig out my sheet music copy of Castle House Rag and share a photo of the cover in a following post. (Sound of feet running up the stairs.)

Lee

Raymond Scott, Part 3: Alec Wilder

From http://www.schirmer.com/composers/wilder/ (where have we heard these cliches before?): "Alec Wilder's music is a unique blend of American musical traditions — among them jazz and the American popular song — and basic 'classical' European forms and techniques. As such it fiercely resists all labeling."

But... but... the writers are describing Raymond Scott's music. They must be! There's more: "Many times his music wasn't jazz enough for the 'jazzers,' or 'highbrow,' 'classical' or 'avant-garde' enough for the classical establishment." That's what every last Raymond Scott blurb claims for Scott. What are we to conclude?

The only possible conclusion: Wilder and Scott were the same person. There's no way that two different American composers could have been covering similar ground, and at the same time! Or that they'd be receiving precisely the same press all of these years later. Therefore, Wilder and Scott must be one and the same. (Whew. I'm glad we figured that out.)

And we haven't even gotten to Alec Templeton yet. At which point, we'll be talking three and the same.

Anyway, "Alec Wilder" (who, we've concluded, was Raymond Scott) wrote jazz/Classical miniatures with titles like The Neurotic Goldfish; The Amorous Poltergeist; Sea Fugue, Mama; and Kindergarten Flower Etchings. Sounds to me like Scott didn't hold the patent on goofy titles.

And, lucky us, we're going to hear The Neurotic Goldfish, aka Neurotic Goldfish, which was first recorded by the Alec Wilder Octet in 1938. This 1944 version is by Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, who arranged the piece for two pianos.

The Neurotic Goldfish (Alec Wilder, arranged by Whittemore and Lowe), Arthur Whittemore and Jack Lowe, 1944 (from Victor 78).

In other news, I re-restored Shanghai Dream Man, the superb piece of Jazz Age exotica arranged by Ferde Grofe for Paul Whiteman. I think this file sounds better than the previous effort, thanks in part to my 31-band equalizer. What a marvelous orchestration. This may be my favorite Whiteman of all:

Shanghai Dream Man (Benny Davis-Harry Akst, arr: Ferde Grofe), Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, 1927 (from Victor 78).













"And now we'll play Lee's favorite recording by me: Shanghai Dream Man. Hit it, boys!"

Lee (oops... still in burgundy font mode....)

Life before the ragtime revival of 1973, Part 2

Before we listen to some ragtime, I wanted to point out that I knew Axel Stordahl's first name wasn't Alex. I was, er... um... testing people. Yeah, that's it. I was waiting to see if someone would e-mail me with a correction. And someone did. (Thanks, Brian.)

O.K., I'll confess--I misread the June Hutton record label. Tiny print has been giving my eyes trouble ever since I turned 40. And the problem has been getting worse every year. It's all part of a process that medical experts refer to as "getting older," something my eyesight isn't doing very gracefully. I'm in fairly good company, as "Alex Stordahl" brings up 894 hits on Google! (As opposed to 10,100 for "Axel Stordahl.") Darn those inverted letters. Anyway, my ophthalmologist tells me my glasses are fine, so it's got to be my eyes, both of which I'm going to have to stop bleleiving. I mean, believing.

Speaking of which, I wasn't sure I was seeing what I saw when I spotted Maple Leaf Rag in the track listing for the 1955 Columbia LP, I Like Jazz!, a comp which seems to have sold in the billions. Joplin, again--and in the days before he had been introduced to the public via The Sting (1973). Here's Wally Rose, just tearing up the keyboard on this 1954 recording:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/567520.html Maple Leaf Rag, Wally Rose, 1954.

Of course, I could play ragtime that well--if I practiced for about 80 years. Wally Rose should be much better-known. Read all about him here: http://www.sfmuseum.org/bio/rose.html


















Polly Adelaide Hendricks, aka Del Wood, had a huge hit in 1951 with L. Wolfe Gilbert's 1921 ragtime romp Down Yonder. It's a great record--though, as you will hear, Polly wasn't exactly Wally on the keyboard. The wrong notes really ring out loud and clear in this performance, but we'll pretend we don't hear them:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/594072.html Down Yonder (L. Wolfe Gilbert), Del Wood, 1951, from 45 on the Tennessee label.

Too bad people had to wait until 1973 to hear ragtime. But, in the meantime, at least they had some first-rate ragtime to tie them over until ragtime arrived.

Lee

Debunking Raymond Scott mythology, Part 1

Somebody has to do it. And I am, after all, a debunker of pseudomusicological claims. I follow the example of CSICOP (the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), except that I tackle absurd claims made on behalf of the Euterpean Muse. And a lot of fairly outrageous claims have been made for the music of Raymond Scott. This time, we'll deal with an assertion made at RaymondScott.com: "Regardless of what you thought of the man's technique, there was nothing like it." That is, in spite of what some of Scott's harsher critics thought of his music back in the day, the stuff was unique.

Nothing like it? Well, take the example of Scott's famous New Years Eve in a Haunted House (please), recorded in 1939 by his Quintette. Utterly unique, right? Sure. Except for Morton Gould's 1938 Halloween novelty The Deserted Ballroom. A fact which leaves two choices open to us: 1) to accept Gould as a genius who as innovative and outside the mainstream as Scott, or 2) to consider the possibly that Scott's Haunted House was actually quite conventional as far as "modern" novelties of the time are concerned. (Choice #2 would be the correct one.)

