Jimmy Durante's Songs in 'Two Sisters from Boston'

The 1946 film Two Sisters from Boston gained its musical credibility from the presence of the great tenor Lauritz Melchior. His songs from that production appeared on my other blog some time ago and have now been reworked in ambient stereo.

In addition to the mighty Melchior, the musical also employed vaudevillian and popular radio personality Jimmy Durante as the character Spike, and gave him two songs to perform. "G'wan Home, Your Mudder's Callin'" and "There Are Two Sides to Ev'ry Girl" might not have been right for a heldentenor, but they suited the Schnoz just fine.

The songs were written by Sammy Fain and Ralph Freed, but about half of each song consists of Durante's asides, one-liners and other comic riffs, no doubt drawn from a lifetime on the stage.

Both songs made it to a single on the short-lived but interesting Majestic label. Durante is joined by Eddie Jackson, a frequent collaborator, who sings harmony. Ted Dale and his band provide the backing.

The numbers are well performed, well recorded and highly amusing.

LINK

Jimmy Durante in Two Sisters from Boston. He seems to be enjoying himself.

.

Bing and Dottie on 'The Road to Singapore'

Here's the latest in a series examining Bing Crosby's musicals, with his own commercial discs and other recordings of interest. This time out we have The Groaner in his first "road" picture - 1940's Road to Singapore, his first film with Bob Hope and joint filmic love interest Dorothy Lamour.

For this episode in our series, we have Bing's Decca singles along with Dottie's Bluebird shellacs, plus recordings of a few numbers from the film those two didn't bother with.

Let's introduce the main tunes via Crosby's recordings. First, the biggest song from the score, the lovely and beautifully performed "Too Romantic" from songwriters James V. Monaco and the ever-present Johnny Burke. The backing is by John Scott Trotter and orchestra.

For the next song, Monaco and Burke wrote a number for Bing and the vocal group the Foursome, who were amazing ocarina virtuosi. (See these two posts devoted to the quartet.) The song is is the utterly delightful "Sweet Potato Piper," which not only a tribute to the Foursome's skill, but also Crosby's rhythmic dexterity.

Dottie, Bing and Bob play the pipers

The final song for Bing is "The Moon and the Willow Tree" is unusual in that the music was composed by the film's director, Victor Schertzinger, an accomplished musician whose best known songs are "I Remember You" and "Tangerine." Burke again was the lyricist.

Dorothy Lamour

Dorothy Lamour was already known for films set in "exotic" locales when cast in Road to Singapore. She was a apt choice because she could sing, having some experience as a band vocalist. Bluebird had her record the same three songs as Crosby, with Lou Bring leading the band.

Lamour's husky voice takes some getting used to, but she's very persuasive in "Too Romantic" and "The Moon and the Willow Tree." For "Sweet Potato Piper" she has neither the Foursome and their ocarinas nor the personality of Bing, but she does fine otherwise. I haven't heard her sing before, except for seeing the road films a long time ago, but I was impressed.

Neither Bing nor Dottie attempted another song from the score, "Captain Custard," in the film a comedy feature for Crosby and Hope. The number shows off Schertzinger's or perhaps Burke's fondness for Gilbert & Sullivan, and relies heavily on visual clowning.

Nonetheless, intrepid bandleader Ray Noble, who had a sideline in playing Bertie Wooster-style silly Englishmen in the movies, took up the cause of the Captain, who is apparently the chief usher in a movie theater. His Columbia record is pleasant, but without the visuals, it does fall flat, sad to say - I generally enjoy Noble and his records.

Ray Noble and Mildred Bailey

Finally, one from left field - "Faithful Forever," which Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin wrote for the animated film Gulliver's Travels, which was in production at Paramount at the same time as Road to Singapore. Victor Young, music director for both films, borrowed the tune for use in an ironic way during a scene announcing Crosby's ill-fated engagement.

Despite its Academy Award nomination and many recordings, "Faithful Forever" is a predictable song that lends itself to lachrymose performances, including Young's commercial recording. I've chosen one of the livelier ones, that of Benny Goodman's band with vocalist Mildred Bailey, with the arrangement by Eddie Sauter.

