Dimitri Tiomkin Obscurities

Dimitri Tiomkin at the 1953 I Confess recording session

Dimitri Tiomkin was both a highly decorated film music composer and a powerful hit maker, especially in the 1950s. We are covering the hits and to some degree his film themes in a post on the main blog. This article is about some of the curiosities from his output - early records, little known songs, foreign language productions and just plain odd items.

Our first number takes us back to near the beginning of his career. It is the theme from the 1934 film of Alice in Wonderland. Tiomkin collaborated with Nat Finston and Leo Robin for the number. The eminent Isham Jones was the bandleader. It's a surprisingly perky song, with the uncredited vocal attributed to Eddie Stone, but it's not a match for Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard's song for the Disney movie.

Another relatively early release was 1949's Champion, with Kirk Douglas as a ruthless boxer. The title music is a march (which can be found on Tiomkin's own LP on the main blog), but there also was a pleasing ballad called "Never Be It Said," sung on the soundtrack by a very young Polly Bergen. Columbia recorded it with the accomplished singer Herb Jeffries, who himself starred in a number of low-budget films. Hugo Winterhalter provided the backing.

The Men, a 1950 Marlon Brando film, gave us another enjoyable ballad, "Love Like Ours," here in a splendid version by a favorite singer, Lisa Kirk. If you like it, there are several Kirk posts on my other blog.

For our next few songs, we have two of Tiomkin's Western tunes transplanted to Europe. The first is "Forlad mig ikke" - literally translated from Danish "Do not leave me," and yes, this is the theme from High Noon. The singer, Gustav Winckler, is no Ted Ritter, but this is OK by me. It even has a harmonica, which often shows up in Western scores. The vibraphone you hear, maybe not so much.

We move on to France for a version of the music from Blowing Wild - or "Le Souffle Sauvage" in translation. Lyricist Max François has turned this into "Comedie," which I don't think has much to do with the film. John William is the emphatic vocalist.

Tiomkin wrote "Love, Look What You've Done to Me" for Hitchcock's I Confess. You can hear the composer's conception via his album Movie Themes from Hollywood in the other post. Victor Silvester turned it into a strange tea-dance number for his release. You can almost hear the waiters clinking the plates and glasses.

The theme from The High and the Mighty is invariably heard with a whistler at the fore (or in the composer's instrumental, a theremin). There also are words to the tune, courtesy of Ned Washington, although they don't have anything to do with the film. Johnny Desmond sang them artfully on a Coral release with George Cates' backing.

The High and Mighty version from Denmark called "Jeg Var Fri Og Frejdig," or "I Was Free and Fair," also apparently has no reference to the airborne emergency. Lise Ringheim sings with Paul Clemensen's orchestra. The words are by Jette Grevil.

The High and the Mighty's theme inspired other versions as well. The eminent Perez Prado (or someone at the record company) decided to turn it into a mambo. I had visions of the passengers on the faltering airliner gyrating across the Pacific.

On to ancient Egypt and The Land of the Pharaohs. RCA Victor decided it might be nice to have harmonica wizard Leo Diamond record the theme music, because no instrument evokes the Great Pyramids more than the mouth harp, I guess.

Lucho Gatica

We end with a really good record - "Las Verdes Hojas De Verano" (The Green Leaves of Summer) from The Alamo as done by the superb vocalist Lucho Gatica. His passionate performance is quite a contrast to the understated folk rendition by The Brothers Four in our other collection.

These recordings were remastered in ambient stereo from Internet Archive originals.

LINK

A Forest of 'Poincianas'

Before anyone inquires, that is a poinciana at left, a colorful tree that is indigenous to Madagascar but found in many tropical and semi-tropical locations. For our purposes, "Poinciana" also is a humid song that was popular in the 1940s into the 50s, and even later.

The sheet music reads "Poinciana (Song of the Tree)," and record labels will tell you the authors were Nat Simon and Buddy Bernier. In reality it is a traditional Cuban tune adapted in 1936 into a popular song, "La canción del árbol," with Spanish lyrics by Manuel Lliso.

The tropical Bing

Today we'll explore eight varied interpretations of the Americanized "Poinciana" - vocals, exotica, jazz and R&B. (I haven't found a recording of  "La canción del árbol," unfortunately.) Why "Poinciana"? It's a favorite of mine.

The Simon-Bernier version was published as far back as 1936, but the first recorded version I've found is a 1942 instrumental by David Rose. But our journey will begin, as many do around here, with Bing Crosby, who was the first to have a hit with "Poinciana," in 1943. Even before Bing begins singing, you will note that John Scott Trotter has identified the song as a boléro, and has patterned the accompaniment after Maurice Ravel's famous composition of that name In the verse, Bing's languid singing, in a higher register than usual, contrasts well with the rat-a-tat of the accompaniment. The chorus is more conventional.

Bing's Decca record is something of a scarce item. It has been reissued on CD a few times, but not nearly as often as its 78 flip side, "San Fernando Valley," which was a huge hit. This could be because "Poinciana" was not especially well recorded or processed.

