Yet more Christmas 78s, Part 2!--David Rose, Art Mooney, Gennett Sound Effects, New Temple Quartette, Bläserchor

I'm still here.  I think, anyway.  (I think, therefore I'm here.)  Three days away from the internet--a situation I handled with unusual maturity (to my surprise), then back home, and with my allergies running on high.  So I'm like Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction--movin' kinda slow.  You may wonder why I'd be having allergy issues at a time when pollen has left the air, but there are other things in the air that can cause sinus issues.  Mold, for one.  Also, wonky weather--with fronts moving in from all angles--is the enemies of sensitive sinuses.  We sinus sufferers can't win!

But we're not here to talk sinuses--we're here to talk Christmas shellac.  Actually, we're here to listen to it.  We start with some amazing, almost hi-fi fidelity on David Rose's wonderful Christmas Medley from 1949, for which I combined both sides into a single file.  I'm 99.9 percent sure Rose was the arranger, and, as far as Handel as composer of the Joy to the World melody, this was long accepted to be the case, but nowadays Handel scholars say no--The tune (Antioch) is, in fact, by Lowell Mason, and the words, of course, are by Isaac Watts.  And, while the song is used to announce the coming of Christ, it's actually a Second Coming song.  I have a number of early-to-mid 19th century tunebooks, and second coming numbers were a big thing around the time of Mason's tune (1839).  The words are much earlier--1719.

Vom Himmel Hoch, my second-favorite melody by Martin Luther, appears in two versions in our playlist--first, in a brass ensemble version recorded in Germany around (just a guess) the late 1940s.  I could find zilch about the catalog number--not even in my 78 dating guide.  No year, either, for the (non-Columbia) Okeh label version sung in German by a "Christmas Chorus" with Orch. and Chimes (bells), though it's acoustical and likely 1919-ish.  The Okeh catalog no.--10097--refused to show up in any of my discographical resources.  I hate it when that happens.  The vocal version is really cool.  If Vom Himmel Hoch reminds you at all of A Mighty Fortress (also Luther), it's because of the identical closing cadence.

The Gennett Sound Effects series is from the 1930s, and apparently the Depression hurt Gennett sales to the point that the company spent the era supplying such 78s for radio stations.  Post-1930s, Gennett's sound effects series tanked.  My green label means a latter 1930s issue, though it could be a reissue of an earlier recording--I don't know.  The first side has four bands, all set up in that typical radio disc fashion--i.e., with no connecting grooves between the bands.  The tracks are Approach, Pass Recede; Approach and Stop; Riding in Sleigh; and Start and Recede.  So, if you've been forever searching for "Start and Recede" sleigh-ride effects, this is your lucky day. Side B is Horse and Sleigh (Continuous), so... yeah. The microphone for these effects must have been hand-held--in spots, you can hear the sound of the person's hand shifting.  The start-ups are kind of awkward, too.

We have to conclude that the turntables used in early radio could be cued for auto-starting.  Which means, of course, that they were electric.  Well, naturally.

And I skipped Art Mooney's 1949 Jingle Bells, which is delightful--it's in the vein of Mooney's I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover, with its energetic sing-along chorus from start to finish.  I love Mooney's postwar sing-along stuff, not only because it predates Mitch Miller, but because the singers don't have a polished, professional sound.  I hate it when, on TV shows and movies, a group of everyday folks sing in church, around the piano, or wherever, and they sound like studio pros.

I'm assuming the New Temple Quartette=The Temple Quartet, and I like the group's draggy, dead-serious style.  I wonder what Joy to the World would sound like, delivered by them in their slow fashion?  The two sides are U.S. and U.K. issues, and both appear to be from 1926, going by the matrix numbers.  I'm not positive, but nearly so.  We think (or I think) of carols as fast-tempo things, but it's cool how slowly numbers like Good Christian Men are taken on vintage discs.  No one was in any hurry, I guess.  We close with Leo Watson's 1946 bebop version of Jingle Bells on the Signature label.  My copy has had a lot of play, as you'll hear, but luckily the music is loud.  Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD:  Yet More Christmas 78s, Part II

Lee