NOTE: My April 18, 2018 text, with a new link. Thanks for musicman1979 for reminding me to revive this:
So, why did I buy this Goodwill album? Well, after going through eight or nine boxes, I'd picked a small group of LPs and 45s. My brother-in-law was standing next to me. I thought this jacket was kind of cool (it is--surprisingly so for a cheapo label), so I held it up and said, "Do I want this?" "Yes, you want this," he replied. So I bought it.
The label is Hollywood, and here Hollywood is pulling the standard budget-label read-the-smaller-print scam: a big (colorized?) picture of the famous artists being exploited, the artists' name in big letters ("Dorsey"), and no Tommy or Jimmy Dorsey present on the disc. Surprise!! Just Maury Laws' Orchestra and Chorus, which does a surprisingly decent job recreating the Tommy Dorsey sound (7 to 8 on a scale of 10). (I don't think any of these were originally Jimmy Dorsey sides, but correct me if I'm wrong.) Surprisingly decent, because the budget couldn't have been very sky-high. In all, a fun LP with a few outstanding performances. My only complaint: some truncated arrangements, including my two all-time favorite TD tracks: Marie and Sunny Side of the Street. How could they? But there's an excellent Opus No. 1, so maybe I can forgive this lapse in $1.98-LP wisdom. This junk-label album far exceeded my low expectations, so I'll give it an A. Besides, the cover rocks.
Biggest surprise: the very decent sound. I combined left and right for fabulous results. Not usually, but sometimes the poverty-row record companies get it right. Well, except for putting the jacket's track listings in the correct order, but not doing so is a proud budget label tradition. These folks have standards to uphold.
Getting Sentimental Over You
Royal Garden Blues
Boogie Woogie
Song of India
Swanee River
Marie
Will You Still Be Mine/Once in a While
Yes Indeed (Sy Oliver)
Sunny Side of the Street
I'll Never Smile Again
Opus No. 1 (Sy Oliver)
This Love of Mine/Embraceable You/There Are Such Things
Quiet Please (Sy Oliver)
Getting Sentimental Over You
Boogie Woogie
Song of India
Swanee River
Marie
Will You Still Be Mine/Once in a While
Yes Indeed (Sy Oliver)
Sunny Side of the Street
I'll Never Smile Again
Opus No. 1 (Sy Oliver)
This Love of Mine/Embraceable You/There Are Such Things
Quiet Please (Sy Oliver)
Getting Sentimental Over You
Prepared and Directed by Maury Laws (Hollywood LPH-136, 1957)
Lee
16 comments:
Every time I flip through the record crates at Goodwill I can virtually guarantee they’ll be a few of these Dorsey Bros. tribute albums. For some reason I’ve never seriously considered picking one up, so I appreciate the chance it check one out. Don’t spread this around, but albums are the only deal to be had at Goodwill anymore, usually .50 to a buck a piece. Everything else seems to start @ $2.99 up and recently I’ve passed on more than I’ve bought. So I do sometimes worry they’ll start doing a similar increase on they vinyls.
rev.b,
Both I and my friend Diane have seen local GW prices go up considerably in our locales--and, at least where I live, the price hikes haven't been successful. Thus, two nearby GWs appear to be returning to 99 cents (stock that doesn't move produces no profit!), while the huge Goodwill Unlimited has given up (for the moment) on stocking LPs at all.
So, I hope you don't see the same madness at your GWs. The problem, of course, is that vinyl is (allegedly) back in fashion, with any number of managers mistaking "back in style" for "every example of x is worth big bucks." This is reasoning at its most ridiculous, but then thrift store managers are, I'm guessing, not typically educated in the sound-recording realm. And this isn't even the first "vinyl is back" period--more like the third, at least.
Great!
gimpiero,
Thanks! It's unusually good for the Hollywood label.
Can't get into your folder for some reason. Thought you would have transferred this either to Box or Pixeldrain
The Goodwill prices kind of vary where I live; the store in my town mostly sells them for 25 cents (which is the price I paid for Curren Hits, Volume 14 a month ago). However, they do tend to jack the prices up if they are more of a "name" artist, as was the case this week, where I found three Frank Sinatra albums for $1.84 a peice (they were also selling albums from Neil Diamond, Madonna, and Duran Duran for that price), with the rest unmarked and selling for a quarter.
A neighboring town's Goodwill sells the albums for $1.29 and the 45's for 99 Cents, getting them cheaper if you hit the sale color of the week.