Benny Carter

It took very little time for other artists to take note of the song. Shortly after Bing's recording, Benny Carter took a big band into a studio for an early Capitol session. The song is a showcase for his fluid alto saxophone and assertive band. There is no Ravel "rat-a-tat."

Another big band - a very big one, with strings and all - took up the song the next year. It was Capt. Glenn Miller and the Army Air Force Training Command Orchestra, who performed an elaborate Jerry Gray arrangement in what I believe to be a May 1944 broadcast, which has excellent sound.

Sgt. Johnny Desmond

Gray's chart is certainly more Miller than Ravel, with the brass's characteristic "boo-wah" effects prominent in the opening chorus. The performance segues into a romantic vocal by the young Johnny Desmond, backed up by the Crew Chiefs. Desmond is relatively convincing with Bernier's melodramatic lyrics: "Somehow I feel the jungle heat / Within me, there grows a rhythmic savage beat." He looks more stiff than savage at right.

Miller's recording is longer than the norm of the time, coming in at about five minutes. So too was the next interpretation, that of mood music maestro Andre Kostelanetz. He recognized the song as a prime piece of exotica, and packaged it into a Columbia album called Exotic Music, along with "Flamingo," a hit for Duke Ellington, "Song of India," a hit for Tommy Dorsey, and Cyril Scott's "Lotus Land" from 1905. You can hear the whole album via my friend Lee's blog.

My own introduction to "Poinciana" came several decades ago via a copy of Frank Sinatra's 1946 version with the usual superb backing from Axel Stordahl, who arranged almost all of the Voice's records until said Voice joined Capitol. Stordahl was very skilled, and his best work was done with Frank. Their "Poinciana" is outstanding, with Stordahl's sophisticated chart perfectly underpinning the intensely romantic vocal.

Frank Sinatra and Axel Stordahl

One of Sinatra's many rivals was the excellent Alan Dale, who didn't have a huge career but was nonetheless talented. He recorded "Poinciana" in 1948 for Bob Thiele's high-class but short-lived Signature label, backed by Ray Bloch. Dale's entrance blares, but the rest of the performance is fine. His singing is more Bing than Frank, and perhaps closest to the extroverted Don Cornell of Sammy Kaye's band.

Lynn Hope

"Poinciana" continued to appeal to both singers and bandleaders at mid-century. R&B saxophonist Lynn Hope did it for the small Premium label in 1950. His idea of the song was a calypso, and in that guise it's very listenable.

"Poinciana" inevitably became a subject of interest to the exotica mavens of the 1950s, inspiring recordings by Esquivel, Les Baxter, Arthur Lyman and today's featured artist, Tak Shindo, an American arranger-composer who combined American and Asian influences in his music.

The Shindo selection comes from his 1960 LP Brass and Bamboo, done for Capitol. The recording jumbles all types of effects into a captivating trip to another land - several of them, in fact.

These recordings were cleaned up from my collection and that of the Internet Archive folks.

LINK

The Johnny Desmond Christmas Collection

This year I've already offered a few posts of holiday recordings by favored singers who never produced such a collection themselves - Margaret Whiting and John McCormack. Today we turn our attention to another fine vocalist - Johnny Desmond (1919-85) - with 10 songs he released from 1949 to 1956 for M-G-M and Coral records.

A few of these sides have appeared in compilations on my other blog, but this is the first time I've pulled them all together.

In conjunction with this new collection, I've also remastered Desmond LPs from Coral and M-G-M, as well as the soundtrack to The Stingiest Man in Town and the Coral LP Merry Christmas 1952, which includes two Desmond songs. Links are below.

A bit of Johnny's personal history: his first break was in 1940 when his vocal group the Downbeats was subsumed into Bob Crosby's band as the "Bob-o-Links." Desmond only stayed with Crosby for a year before turning solo with Gene Krupa's band. The following year he joined the Army, becoming a vocalist for Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band, where he remained until the end of the war.

1949 Cash Box ad

Postwar, he recorded for Victor, followed by M-G-M and Coral; later on for Columbia and other labels. Desmond also was an actor, starring in three films in the late 50s, the Broadway show Say, Darling (which merited a cast album) and later in Funny Girl opposite Barbra Streisand, in the role originated by Sydney Chaplin. He also appeared in the 1956 television special The Stingiest Man in Town, the source of two of the songs on today's program, which follows.

Johnny released a Christmas single for M-G-M in both 1949 and 1950. The earlier coupling included the oft-expressed sentiments "You're All I Want for Christmas" and "If Every Day Could Be Christmas."

The former song is ascribed to Segar Ellis and Glen Moore, but for the melody they reused an old New Orleans standard called "Algiers Strut." Regardless it's a good piece, popular in 1949, with Desmond's competition including Bing Crosby and Frankie Laine. The B-side, "If Every Day Would Be Christmas," is much less familiar although not a bad song. Tony Mottola's guitar is featured along with a celesta.

Much different is Johnny's 1950 coupling, "Sleigh Ride" and "A Marshmallow World." The former is Mitchell Parish's vocal version of the Leroy Anderson favorite. The Boston Pops introduced the instrumental in 1949; Parish's lyrics followed soon thereafter.