These recordings are cleaned up from my collection and Internet Archive.

LINK

Early Recordings by Howard Hanson

Howard Hanson

As a companion piece to the posts of Howard Hanson recordings as presented on my main blog, here are a few of the earliest disks that conductor made, back in 1939.

Hanson (1896-1981) was one of the most active proponents of American music, as demonstrated by his 40 years as founding head of the Eastman School of Music and by the dozens of recordings he made starting with these Victor disks, set down during a busy May 1939 session.

Not only did Hanson record the four pieces on today's program, he also tackled compositions by John Knowles Paine, Leo Sowerby, Edward MacDowell and George Whitefield Chadwick, along with his own Symphony No. 2.

Our program begins with an item by the American impressionist Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1886-1920), The White Peacock, introduced by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra near the end of the composer's short life. The work was orchestrated from one of Griffes' Roman Sketches, which can be heard here in a performance by Lenore Engdahl.

Charles T. Griffes, William Grant Still

The second selection is one that Hanson himself premiered - it is the Scherzo from the Afro-American Symphony by William Grant Still (1895-1978), which dates from 1931. The conductor later led the first performances of a number of other compositions by Still.

Joe Clark Steps Out is a genre piece by Charles G. Vardell, Jr. (1893-1962), reflecting his own North Carolina heritage. Vardell, a long-time educator in that state, was a doctoral student at Eastman when this recording was made.

Kent Kennan, Charles Vardell

The Night Soliloquy by Kent Kennan (1913-2003) is perhaps his best known work. Kennan was another graduate of Eastman, later a longtime professor at the University of Texas. Hanson was to record the piece twice more, in 1954 and 1962. The earlier rendition is available on my other blog.

These recordings are remastered from Internet Archive transfers.

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

Sauter-Finegan Obscurities

Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan

The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra of the 1950s may have been a succès d'estime, but it is an esteem that persists more than 70 years after the band's founding.

The inspiration of arrangers Eddie Sauter (Benny Goodman) and Bill Finegan (Glenn Miller), S-F was a big band that played for listeners, not dancers. The duo's ideas could be quirky, and the sounds the band produced were different from the bands often heard around here (e.g., Les Brown, Ralph Flanagan) but fascinating in their own way.

Today's post covers some of the more obscure items in their catalogue, single sides that were not included on one of the Sauter-Finegan LPs, to my knowledge. There are nine such selections, dating from 1953 and 1955.

The first two items come from April 1953 sessions. "Pale Moon" (originally subtitled "An Indian Love Song") was composed by Frederic Knight Logan and Jesse Glick in 1920. While there were a variety of recordings through the years, the S-F version may have been occasioned by a few country recordings about the same time. The excellent high vocal obbligato on their version is by Florence Fogelson, a member of the Robert Shaw Chorale. (It was a role otherwise filled for the band by Sally Sweetland.) This is a fine record, although it features the "BOOM boom-boom-boom" drum signature that is invariably present in such "Indian" fare.

"Coco Bongo," written by David Ward and Charles Singleton, was a new song at the time. Sauter and Finegan were without the services of a professional singer for this date, and so resorted to having the musicians provide the tuneless shouting that invariably constitutes the "band vocal." Nice record otherwise.

"'O' (Oh!)" is the second song in this set to have been written in 1920, this time by Byron Gay and Arnold Johnson. Originally a hit for Ted Lewis, Pee Wee Hunt revived it in 1953. The Sauter-Finegan cover is highly effective.

Sauter-Finegan in 1953, with the leaders at left. I believe the singers are Andy Roberts and Sally Sweetland

The next selection, from a decade later than "O," comes from the only musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama. It is "Of Thee I Sing," a spritely Gershwin song from the 1931 musical of that name. S-F makes imaginative use of chimes in the arrangement.

"Joey's Theme" is from the 1953 independent film Little Fugitive, about a child alone on Coney Island. The accomplished melody is by Eddy Manson, who also was a noted harmonica player.

