This set starts with two magnificent 1940 duo-piano sides by Pierre Luboshutz and Genia Nemenoff, straight off a Victor Red Seal 78. Luboschutz' arrangement of Cesar Cui's Orientale may be the finest treatment of the exotica staple this blogger has ever heard, and the LOUD rendition of Mussorgsky's Coronation March (from Boris Godunov) has a power a mere orchestra can't match. The I/#VI routine happens all the time in music--Bernard Herrmann's Day the Earth Stood Still prelude, the opening bars of Percy Faith's 1949 arrangement of Deep Purple, the first movement of Grofe's Niagara Falls Suite, and so on. We hear the progression a zillion times in our lives, and every single time it sounds weird and wrong and wonderful.
Our third 78 rip--the Band of the H.M. Grenadier Guards' 1939 recording of Entry of the Gladiators--sounds great, I'm just now realizing. Just after I'd edited and EQ'd it, I wasn't sure if it sounded any good--my ears were too tired to make a judgment. My rested and refreshed ears hear remarkably realistic sound from this very clean 1939 78 (not a dirty word to be heard). As far as Entry versions go, this is pretty reserved, but it's all the more interesting for it. I love the tempo acceleration at the end. Does this piece (by Czech composer Julius Fucik) evoke images of ancient Rome for you? I didn't think so. Like you, I see clowns and elephants and a big tent.
String Beans is a very jazz and bluesy dance side with a strong 1924 feel. I can say that because I know it was recorded in 1924. Amazingly, the 1911 Slippery Place Rag, featuring the Victor Military Band is a faster, livelier and more supple performance. That's not supposed to happen, especially since the earlier example is by a marching band. But I don't explain 'em, I just feature 'em. And leave out the th.
Our last end-of-year gem is from a 45 on the 49th State Hawaii Record Co. label. (Say that twenty times, fast.) It features Genoa Keawe, who passed away in February of this year, and Her Hula Maids. I usually refrain from describing anything in music as pure, but this performance is so unbelievably pure, what else can I call it? Purely beautiful, too. I guess I once regarded Hawaiian music as lightweight. Frivolous, even. Then I heard this record. Gone forever was that silly idea.
End of year gems, Part 1.
PLAYLIST
ORIENTALE (Cui, Arr: Luboshutz)--Luboshutz and Nemenoff, piano duo, 1940.
CORONATION SCENE from Boris Godunov--Same, 1940.
STRING BEANS--Vincent Rose and His Montmartre Orch. of Hollywood, 1924.
SLIPPERY PLACE RAG (Hacker)--Victor Military Band, 1911.
ENTRY OF THE GLADIATORS (Fucik)--Band of the H.M. Grenadier Guards, 1939.
LITTLE BROWN GAL--Genoa Keawe and Her Hula Maids.
Lee
6 comments:
Happy New Year Lee !
Byron
Auntie Genoa is so relaxed in this early recording. By the sixties she'd become a vocal powerhouse, almost the Mary Schneider of the Islands, who could hold a high note for half a minute and make your eyes water. She was marvelous in both capacities, and made a lot of great records for forty years.
You have really been ringing my bell here lately, at the end of a year that was short on things to celebrate. You never let me down all year.
Happy New Year, Lee. My hat's off to you.
Steven
Byron,
You, too! May 2009 be a time of discovery and joy and economic recovery!
Steven,
Same to you, and thanks for the Auntie Genoa info. I sort of suspected she evolved from this early style, as lovely as it is. There's such a quality to her voice. It's something singers have got or don't got.
Boy, that was a brilliant statement, wasn't it?
My family grew up with 49th State Records when we lived in Hawai'i in the Sixties, and I am happy to report that the recorded output of that storied label is slowly being reissued.
One of Auntie's 49th State label-mates, the great pidgin English comic Kent Bowman, also departed, but a little before Auntie-he left the building on Christmas Eve 2007.
And at almosy the same time Auntie passed, legendary slack key guy Ray Kane also departed.
Hi and thank you for the great recordings.
You might be interested to know that I play "String Beans"! I got a copy of the rare original 1924 sheet music from a friend in Illinois. Here's a video of me playing it at an Orange County Ragtime Society meeting last year:
http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn88/randyinla/junevideos/?action=view¤t=ragtime-stringbeans-andy-320.flv
This tune was co-composed by Vincent Rose (the bandleader on the record) and also Harry Owens.
Interestingly, right after I played this, my friend Fred Hoeptner, (another OCRS member and a very fine ragtime composer), said that when he was a kid, he got to meet Harry Owens! At that time, Owens led a successful Hawaiian-themed orchestra.
I would classify "String Beans" as an instrumental fox-trot, and a direct descendant of the brilliant fox-trot instrumentals composed in the 'teens by Hugo Frey and others. Although not strictly a form of ragtime (or as heavily syncopated) it is nonetheless a close cousin. Another later example of this form would be Fred Fisher's 1928 "Dance of the Blue Danube".
RAGards,
Andrew
P.S. with regards to Phil M. Hacker's band rag "A Slippery Place", here's the sheet music to that rag, arranged for piano. Note, however it WAS originally composed for band, as a trombone feature.
http://digital.library.msstate.edu/collections/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/SheetMusic&CISOPTR=25656&CISOBOX=1&REC=1
Andrew,
Thanks for the links--terrific playing! I watched several of the videos and love them all.
So, I'm not the only fan of Hugo Frey's terrific instrumentals! One of his numbers for Joseph C. Smith--"Money Blues"--sounds for all the world like a 1923 Paul Whiteman arrangement, only seven years before the fact. And, of course, I see Frey's name all over my sheet music as arranger.
I'm fond of much of the ragtime lite you refer to--those instrumentals that weren't quite Joplin but not quite ordinary pop, either. Related to ragtime, too, are what I call (for want of a better term) the jam tunes of Wilbur Sweatman and James Reese Europe, which (even that early) laid the plan for swing. The conventional telling of pop music history has Dorsey, Miller, and Ellington introducing the pop audience to riff-based music, but it was happening way earlier than that.
Thanks again--nice to see someone utterly dedicated to what I do on the side (playing, composing). The difference between a lifestyle and hobby, I guess.
Lee
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