Sunday morning gospel: Return of The Millie Pace Trio (with Bob Summers)

I featured this LP last month, but there were (was?) a variety of downloading issues with Savefile.com, and so I thought I'd repost it with a a link to Box.net. Which, true to my word, I just did. Sorry for the hassles. Still, it looks like 86 downloads took place in spite of Savefile's up-and-down issues.

Anyway, if (and I say if) the Millie Pace Trio (with Bob Summers) sounds like Mary Ford in overdubbed-trio form, keep in mind that two members of the trio--Eve and Carol Summers--were sisters of Mary. Guitarist Bob Summers was her brother, which may or not explain why he sounds like Les Paul.

Okay, now that I've cleared that up, let's enjoy these remarkably Les-and-Mary-sounding gospel tracks recorded in 1965 or 1966 for Christian Faith Recordings (actually Alma Records, Inc.).

Click here to reach zip file (the file is big, so the download might be longer than usual): ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

PLAYLIST

LEAD ME BACK TO CALVARY
DOWN THE SAWDUST TRAIL
IT'S NOT THE FIRST MILE
WHEN GOD DIPS HIS LOVE IN MY HEART
HEAR THEM BELLS
WE'LL UNDERSTAND IT BETTER
DO LORD
MOM, GOD HEARD MY PRAYER
SERVE HIM WITH ALL OF YOUR HEART
JESUS THE MASTER
WHEN WE GET HOME
STANDING IN THE NEED OF PRAYER

(Christian Faith Recordings 1371; 1965 or 1966)


Lee

Ferrante and Teicher, 1934-style: Rawicz and Landauer!

Maryan Rawicz and Walter Landauer were a first-rate Polish/Austrian piano duo in the Ferrante and Teicher and Whittemore and Lowe mold, only earlier. This is the first R&L 78 to enter my collection, and what a fabulously good one.

It's nice to learn that the duo escaped the Nazis; not so nice to learn they were interned by the British on the Isle of Man during WWII.

My Columbia -M series listing is incomplete, but I was able to date this one by the matrix #'s. Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty professional at the moment. There's nothing quite like that knowing-what-you're-doing sensation.

PLAYLIST

Nola--Rawicz and Landauer, 1934.

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers--Rawicz and Landauer, 1934.


Lee

MY(P)WHAE nominates 5 bloggers for Premio Dardo Awards

Premio Dardo, you ask? Yes. Voyages Extraordinaires blogger Cory Gross just nominated me for one here. Curious, I researched to see if anyone had researched the award, and I found the findings of K-Squared Ramblings: their findings. A chain award or tagging meme (?), they report. One that started in Spanish. Bloggers who receive it are to nominate other bloggers, who in turn are to nominate other bloggers, who in turn, etc.

Anyway, it's a cool idea, even if the first description (there are two) is a little fuzzy: "This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day."

Vs.

"The PREMIO DARDO is designed to recognize unique voices and visions on the Web as well as to promote fraternization amongst bloggers of all sorts."

I'll go with #2, because it makes a little more sense.

My nominations:

Voyages Extraordinaires (Cory Gross): And not just because Cory nominated me--more because it's a unique and gorgeous-looking blogspot. This literate, word-heavy blog is devoted to Jules Verne and scientific romances, Disney, science fiction in general, science in general, horror films, a lot more, and Jules Verne. (Wait--I already mentioned Verne.) "Word-heavy" is a good thing, of course, even if much of the entertainment blogosphere is word-light. Why be like everybody else?

People vs. Dr. Chilledair (Bill Reed): Another writing blog, as I call them. No surprise, since Bill is a professional writer (in every sense) and a record producer. You don't have to be a jazz lover to enjoy Bill's blog, though it helps. Me, I'm a Page Cavanaugh lover, and Bill did us all an enormous favor by providing regular, close-up coverage of that magnificent jazz pianist's last glorious days on earth. Such coverage being a distinguished example of what blogging is all about. A blog's blog.

Isn't Life Terrible (Don Brockway): An obsessive, detail-rich blog about... all kinds of stuff. Often, it's about Disney, silent movie and Golden Age TV comics, and ads and slogans that don't quite work. Extend some of my pop-culture asides into illustrated essays, and you have Don's blog, or much of it. Had I been born ten years or so earlier, I'd be living the pre-VHS pop culture he documents, but I got stuck between today's retro and yesterday's. The geek I could have been, vice the one I am now. I'm not sure which is more unsettling.

Brilliant But Cancelled and For Better or Werts (Diane Werts): And I could easily have become the TV-obsessed scholar that is Diane Werts, albeit in male. I had the makings of one--as a kid, I could recite the week's TV schedule. Then again, Toledo had (what?) four channels. Anyway, Diane is a fabulous writer, which is why I love her essays even though I don't care for anything current on TV (okay, Jay Leno and SNL). You'd think someone like me who rips 1916 Arthur Pryor 78s would be as hip as they come, but guess again. Diane is way better informed about 21st and late 20th century pop culture than I am, and she somehow manages to write rich, interesting, and thorough essays in the quirky, concise, low-word-count style of today. Very few journalists have that ability, let alone exemplify it.

Ernie (Not Bert) (Ernest Haynes): Ernie writes a lot like me, except he was doing it earlier, at least blog-wise. He combines music downloads, his own photography, on-the-spot reports from his everyday life, and personal observations into a single blog, which is my concept of the perfect blog. Except he was doing it first. Still, I like to think I invented the model in question. Come Christmas, Ernie sets the world's record for Christmas music uploading--otherwise, he's sharing his superb photos of birds and other animals, space launches, cemeteries, flowers, water, weather conditions, and portions of album art. Accept no imitation, but remember that I invented the model, even if I didn't.

