Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Hoover-Schrum Grade School Band, c. Michael Landes--Holiday Time--U.S.A. (1969)

NOTE: A repost from 2019, in a higher bitrate, with noticeably better sound as a result.

And now, the Hoover-Schrum Grade School Band of Calumet City, Illinois--and Diane says she didn't gift this to me, so I must have found it in a local thrift. And the sole reference I found on line is this 2016 YouTube post, It gives priceless info on the LP, including the all-important detail: the year (1969). But--and I hate to say it--the YT transfer is over-filtered. Digital filtering can easily remove part of the audio to avoid hiss, and that's a trade-we have to work hard not to make. So, you have two rips to choose from--mine and YT's. (I hate to be critical of someone else's effort, but the YT transfer is a bit overdone.)

I was tempted to sum the left and right channels for mono, but there's very slight stereo happening here, so I kept it. Some privately done LPs have this very type of narrow-width stereo, and I'm not sure how it happens. Maybe it's in the mastering stage, or maybe the microphones are too close when the tape is first rolling. I'm not knocking the sound overall--it's very good, very vivid--but there isn't much stereo. But I didn't want to eliminate the slight depth by going stereo to mono.

The YouTube post mentions the hot temperatures and missing band members, but the band is nonetheless extremely good--preternaturally so, in some places. Listening to this, I had to keep reminding myself that this is a grade school band, especially on Original Dixieland Concerto and the 76 Trombones portion of Music Man. I wonder if the superb trumpet soloist on the Manhattan Tower track went on to a music career.

Why the first part of this holiday concert is made up of non-holiday material, I don't know, but it's highly entertaining--full of variety and surprises. All of it designed, maybe, to put the audience is a festive mode prior to the unleashing of the Xmas numbers. Now, why would "a musical tribute to the uplifting of the spirit of all mankind" use Everything's Coming up Roses as its musical theme? Maybe the song symbolizes the band's successful concert streak that preceded the making of this disc (except the program was arranged prior to that streak, so I guess that can't be). I don't know. Actually, in his closing remarks, conductor Michael Landes recommends Roses as a positive-thinking aid. I can see that--it's an uplifting number. I'm overthinking things.

The remarkable grade school musicianship makes this LP a winner all the way. My 2019 essay took the arrangements and selections to task (while praising the gifted kids), and I must have been in a bad mood, because I find it very pleasing this rip around.

Musicians: A+. Program: A-. A very fun listen.

DOWNLOAD: Hoover-Schrum Grade School Band, c. Michael Landes; 1969

Curtain's Coming Up--Everything's Coming up Roses
Music Man
Joshua
Gershwin
Original Dixieland Concerto
Manhattan Tower
Christmas Party
Roses Rhapsody
Winter Wonderland
Havah Nagilah--Exodus
Jingle Bells Rhapsody

Hoover-Schrum Grade School Band, c. Michael Landes--Holiday Time--U.S.A. (No label name WFC-859; 1969)

Lee

Festival de Navidad (Christmas Festival)--Delightful holiday sounds in alta fidelidad!

An extremely fun Latin American Christmas LP, with titles in Spanish and featuring six numbers by the Cuban-American Tonight Show pianist Jose Melis, though his are the least exciting tracks in this mix, which seems to be predominantly Puerto Rican. But don't ask me--I'm no expert in this area.

"Alta fidelidad," of course, means high fidelity, and the sound is certainly detailed and robust--condition issues were minor, though I had to do a certain amount of manual noise removal, even following a pass or two through Vinyl Studio's amazing declicker. The label, Tropical, is un producto de Seeco Records, Inc., and there were a good number of titles released on this sublabel. If I'm lucky, I'll encounter some more.

Hard to pick a favorite track, though Los Parranderos is definitely a candidate, with its splendid instrumental backing and cool, complex vocals. A "parranderos" is a reveler or a merrymaker, which we can sort of tell from the house-rocking tone of the number--Oye! Los Angelitos Cantan (Hark! The Herald Angels Sing) is pretty anticlimactic as the follow-up track. Melis was a fine pianist, of course, but his tracks sound totally conventional in this collection. Melis is credited as Jose Melis y su conj., and I'm assuming that means "and his group."

Enjoy the Festival de Navidad in alta fidelidad, and bear with the rather out of place Melis numbers--or just skip them altogether. They'd have made a nice album all by themselves, but here they tend to slightly spoil the festive mood, at least to my ears.

