28th April, 2006

OT, I HASTEN TO ADD the geographical Bethlehem - I can't say I really noticed anything special about the local girls when I was there - but the Bethlehem record label that for seven years issued work by the jazz greats of the day, before being swallowed up by King Records in 1960. And THE GIRLS OF BETHLEHEM is a CD that combines the talents of two fine, jazz-influenced lady singers, Audrey Morris and Paula Castle, who recorded for that very label.

'Who?' you cry, as one concerted ignoramus... listen, these two thrushes were and are terrific! The 'were' refers to Paula Castle, who recorded just one 10" LP for Bethlehem, the cuts for which are on this CD, and whose dainty stiletto heel left little further impression on the sands of time, and the 'are' is the wonderful Audrey Morris. Audrey is still, fifty years later, in fine voice, working mostly in her native Chicago, and recording on her own CD label. Sadly, the company that sells her disks appears not to have any mechanism for accepting international payments, or I would have bought the entire catalogue by now...

By the way, the cover seems to offer a picture each of Audrey and Paula, but don't be fooled... the lady in the sprauncy titfer is also Audrey. I've looked, but I can't find a likeness of Paula Castle...

Accompaniments for both singers are intimate. Audrey has Marty Paich arranging for The Hollywood String Quartet, plus bass and drums and occasional trumpet licks from Stu Williamson. Paula's album was made with a quartet consisting of Sam Most (Flute), Ronnie Selbey (Piano), Chet Amsterdam (Bass) and Herbie Westerman (Drums). Both combinations are ideal for the task.

Audrey's lead-off track, I Never Mentioned Your Name, rang a bell with me... where had I heard this song before? It finally dawned on me... in a wartime ITMA film spin-off, it was bellowed in a high-octane Cockney by Mrs Mopp (Dorothy Summers), in sequinned charwoman garb! Audrey closes with that song I still don't like, My Old Flame, but I suppose the fault must be mine, because it was immensely popular with quality performers. How J'a Like To Love Me and I Go For That are my favourites among the jauntier numbers. Paula's set includes a song written for her by the bass player, the above-mentioned Chet Amsterdam, called Lost Love, and that became the title of the original LP.

These are high-class performers: Audrey has a clarity of tone and diction that is phenomenal, and Paula weighs in with warmth and honesty -- and both are truly musical. This CD is always kept near my player, and it suprises me how often it fits my moods.

It should be said that the sleeve has some strange takes on titles: What's Becoming Me, If Love Were More and What More/Women Do are not quite what the writers intended...

There are two songs for which I haven't been able to find writer credits - a very tasty ballad, Yesterday's Gardenias, and Love Is A One Way Street, a title which has since been used at least twice for different pop/rock songs. That muddies the water a bit... sadly, you can't copyright a title. There doesn't appear to be a Catalog(ue) number for the CD, but you can find it in Amazon's on-line catalogue - and I think you should.

15th November, 2005

T'S AMAZING what you can find at Sainsburys... true, they do have a little man who follows me around and carefully notes what I buy, so that they can drop those lines from their stock - I must admit I haven't caught him at it, but he must exist. Perhaps it's really one of those women pushing a trolley with one hand while yapping into a mobile phone - 'yes, he's gone for the Rakusens herb and onion crackers again - don't order any more of them!' It's the only possible explanation. If I buy it, it disappears.

Still, sometimes you light on the unexpected. I happened to notice a rather half-hearted display of CDs - all the usual junk, Elvis Presley and the like - but a nugget amongst the dross - a double CD of early Doris Day recordings, made when she was a band singer with Les Brown (and his Band of Renown). I was not really a DD fan in her movie days - as Oscar Levant said 'I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin!' - and immaculate though her performances were I just appreciated them for what they were and left it at that. But the young Doris was really an exceptional singer of standards with a gorgeous, seductive voice, great phrasing and immaculate pitching.
The Les Brown band was pretty good too!

Young Miss Kappelhof (or Kappelhoff or even von Kapelhoff) had been in a car accident and the resulting broken bones had kept her house-bound for a year, during which she listened to a lot of radio, and in particular to a young chantoozy by the name of Ella Fitzgerald (wonder whatever became of her?). When I first listened to my Sainsburys double CD (£3! A little over 8 pence per track!) there were times when I thought 'she sounds black - almost' - and that year as a shut-in must have been the reason. Study time!

These are recordings from an era when popular music was aimed at young adults, rather than at adolescents, so there are a lot of fine songs here, among them 'Sentimental Journey', 'Aren't You Glad You're You', 'The Last Time I Saw You' and 'We'll Be Together Again'. But the band thrush had to sing what was thrown at her, and that stuff is here too! 'Celery Stalks At Midnight', 'Alexander the Swoose (Half Swan-Half Goose)' and 'Booglie Wooglie Piggy' are not the stuff that standards are made of, but what the hey - they're fun, and recorded with just as much professionalism as the good stuff!.

This Double CD would probably not be a Jamie Oliver recommendation (though who knows?) but for me it's a recipe for real listening pleasure. Another grape, please Beulah...

4th January, 2005

IME FOR ANOTHER DIP into my CD collection, I think... You may notice, if you have been here recently, that I have shifted the two previous CD reviews to their own page. Well, they tend to take up a lot of space, even though I try to keep them down to a minimum - rather like me, in fact.

Way back in the early 1950s, when we still bought our music on thick, shellac 78rpm records, I heard something that stunned me. Jazz or swing tended always to be harmonically lush, but here was a quartet with not a single multi-voiced instrument! No piano, no guitar - just trumpet, saxophone string bass and drums. And the saxophone was not the usual alto or tenor, but the more cumbersome baritone - I can testify to its cumbersome nature having had to carry one when depping for a bari player!

Gerry Mulligan, the saxophonist, wrote arrangements that left ample space for solo improvisation, framed by carefully scored statements for the two horns, with the bass sometimes adding a third voice. This sound was fresh and uncluttered - it had spaces in it. Mulligan's own compositions were the ones I remember best; Nights At The Turntable, Soft Shoe and Walkin' Shoes take me back to a time when I was still at school, hearing everything for the first time - and loving it!

This particular CD features the original Quartet, with the trumpet of Chet Baker (later combinations featured Bob Brookmeyer on the comparatively rare valve trombone). Baker played with an introspective, vibrato-less sound that owed something to Miles Davis, and his inventive solos flow with great lucidity - in particular I love this arrangement of the Rodgers and Hart standard My Funny Valentine.

For a change, these modern jazz recordings found their way into the dim consciousness of the general public of the time. The Quartet in this form lasted just eleven months, and this CD enshrines its output. I couldn't say why, but there is one tune here that I really can't say I like, although it was being recorded by the world and his wife at the time. My Old Flame just doesn't hit the spot for me, although this version is a good one. Odd, that.

1. Bernie's Tune (Bernie Miller)
2. Nights At The Turntable (Gerry Mulligan)
3. Freeway (Chet Baker)
4. Soft Shoe (Gerry Mulligan)
5. Walkin' Shoes (Gerry Mulligan)
6. Makin' Whoopee (Kahn-Donaldson)
7. Carson City Stage (Carson Smith)
8. My Old Flame (Coslow-Johnston)
9. Love Me Or Leave Me (Kahn-Donaldson)
10. Swinghouse (Gerry Mulligan)
11. Jeru (Gerry Mulligan)
12. Darn That Dream (De Lange-Van Heusen)
13. I'm Beginning To See The Light (Ellington-James-Hodges)
14. My Funny Valentine (Rodgers-Hart)
15. Festive Minor (Gerry Mulligan)

8th December, 2004

F YOU ARE "INTO" what people nowadays refer to as a "Big Band" sound, you can forget all those old Glen Miller tracks: THIS is what a real orchestra sounds like. This CD is my third copy of this 1957 album - I bought the second LP when I had worn the first one flat, and the CD as soon as I had a player for it.

E=MC² = COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA + NEIL HEFTI ARRANGEMENTS is what the strap line on the cover says. What we have here is eleven stomping, romping compositions by arranger Neil Hefti, played by the band that Basie put together in the 50s, after a rather lean period leading a small group. Oh, it's not all loud and frantic (not that it's ever frantic) - tracks like Midnite Blue and Lil' Darlin' caress rather than carouse, while never losing that elusive swing thing.

