Cats, cats, everywhere

Well, three members of our feline flock, anyway. They are: Fuzzy, Fuzzy again, Queenie, and Rosie. (I know--"Fuzzy again" is an odd name for a cat.)

We love them all. I told them they're going on the Internet, and they replied, "The what?" Not that I haven't wondered the same thing sometimes.

Inca Step; World Events; Isle of Zorda; more!

We begin with some nice dance band Exotica from 1934, by way of Louis Katzman's Orchestra, a.k.a. The Castillians. On this fine page (scroll down a bit), there's much info about Katzman (under "Whittall's Anglo-Persians Orchestra"). And don't miss the photo!

Inca Step (which I miscredited, composer-wise, to Katzman in the file data) is very much in a style alleged to be an invention of Raymond Scott, but we've been there, challenged that. It's definitely one of the more interesting pre-Scott Scott-esque novelties (I've always wanted to type that), along with the Dorsey Brothers' Oodles of Noodles, and Duke Ellington's famous Daybreak Express, and any number of titles recorded by Paul Whiteman, including Shanghai Dream Man, Soliloquy, and Ferde Grofe's 1928 rearrangment of Japanese Sandman, which we'll hear here. ("Hear here"??)

And there were Glenn Miller's vintage swing arrangements of the late 1920s and early 1930s (esp. China Boy and Carolina in the Morning), which influenced Scott's stuff tremendously. Check them out sometime.

World Events is a fancy treatment of John S. Zamecnik's march of the same name, which was used as the Movietone News theme. It's also a well-known circus march! The flip side of this Warren Baker 78 features a treatment of Surrey with the Fringe of Top that would have been at home on a late-Fifties Living Stereo LP. It has the instrumentation and the sound gimmicks we expect from such collections, except it's all in mono.

And we the exotica standard Sleepy Lagoon in a lovely elevator rendition (recorded in an especially handsome elevator car) from 1942. The kind of smooth easy listening that allegedly showed up later in pop music, here conducted by Meredith Willson. Yes, the Music Man man.

Isle of Zorda, featuring the xylophone of Jess Libonati, isn't very Exotica, but it is first-rate 1920 dance band fare, and you have to love that title. (Seriously. It's required that you do so.) Manyana has nothing to do with Peggy Lee's ethnically-sensitive hit, but it's very Twenties-exotic, and the counting-off by the bandleader (?) is a wonderful novelty effect. And, no, I don't know what I mean by "Twenties-exotic," but it sounds good.

And there's Grofe's wonderful arrangement of Japanese Sandman, which he scored anew for the electrical recording thereof. The original had been a huge, huge hit for Paul Whiteman in 1920.

To the music: Inca Step, World Events, and more!

PLAYLIST

INCA STEP (Valderamma-Medrano)--Louis Katzman's Orch., 1934.
WORLD EVENTS (Zamecnik)--Warren Baker and The Baker's Dozen, 1954.
THE SURREY WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP (Rodgers-Hammerstein)--Same.
SLEEPY LAGOON (Lawrence-Coates)-Meredith Willson and His Orch., 1942.
ISLE OF ZORDA--Jess Libonati, xylophone, 1920.
MANYANA (Fier)--Green Brothers' Novelty Band, 1920.
JAPANESE SANDMAN (Egan-Whiting)--Paul Whiteman and His Orch., Arr: Grofe, 1928.



Lee

Exotic Music--Andre Kostelanetz, 1945

In a perfect world, the eBay dealer from whom I purchased this set would have packed the 78s separately. From the album, that is. Not doing so is an invitation to disaster.

He didn't. Luckily, both 12-inch 78s got slightly bent, is all. One of them got cracked on one side, but one side only. (Good ol' Columbia cardboard-core 78s! Or whatever Columbia stuck in the middle, he typed, too lazy to look it up.) Anyway, the discs survived against the odds, though you'll hear some bumps and thumps on Poinciana. Not big ones, but they're there. I was frankly wondering if that side would even play without sending the tonearm a-sliding. Thank God for Dual turntables and Stanton cartridges.

