Memorial Day, 2015--Four awesome 78s!

Four great 78s for Memorial Day, 2015, all ripped by me from my overflowing collection.

E.T. Paull's Battle of Gettysburg march is a joyous affair, though something tells me the real thing was anything but.  However, I wasn't there, so....  We're hearing the beautifully performed (and recorded) 1917 Victor recording by Conway's Band.

Battle of Gettysburg--Conway's Band, 1917.

The lively and memorable American Army March was composed by Geraldo Iasselli (Google says "Iasilli"), and it's performed here by Giuseppe Creatore's band on a 1925 Victor electrical recording.  The fidelity is unbelievably advanced for 1925.  Listening to it through phones, I guessed 1929 or 1930.  I was wrong.  A closer look at the label before listening would have told me, but then my assessment of the fidelity wouldn't have been completely objective--my ears would have known it was 1925.  The preceding sentence was pure M(Y)PWHAE prose.  To the amazing fidelity:

American Army March (G. Iasselli)--Creatore's Band, 1925.

Finally, two 1921 sides (the Victor label, again) by the United States Marine Band: a superior Sousa march, Yorktown Centennial, and the complete Anchors Aweigh march, which I didn't recognize until it got to the famous "Anchors aweigh, my boy..." strain.  How many times did I hear that strain in the Navy?  Thousands.  Maybe millions.  Good thing I love it!  In other news, one of these days I'll learn to spell "Centennial" without Spell-Check.

Is it just me, or are there Johann Strauss, Jr. quotes happening in Anchors?

Yorktown Centennial--March (Sousa)--U.S. Marine Band, 1921
Anchors Aweigh (Charles Zimmermann)--U.S. Marine Band, 1921.

Enjoy!

Link for entire playlist: Memorial Day 78s

Lee

Happy birthday to moi

I'm cheating with this selfie--I no longer have my beard.  The beard lasted several months, however, before skin irritation compelled me to expel it.  I was surprised it lasted that long.

Anyway, I'm 58.  One of the scarier things about birthdays is that we're always one year older than the age we declare.  To wit, at "58," I am in fact starting my 59th year.  Not only am I starting my 59th year, I am in fact in my sixth decade, not my fifth.

Think about it: when we're 10, for instance, we're starting our second decade.  20, our third.  And so on.  We age ahead of ourselves.  So, every time you ask yourself the birthday question, "Am I really that old?" you are, in fact, even older than that.  I have no idea what I just typed--it sounded good in my head.

Sirens.  The Italics Police are coming for me.  I mean, the Italics Police.


Lee, 58

This cat pees on TV monitors!!

"I PEE ON TV MONITORS!!"--WESLEY

There you have it--Wesley's confession.  Actually, he hasn't confessed to anything, nor has he shown an ounce of remorse.  (He's a cat.)  And, technically, he peed under the monitor, but that's all it took to kill the audio and video.  Now all we have, post-pee, is a fuzzy white image that just sits there, doing nothing.  The monitor is fairly new.  Was, I mean.

So I figured that some on-line shaming might work.  Let's just hope Wesley comes across this page, sees himself (and the account of his deed), and feels really bad.  In fact, I'll just leave this page up on Bev's PC, saving Wesley the trouble of a search.

Yes, Wesley.  That's YOU.  The cat who peed on the TV monitor.

YOU did it.  YOU.

This experiment in on-line cat-shaming was brought to you by MY(P)WHAE.



Lee

John Blazo ("Ryan's Hope") sings on YouTube

View image | gettyimages.com

The handsome character on the right is John Blazo, who was Pat Ryan #2 on Ryan's Hope, my favorite soap (of the two soaps I like--the other being Dark Shadows).  I wish they'd kept him longer than a year and some months, but they wouldn't listen to me, especially given that the show had been off the air for nearly 20 years by the time I saw it.  A little late to be protesting a recast decision, I suppose.  Anyway, I thought John was marvelous.

I'd read that John was performing cabaret-style jazz, and I've long been on the lookout for same.  No luck, but then Youtube came to the rescue with fourteen Blazo tracks, uploaded by John himself:

John Blazo 

John sings, backed by a virtuoso jazz trio (guitar, piano, and bass).  Great stuff!


Lee

My Mother's Day card to Bev, who just turned 81

The conga cats are (left to right): Wesley, James, Fidel, and Sarge.  That's the classic Sarge face.

Notice that this is the Max Raffler painting featured in the last post, only with modified mugshots.

Meanwhile, my Lots o' Cats Rag is at SoundCloud.  I wrote it circa 1992:

Lots o' Cats Rag


Lee