Sauter and Finegan themselves wrote "Science Fiction," which is charming until getting to the menacing middle section, and loud thereafter - but the arrangement is consistently inventive.

The next selection has been heard around these blogs a couple times lately. "Honey Babe" is a soldiers' march from the 1955 war film Battle Cry. S-F was the first commercial recording, but Art Mooney's was the most popular. Max Steiner claimed to have written the song, but it seems to me I've heard the tune sung to the words, "You get a line and I'll get a pole, honey... we'll go down to the fishin' hole," etc.

Nappy Brown had an R&B hit with "Don't Be Angry" in 1955, a song he wrote with Rose Marie McCoy and Fred Mendelsohn. The pop cover was by the Crew Cuts, but neither it nor Brown's disc was as assertive as this brassy version by the band, with baritone sax solo by Gene Allen.

Our final item is another movie theme, this one from the film version of Christopher Isherwood's book "I Am a Camera," later adapted into the musical Cabaret.

The recordings were remastered from Internet Archive needle drops.

LINK

The Earliest Recordings of Edgard Varèse

I posted a 1950 LP of Edgard Varèse's music about 15 years ago and speculated at the time that it might be the earliest recordings of his works. Not so - since then I've become aware of three 78s of his music dating from the 1930s. This post presents two of them.

The first dates from 1934 and involves an instrumental ensemble conducted by Nicholas Slonimsky, best known these days as a writer on music. The work is "Ionisation" (which also can be heard in the LP I mentioned above). If you are not familiar with Varèse's works, think "The Rite of Spring" combined with the ambient noises of a large city. Add percussion, sirens and other sounds. But don't think there is anything random about the result - Varèse's timbre-centric music has been highly influential. "Ionisation" is for percussion ensemble.

Nicholas Slonimsky conducts 'Ionisation' in Havana

The second work is "Octandre," at least its Third Movement, in a performance by a wind and brass ensemble led by Walter Goehr. This dates from 1937, and is part of a five-volume set called "The Columbia History of Music by Eye and Ear," put out by English Columbia.

Slonimsky himself conducted a recording of "Octandre" for Musicraft in 1938, but that disc hasn't come to light yet.

Both performances are fairly proficient, in music that is striking today as it was 90 years ago.

More Varèse is coming up on the main blog.

LINK to early Varèse recordings

More Jo Ann Greer with Les Brown

Jo Ann Greer

Singer Jo Ann Greer was the subject of a long post on my main blog in 2022, along with additional recordings made with band leader Les Brown here and here. I since have found five more Greer/Brown recordings on Internet Archive, and have prepared remastered ambient stereo versions for this post.

The first song comes from Greer's initial session with the Brown band - a June 1953 date for Coral that produced "Forty Cups of Coffee." It was a cover of Danny Overbea's R&B recording with the King Kolax band. Unfortunately for Danny and Jo Ann, Ella Mae Morse's record for Capitol was the most popular of the three.

Les, Jo Ann and band moved on to the Capitol label in 1955; the remaining four items come from their association.

The initial Capitol side is an oddity, in that I wouldn't have expected Brown to choose it and in that it has an uncharacteristically poor arrangement. It is "Sincerely Yours," the title song of Liberace's only film, with music by the pianist and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. The record mates a predictable melody with the usual tuneless band vocal and an ill-advised spoken chorus from Greer before she starts singing.

Les admires his saxophone

Fortunately, the next song is perfectly suited to Jo Ann's talents, and she is in superb form. It is "Hit the Road to Dreamland," a song that Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer wrote for the 1942 film Star Spangled Rhythm.  

The Brown recording was stimulated by the song's revival for the 1956 Bob Hope comedy That Certain Feeling. The film took its name from a song the Gershwins wrote back in 1925. Brown and Greer included their version of "That Certain Feeling" as the flip side of "Hit the Road to Dreamland." On screen, Pearl Bailey sings both numbers.

The last selection in this set, also from 1956, is "The Best Years of My Life," an enjoyable ballad with an passionate vocal by Greer, deploying her vibrato to good effect, and dispassionate vocal support, likely sourced from the band.

LINK