Christmas Holiday Time for Children--Colortone Studio Orchestra and Chorus

 

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.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Holiday Time for Children.zip FLAC

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

Down in the valleys: "Death Valley Suite" (Grofe) excerpts: "Desert Water Hole," "Sand Storm," and "Valley of the Sun Suite" (also Grofe)

 

Cold weather coming on, and Christmas arriving in 32 days--so, as a reminder of the summer days of late June to late September, Ferde Grofe's 1949 gem, Death Valley Suite.  The occasion for this post is my eBay acquisition of the Purdue Symphony Band performing the third and fourth movement--a performance I predicted would be terrific--and I was correct.  

So, first off, Desert Water Hole and Sand Storm, from the 1962 A.B.A. Concert, which Google's AI describes as "the American Bandmasters Association (ABA) convention concert program, which the Purdue Symphony Band performed in."  The conductor is Al G. Wright.  

Then the same two movements as conducted by Grofe himself with the Capitol Symphony Orch., which was quite an outfit, despite a cutting review by (I think) Stereo Review when the Angel label reissued Death Valley.  Or maybe the review was in Hi-Fidelity magazine.  I never count on my memory much, since I recall it's pretty vague at times.

Meanwhile, Death Valley will be heading for nice summer-style highs just right for tourists eager to find solace from Jack Frost.  And I have no idea why I typed "solace from Jack Frost," but I did, and I only have myself to blame.  (Or maybe society itself.)

As an added bonus (forgive the redunadncy; bonuses are always "added"), Grofe's wonderful Valley of the Sun Suite, with Ferde conducting the Arizona State College (Tempe) Symponic Orchestra.  And this was my essay when I last posted the work (the zip file since deleted by Workupload): 

"From the mysterioso first movement to the joyous, Johann Strauss-esque (am I allowed to type that?) conclusion, this is mood music of the highest class. Making things more interesting are Grofe's reuse of cues from his 1950 movie score for Rocketship X-M (in The Dam Builders) and the insertion of a chord sequence from his very first work, Broadway at Night (1924), at the beginning of the last movement. Grofe was not shy about reusing material, and why not?  X-M itself reuses a portion of his Symphony in Steel (1935), and his score for The Return of Jesse James (1950) uses the opening section of his Tabloid Suite (for a telegraph office scene)." 

And Google's AI notes that Grofe premiered Sun in 1952, though he composed it in 1957.  That was quite a trick.  Enjoy, and stay warm...

DOWNLOAD: Death Valley; Valley of the Sun.zip

Death Valley Suite (Grofe, 1949)

Desert Water Hole 

Sand Storm

Valley of the Sun Suite (Grofe, 1952 or 1957)

Valley of Ditches

The Dam Builders

Masque of the Yellow Moon

Reclamation's Golden Jubilee 

The Purdue Symphony Band, c. Al G. Wright, 1962; The Capitol Symphony Orch., c. Grofe, 1951; Arizona State College (Tempe) Symphonic Orch., c. Grofe, prob. 1957.

Lee

The return of the 1927 "Pacific 231"!

November 5 1927, to be exact, making this recording 98 years old (plus almost a week)!  

And, since posting this in April of 2016, I realize now that I used the wrong bass turnover.  Though recorded in 1927, this "circle" Victor Red Seal label places this pressing (at the earliest) in 1938.  So, I've used the correct turnover of 500 Hz and a slight treble roll-off, and I think it sounds great.  The original engineers did a fabulous job of microphone placement, and the overall audio detail is superb--keeping in mind that this is from 1927 and not, say, 1957.  From my own collection.

Originally to be titled Mouvement Symphonique, this work was composed in 1923.  Honegger conducted his own recording in 1930.

According to DAHR, the "Continental Symphony Orchestra" was the Orchestre symphonique du Gramophone.
 
I love the way the orchestra speeds through Honegger's work, and flawlessly.  And Arthur's almost-as-wonderful Rugby (Mouvement Symphonique No.2), and his Mouvement Symphonique No. 3 are pretty widely available on vinyl and CD.  

DOWNLOAD:  Pacific 231 (Arthur Honegger).zip

Continental Symphony Orchestra (the Orchestre symphonique du Gramophone), under the direction of Piero Coppola, 11/5/1927.  

Lee

If you want the feeling of floating, buy Super Boron!

 

These are Sohio/Boron radio spots for Ex-tane gas, apparently the ideal winter car fuel.  No idea on the year, but I'm guessing 1962/63.

The ads run the gamut from funny to weird (or both), and there's some unintentional humor in cut 5, a rhythmic narration in which the announcer can't quite find the proper meter--this is followed by a far more successful effort.  The henpecked husband in tracks 3 and 4 sounds familiar--and it turns out to be voice actor Bill Thompson, as identified by Josh.  (Thanks, Josh!)

Help stop hubcap theft, and don't forget to buy Atlas Cushionaire Tires!  

DOWNLOAD: Cleveland Recording Company - Sohio ET #64.flac

Lee