Fine musicianship throughout, and fine fidelidad. To the festival--and I'll leave the titles to the mp3 tags and the back cover photo.

DOWNLOAD: Festival de Navidad (Tropical TRLP 5057)

Lee

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Christmas Carols and Songs for Children--The Jeri Mann Singers (Not) (Sutton SSU 96X)

Today, we have half an LP. I didn't rip the A side, because it's the same ol' Johnny Kay/Kaye tracks that appeared on SPC, Pickwick (International Award), Crown, and who knows where else. The "Jeri Mann Singers" credit is obviously nonsense, especially given that the B side is totally instrumental--no voices to be heard there. And it's the B side I'm providing, if only in the hopes that someone can identify on what other LP (or LPs) these tracks showed up. I'm certain I've put them up already, and under some other name on a different label. Someone with a more precise audio memory than me might be able to peg them--if so, please leave a comment. In time, I'll be sifting through my mp3s in search of the duplicate tracks.

One clue may reside in the misspelling of Wenceslas ("Wenceslauss")--a typo that appeared in an earlier post this year. That may turn out to be the vital clue.

And yes, the stereo on/in these tracks is the real thing. The pressing isn't so good, but that's par for the cheap-label course...

I'll bet you're just dying to listen to these by now, the way I've hyped the selections to the stars. And--good grief--Holy Night. No O. Just Holy Night. Maybe Sutton ran out of upper-case O's.

UPDATE: My thanks to Phil for jogging my memory. These tracks are from the Lester label LP Singing Strings Herald Christmas, which I've just reposted here (in a new rip). Included in my essay are the extremely helpful comments left at my 2018 post by Ronald Sauer, who meticulously traced the history of these tracks and shared his findings with the blog.

No wonder these tracks sounded so familiar. Sutton used six of the twelve tracks featured on the Lester label LP. Ronald reports that these tracks really made the budget-label rounds.

DOWNLOAD: Jeri Mann Singers--Carols and Songs for Children (Sutton SSU 96X)

Deck the Halls

Joy to the World

First Noel

Good King Wenceslaus (sic)

Holy Night

We Three Kings

Lee

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

High Spirits, Past and Present (Youth of Holy Spirit Parish)--Merry Christmas to: You (1973)

From the liner-notes insert: "This group will make the top singers such as Andy Williams, and Perry Como look sick. No one can top this fine group." A repost, in a higher bitrate, and with more scans, including two liner-note inserts (in three scans). A children-making-music classic! With refreshingly pre-hip-hop percussion, to boot. My 2019 essay:

The High Spirits were a group of children from the Holy Spirit School in Whitehall, Ohio, an enclave of Columbus. The kids on this 1973 LP are third- to eighth-graders, and they were directed by Sister Carol Ann Krell. Total pop-folk, good singing, fun percussion, cool (and very natural) stereo sound--you can't miss with this one. Maybe the best LP of its type I've ever come across, and it's a local effort, to boot--about an hour's drive away. The children aren't trying to be cute, and the adults in charge haven't given them any corny material, so... no complaints.

Generic cover, but nice. I've included label and liner note scans--the typewritten liner notes were inserted into the jacket (the back is blank). I don't think they were mimeographs; probably photocopies, and of course not up to modern standards. I've included these in the zip file.

No Santa Got Drunk and Fell Off the Roof or Happy 25th, Jesus type of stuff. Just carols and a few pop Christmas standards. Totally delightful, and I keep hoping to find one or all of their other LPs As of 1973, they'd made four of them, plus a 45.

DOWNLOAD: High Spirits, Past and Present (1973)

Winter Wonderland
Sing We Noel
Go Tell It on a Mountain
Children Go
What Child Is This?
A Christmas Round
Away In a Manger
Do You Hear What I Hear?
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Silver Bells
Wassail
White Christmas
Angels We Have Heard on High
'Neath the Silent Stars
I Heard the Bells
Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy
Drummer Boy

High Spirits, Past and Present--Christmas, 1973 (Mus-i-Col 101651/52, Columbus OH)

Lee

Some more 2020 Christmas links, revived

Workupload.com dumped all, or nearly all, of my 2020 Christmas uploads, resulting in "dead" links. I've revived most of them, except for a post of Xmas singles whose zip file I can't find on my hard drive. A total mystery.

Anyway, here are some revived posts and links, in addition to the ones I've already offered. The post urls are below the jacket images: