The re-return of "Christmas Is for Children"--A Pickwick (Design) classic from 1957 (?)

This at least my second reposting of this terrific LP find of four years back.  And a re-re-posting is sort of apt, or even ironic, given that this delightful Pickwick collection contains material re-re-recycled for years by Pickwick on one or another of its kiddie labels. 

Such a tacky-cool cover photo, and if the copyright year shown on the back cover is the year of release, then this is from 1957 (Design's first year--and, in fact, mine). This is quite possible, since the label is in the earliest style, complete with the promise of "Stereo Sonic Sound," which this disc does not deliver--the tracks are all mono. Stereo didn't happen at Design until the early 1960s, apparently, but I guess Pickwick Sales Corp. figured no one would sue. Their reasoning was probably something like,  "Anyone who buys this junk isn't going to know what stereo is.  No risk of any legal action."

 That's not a cut on the material, which is not only fun but very nicely arranged and performed, but just an acknowledgment of this album's rack-jobber standing. "Junk" tracks, but jewels of that type.

The selections, all released as singles or EP tracks on Pickwick's Cricket and Playhour labels (and who knows where else--Happy Time, probably), date back to 1953 or earlier (I suspect A Christmas Carol is pre-1953). The super-condensed Carol is fun and nicely spooky (it's like a Classics Illustrated version of a Classics Illustrated version), and Ding Aling Dong, The Sleighbell Song (aka, Ding-A-Ling Dong, The Sleigh Bell Song) remains one of my favorite cheap kiddie holiday numbers.  Plus, we get the ad-jingle-sounding Tinker Town Santa Claus, which I first heard in its 1970s Playhour Records edition, and I've Got Eighteen Cents, an annoying number sung by Rosemary Jun (1928-2016), whose real name was Rose Marie Jun, and who can't be blamed, since she didn't pen the thing.  Rose Marie, aka Rosemary, is credited on the back jacket, along with the Cricketones, Toby Deane, Norman Rose, and Linnea Holm, and the label lists the Cricket Children's Playhouse (which doesn't seem to have existed) and one Brett Morrison, who was actually Bret Morrison (1912-1978), and who, among others, played The Shadow on the radio.  

Here's Brett (left).  Pickwick's children's labels had a weird habit of referring to singers as "casts," as in "Performed with full cast and orchestra."  And its "cast" credits weren't consistent, either--sometimes, they varied between sleeve and label, and (far as I can tell) from issue to issue.  But Pickwick wasn't trying for anything close to the orbit of perfection, so we can forgive them for screwing things up on a regular basis. Five of the Christmas Is for Children selections are traditional, if we include Jingle Bells (a pop song, really) under "traditional."  Four of the five are sung by the St. Margaret's All Boys Choir, who might be the group doubling as "Santa's Friends" on Jingle Bells, and these tracks are a nice break from some of the over-cuteness which precedes them, such as Little Christmas Stocking with the Hole in the Toe (aka Just Come up with a Title So We Can Get Out of Here), and the Eighteen Cents song, which, again, I'm sure was merely another gig for Rose Marie Jun, and not something we can pin on her in any way.  

In all, the perfect cheap collection.  If you don't believe me, ask Roy Freeman, Director of Artists and Repertoire (Pickwick had one of those??): "Here is as fine a group of gay holiday songs as you'll find under any musical Christmas tree...All of the favorites for Santa's little helpers."  And I can easily picture 1957 children yelling, "We want Tinker Town Santa Claus--and I've Got 18 Cents!"  

"Many, many happy Yuletide hours are the promise and offering of this gala Christmas package...and may we warn you in advance...BE SURE..OPEN BEFORE CHRISTMAS..."  Which means we're in time.  Unless, of course, they were referring to Christmas, 1957.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Is for Children.zip

Lee

Merry Shellacmas! John McCormack, Trinity Choir, Collins H. Driggs, International Novelty Orch., (1910-1940/58)

 

One hour of 78 rpm goodies, all Santa-approved (you'll have to take my word).  The Trinity Choir's 8/26/1926 Christmas Hymns and Carols, (I love it when that distinction is made) from a period when the "standard" hymns and carols had almost been codified.  Exception: Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn, which should be a standard carol-sing title, but which never quite entered that category.  It's still performed, but more or less as an extra treat.

John McCormack is magnificent in both acoustical and electrical form, and we get his classic 1914 Ave Maria (with Fritz Kreisler, and in the Bach-Gounod setting I prefer) and a wonderful Oh Come, All Ye Faithful from 1926 (with the Trinity Choir sounding stronger and brighter than ever).  But maybe the highlight of this sleighlist is the 1913 Prince's Orchestra Children's Symphony, aka Kindersinfonieand and Toy Symphony, which for a long time was falsely credited to "Haydn"--i.e., Joseph or Michael--but actually came from the pen of Benedictine monk Father Edmund Angerer (1740-1794). The chief challenge, performance-wise, is locating the original toys (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) for the sound effects.  And we already know that Spike Jones was hardly the first person to expertly employ musical racket, but this circa-1770 piece really pushes the date back.

Plus, Nathaniel (aka, Nat) Shilkret directs the International Novelty Orchestra, with Sigmund Krumgold on pipe organ, in the all-time version of Leon Jessel's 1897 holiday masterpiece, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.  Recording date: 1/25/1928 (a month late!).  But not before Collin H. Drigg's 1940 Novachord recording, very possibly arranged by Ferde Grofe. Says Wikipedia, the Novachord is "often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer." I'll buy that. Er, I would, if I could afford one.  (Or had a place to put it.)

