Ralph Blane Meets the 'Wizard of Oz'

My recent post of songs by Ralph Blane and The Martins elicited a note from Unknown telling me that the Internet Archive had posted another Blane single. Here it is in a cleaned-up version. This is the earliest Blane record we have found, very likely dating from 1939.

We can make that assumption on the date because it contains two Arlen-Harburg songs from The Wizard of Oz, which was released in that year: "Over the Rainbow" and "The Merry Old Land of Oz." Actually, Blane also recorded "If I Only Had a Brain" and "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead" at the same time, but I haven't located a copy of the latter single.

Surprisingly, "The Merry Old Land of Oz" comes off better than "Over the Rainbow." Blane's jauntiness suits the former, but he seems uncomfortable with the wistfulness of the latter. He generally sings well, although his pitch is not always on the beam. The bandleader is Franklyn Marks, who also conducted on one of the Blane singles featured on the main blog.

Ralph Blane in 1938

The Liberty Music Shop of New York issued this single. That small chain of stores maintained a boutique label from the 1930s into the 1940s, primarily featuring cabaret artists veering into the jazz realm - so Cy Walter through Ethel Waters and Lee Wiley. I can only recall featuring two of the label's products before, a single by Bruz Fletcher than can be found in this compilation, and another by Cy Walter than is in this set.

The Blane recording was made before his first real success as the co-composer of the Best Foot Forward score with Hugh Martin in 1941. I believe that circa 1939, Blane could be heard on the radio with The Martins on Fred Allen's show, and on his own sustaining program.

Thanks to Unknown for the tip on this record! The sound is excellent, by the way.

Elliot Lawrence, the Sixty Minute Man

Elliot Lawrence, the big band leader turned Broadway maestro, had a long and distinguished recording career that took a quick turn into country music and R&B covers during his short stint on the King label in 1951.

His few releases for that company include a cover version of the Dominoes' giant hit, "Sixty Minute Man," and a song with King's big country star Lloyd "Cowboy" Copas, who had broken out in 1946 with "Filipino Baby."

King published Lawrence's discs in its "Popular" series. Both records in today's post included one song that was a pop cover version for a record that came out in the label's "Sepia-Blues" series.

On the left is an edited Billboard ad advertising both the original version of the highly suggestive "Lovin' Machine" by King R&B star Wynonie Harris and an incongruous cover by Lawrence and his decorous vocalist Rosalind Patton. 

The company backed "Lovin' Machine" with a country ballad, "Don't Leave My Poor Heart Breaking," sung by Patton and Cowboy Copas.

King's double-barreled method was becoming increasing common at the time - record a song for the R&B (or country) market, then prepare a separate release for the pop audience. 

This continued to be a standard approach for years to come, although the original versions would increasingly invade the pop charts without a cover record's assistance. "Sixty Minute Man" was an early example of this. It became a number one single on the R&B charts and did well in the pop market, too, while the Lawrence cover went nowhere.

For the Lawrence version, King had former band vocalist Melvin Moore take on the vocals. He had sung with, among others, Lucky Millinder, Ernie Fields and Neal Hefti and was a member of one of the Ink Spots clone groups at the time of the session. Vocally, however, he wasn't any match for the charisma of the Dominoes' bass, Bill Brown, who sang lead on its recording.

Melvin Moore and Lucky Millinder

The final number in this four-song set is "Quick," which is the only item that is at all characteristic of Lawrence's usual sound, although much brassier than the records he had just made for Decca. The writers were Lawrence and Bickley Reichner, who composed several songs together. It's a very good record with one of Patton's best vocals, sounding less mannered than she did on the band's recent Decca sides. I suspect that this may be the more representative of Lawrence's preferred style, not as sedate as his Decca records and not in a country or R&B vein either. The arranger is not known, but it may be Johnny Mandel, who was on the band's staff at the time.

This post is a companion to an item on the main blog, where I present one of those Decca LPs, College Prom, a much different experience than his King singles of just a year later.

Paul Robeson Sings Mischa Spoliansky

The great Paul Robeson starred in a 1935 English film, Sanders of the River. Robeson was horrified at the final production, which turned out to be a paean to African colonialism, and disavowed the film. (Those interested can see it and the actor's five other British movies via a Criterion Collection release.) In 1938, Robeson acidly observed that, "It is the only film of mine that can be shown in Italy or Germany, for it shows the Negro as Fascist states desire him - savage and childish."

One saving grace of Sanders of the River may be that it provided Robeson with an opportunity to deploy his magnificent bass voice in service of four songs by the composer Mischa Spoliansky and lyricist Arthur Wimperis. The latter later worked on several well known films, including Mrs. Miniver.

Spoliansky was a gifted musician, born in Russia and resident in Germany from 1914 on. There, he had made a living writing songs and playing the piano, notably accompanying tenor Richard Tauber in recordings of German folk songs and Schubert's Winterreise. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Spoliansky moved on to London. Having developed a reputation through such popular German film songs as "Heute Nacht Oder Nie," he soon began working in the English film studios.

Sanders of the River: Nina Mae McKinney, Paul Robeson, Leslie Banks

Sanders of the River was among Spoliansky's first efforts in England. He wrote four songs for Robeson that HMV issued on the 78s that form today's post. Years later director Zoltan Korda claimed to have heard fishermen singing Spoliansky's music for the film on a remote river in the Congo. Well, that story may be questionable, but for sure these are fine compositions in definitive performances. Robeson is accompanied by an ensemble led by Muir Mathieson.

This is a companion to a post of Spoliansky's 1957 Saint Joan score, which is now available on the main blog. The Robeson singles here were refurbished from lossless files found on Internet Archive.