And those are my Premio Dardo nominees.


Lee

Storage

My preferred storage site, Savefile.com, has been crashing constantly, as many of you likely know. I've been hoping they'd recover from the server problems that started in December, but they haven't. Their service was terrific while it lasted, and I'm in no position to complain, seeing as how it was free. But I'll need to find a new storage site, of course. Preferably, one with unlimited downloading bandwidth.

I sincerely hope they fix their site issues--again, I'm grateful for the free (and, until recently, excellent) service I've received.

I'll keep you posted. It probably goes without noting that storage issues are the bleeding ulcer in the blogging equation....


Lee

Lee's 78s!!--Tuning in on the Radio, St. Paul's Suite--Finale, Manhattan Mary, more!

Your blogger, with 78s on the brain.

78s from my collection, ripped and edited with my usual attention to detail. Or, rather, my usual attention to getting rid of undesirable details--hiss, pops, booms, swish, etc. I'll reveal my methods in my next post. Once I'm more awake.

The first 78 in this playlist--The Jacques Quartet, from 1938, performing the finale from Gustav Holst's St. Paul's Suite--was a joy to restore. Namely, because it gave me little to do. Some click removal, a little bit of hiss filtering, and the file was done. And it sounds great. Such detail for a 1938 78.

By contrast, the Columbia Saxophone Sextette's recording of George Gershwin's Limehouse Nights was hammered, lo-fi (compared to 1938, anyway), and time-consuming to save. But save it I did--it's an obscure Gershwin number, after all. And it's beautifully arranged and performed.

Seven more dance sides grace the playlist, including two marvelous 1927 Ferde Grofe arrangements for Paul Whiteman--Broadway and Manhattan Mary. And there's Fred Rich's Grand-Ole-Opry-sounding Take Your Finger Out of Your Mouth (I Want a Kiss from You), which turns out to be Grand Ole Opry in title only--otherwise, it's your usual Twenties novelty, and not on the level of its flip side, the sing-along staple, I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover. And there are Ben Selvin, Charles Dornberger, Don Bestor, and Sam Lanin.

The "comic novelty" Tuning in On the Radio is a weird and badly recorded comedy sketch that lacks coherence, at least to these modern ears--but it's fascinating, nevertheless, because of what it attempts to depict. Darrell, my 78 dealer, identified it as a crude copy of the Happiness Boys' fairly famous 1928 novelty, Twisting the Dials, but this turns out to predate that record by three years! What we're supposed to be hearing is a slow succession of radio stations (don't ask me what the clanging cans in the background are supposed to represent), with some overlapping thereof. Such a sketch works a lot better when it depicts a quick series of broadcast excerpts, but--come to think of it--rapid flipping between stations was probably impossible in 1925. So, while not so well executed, this sketch is probably authentic in that detail. Maybe it's the dated technology that prevents the sketch from making complete sense.

Quite cool, though.

UPDATE: Turns out this is a Grey Gull/Radiex issue of a 1924 Emerson label side that was credited to "Kaufman and Company (Alexander Quartet)." Kaufman probably being Jack Kaufman. The Emerson matrix # of 3157 (see below) makes 1923 the year of recording.

In other words, the Emerson label recorded it in 1923 and released it in early 1924. Radiex (the main subsidiary of Grey Gull) released it in 1925 and credited it to the "Broadway Comedy Players." Just to make life as confusing as possible for collectors, no doubt.

Meanwhile, at the Internet Archives, there's a squelched-sounding mp3 post of this recording (maybe it's a format problem?) credited to one Fern Holmes. (Fern Holmes?)


























Singing evangelist C.G. Emanuel sounds a lot like Homer Rodehever--and his pianist is none other than Australian-born Robert Harkness, whose rushed phrases on Old Fashioned Meeting suggests he was expecting Emanuel to move ahead of the beat. That detail aside, these are excellent, spirited gospel performances, and the label, Hollywood, is new to me.



























Click here to reach zip file: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

PLAYLIST

ST. PAUL'S SUITE (Holst)--PART 4--DARGASON--The Jacques String O., 1938.
MANHATTAN MARY (Arr.: Grofe)--Paul Whiteman Orch., 1927.
BROADWAY (DeSylva-Brown-Henderson; Arr: Grofe)--Paul Whiteman Orch., 1927.
OH! SISTER, AIN'T THAT HOT?--Charles Dornberger O., 1923.
MEAN, MEAN MAMMA--Benson Orch. of Chicago, Dir. Don Bestor, 1923.
LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS (Gershwin)--Columbia Saxophone Sextette, 1920.
I'M LOOKING OVER A FOUR LEAF CLOVER--Sam Lanin's Dance O., Vocal: Billy Jones, 1927.
TAKE YOUR FINGER OUT OF YOUR MOUTH--Fred Rich's Dance O., Vocal: Joy Boys, 1927.
TUNING IN ON THE RADIO--Broadway Comedy Players, 1925.
NO DISAPPOINTMENT IN HEAVEN--C.G. Emanuel, Piano: Robert Harkness, 1925.
OLD FASHIONED MEETING (Buffum)--Same, 1925.
TO-NIGHT'S MY NIGHT WITH BABY--Ben Selvin O., Vocal: Robert Benjamin, 1926.

Lee