This pops concert takes in 38 years of popular instrumental music--or, rather, permits us to take it in. As ever, I've allowed my ear (left or right--doesn't matter, since these are all mono) to decide what is "popular instrumental" and what isn't. Thus, we have a concert-band waltz recorded in 1901, Fats Waller and other musicians performing a novelty called Persian Rug in Three-Suns fashion in 1928, the salon fare of Nat Shilkret and J.H. Squire from 1925 and 1928, and like that. All because my ear places them on the same playlist.
Hip, Hi, Galop, my ear wasn't sure about at first, but we (my ear and I) decided it's a classic example of the Sousa/Pryor branch of popular instrumental--the kind of fast novelty memorably parodied by Leroy Anderson.
When we listen to the evolution of easy listening/pop instrumental/salon/lounge/etc., we hear the same basic animal in different guises. This is how musical evolution really works, in contrast to the fairy tale we've been fed about rock and roll (blues emerges from a swamp, blues merge with country, Elvis is formed from the mud behind Sun Studios, etc.). Rather, we hear a single thing as it mutates into different but related versions of itself. All the years that I've been trying to trace the "roots" of this music, all I've found is the music itself.
Feel free to ask me what in the heck I'm talking about....
Click here to reach zip file: Tuesday Morning Pops Concert.
PLAYLIST (All titles from shellac)
PERSIAN RUG--Louisiana Sugar Babes Orch., 1928.
ABSENT (Metcalf)--J.H. Squire Celeste Octet, 1928.
JOLLY FELLOWS WALTZ (Vollstedt)--Columbia Band, w. Effects, 1901.
OVER THE HILLS (Frederic K. Logan)--Victor Salon O., Nat Shilkret, 1925.
HIP, HI, GALOP (Ferrazi)--Prince's Band, 1917.
IN A PERSIAN MARKET (Ketelbey)--Columbia Salon O., 1939.
IN A MONASTERY GARDEN (Ketelbey)--Columbia Salon O., 1939.
ORIENTAL (Rose)--Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orch., 1918.
LONDON SUITE (Eric Coates)--EC cond. London Phil. Orch., 1937.
Lee