Figuring out the year of this thing (1945) took some work, because the catalog numbers are from 1947 or 1948, though the two discs were issued separately as singles prior to the existence of this album set, only with 1946 catalog numbers. However... all four sides were recorded in 1945, according to the matrix numbers (the final word on such matters). If you followed any of that, you, too, can become a demented 78 blogger. All you have to do is find some demented 78s.

My verdict on the music, Exotica-wise? These sides are very much in keeping with Les Baxter and the bunch, though more like 1945 mood music (which is what they are--coincidence?). Having said that, Cyril Scott's extraordinary 1905 composition Lotus Land sounds, at least in this version, like the dang blueprint for Quiet Village. Some concept, entirely, with a more conventional left-hand ostinato in place of Baxter's comparatively funky riff.

I've always wanted to type "Baxter's comparatively funky riff."

Song of India (Rimsky-Korsakov, 1898) is one hundred percent Exotica in its Exotica-ness, though (again) we don't have any of the studio "island" effects of the Fifties. As if it needed them.

When Andre redid these four numbers in 1954 and expanded the playlist to create Lure of the Tropics, the results were much more in line with Fifties Exotica. Probably because they were from 1954.

Such priceless insight into popular music conventions and their history can only be gotten here at MY(P)WAHE! MY(P)WHAE! (Echo, fade)

What I'm trying to say is that this music is suitably exotic. And then some. You want to hear it. You need to hear it.


Click here to hear: Exotic Music--Andre Kostelanetz (1945)

PLAYLIST:

Lotus Land (Cyril Scott)
Song of India (Rimsky-Korsakov)
Flamingo (Grouya-Anderson)
Poinciana (Simon-Liso-Bernier)




Lee

Shellac-mas preview: "Snow Time," "Sleigh Ride Polka"!

Since it decided to snow this morning, I decided there's no time like now to post The Columbia Quartette's 1911 gem Snow Time. And I figured, why not add the Globe Trotter's Sleigh Ride Polka of 1941? So I shall.

Snow Time (written by Felix Arndt) is beautifully recorded, though the disc--which looks mostly unplayed--is a bit noisy. That'll happen with 78s. The Globe Trotters' 78, which boasts a quieter surface, has a weird catalog number (12227-F) that I was only able to date by the matrix number.

I feel pretty cool, having dated a disc with its matrix number. Yeah, we have our act together here. I recently had to resort to matrix-number dating for some Kostelanetz stuff I'm about to put up, so stay tuned.

When I was a kid, I had no idea what "stay tuned" meant. I thought it was one word. True.

In honor of this morning's snow time, here's Snow Time and Sleigh Ride Polka. An early Shellac-mas from MY(P)WHAE:

Click here: Shellac-mas Preview!

PLAYLIST

SLEIGH RIDE POLKA (Bill Gale)--The Globe Trotters, 1941. Columbia 12227-F.
SNOW TIME (Felix Arndt)--Columbia Quartette, 1911. Columbia A 1088.




Lee

Get out of Paul Raeburn's way!!!

I won't make this long. No need to rant. Rant I shant.

Paul Raeburn wrote this brilliant blog post at Huff-Poop: Memo to Religious Fellow Citizens: Please Get Out of My Way.

Notice how carefully (throughout the piece and in the title) Mr. Raeburn qualifies who he's talking about/to? Religious fellow citizens--how precise can a writer get? You don't suppose he knows that most of Huff-Po's readership is made up of fashionably anti-faith sorts given to sometimes childish paraphrasing of sam harris and richard dawkins? (Ha! I can play the lower-case-to-demonstrate-lack-of-respect game, too!) You don't suppose that he, or Huff-Po, would openly cater to prejudice for the sake of numbers (and, hence, advertising dollars). Gosh, no.

(My rant--er, my essay--continues here: More Adventures, continued.)


Lee

Comment moderation off....

Ernie convinced me that the process is more trouble than it's worth.

Plus, I don't want to discourage anyone from commenting, especially on account of occasional odd, lengthy crank comments. (Such as an entire website deposited in one post. Not the link--the whole site.)

By the way, as I type this, it is snowing. Wet, light snow, but snow sure as you're born. Well, the weather people told us a cold spell was coming. They did not lie.


