The Haunted Victrola returns!!--Isham Jones, Oriole Orch., Red Nichols, more!

What do you call a record thief?  A groove robber!  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!

Sorry.  Anyway, the Haunted Victrola is wound up and ready to grind out the grim grooves of thirteen more terrifying titles from the cobwebbed corners of my 78 collection, or something like that.  I did some Googling to determine whether or not "witch hazel" (or, in this case, "Which Hazel"--ha, ha!) has a Halloween association in our pop culture, and, yes, it does.  So, we'll be hearing Al Herman's Which Hazel, whose lyrics include the phrase "padded cell."  My kind of lyrics.  Edward MacDowell's Witches' Dance was composed in 1883, and it contains many of the standard melodic and harmonic musical cliches of this season.  Which is to say, those cliches were around that early (and probably earlier), proving that nothing is new under the moon.  George L. Cobb's Peter Gink uses themes from Grieg's music for Peer Gynt (the source of the Halloween standard, In the Hall of the Mountain King), so that's why it's here.  Last time, we heard Zez Confrey's solo piano version of his Greenwich Witch--now we get to hear Frank Westphal's slower but just as jazzy band version.

And there are nine other jazzily jarring, creakily quirky, and disturbingly delightful dance doings and concert concoctions sure to keep the Halloween crowd crashing your crypt to join your Spook Age Boo-chelor Pad party.  Just don't send them over here--they're your worry!

Click here to hear: The Haunted Victrola, Part 2

SLAYLIST

Ah-Ha! (Clare-Monaco)--Paul Whiteman and His Orch., 1925
Jabberwocky--Joseph Samuels' Jazz Band, 1921
Peter Gink--Columbia Band, Dir. Charles A. Prince, 1918
Greenwich Witch (Confrey)--Frank Westphal and His Orch., 1922
The Sneak! (Nacio Herb Brown)--Club Royal Orch., 1922
Which Hazel (Abner Silver)--Al Herman, 1921
In the Hall of the Mountain King (Grieg)--Victor Symphony Orch., 1926
Eccentric--Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, 1927
Prelude in C Sharp minor (Rachmaninoff)--Victor Concert Orch., Dir. Rosario Bourdon, 1928
Dangerous Blues (Brown-Brown)--Bernie Krueger's Orch., Voc: Al Bernard, 1921
Eccentric Rag (J. Russel Robinson)--Oriole Orch., 1924
Danger (Kahn-Jones)--Isham Jones Orch., 1925
Witches' Dance (MacDowell)--Leopold Godowsky, 1921 or 1922


Lee