Looking forward to (eventually) listening to this. BTW, it's April 18, 2018 and musicman1979. Thanks.
musicman1979,
Sorry for the typos! I thought I'd proofed the entire post, but evidently I didn't...
I'll check out my upload and figure out what has gone wrong.
musicman1979,
I did a second upload and revised the link. Let me know if it works. The download icon is in the upper r.h. corner of the page.
It looks like I have to create an account with Google to sign in and listen to this one. Don't know if I will do that yet. Thanks.
Actually got in! Sounds good! Boogie Woogie is a good re-creation of the Deane Kincaide arranged Tommy Dorsey original.
Non-related, few weeks ago I found at Goodwill what I think could be the follow-up album to All My Love by the Monarchs of Melody on Waldorf Music Hall. It was on Audition Records, the group is renamed The Four Themes and the album is titled Lover's Lullaby. Musically, it is kind of a basic version of the Three Suns sound without their quirkiness played straight with some unique arrangements slipping in occasionally. Still good stuff.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/394497800948?itmmeta=01HWXVBC1BPQBAW643AYYN71SA&hash=item5bd9e6baf4:g:ekgAAOSwJbJkBUCy&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAABAA7svrI6m4aKyaXNv1ihE2V4Vi%2BspzdhJUQdLbx4dvZmk826q8eyVhOJOZOsQ6frsDX1aYJ0qoPwB2DaWAHTIOz56
Royal Garden Blues is solid Dixieland in the style of later Benny Goodman records. Really like the Will You Still Be Mine/Once In A While medley. The uncredited female vocalist has a similar tone to that one of Tommy Dorsey's final female singers, Lynn Roberts. Excellent take on Sunny Side of the Street which combines the classic Dorsey-Pied Pipers sound into a real swinging' homage to the original Sy Oliver arrangement. Probably the best cover version of Opus One that I have heard in a long while. Tommy set the bar so high with his original 1944 RCA recording, in my opinion, that it became a song that was really hard to re-create either in the studios or on the radio, particularly the frenetic closing drum solo. This is excellent Big Band music, way better than the Palace Fontanna album so far.
These musicians certainly knew this material good! Their take on Swanee River is one of the better Big Band takes on this Stephen Foster classic. It sounds like it combines some of the styles of Duke Ellington, Buddy Morrow, Henry Mancini, and Claude Thornhill and Dorsey into one mix, with the trombone player doing a great job playing in Tommy's style. good version of I'll Never Smile Again, following the pattern of the Dorsey original and the Pied Pipers remake on Tops Records. Quiet Please is a real winner, some of the finest swing on a budget record that I have heard in quite a while.
Excellent collection! Unlike the slapped-together feel of the Fontanna album, this one actually sounds as if they actually put some thought and planning into this album. The arrangements and the playing are very well done and is surprisingly good for a budget label tribute album. Well worth listening to. Four out of five stars from me.
musicman1979,
Relieved to hear that you didn't have to sign up for Google to get in. I totally agree with your review(s)--the musicians and charts are first-rate. As is the audio, and especially for this label!
I just ripped the Bell Tommy/Jimmy Dorsey "So Rare" for my next post, so I have a fresh idea of what Lynn Roberts sounded like. Yes, she does sound like this singer (and vice versa). I just gave these tracks a new listen--it had been a while. No wonder I gave it a budget-label A!
From Copilot - nice to get a mention, is it not...
Certainly! The “The Dorsey Touch” is an album by Maury Laws’ Orchestra and Chorus, released in 1957. It does a surprisingly decent job recreating the Tommy Dorsey sound, scoring around 7 to 8 out of 10. The budget for this project might not have been sky-high, but it’s still a fun LP with a few outstanding performances. Some of the tracks include:
“Getting Sentimental Over You”
“Royal Garden Blues”
“Boogie Woogie”
“Song of India”
“Swanee River”
“Marie”
“Yes, Indeed”
And more!
If you’d like to explore the full tracklist and credits, you can find it on Discogs. Enjoy the swing and big band vibes! 🎶🎺🎵
Learn more
1
discogs.com
2
discogs.com
3
discogs.com
4
musicyouwont.blogspot.com
Bryan,
Yes, it's nice, but the AI software is presuming that I got all of my facts straight. And I'm as prone to error as anyone else...
I continue to NOT want AI on my PC, for as long as I can avoid it. For one thing, I don't want AI fine-tuning my Google searches--I'd rather go through the different search levels myself.
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