Lillian Currie's Children's Toy March (Pince's Band, 1912) was presented at a faster clip in 1911 as part of the descriptive piece On a Christmas Morning.  I see that I posted same at my Shellac City YouTube page in its Harmony label edition.  Anyway, this more mellow rendition of the march has its charms...

Oh, and I always feel the need to note that "Adeste Fideles" is not "Fidelis," though we see that typo pretty often.  Oh, and when I posted my YouTube upload of the Driggs 78 at Facebook, a number of synthesizer enthusiasts were more than slightly impressed.  Synths have a longer history than we imagine.

And a non-shellac, non-78-rpm selection, 1958's God's Christmas Tree, ripped from my Columbia 45.  How this got on the list, I don't know, but I never said I knew what I was doing.

The wonderful Richard Crooks 1933 performances are of two once-standard holiday concert numbers--Stephen Adam's The Star of Bethlehem and The Holy City.  They may still be featured in England.  The 1933 Red Seal RCA audio is nice.

And I just lost three hours of my life in the goal of finally, somehow, figuring out why OneDrive was not giving me a sharing link to this file.  In the meantime, my MAGIX-exported FLAC files (I discovered I indeed have that option) somehow reverted to mp3s.  And my brain is too fried to even start to attempt to figure out how that happened.  (The letter couldn't been an operator-error event!  I always reason best when I'm annoyed.

DOWNLOAD: Merry Shellacmas! (1912-1940).zip

Adeste Fideles (Oh Come, All Ye Faithful)--John McCormack, Trinity Choir, 1926

Christmas Hymns and Carols, Pts. I and II--Trinity Choir, Dir. Rosario Bourdon, 1926

Messiah--Hallelujah Chorus (Guess who?)--Same

Gloria from "Twelfth Mass" (Mozart)--Trinity Choir; pipe organ: Mark Andrews, 1926

Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod)--John McCormack, Fritz Kreisler, 1914

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (Jessel)--Collins H. Driggs, Novachord solo, 1940

Parade of the Wooden Soliders (Jessel)--International Concert Orch. Dir. Shilkret; pipe organ: Sigmund Krumgold, 1928

Children's Symphony (Father Edmund Angerer)--Prince's Orch., 1913

Children's Toy March (Lillian Currie)--Prince's Band, 1912

Messiah--Hallelujah Chorus--Mark Andrews, Pipe Organ Solo, 1925

Babes in Toyland--March of the Toys--Victor Concert Orch., Dir. Nathaniel Shilkret, 1939

The Skaters--Waltz--International Concert Orch., Dir. Nathaniel Shilkret, 1926

The Star of Bethlehem--Richard Crooks, Orch. cond. John Barbirolli, 1933

The Holy City--Richard Crooks, Orch. cond. John Barbirolli, 1933

God's Christmas Tree--Southwest High School Choir, O.B. Dahle, 1958

Lee

A Panorama of American Orchestral Music: Grofe, John Knowles Paine, Copland, MacDowell, Roy Harris (1955?)

 

A Panorama of American Orchestral Music was a series, and an interesting one.  With impressive fidelity, even (for Allegro Elite, especially).  Too bad Ferde Grofe is represented by the Huckleberry Finn movement from his Mississippi Suite.  Not because I dislike the movement (in fact, I love the suite to death), but on its lonesome, it sounds like background for a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  George Gershwin, meanwhile, is represented by an orchestration (by Gregory Stone) of his Prelude No. 2 for Piano, a dirge-like number in 12-bar blues form.  It's addictive.

And the Overture to "As You Like It" is my introduction to John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), senior member of the Boston Six (along with Edward MacDowell and George Chadwick), and I couldn't be more impressed--it's gorgeous.  One listen tells us that Paine was a major name in American music.  Paine's piece is followed by Edward MacDowell's ingenious Lamia, based on a poem by John Keats, its subject being a serpent transformed into a gorgeous vamp, only to have her true nature/form exposed (no, seriously).  Lamia exists in any number of folk variants.  In Greek mythology, she was a beast who dined on children (isn't that charming?).  Anyway, MacDowell's piece is masterfully written, like everything else he ever composed, and I've always thought of Edward as Debussy minus the modernity.  He's what Claude would have sounded like had Claude taken a conventional path.  Same level of genius, but minus a forward-looking quality.  So, MacDowell was a genius who didn't transcend his time.  So what?  A master composer is a master composer (is a master composer).  And you can quote me.

So, as we speak, my four favorite American composers are Grofe, Gershwin, MacDowell, and now John Knowles Paine.  Oh, and the self-taught, mocked-for-decades-until-critics-wised-up 18th-century genius, William Billings. A not-favorite American composer is Aaron Copland, whose work, as a general rule, I can take or leave.  But... I'm rather fond of Quiet City, the final track in this program.  And I have to wonder if it inspired Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront (1954) score (which pales next to this fine composition).  Any number of measures could be transplanted from Quiet City into that soundtrack, and with no one the wiser.  I'm glad to encounter a Copland work that I actually like. 

By the way, the musicians under Richard Korn's baton are terrific.  And "The Philharmonia Orchestra" is a pseudonym, apparently.  But for whom?

As for Roy Harris' First Interlude From "Folk-Song Symphony," I can't describe how little it does for me.  Off-the-scale (no pun intended) modality and a certain degree of polytonality (I think--not sure), all I can say is that this sort of folk tune setting was accomplished with infinitely more skill and taste by Bela Bartok.  I have no problem with harmonies that clash, except (I guess) in this case.

Thanks to the cover design, Grofe appears to be wearing the world's worst toupee.  Or posing after a safety-scissors haircut.  This is the result of a clash between Ferde's profile and the white U.S. map silhouette.  A careless cover design from the Record Corp. of America, of all outfits?  Shocking.

Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: Panorama of American Orch. Music.zip

Lee