"Jesus loves you...

Everyone else is bored."

An anonymous comment that I rejected but should have put up. It's not only funny, it's true.

As I always say, my innermost thoughts and feelings would put someone to sleep within ten minutes and/or have them begging, "Make it stop! Please! Make it stop!"

Anyway, there it is.

The return of the Aviation and Hudson River suites!

The year: 1984. I was stationed in San Diego, serving out the last several months of my eight-year Navy enlistment. One Saturday at Tower Records, I came across the LP you see above. I was astonished and delighted, since anything "new" by Grofe was front-page news at the time. Or maybe not so front-page. It turned out that Schwann catalog had no listing for the record, and so I typewriter-typed a concerned letter on paper to the CBS label, pointing out that the lack of a Schwann listing could result in "less than decent sales."

I'd quote the CBS label's response, but I never got one. Oh, well.

On the jacket, under Aviation Suite and Hudson River Suite, is the designation "First Recording." Which they would have been, had they not actually been the second (with Grofe and Kostelanetz, respectively, conducting the first). These Dutch recordings feature the Promenade Orchestra conducted by Jan Stulen, and this Aviation features five movements instead of the Grofe-conducted four (Plane Loco being the one we didn't hear last time, because it wasn't present). I decided I like this one better, though my jury's still floating on Hudson River--Stulen rushes through The River and drags Albany Night Boat (so to speak), with the Dixieland section almost stalling in the water. New York, on the other hand, is greatly improved over the Kosty version, if for no other reason than the greatly increased detail.

Extremely nice sound throughout. Note: On the mp3 files, I typed "Columbia Masterworks" instead of "CBS Masterworks"--force of habit.

Somewhere, I have a review of this LP--from Audio magazine, I think. Ooo, is it nasty. The reviewer described Grofe's music as beautifully written and organized pap. That's about as mixed as compliments get.

To the Grofe: Aviation and Hudson River Suites--Promenade Orchestra, Jan Stulen, 1984.

PLAYLIST

AVIATION SUITE (Grofe)

The Take-off
Glamour Girl
Plane Loco
Clouds
Happy Ending

HUDSON RIVER SUITE (Grofe)

The River
Hendrik Hudson
Rip van Winkle
Albany Night Boat
New York

The Promenade Orch., conducted by Jan Stulen, 1984. (CBS Masterworks M 39293)



Lee

World's Fair Suite (1964)--Ferde Grofe (Orchestrated by Albert Glasser)

Possibly Grofe's worst suite ever--so, of course, the cover shot turns out nicely. Irony: not just the iron need to Iron D.

However, we can fairly say that the first movement, Unisphere, is marvelous. And that Fun at the Fair (third movement) is a joy on every level, and may have you marveling at the care and skill that went into describing its topic. If the rest of World's Fair Suite had been half as memorable, we'd be downloading a light music masterpiece here.

Unfortunately, save for some individual Grofe-worthy moments, the rest of the suite has the listener wishing the vinyl used on this disc had gone into something more worthy, like a frisbee, shampoo bottle, or Santa Claus porch ornament. Meanwhile, it seems that Grofe outsourced the orchestration to the gifted B-movie composer Albert Glasser, who did such a wonderful job with Grofe's Rocketship X-M score but who substitutes competence for inspiration here.

I reckon the most terrible moments occur in National, which should have been the usual memorable Grofe closing statement, with themes skillfully recapitulated and lots of clever segues and a bunch of other things that aren't happening at all. This is music that dies on itself.

But you know you want to hear it. And Unisphere and Fun at the Fair are musts for Grofe lovers. And the rest may just have you appreciating Death Valley, Grand Canyon, and Valley of the Sun all the more. And serve to remind us that a light-music bullseye is awfully hard to make, even as easy as Grofe usually made it seem. And I just typed "and" six times in this paragraph. Seven, now.

The sound is in Dynagroove, one of RCA Victor's dumbest crimes against audio. I mitigated it to a point by pushing things out above the middle frequencies, de-dulling the highs without making them too tinny. I imagine this all sounded great until RCA Dynagrooved it. There are indications that this was so.

To the suite: World's Fair Suite (Grofe)

UNISPHERE
INTERNATIONAL
FUN AT THE FAIR
PAVILIONS OF INDUSTRY
NATIONAL

(Orchestrated by Albert Glasser)

The World's Fair Symphony Orch., conducted by Paul Lavalle.
RCA Victor LSC-2764 (1964).


Lee

Stuff to come

Great listening lately. Usually, I listen to stuff as a function of ripping and editing it, but I did some pure listening yesterday and today. Last night, it was the Beginning of the End's fabulous Funky Nassau LP (1971; reissue), with the title track and Monkey Tamarind getting play after play. Five times in a row for Monkey, I recall. Possibly the best album ever made by anybody.

Tonight, the Big Joe Polka Show on RFD TV. Not only are polkas wonderful music, they're therapeutic--just more relaxing than anything. And how did we end up at Big Joe? Well, Bev and I were watching Teabagger TV (also known as MSNBC) and growing tired of it. Now, do you remember when liberals protesting against Bush got the same kind of news coverage? Me, neither.

Anyway, a politician was on talking about state militias, and Joan Walsh was looking at him in that way she looks at people when they're idiots. I know a tiny bit about the state-militia topic, since I had recently (yesterday, I think) searched in vain for the passage or passages in the Constitution which deal(s) with states forming armies to defend themselves against a black presid.... I mean, against the federal government, should this become necessary for whatever reason, with your guess as good as mine as to why this would have become necessary now, with "now" meaning since Jan. 20, 2009. Something must have happened on that date.

But I found nothing about state-controlled militias being formed to keep everything honky, um, dory between the states and the feds. I did, however, find some obsolete stuff about state militias for the purposes of national defense, and which were to answer to Congress. I'll keep lookin', though. It's probably next to the passage which requires religion to remain "private."

So, Grofe's World Fair Suite (1964) is coming up, and I regret to report that it's not very good. It's worse than his piano concerto, let's put it that way. I hadn't listened to the suite in years, and I wanted it to be better than I remembered. It isn't.

However, two of the movements are more than worth hearing. In fact, Unisphere (the opener) is marvelous. Which only makes what follows all the more of a let-down.

Of course, now you can't wait to hear it....


Lee

Sunday morning gospel: The Blackwood Brothers Quartet--"Put Your Hand in the Hand"

A 1971 Blackwood Bros. LP which combines then-recent tracks with older tracks processed to sound distorted in the high range. The music is great, but the sound... oh, well. "Dynaflex," says the label, referring to the too-thin vinyl, though I could swear it's in Dyangroove, too. That would explain the inflated bass and missing highs. (What's that? You changed your mind about downloading? Why?)

For all that, I was able to rescue the sound with a slight upper-midrange boost and some cutting of the bass. And the music, as I said, is great. We're hearing two sides of a four-side set, with sides 1 and 4 to appear next week. This is pure Blackwood Brothers brilliance, so don't let the so-so sound stop you. And I've always wanted to type that. This, too. And them.

To the music: The Blackwood Brothers Q.--Put Your Hand in the Hand, Part 1

TRACKLIST

OH HAPPY DAY
IVORY PALACES
MY NAME IS JESUS
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
PRECIOUS MEMORIES
GIVE US THIS DAY
SHELTERED IN THE ARMS OF GOD
WHAT A FRIEND
ANGLES WATCHES (sic) OVER ME



Lee