Competing in the market with Desmond's "Sleigh Ride" were the Andrews Sisters and Percy Faith, but I doubt that any other version was a lively as his. It has the Ray Charles Singers imploring him to come out for a ride ("Aw, c'mon John!"), which he does, and ending with a sneeze instead of Anderson's horse whinny.

Johnny also does well with that season's new song "A Marshmallow World" by Peter De Rose and Carl Sigman, which we have just heard on my other blog, from Ronnie Deauville and Ray Anthony.

Tony Mottola

Moving ahead to Desmond's new label, Coral, we have two worthy items that appeared in the Merry Christmas 1952 album, "Christmas in the Air" and "Christmas Is a Time (That Will Never Change)." The former is a good Sam Stept-Jimmy Brewster song that Johnny does with the right amount of sincerity and feeling. The latter is by Carolyn Gilbert and is worth hearing, as well.

I've now remastered the Merry Christmas 1952 LP in ambient stereo. It also includes songs by the Ames Brothers, Don Cornell and Eileen Barton. You can find it here.

Tony Mottola was the bandleader on the Merry Christmas 1952 songs, as he had been for all the M-G-M singles covered above.

In 1955, Johnny had another winner with "Santo Natale," which was backed with "Happy Holidays to You." Al Hoffman, Dick Manning and Belle Nardone put together the first song; Koby Sirinsky, David Fischer and Desmond himself the latter.

We close the program with Desmond's songs from the 1956 television special The Stingiest Man in Town (who was Scrooge, of course, played by Basil Rathbone). Johnny, who appeared as Scrooge's nephew Fred, had two songs, "Birthday Party of the King" and "Old Fashioned Christmas," from the excellent score by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre. Tutti Camarata conducted Johnny's record.

The two Desmond songs in the present collection are taken from his Coral release rather than the Stingiest Man cast LP on Columbia. On LP, "An Old-Fashioned Christmas" is different from the Coral version, but I believe "Birthday Party of the King" may be the same. I posted the cast album many years ago and have now reworked the files in ambient stereo.

The Stingiest Man in Town was presented in color on television, but the only surviving version is from a black-and-white kinescope. The image below is a colorized screen grab from the kinescope.

Johnny Desmond sings "The Birthday Party of the King"

As mentioned above, I've also remastered two of Johnny's early LPs in ambient stereo:

Hands Across the Table (M-G-M)

Play Me Hearts and Flowers (Coral)

LINK to Johnny Desmond Christmas Collection

Desmond, Dale and Cornell Promote Their Wares

Alan Dale, Don Cornell and Johnny Desmond

Coral Records had three fine crooners on the rolls in 1953, and so decided to merge their talents and hopefully their audiences by having them record the 1926 Ben Ryan chestnut, "(The Gang that Sang) Heart of My Heart." Probably responding to the publisher's stimulus, Decca (which owned Coral) had the Four Aces do the same, and the two versions battled it out on the airways and record charts. Jack Pleis provided the orchestral backing on both records.

The three Coral artists were Alan Dale, Don Cornell and Johnny Desmond, who despite the Anglo names were all of Italian descent, being baptized Aldo Sigismondi, Luigi Francisco Varlaro and Giovanni Alfredo De Simone.

Coral decided it had to do something different to promote the record to disc jockeys, so it prepared two promotional tracks, one by the trio and one by labelmate Eileen Barton that DJs could program to intro the cut. The trio's cut is amusing, but Barton sounds ill at ease.

These promos were on one side of the 78; the other was devoted to touting the flip side of the commercial 78, "I Think I'll Fall in Love Today," an good new song by the duo of Robert Allen and Al Stillman.

The "I Think I'll Fall in Love Today" promo was a complicated bit in which the DJs were to engage in rhythmic colloquy with the trio. The promo record went so far as to have Eileen Barton provide an example of how this was to be done. Honestly, I wonder if anyone actually used this contrived bit.

Eileen Barton

The combination of two or more top artists on one record was becoming more common in 1953 and 1954, although the phenomenon was not new. Typically it involved female-male combinations such as Jo Stafford with Frankie Laine or Gordon MacRae, or Margaret Whiting with MacRae or Jimmy Wakely. Same-sex couplings were less common, although there were pairings of Lisa Kirk with Fran Warren, and Rosemary Clooney with Marlene Dietrich, among others.

A June 1954 Billboard article (in the download) notes the phenomenon, mentioning Dale-Cornell-Desmond along with Dale-Desmond-Buddy Greco, and a quartet encompassing Jane Russell, Della Russell, Connie Haines and Beryl Davis. The latter contingent had some sticking power. Jane, Connie and Beryl recorded a gospel LP for Capitol in 1957 called The Magic of Believing. The following year Coral issued a record called Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord by the four of them, with Rhonda Fleming replacing Della Russell on some songs. The Coral LP was largely a repackaging of earlier single releases.

The download includes both the promo record and the commercial release of the Dale-Cornell-Desmond materials.