And here's Morton Gould himself, performing The Deserted Ballroom:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/566897.html The Deserted Ballroom (Morton Gould, 1938), Morton Gould, piano (1941, from 78).












This delightful piece showed up on a recently-bought copy of Morton Gould at the Piano (Decca DL5067, 10"), an album I'd hoped would yield some interesting lounge-y material. I had no idea it contained such a sophisticated and interesting exercise in 2/2 Scott-style nonsense. (Just a guess, meter-wise, in regard to Scott, as I don't have his stuff on paper.) To be sure, Gould's rhythms aren't as jazzy, and for lovers of thumping rhythms, a piano is no substitute for a sextet. But Gould's sense of form is much more advanced than Scott's--his miniature is skillfully organized and, compared to Scott's string of mundane strains, highly motivic. And he's better than Scott at making his tempo changes seem much more than they really are, a trick easily accomplished via rhythmic contrast (dotted eighths vs. straight, quarter-notes versus half-notes, etc.). The ambiguous relationship between pulse and rhythm is what allowed Arthur Honegger, in his famous 1923 "symphonic movement" Pacific 231, to imply a speeding-up of tempo when, in fact, the beat was gradually slowing down. This is apparent even in the first portion of the movement:

http://box.net/public/lee/files/567524.html Pacific 231 (excerpt) (Arthur Honegger, 1923), conducted by Honegger, 1929.

I have a confession to make. Whenever anyone touts a figure like Raymond Scott as one of the great composers of the 20th century, I treat myself to an instant reality check in the form of Honegger. Or Ravel, or Holst, or Stravinsky. Does the trick every time.

More Scott debunking as the necessary materials turn up.


Lee

Great news--Wikipedia has a Stordahl entry!!

I was wrong--Wikipedia (the encyclopedia that anyone can edit) has an entry on arranger Alex Stordahl. Thanks, Sebastian, for letting me know. Meanwhile, "Alex Stordahl" and "Wikipedia" continue to yield the Google message "Your search - 'alex stordahl' 'wikipedia' - did not match any documents." "Stordahl" and "Wikipedia," however, takes me to Answers.com, which I suspect is how Sebastian got there.

(Note: Not long after I posted this, a reader informed me that I should have been looking for Axel Stordahl, Axel being Alex's actual first name. D'oh!!)

An amusing, utterly cliched entry it is, too. An elitist angle is introduced right off the bat: "Stordahl is credited with helping to bring pop arranging into the modern age." Wow. Modern age. That's me. I live there. In the modern age, I mean.

Abusers of the "modern" concept rarely stop to consider that the word has been in use for a long, long time. There are even popular magazines from our grandparents' age that have "modern" in their titles. Gosh, is it possible that "modern" is a relative concept?

Also--"He was one of the first American arrangers to tailor his work to the vocal qualities of a specific singer." (Hm. Had French, Dutch, and Polish arrangers mastered that art years before, or something?) Anyway, what the hell does that mean? He chose keys Sinatra could sing in? Wow. Nobody had thought of that before. The implication, of course, being that Sinatra's vocal qualities were so utterly his own that they required custom charts. Pul-ease. Lesser vocalists have to sing whatever charts are handed to them. The price of not having talent, I guess.


Lee (holding back)

Covering Crows

What the world needs in these troubling times are two cover versions of Gee, the famous rock and roll record by The Crows that hit the pop charts in 1954--two years before Elvis managed the same feat, we will note. The song is in AABA form, with I/vi/ii/V A sections--the kind of dirt-simple tune despised by many professional musicians of the day, who had nothing against AABA form but everything against go-nowhere chord changes. Luckily, rock geniuses like Brian Wilson would come along and do away with form altogether, redefining it as the pointless repetition of nice-sounding chords and melodic phrases. Philip Glass would take Classical music in the same direction. But, in 1954, Gee represented the acme of redundancy. (And, once again, I've come up with a phrase that doesn't show up on Google. I feel honored.)

Enough rock-songwriting-bashing. We're here to groove to June Hutton's not-bad reading of Gee. (I've always wanted to type "not-bad reading of Gee.") June is assisted by The Boys Next Door (a vintage boy band?) and Alex Stordahl and His Orchestra. Hip, swinging, bachelor-pad coolsters will recognize "Alex Stordahl" as one of "Frank Sinatra"'s favorite arrangers. Even squares like myself will connect the two names. Alex Stordahl probably has an entry in Wikipedia, that Internet source of all knowledge. (Oops--no, he doesn't. Odd.)

Actually, June's "listen to-uh me-hee" is pretty weak. She sounds like a yodeler with laryngitis. June would have been better off not trying to mimic the original singer, who wasn't much better in that part of the song, himself. Otherwise, a fine record, and how on earth did I manage to write such a long intro?

http://box.net/public/lee/files/567527.html Gee, June Hutton, with the Boys Next Door and Alex Stordahl's Orchestra (1954, from Capitol 45).

Next up, The Four Jacks, a fake name that showed up on Tops, Gateway, Big Four Hits, and the label we're about to hear from, Top Tunes (of Cincinnati, Ohio). Here, "The Four Jacks" copy the original very closely, and not without skill. They just needed to loosen up a little, rhythmically. (Too late now, I suppose.)

http://box.net/public/lee/files/497594.html Gee, The Four Jacks (from Top Tunes 78).

And, what have we here?


















This looks suspiciously like my copy of The Four Jacks' Gee, except that mine is in perfect focus. You know, when I look at that label design, I think of skating-rink music. Or dance-instruction backgrounds. Years of looking at thrift-store records will do that to you.

Lee