Melchior and the Dorsey Band - 'Thrill of a Romance'

Way back when, I devoted several posts to the more informal recordings by one of the 20th century's greatest opera stars, the tenor Lauritz Melchior. I have now refurbished two of those recordings and am adding a new one, all timed to upcoming posts devoted to some of Melchior's lesser-known operatic and lieder recordings.

Today, we have the music from a Melchior film that I haven't posted before. It is Thrill of a Romance from 1945, in which the Heldentenor is transformed into a gigantic Danish Cupid bringing together famed aquatic thespian Esther Williams with war-hero Van Johnson.

Thrill of a Romance also starred the Tommy Dorsey band, so as bonus items I've added three commercial recordings of their songs from the film.

The Melchior Recordings

'Put on the bathrobe' - Melchior sings Pagliacci

When we (and Esther Williams) first see Melchior, he is on a balcony greeting the dawn with the verismo aria "Vesti la giubba," hardly the most cheerful piece for waking the neighbors. The best known excerpt from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, it deals with the singer finding out his wife has been unfaithful. Then again, the screenwriters could have been ironically foreshadowing the plot, for Williams is about to ditch her husband for valorous Van.

"Vesti la giubba" does not appear in this collection, but it will be included in one of my upcoming Melchior posts. Instead the Victor album starts with Grieg's Ich liebe dich (I love you), which, as it happens, also will be contained in one of the upcoming Melchior posts, in a different version. Here, as in the rest of his recordings, the singer is backed by an orchestra led by his accompanist, Ignace Strasfogel, who is uncredited on the label.

Van Johnson, Esther Williams, unidentified actor, Lauritz Melchior

The next piece is Jenő Hubay's Lonely Night, adapted by music director Georgie Stoll from an unidentified work. This is succeeded by Schubert's Ständchen, D 889; in English, "Serenade." The words that Melchior sings, however, don't seem to be a translation of Franz Grillparzer's original text. "Ständchen" also will appear in a forthcoming post in a more traditional recording with piano.

Melchior is in a celebratory mood for the next item, called "Vive l'Amour," better known as the French folk song "Vive la Compagnie." Stoll again is the arranger.

I believe Ralph Freed and Sammy Fain wrote "Please Don't Say No" for the film. It was recorded by many artists at the time, including the Dorseyites, as discussed below.

Finally, a piece that could have been composed for Melchior, it suits him so well - Victor Herbert's "I Want What I Want When I Want It," from the 1898 operetta Mlle. Modiste. The tenor is in commanding form.

The modern tendency is to portray classical musicians as monsters (a la Tár) or complex characters (such as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro). In 40s musicals, they just as likely to be lovable matchmakers, such as Melchior in this film or José Iturbi in Anchors Aweigh.

The Dorsey Recordings

Melchior with the Tommy Dorsey band

Included in the download are three commercial recordings of music that the Dorsey band performed in the film: "I Should Care," "Please Don't Say No" and "Opus No. One" (later called "Opus One"). I don't think that "I Should Care" and "Opus No. One" were written for the film, but their commercial recordings were made before the final edit was released, and so helped promote the production. They also were the most popular numbers from the movie, and among the most enduring.

Two eminent former Dorsey arrangers, Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston, wrote the music for "I Should Care," with the words by Sammy Cahn. In the film, former Hal Kemp singer Bob Allen performed with the Dorsey band. On record, Bonnie Lou Williams and the Sentimentalists were the vocalists. The latter is a fine performance, but does not surpass Frank Sinatra's 1946 recording with Stordahl.

Freddie Stewart, Bonnie Lou Williams and Sy Oliver

The vocal on "Please Don't Say No" is by short-term Dorsey singer Freddie Stewart, who also had a career as the juvenile lead of B-pictures. The record features one of the leader's signature muted trombone solos, along with the 11-member string section that the band then featured for recordings.

Finally, another song by a Dorsey arranger, Sy Oliver's "Opus No. 1," one of the greatest of all swing instrumentals. Buddy DeFranco is the clarinetist, Buddy Rich the assertive drummer. Oliver uses the string section to great effect in supporting and contrasting with the powerful band. It's a memorable record.

LINK to Thrill of a Romance

More Melchior 

Thrill of a Romance was Lauritz Melchior's first film. His follow-up was Two Sisters from Boston. I transferred the Victor album of songs from that release more than a decade ago, and have now improved the sound and processed it in ambient stereo. As I wrote then, the film "plunders Liszt and Mendelssohn to concoct noisy cod arias that Melchior attacks with some enthusiasm." As a bonus, I have now added Jimmy Durante's songs from the movie - no Liszt of Mendelssohn and quite a contrast to Melchior. (Jimmy's arias are offered separately in a recent post below.)

Also newly redone is Melchior's recording of Romberg's famous operetta The Student Prince with Jane Wilson and Lee Sweetland. This 10-inch album comes from 1951. The orchestrations are by Victor Young, who also conducted the ensemble.

The Songs of Hugh MacKay

I became interested in learning more about composer Hugh MacKay after posting Bobby Short's version of his song "Sunday in Savannah." It's a terrific piece, so strongly reminiscent of composer-singer-pianist Willard Robison that Bobby's recording attributed it to the latter songwriter.

Robison loved his rural preachers, setting several of his best-known songs in church - "The Devil Is Afraid of Music," "Truthful Parson Brown," "We'll Have a New Home in the Mornin'" and others. (These can be heard in my recent Willard Robison compilation.) MacKay's composition is in that line - "One more Sunday in Savannah, and the whole creation's shouting, 'Praise the Lord!'"

When I set out to find more songs by MacKay, I was able to discover just a few, and very little about him as a person. Even his name is uncertain - it is rendered as "MacKay," "Mackay" and "McKay" depending on the label. I believe it is "MacKay," based on copyright listings for his songs. Those tell us he was active at least until the late 1950s. The first recording in this collection dates from 1939, so he wrote songs at least for 20 years. But as for biographical information, little has turned up and there are no photos to be found.

Paul Whiteman

But let's take a listen to the songs I did turn up, starting with the just-mentioned 1939 recording. It is "The Shoemaker's Holiday," with a detailed reading by Paul Whiteman and his substantial orchestra, and a vocal by the Modernaires. For this one, MacKay supplied the catchy music and Don Raye the lyrics.

Whiteman, of course, came to prominence in the 1920s, and several members of his band were active in that era, including Frank Signorelli and Charlie and Jack Teagarden. It was also the period of Robison's greatest fame.

Tony Pastor

Skipping ahead to 1941, MacKay turns wordsmith, credited with "special lyrics" for Tony Pastor's version of "Oh Marie!," called "Maria, Mari." Pastor made what I think was the first recording of "Sunday in Savannah," also in 1941 and also in this collection. Pastor was in his element with "Oh Marie!" - like Louis Prima, he was a follower of Louis Armstrong - but "Sunday in Savannah" seems far afield for the son of Middletown, CT.

Pastor's connection with MacKay was clear - Tony's brother Stubby seems to have written songs with him, although not these.

The McFarland Twins

MacKay also wrote both the music and lyrics for our next item, "For Whom the Bell Tolls," also from 1941. (This is not the Victor Young theme for the 1943 film of that name, although the song title was surely inspired by the source of the film, Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel.) The artists for this number were the McFarland Twins (who styled their band as "Music That Wins by the McFarland Twins"). Now forgotten, the duo came out of the Fred Waring band and made records for a few years. Jimmy Foster is the vocalist on this one, under the spell of the Eberle/y brothers. It's a lovely song, with a depressing text.

MacKay also caught the attention of one of the biggest bandleaders in 1941 - Tommy Dorsey recorded his instrumental "Backstage at the Ballet." A good piece, here with excellent trumpet and tenor solos.

In addition to the Pastor disc, I've included another influential recording of "Sunday in Savannah," this one by Mabel Mercer, the grand dame of cabaret. She included the song on her first Atlantic LP, recorded in 1951. Her advocacy presumably led to the recording by Bobby Short and Nina Simone's later performances.

Marty Grosz

MacKay's own musical interests may or may not be captured in the final item on the program, a 1951 recording of the "Dixieland Jass Band One-Step" by Mart Gross and His Cellar Boys, with a Hugh McKay on cornet. It's not certain that this performer was the same person as the songwriter, but consider that MacKay the songwriter betrayed his interest in the music of the 1920s through his apparent imitation of Willard Robison's compositions, and through his association with musicians who were prominent or at least active back then - including Whiteman, Dorsey and Pastor.

"Mart Gross" turns out to be Marty Grosz, longtime guitarist in trad groups and son of the artist George Grosz. His band included the young pianist Dick Wellstood and the legendary bass player Pops Foster. McKay does get a solo on the record. Sad to say, he was a better songwriter than instrumentalist, that is, assuming it's the same person!

These recordings come from Internet Archive and my own collection.