Dueling Sabres: Five Pop Versions of Khachaturian's Most Famous Work

On my other blog, I discuss the genesis of Aram Khachaturian's most popular ballet, Gayane, and the runaway popularity of its most notorious selection, the Sabre Dance. The Kirov Ballet premiered the work in 1943, but it wasn't until after the war than it became known in the West. The Big 10-Inch Record details the earliest recordings (Golovanov in the USSR and Kurtz in the US), and how other conductors and record companies began to jump on the Gayane/Saber Dance bandwagon as 1947 drew to a close.

It wasn't just the classical musicians who noticed the popularity of the Sabre Dance. In late 1947, pop record producers rushed to record the jack-hammer rhythms of the dance before a musicians strike began on January 1, 1948,  Among the pop adaptations set down were three of the five that are featured here: pianist Oscar Levant, bandleader Woody Herman and Freddy Martin's band with pianist Barclay Allen.

Even though Oscar Levant's 78 was on the Columbia Masterworks label, I consider it a pop record because it was an arrangement for piano and orchestra from the composer's orchestra-only version. Levant lived off the piece for years. In 1949 M-G-M even incorporated his rendition of it into the Astaire Rogers film The Barkleys of Broadway. It's not clear who arranged the Columbia recording;  it was possibly Levant - he is listed as the arranger on the solo-piano sheet music. On the record, the distinctly thin-sounding "Columbia Concert Orchestra" is led by Lou Bring.

Woody Herman's Sabre Dance, also on Columbia, is in some ways closer to the composer's score than Levant's is. Like Golovanov's recording, the contrasting trio section is led by a soupy saxophone, although Woody's troupe plays it in swing tempo.

Freddy Martin has another piano-led adaptation, featuring soloist Barclay Allen. Arranger Lou Busch (who later made piano records under the name Joe "Fingers" Carr) incorporated a boogie-woogie bass figure that works nicely. This is a well-played version, actually better done than Woody Herman's.

When these records began climbing the charts in early 1948, Decca decided to get in on the action by recording the Andrews Sisters in a vocal rendition with fatuous lyrics by Allan Roberts and Lester Lee. Singers did not belong to the Musicians Union, so were not covered by the recording ban. Neither, apparently, were harmonica players - accompanying the siblings were the Harmonica Gentlemen. They appeared on only a few other records, backing the Andrews Sisters and Danny Kaye on three numbers, including "The Woody Woodpecker Song," all in 1948.

By 1949, parodies of the Sabre Dance were beginning to appear. One was a gem by the inimitable Mickey Katz, who called it the "Sadir [Seder] Dance." Katz was then recording for RCA Victor, which viewed him as an ethnic act and limited him to Yiddish language records. I don't understand Yiddish, so the only parts of Katz's vocal I could follow were "Take it easy or you're gonna plotz!" and "Happy Pesach!" I had no problem, though, enjoying Katz's klezmer-style deconstruction of the work. Later in 1949, he would move on to Capitol, which did not confine him to Yiddish recordings.

The download includes more images of sheet music, labels and ads.

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