We Bring You Eight Lulus

The toothy personality at the right is Lulu, who, according to songwriters Billy Rose, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, you were not supposed to bring to the party, lest she break up the place. 

Lulu was the off-stage protagonist of their lively 1925 composition. It was popular at the time and still retains some interest today because it is both catchy and witty.

"Don't Bring Lulu" is one of my favorite compositions of the 1920s, so I thought I might construct one of those posts where I present both period and more modern performances in varied styles. Today we have eight interpretations in all - vocals, a jazz band, R&B, even a theater organ.

The song's first releases were in early 1925, and must have been among the last batches of acoustic recordings that were made before the far-superior electrical recording process came into use.

Among the Lulu's first exponents was the popular singer Billy Murray, whose penetrating voice, perfect diction and not-unsubtle delivery were well-suited to the acoustic method. His Victor record has a strong period flavor, even including "doo-wacka-doo" figures in the noisy accompaniment. Murray handles the pay-off line of the chorus - "I'll bring her myself" - perfectly, by underplaying it.

"Don't Bring Lulu" also was a favorite of the instrumental jazz bands of the time. Our second selection is by the California Ramblers, identified as the "Varsity Eight" on the Cameo label below. The names of the musicians at the April 1925 recording recording session are somewhat speculative, but may have included Red Nichols and Tommy Dorsey. The band definitely features bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini, who provides a typical solo near the end of the performance.

Adrian Rollini, a gigantic sax and even bigger label

For our next selection, we jump ahead to about 1950. The disc features an obscure R&B group called, wonderfully enough, Fats Fuller and the Dunce Caps. Their "Lulu" was issued on a Philadelphia imprint called Palda, best known for Ferko String Band releases, but which also boasted early records by Al Martino, the Four Aces and Bill Haley on its subsidiary labels. I can't find anything about Fats and his associates, but I can tell you that the Dunce Caps have a King Cole Trio flavor, and Fats himself resembles his namesake Fats Waller in the piano department (assuming he's the pianist) but not vocally.

Tiny Hill

The ever-popular "Lulu" was taken up by another rotund singer, Tiny Hill, for a 1953 outing on Mercury. Hill led a big band that had novelty and country leanings. His easy-going rendition features the sandpaper-block shuffle rhythm that was his trademark.

Nostalgia for the 1920s came into vogue as the 1950s drew to a close. "Don't Bring Lulu" was just the thing for the young musical archeologist Bobby Short, who selected the song for his 1959 Atlantic LP The Mad Twenties.

Bobby Short and Dorothy Provine

The period mood also inspired such television shows as Margie (its theme song was the 1920s hit of that name) and The Roaring 20s. The star of the latter was Dorothy Provine, who played the leader of the band Pinky and Her Playboys. She even put out a popular 1960 LP on Warner Bros. (which produced the show), including her "period" performance of "Don't Bring Lulu."

Mitch and the Gang, sans accordions

Mitch Miller followed the trend in 1962 with a four-square (and just plain square) reading of "Lulu" with his Sing-Along Gang. Mitch must have worn out Columbia's reverb units making his expanded barber-shop recordings, with a jolly men's chorale and echoing accordions accompanying them.

Finally, a selection from an enormous set of theater organ recordings. "Lulu" adapted nicely to the sound of the behemoth instrument once housed in the Regal Theatre, Marble Arch, London - at least in the hands and arrangement of the experienced organist George Blackmore. This record probably dates from the early 1960s.

By the way, the Colgate toothpaste folks solved the mystery of Lulu's unpopularity in the 1940s. See the comic strip ad below for the unsurprising key.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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