Colortone: Waldorf, who else? This LP is yet another variant on a collection which started in 10"-LP form and (who knows?) probably some EP sets, as well. Naturally, there is no artist credit beyond the fake "Colortone Studio Orch. and Chorus," an aggregation no doubt making appearances across the country when this was put out. For once, the catalog number gives no clue as to the year--typically, these appeared in two-digit form ("58," "59," etc.). But I doubt that this LP dates back to 1949 or 1943, and so the 33-4943 is pretty useless as a clue.
An achingly gorgeous rendition of Victor Herbert's Toyland is the highlight of Side A, and I have no idea who sings it. Happy Days Are Here Again is the one totally-out-of-place track on this LP, and the fidelity is dreadful. Nothing I attempted was able to save the audio, so I'm just assuming it was badly mastered, badly recorded to begin with, or both. Stylus width, filter settings, etc., could not save this number.
Jingle Bells is the most aggressively let's-pretend-the-big-band-era-never-expired track, and it features the standard (for the genre) toying around with the rhythms in the Jingle Bells chorus. You know, to give it a scat or jive quality, Daddy-o (or Mommy-o). It's a c. 1942 groove, hep cats.
Jolly Old St. Nicholas, its melody from the 1880s, has always been for me about as soporific as ten rounds of Cantique de Noël played at Larghissimo, but the superlative bass vocal and fancy scoring actually has me liking the number for once--so, congratulations to Colortone for a minor 2025 holiday miracle. Meanwhile, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus always sucks, and it's only a matter of to what inexcusable extent of suckdom--but this uncredited child singer is only very slightly trying for an "Aren't I cute?" feel, and the arrangement is solid, and it deserves a D+, Leethinks. Rudolph is similarly unmemorable (save for the Henry Busse-esque muted trumpet solos), with the singer sounding on the verge of dozing off. An excellent March of the Toys (another Victor Herbert masterpiece) makes up for the three preceding bands, and I might learn to love this rendition.
And, as a big surprise, Christmas Has Come Again manages to worthily follow Toys, and while I should know the German melody from which this was cribbed, I do not. Feel free to fill me in. And The Gingerbread Man provides a cute coda, and if you have the time and motivation, check out the hyper-complicated history of this simple fairytale, which sounds like a cute Little Golden Books entry from the 1940s but which goes back a long ways and with umpteen variants. It's an "accumulative" fairytale, maybe, or something close to same, and in its uncleansed version, the gingerbread man is tricked, and consumed, by a fox. That couldn't be allowed for the Colortone label, and so the Man manages to get back home. Where, in all probability, the lonely old woman decides, "This is no substitute for a son, and he won't stay put. And I'm hungry." Goodbye, Gingerbread Man.
And this LP pulls the usual trick of crediting P.D. material to label bigwigs. Thus, Jolly Old St. Nicholas was somehow co-written by Enoch Light. Surrrrre, it was. The old arranger-as-the-writer scam.
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Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
Frosty the Snowman
When Christmas Comes to Our House
Toyland
Jingle Bells
Happy Days Are Here Again
Jolly Old St. Nicholas
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
March of the Toys
Christmas Has Come Again
The Gingerbread Man
Lee
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