Lee

Comment moderation

Unfortunately, I've had to resort to comment moderation. So, be advised.

Lee

Before The Chipmunks, before the Cowboy Church Sunday School...

...there was Lenny Carson and the Whiz Kids. I mean, there were Lenny Carson and the Whiz Kids. Now you know.

Released in 1950 on the Savoy subsidiary Discovery, Molasses, Molasses (It's Icky Sticky Goo) features a sped-up group of adult singers masquerading as a children's chorus--four years later, Stuart Hamblen achieved an uncannily similar sound by recording a 78-rpm side (Open Up Your Heart) at 45 rpm. Which presumes that he literally sped up a ten-inch 45-rpm master to get the desired effect--an odd way to do it, but the audio evidence suggests exactly that. (Had he sped up the master tape, he'd have probably had to double the speed, Chipmunks-style, which would have been a disaster.)

Here, the speed-up factor is less (I've always wanted to type "speed-up factor"), but the adult voices somehow take on the same slightly creepy quality. Your ears know something is wrong--the voices are too perfect, pitch-wise, and too robotic. And too sped-up-sounding. That last clue being the most telling, of course.

So, naturally, I slowed down the recording pitch with my MAGIX software in search of the original speed, and I think I found something very close. It helps a lot that the flip side, Everybody Clap Hands, was mastered at the right speed, as I was thus able to compare. And it just occurred to me that I should have slowed the tempo down as well as the pitch to get a completely accurate audio document, but... oh, well.

This isn't an exact science, I suppose.

The correct-speed flip side, Everybody Clap Hands, is even more fun. The tune behind the title is better known as Happy Birthday, and so I wonder if they got this one by the copyright cops without any problems, that song (original title: Good Morning to All) not being in the public domain in 1950.

I wonder if we've discovered the first fake-speed children's chorus in disc history? Sped-up recordings were nothing new in 1950, nor were fade-out endings, but maybe this was the first time someone used the gimmick to create either children's or animal voices on disc. This is a question that cries out to be answered.

Click here to reach folder: FILE REMOVED-SORRY!

PLAYLIST

1) Molasses, Molasses (It's Icky Sticky Goo) (Larry Clinton)--Lenny Carson and the Whiz Kids, 1950.

2) Everybody Clap Hands--Lenny Carson and the Whiz Kids, 1950.

3) Molasses, Molasses--at corrected speed.

Lee

Many, many thanks...

...for the lovely comments and wishes. They are greatly appreciated.

Bev and I are maintaining. We've been too busy not to.

At the moment, we have our fingers crossed that John's ashes will be here in time for the ash-scattering ceremony on our property. Otherwise, we'll have to pantomime, I guess....

John was not big on ceremony at all, so hopefully he can forgive all the (relative) fuss.

I neglected to mention, in my write-up on John, that he attended Swathmore College and OSU on a math scholarship, having placed first in the state of Ohio on a math exam when he was (I think) sixteen. I'll have to confirm that detail with Bev. He may have been seventeen.

His Swarthmore friends included Peter (P.D.Q. Bach) Schickele.

And John was related to Margaret Mead, whom he met a few times. She might even be in a family photo--not sure.

Born between the hippie and WWII generation, John was interested in the music we'd expect him to have been into--Bob Dylan, Library of Congress folk stuff, Bukka White, Chuck Berry. I got my first real introduction to Elvis Presley courtesy of John and Bev (Elvis and Chuck being Bev's favorites). Prior to that point, I'd only heard Elvis snippets on TV, which I found pretty funny.

The Everly Brothers, Leadbelly, and Muddy Waters were in their collection, too. I really took to Leadbelly and Elvis, but not Dylan. John was convinced he could turn me on to Dylan, but it never happened.

John had me hunt down some Howlin' Wolf, and I promptly landed Wolf's United label LP containing (non-Sun) Memphis material. Then I found a couple of Chess comps. I thought Wolf was good, but I was content to let John keep the vinyl--he insisted I hang onto it, instead. In time, Wolf became my favorite (or close to favorite) recording artist, late or living.


Lee