Many Basie devotees think of the Count as hailing from Kansas City, where he first made his name as a musician, but in fact he was born (1904) in Red Bank, New Jersey. Thus the title of Track 1, in which Basie demonstrates that his minimalist piano style masks a phenomenal technique. Reverting to his early roots he gouges great double handfuls of stride piano out of the keyboard - the boss is definitely in charge!

Solo honours on the rest of the album go mainly to Texan tough tenor, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, who has a sound big enough to tie a horse to - hear After Supper and Flight Of The Foo Birds and marvel at so much horn... no, I have no idea what a Foo Bird is, either, but I love the noise it makes. The alto sax of Frank Wess, in Fantail is, as the sleeve-note observes, appropriately Bird-like and for contrast, the oldest member of the band, Wendell Culley, contributes a wistful, ruminative muted trumpet solo on Lil' Darlin'. On the latter, you actually get to hear Freddie Greene's guitar up front for once, too. Throughout, the Basie rhythm section ticks as though it's running in an oil bath: smooth and masterly, four-to-the-bar dynamite.

This orchestra was monumental. If you like to hear a band - this has to be on your CD shelf.

The tracks:

1. The Kid From Red Bank
2. Duet
3. After Supper
4. Flight Of The Foo Birds
5. Double-O
6. Teddy The Toad
7. Whirly-Bird
8. Midnite Blue
9. Splanky
10. Fantail
11. Lil' Darlin'

4th November, 2004

N A VERY GREAT MANY of the web sites that one lights upon, it seems to be taken for granted that everybody finds the latest effluent from the "rock" or "pop" sludge-beds to be not only wildly attractive, dahlink, but absolutely, rivettingly fascinating.

Well, not here it ain't. So in full knowledge of the fact that one is attempting to fight thunder with flatulence, I thought I would start an occasional series of CD reviews, featuring items from my own sagging shelves, full of the less than bleedin' obvious. And to get things underway, moving right along (as they used to say), let's make a tentative start with this minor masterpiece:

Chasin' Rainbows - R. Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders

The onlie begetter of Fritz the Cat and Mr Natural, among other icons of "underground" comics, posters and books, R. Crumb is a geekie one-off. In addition to having originated so much that is dear to the aging hippy, he is/was an avid collector of old 78-rpm shellac records, and eventually formed his own string band to play some of the material therefrom. This CD, (Shanachie 6002) enshrines the second album of the three the group made in the early 70s. The band's repertoire is composed of 1920s songs, plus some more recent material written in that style.

The personnel:
R. Crumb	banjo and vocals
Allan Dodge	mandolin, violin, ukelele and vocals
Robert Armstrong	guitar, accordion, banjo, saw and vocals
Terry Zwigoff	'cello
Irene Hermann	bells on "I Want A Little Girl"
Tom Marion	guitar on "Alabama Jubilee" and "Crying My Blues Away" banjo and mandolin on "Moana March"

The first thing I notice is the atmosphere of sheer enjoyment caught here. These are not technically accomplished players for the most part, and the vocal renditions (limb-from-limb?) sometimes remind me of the WWII all-clear in their siren-like whining. But it's delightfully easy to slip into the illusion that you are right thar on the porch, possibly in a rocking chair, hearing the locals pick up on what they have heard on the danged new-fangled radio... if the descriptive word is "amateur", it's used in the original sense; of someone doing it for the love of it. And that is ample reason to enjoy this selection of deathless ditties.

The songs:
Alabama Jubilee	No credit shown. Why not? By George L Cobb and Jack Yellen
Chasin' Rainbows	Dallas String Band
Fine Artiste Blues	Watt, Armstrong, Dodge
I Want A Little Girl	Mencher-Moll
Persian Rug	Morét-Kahn
Mysterious Mose	Doyle
Crying Your Blues Away	Wynn Miller
She Lived Down By The Firehouse	No credits given - I have been unable to trace this song
Diane	Rapee-Pollack
Make My Cot Where The Cot-Cot-Cotton Grows	LeSoir-Doll-Klein
Moana March	Mosiello