Halloween with Mantovani

Who else? And, while the album cover in question is terrific, it doesn't quite suggest All Hallow's Eve:


















The angel-winged violins, in particular, work against that mood. But, aside from that, how arty can you get? An A+ cover.

But this is the very Monty LP that contains Morton Gould's superb Halloween romp The Deserted Ballroom, first published in 1938 as a piano solo. Its fast pace and recurring minor-major seventh chord scream Halloween. And, as I mentioned a few posts ago, the piece is contemporaneous with Raymond Scott's much-better-known New Year's Eve in a Haunted house--and remarkably similar. Should we be surprised?

No, because busy, galop-style light concert works with paranormal themes are a long-standing tradition. (I've always wanted to type "busy, galop-style light concert works with paranormal themes.") We associate such music with silent-movie backgrounds and, of course, cartoons, but the tradition predates moving images. Eduard Holst's ghostly galop Dance of the Demon, for example, is from 1888. I have my own copy, and I could photograph it, but it's easier to swipe this image from the Net:




















And please don't confuse Eduard Holst with Gustav (The Planets) Holst. Like I did for years. (Duh.)

In fact, let's start with Holst's parlor gem, as recorded by duo-pianists Victor Arden and Phil Ohman in 1923 on the Victor label:

Dance of the Demon (E. Holst), Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, piano duet, 1923.

Fast-forward, fifteen years, to Deserted Ballroom. Though the title suggests something slow and eerie, the music has different ideas. I posted Gould's 1941 piano recording a few entries back, but Mantovani's (!) 1955 version is even better. The orchestration is marvelous, as is the Halloween mood. Normally, we wouldn't turn to Monty for Halloween music, but Halloween is about reversal. And the orchestra sure reversed its usual course with this one. Listen, if you dare:

The Deserted Ballroom (Gould), Mantovani and His Orchestra, 1955.

Only the scary-best Halloween selections at MYPWHAE!


Lee

A little close harmony

From The New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986): "Spacing. The registral placement of the elements of a chord. In traditional four-part harmony, a chord is said to be in close position if the three uppermost parts lie as close to one another as possible; otherwise it is in open position."

In other words, if the three uppermost parts are as described in the first part of that last sentence, we have what is commonly called close harmony. Note that the spacing requirement applies to the top three parts and not to the lowest part, the bass. The explanation posted at Wikipedia--"chords whose notes are arranged within a narrow range, typically within one octave"--is incorrect, because it would only apply to triads (that is, if we're talking traditional harmony). Even then, a given triad can conceivably be spaced outside of an octave with the parts remaining as close together as possible, and without any doubling. Remember that voicing is not only a matter of spacing but of note-order choice. That is, C-E-G can be voiced C-G-E, resulting in the imaginary interval of a tenth (a doubled third, actually). The voices, in the order chosen, are in fact as close together as possible. So there.

Harvard is correct; Wikipedia is not. If that comes as a big surprise, what can I say.

The proof can be found in the 1896 E.S. Lorenz songbook Manly Praise (gotta love that title). The first male-quartet arrangement in this volume features a four-part chord whose span is larger than two octaves (by a couple of whole steps). The three uppermost parts comprise a tenth, and in exactly the way I described above. You thought I made that example up, didn't you? Nope. It was taken from real life. Only the key was changed (from F to C) because my short-term memory has never been very good, frankly.

The bottom line is that "traditional" four-part harmony isn't easy or simple, by a long shot. Sure, it sounds simple, but the ironic truth is that the sound of music can be deceptive. For example, the real Mrs. Von Trapp looked nothing like Julie Andrews.

This essay was brought to you by Long-Winded Posts, Inc.®

On to the examples. We have two brilliant quartets (Shannon Four and The Chordettes) and one pretty good foursome (The Quartones). This will take you back to 1920. Unless, like me, you were born way after 1920. In which case, I don't know what to advise.


Sweet Rosie O'Grady, Shannon Four (The Revelers), 1926. From Victor 78.

Will You Love Me in December, Shannon Four (The Revelers), 1926. From Victor 78.

Runnin' Wild, The Chordettes, 1951.

Hello! My Baby, The Quartones, 1960 (?).


Please save, rather than open, files for best results. Thanks!

Lee

Mae West-Criswell Moon Flight

"Unwanted Comments? Turn on word verification to help prevent comment spam."--blogger.com. Apparently, they've heard about the blogger.com Spam problems. Which makes sense, as they are, after all, blogger.com.

I've finally figured out how to properly post links--it's unbelievably simple. In fact, I already knew how to, except I didn't know I knew. Just in time to announce that I have a (Raymond) Scott Collage for your listening pleasure at Vintage Lounge. This "collage" consists of cross-faded music clips, all of them highly Scott-esque, but none of them actually by Scott. The very existence of such a collage weighs against the claim that Scott was operating in an artistic vacuum, an assertion made about every 60 seconds on the Internet.

The real news is that I found my 1955 Criswell/Mae West Spaceway cover. What in heck am I talking about? I'm talking about:






















"Hi, Mom! Doesn't Mae look smashing in her form-fitting, smartly-tailored space suit?"