André Previn Live in 1947

My main blog has documented a great many of André Previn's early recordings as a jazz pianist, dating back to when he was in his teens. Here is a small contribution to that effort, comprising four songs apparently recorded live in 1947. The material was issued on the small Modern label, which was primarily devoted to R&B and country music, with occasional forays into jazz.

Sources suggest that the occasion was one of Gene Norman's "Just Jazz" concerts, held at the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena. It's possible, perhaps likely, that it is from the April 29, 1947 concert - Modern also issued performances from many of the other acts who were on the bill that day.

Live, Previn sounds much as he does on his Victor studio dates - his pianism is propulsive, imaginative, many-noted and immaculate. The solid, if generally muted support is probably by one of Previn's usual backing trios of the period - Al Viola or Bob Bain, guitar, Lloyd Pratt or Chic Parnell, bass, and Jackie Mills or Ralph Collier, drums. The guitarist does wedge in a few solos here and there.

André Previn in 1946

The songs include the usual jazz warhorses - "Indiana," "Air Mail Special," "All the Things You Are" and "Lady Be Good." 

The audience sounds impressed by the proceedings. It's impossible to know how much the response we hear has been "enhanced," but if so, any augmentation is not obvious. Overall, the sound is about what you might expect from live recordings of the period. The main drawback is some discoloration on the piano tone, possibly from an overloaded microphone or too high a recording level, or simply from the worn pressings I harvested from Internet Archive. This doesn't detract too much, however, and the overall balance is good. [Note (July 2023): these transfers are now available in ambient stereo.]

All in all, this brief set is just as enjoyable and impressive as the teenaged Previn's studio recordings of the period.

A Glinka Favorite from Philadelphia and Boston

The overture to Mikhail Glinka's opera Ruslan and Ludmila is one of the great program openers, beloved of maestros who want to stun the audience with orchestral viruosity. And two of the great virtuoso ensembles of all time are those of Philadelphia and Boston, and they do indeed amaze in these vintage recordings led by Eugene Ormandy and Arthur Fiedler, respectively.

The young Fiedler

The earlier of the two is from 1939 and is devoted to the Boston Pops, then in the ninth year of Fiedler's 49-year reign. Victor issued the performance on two sides of a Red Seal 78.

The Philadelphia Orchestra version comes from 1946, when Ormandy was eight years into his 44-year tenure as music director. He had recently moved over from Victor to Columbia, which issued this endeavor on its own 78.

The Boston performance is perhaps the more lithe; the Philadelphians were unrivalled in the depth of their string tone, which has an intoxicating effect in the overture's rapid string figurations. 

I do prefer the Fiedler, perhaps because it is much better recorded and because the pressing at hand is far superior. Either way, I am sure you will enjoy the experience.

Ormandy as the Phantom of the Orchestra

Bunny Briggs with Charlie Barnet

Bunny Briggs (1922-2017) had a remarkably long career as a dancer, lasting from childhood to his later years. He often appeared with big bands, notably Duke Ellington's, but also quite a few others.

Briggs sang as well as danced - we have already heard from him with Neal Hefti on my other blog. Today we find him with Charlie Barnet - two songs from 1947 on  the Apollo label and one from 1949 on Capitol.

On all these, Briggs intones a hybrid of scat singing and bop lingo - interesting to me because I never considered the Barnet band to be a bop outfit. On "East Side, West Side," Briggs is afflicted with a vocal backing by the band, while the instrumental arrangement is big-band R&B with Ellington and Kenton touches.

Bunny Briggs

Briggs and Barnet appear in a Snader telescription from about this time performing the same song. In it, Briggs plays a Western Union messenger who delivers a telegram to the bandleader and ends up dancing and singing. You can sort-of see this in an execrable YouTube print. (Is there any other kind?) I believe I discerned Doc Severinsen taking a trumpet solo amidst the murk.

Ellington's "Rockin' in Rhythm" is similar to the "East Side, West Side" single, but without the band vocal and featuring the screeching high-register trumpet playing that was then in vogue, here possibly by Severinsen. The arranger was Billy May.

The final side is "O'Henry," an original by its arranger, Gil Fuller. This one does have some section writing that is strongly bop influenced.

In 1950, Briggs appeared in the Universal short below with Benny Carter's band. It's a good example of his remarkable dancing skills.

Hal Derwin with Artie Shaw

This is a follow-up to the recent post of 25 Hal Derwin vocals, which can be found on my main blog. Those Capitols come from 1946-47. Just before then, Derwin was singing with Artie Shaw's band under the name "Hal Stevens." Today we have four of the records he made with Shaw, all in 1945.

In July, Derwin and Shaw set down two songs that had been written for major musicals of the time. The wonderful "That's for Me" had been introduced by Vivian Blane and Dick Haymes in Rodgers and Hammerstein's superb State Fair. The less-wonderful but still enjoyable "Yolanda," from Freed and Warren, comes from the Fred Astaire vehicle Yolanda and the Thief.

Soon thereafter, Shaw switched to the small but ambitious label Musicraft. In August or September, he and Derwin were in the studio for two standards, "(I Don't Stand) A Ghost of a Chance" and "How Deep Is the Ocean."

Hal Derwin

Throughout these sides, Derwin sings well, with a warmth similar to his Capitol singles, but via a more formal, "band singer" presentation. Shaw's band is always a pleasure to hear. The leader takes solos on most of the tunes, and there is a glimpse of trumpeter Roy Eldridge on "Ghost of a Chance."

None of the vocals are particularly well recorded, but the overall sound is adequate, with occasional background rustle.