Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else: Shellac Attack for April, 2025! Victor Military Band, Paul Whiteman, Blue Steele, Van Eps Banjo Orchestra, Ted Lewis, more!

The thing I love most about this kind of post is that any number of typos are possible. It helps make music blogging an exciting adventure...

This is a set that I carefully ripped with my VinylStudio program--as in, completely ripped with that program. For years, I've been exporting my VS tracks to MAGIX after establishing the response curve and utilizing the amazing VS declicker filter, with the fine-tuning accomplished on the latter program (because of its more user-friendly design). But, since my old MAGIX software has finally stopped working usefully (that it works at ALL in Windows 11 is astounding), VS has become my all-in-one program. Its more complicated design has so far proved to be more than worth the learning curve. (Until I encounter my next snag...)

Nineteen rips, with a number of them new to the blog, and others making a repeat appearance after five or more years. New rips, all intended for my YouTube "Shellac City" channel, but not likely to show up there for a while. What happened was that, after a period of channel inactivity, YouTube decided to provide less "support" for my channel. It sent me a notice to that effect. My best guess: The platform is providing less visibility--i.e., sending my stuff to fewer user feeds. So, I'm getting views, but far fewer than I'm used to.

I can't improve on my previous (2020) description of the two Ted Lewis Jazz Band numbers: "..two weird 1920 Ted Lewis sides--the Ted Lewis Jazz Band, no less. Fair One, a hit song by Lewis and George Mallen, comes first, and it frankly sounds like something dying. That's my best description of the side. It has a Dixieland sound, but it's all treble and mid-range--either 1/3 of the band missed the gig, or the engineer screwed up. The saxophone work is awful, and I suspect it's Ted Lewis on alto sax--the pointless flourishes and the ascending chromatic runs sound like Ted's notion of clarinet playing transferred to the sax...The sax is less destructive on Gypsy Moon, on which Lewis mostly plays fill-in phrases when he's not stating the melody."

The Lewis sides aren't that painful, and they do (far as I'm concerned) qualify as Dixieland jazz, but the editing of individual passages turned both sides into a "When will this be over?" ordeal. Much of the problem is that the sharply-defined playing style of, say, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band or Paul Whiteman's subgroup The Virginians, is epically absent.

The (Fred) Van Eps Banjo Orchestra sides, from 1914, couldn't offer more of a contrast to Lewis' sides. The acoustical audio is incredibly sharp, and the dynamics are anything but soupy. Speaking of soupy, Soup to Nuts (the title almost obliterated on the label) contains, not only some brilliant sound effects, but wonderful (and easily heard) drumming. With horn recordings, percussion could be clear as day, or buried someplace in the background. Naturally, smaller groups had the advantage in this regard.

And we have the Victor Military Band, which had been presenting music in a dance-band style as early as 1911, from the very start of the Joseph C. Smith/Art Hickman period--1918--with Indianola, written by arranged by Domenico Savino, and the entertaining rural-style (for its day) Long Boy-Medley, and both graced by superb, up-front percussion and expert sound effects.

And... the blog premiere of the 1941 Misirlou version by Harold Grant and His Orch.--a very MOR (middle of the road) rendering, but quite well cone. For unknown reasons, IA gives the "publication date" for this side as 1922.

Two more repeats: The Ferde Grofe-arranged Got No Time and Sonya (vocal: Billy Murray), from 1925, two of my favorite Paul Whitman "shellacs." And two premieres: The 1915 Pigeon Walk and the Irving Berlin Watch Your Step medley, as expertly performed by the Victor Military Band--again, in more of a dance-band than a military-band fashion. Directed by Henry T. King. How I managed to get halfway decent sound from a G+ copy, I can't explain.

And my two favorites: Earl Fuller and His Rector Novelty Orch., from 1918, with Spencer Williams' I Ain't Got Not Nobody Much, a song most often associated with Louis Prima, and Wilbur Sweatman's timeless Down Home Rag. My rip managed to capture the percussion on the latter, which (by acoustical-recording standards) is only slightly muddy. I suspect that, minus the up-front xylophone, the drums would have registered more clearly.

And, with both Fuller and Yerkes Jazarimba Orchestra (the latter not in this playlist), the xylophone(s) and marimba(s) are very much a part of the harmonic texture, and thus not present merely for the sake of novelty. Well, except in the sense of "novelty" as defined in pre-Spike-Jones days: As "new" or "latest." And so we have to try to imagine a time when the Rector Orchestra's sound was the latest thing. Exactly when "novelty" came to mean "cornball" or the like, I'm not sure, though I have a long and boring theory which I'll skip.

And the highly enjoyable 1915 Medley of Indian Songs features popular Tin Pan Alley Indian-themed numbers like Red Wing and Silver Heels. Hardly actual Indian music, but terrific tunes, nonetheless. Far as I know, all of them are by Charles N. Daniels, better known as "Neil Moret." But DAHR is taking years to respond, and my patience just clocked out... Let's just call this a medley of Neil Moret titles. The flip is a cool survey of "familiar" tunes, 1915-style. It's always fun to encounter old collections of "old" songs. That's when we fully ken the relativity of "old." And, if we're in the mood, we can extend that to the relatively of "now," and then we can start wondering things like, "Am I really existing in the NOW?" and other fun metaphysical questions. ("If pigs could fly, would they get airsick?" etc.)

DOWNLOAD: Shellac City 3 25.zip

Indianola (Savino, Arr: Savino)--Victor Military Band, 1918

Long Boy--Medley--Same

That Certain Feeling (Gershwin, A: Grofe?)--Paul Whiteman and His Orch., 12/24/1925

Misirlou--Harold Grant and His Orch., V: Frank Knight, 1941

"Gimme" a Little Kiss, Will "Ya"? Huh?--Jean Goldkette and His O., V: bandmembers, 1926

Got No time (A: Grofe)--Paul Whiteman and His Orch., 1925

Sonya (A: Grofe)--Same, Vocal: Billy Murray

Pigeon Walk--Victor Military Orch., c. Edward T. King, 1915

Watch Your Step--Medley--Same

In Alabama, Dear, With You--Medley--Conway's Band, 1915

I Want to Go to Michigan (Irving Berlin)--Van Eps Banjo Orchestra, 1914