The cover painting depicts Criswell, the famous Ed Wood, Jr. psychic, standing next to President Mae West on the Moon in the year 1965. As we all know, women took over the United States in 1960, Miss Mae West winning by a landslide. Women were tired of male rule, plus they were annoyed at men for their lack of interest in space travel. It took a woman--namely, Mae West--to push for Moon exploration. And it took President West, in a "form-fitting, smartly-tailored space suit," to lead expedition American Lunar I to the surface of said satellite on a thousand-foot-long rocket, Criswell at her side. The crew found no life on the Moon--just "traces of a very strange vegetation." (Er, isn't vegetation life?) The trip, nonetheless, was very important: "If we of the 20th century have done nothing more than to open the Gateway to the Moon, we have done much!" As we all remember, the Moon became the 51st state.

How did Criswell know about these things in 1955? As he explains in the opening paragraph of his piece, "These words are being written in 1965, for we have projected ourselves into the future. Look at the calendar on your wall, and you will see that you have suddenly advanced ten years into tomorrow, in Outer Space, for that is what the future is!" Any questions? I think that's pretty straightforward.








I never asked my parents whether or not they voted for Mae. And I can't remember. I was only three.

I predict there'll be some great barbershop singing in our next post.

Lee

Viking Song, or "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam...."

Hey, I've got a great blog here! I'll be sure to bookmark it. Meanwhile, you might want to check out Sea Monkeys Central, a great place to buy... well, Sea Monkeys. Thanks!

Don't mind me. I'm just Spamming myself. There's been a lot of Spam at Blogger lately. Where the heck did all these idiots come from? Killing Floor Blues just received a ton of it, including ten or so "comments" crammed into one. Time for Mike Cable to activate the Verification function for his comment section. While I'm typing this, I could be alerting blogger.com. (Actually, no, I can't. I'm not that multi-task-oriented.) They probably already know about it, but it wouldn't hurt, just the same.

In other news, my Raymond Scott CD arrived. A sticker on the cellophane says, "One of the Most Influential Musicians of the 20th Century." Gotta love Columbia's brand of mind control. God forbid that I listen to a CD without first being told what to think, how to react. So thoughtful of them.

Back to the subject of Hormel's spiced ham, it's highly possible that the Monty Python comedians derived their famous SPAM® song from the vamp that opens Viking Song (1911), a one-time glee-club favorite by Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor® (1875-1912). This would explain the Viking chorus, anyway. Coleridge-Taylor is best-known for Hiawatha's Wedding Feast (1898), but Viking Song was pretty well-liked, too, as evidenced by its recording and publishing history. And here is baritone Emilio DeGogorza's version from 1918:

Viking Song (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 1911), Emilio de Gogorza, 1918. (From Victrola label 78)

I also have a recording by the Associated Glee Clubs of America (1926), but it contains areas of annoying distortion--the result, probably, of a play-through with the wrong soundbox or a worn needle. I hate annoying distortion. It... annoys me.

But not as much as Internet Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam....

Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee®

Topical sound files

No, no. Topical, not tropical. This isn't MartinDenny.com. Sorry.

For this muggy Labor Day weekend, great news for Ohio from the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch: "The state continues to lag much of the nation in wage increases and job creation even though many Ohioans are working longer hours and being more production." Far out. And, "Ohio lost 218,000 jobs between 2000 and 2004." Gonesville.

Today, in its Labor Day editorial, the Dispatch clarified things with a cliche-athon. It seems that change, although painful in the short run, is always a good thing over time. Ohio's economy sucks because it's in flux. And Ohio's economy is in flux because the nation's economy is in flux.

And the nation's economy is in flux because the global economy is in flux. And the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone. And the hip bone's connected to the back bone. Etc.

Nevertheless, it's nice to have a job. There are plenty of Ohioans who'd love to be able to get one.

http://box.net/public/lee/files/669572.html Get a Job, The Blazers (1959).

Speaking of covers, I kind of like the jacket to this one:


















In other news, Bush has resolved to fill the two Supreme Court vacancies without delay. He knows what the public really cares about, and it's not demolished houses or bodies lying on the streets of New Orleans. CNN and MSNBC need to get a clue.

Condi Rice, too, knows what the public wants--to see her in $1,000 footwear. The perfect shoes for flying to New Orleans to assure select fellow African-Americans that Bush really does "care about black people."

http://box.net/public/lee/files/669864.html Traveling Shoes, Guy Mitchell (1967).

And the previous Bush, on CNN, was angry over the "blame game" that's been going on. Who can blame him? Any attempt to establish responsibility for massive loss of life and property is, by definition, a "game." What, for example, is to be accomplished by holding FEMA responsible for, say, federal emergency management? We may as well blame people for not building their attics high enough. It's time to grow up. Meanwhile, FEMA can (and will) continue to you-know-what up.

http://box.net/public/lee/files/669865.html The FEMA March: Readiness, Response, Recovery (Julius Fucik), Joe "Fingers" Carr (1957).

Unfortunately, I don't have a rare or unusual version of Shirley Ellis' The Blame Game. Maybe next time.

"FEMA, FEMA, Bo-BEMA. Banana Fanna...."

Lee