December 2006

December 28, 2006
 

 
Note: I am very pleased to welcome back guest contributor Eddie The Collector.  Eddie will be providing both the main update as well as the "Extra."  The  records and commentary are Eddie's - my only contribution was to transfer and digitalize the recordings.   You may read more about Eddie as well as view his photo and contact information by clicking here. 
 
 
 

This week's Hit of the Week record has a distinct Texas accent, provided for us by one of the great territory bands of the Central Texas area - Fred Gardner's Texas University Troubadours.  The name describes the personnel perfectly - all graduates from the mid and late '20s of the University of Texas in Austin. 

Fred Gardner formed his orchestra in the late '20s, as had his brother Jack and fellow alumni Jimmie Joy established their bands in the early and mid-20s.  Fred, Jack and Jimmie Joy were all recorded by the Okeh record company using their portable equipment in Dallas (Baker Hotel), San Antonio (St. Anthony Hotel), and no doubt played in Ft. Worth, Austin and other Texas cities during the '20s and maybe even my hometown of Waco which is situated mid-way between Austin and Dallas/Ft. Worth. 

Okeh was acquired by Columbia in late 1925 or early 1926, but the practice of making on-location recordings continued throughout the decade, including this week's which were recorded in San Antonio's St. Anthony Hotel in June, 1930.

[Audio restoration note:  This record has a fair amount of surface noise,  especially on the "Loveless Love" side. I have cleaned it up to a certain degree but have chosen to leave much of the noise in so as to not impact the music or create unnatural sounding effects that would result from a greater degree of noise reduction.  The overall performance, however, is still very enjoyable. - Dismuke]

Papa's Gone
Fred Gardner's Texas University Troubadours
Jay "Bird" Thomas, vocal                                             1930
(Okeh 41440 mx 404100 )

As I noted earlier, both sides of this record have a definite Texas twang to them - not the least of which is delivered by the vocalist Jay "Bird" Thomas.  I might even take the liberty of saying that his style and sound have a slight resemblance to that of fellow Texan Smith Ballew. 

Of special note amongst the personnel on this record is cornet player Thomas Alva Howell, Jr. (1906-1989), whom the English mistakenly identified as Bix because of his skill and the beauty of his playing - he dominates the playing during the last third of the side.  The arrangement has the definite feel of a Texas band - hard to describe, but you know it when you hear it, to paraphrase the Supreme Court justice in his description of pornography.

Loveless Love
Fred Gardner's Texas University Troubadours 
Jay "Bird" Thomas, vocal                                             1930
(Okeh 41440 mx 404099)

This side is slower and more bluesy, but nonetheless a lovely tune delivered again by Jay Thomas.
 

- Eddie The Collector

 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
 
 

The following record again demonstrates the prowess of the General Phonograph Corporation, which made records under the Okeh label prior to Columbia's ownership, in seeking out and recording interesting territory bands.  In this instance, the record received its own customized label bearing a nautical theme befitting the group of young men from the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD - called appropriately the U. S. Naval Academy Ten. 

Okeh territory bands of this period were often recorded on-site in hotel ballrooms, but this one was recorded in one of the more unusual settings, the Laboratory of the Globe Furniture Co., Annapolis, MD.

Navy Girl
U.S. Naval Academy Ten
O.F.Naquin, director                                                  1925
(Okeh 40447 A)

This is the Fox Trot side, a composition by T. B. Klakring, directed by Oliver Francis Naquin (1904-1989), Rear Admiral, United States Navy, a 1925 graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy.  He was one of 33 men rescued by an experimental diving bell when the submarine USS Squalus sank in the Atlantic ocean in August, 1939. He was the commanding officer of the vessel when the two-day rescue operation off the coast of Portsmouth, NH, captured world-wide attention. 

Rear Admiral Thomas B. Klakring (1904-1975) was also a 1925 graduate and during WW II was commander of the USS Submarine Guardfish.  Admiral Klakring was credited with sinking eight Japanese ships within sight of Japanese ports, after taking his submarine into Japanese water previously un-patrolled by American submarines.  The USS Klakring was named in his honor and was commissioned on August 20, 1983. 

Navy Girl is a bright, peppy tune perfectly representative of its time of recording in June, 1925.  I can see her now - dressed in a knee-length Navy blue skirt, wearing a pretty white blouse with a Navy collar, bright red Cupid's bow lips, big blue eyes, bobbed and shingled hair topped with a jaunty sailor's cap.

Naval Academy Songs
U.S.Naval Academy Band 
H.J.Peterman, director                                                1925
(Okeh 40447 B)

This is a medley of traditional Naval songs arranged and directed by H. J. Peterman, 8th leader of the U. S. Naval Academy Band, 1922-1932.
 

 - Eddie The Collector

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December 14, 2006

 

At Last I'm Happy
Ted Lewis And His Band
Ted Lewis, vocal                                                         1931
(Columbia 2408-D mx 151197)

Maybe Who Knows
Ted Lewis And His Band
Ted Lewis, vocal                                                         1929
(Columbia 1854 D mx 148562)

Wear A Hat With A Silver Lining
Ted Lewis And His Band
Ted Lewis, vocal                                                         1928
(Columbia 1656 D mx 147693)
 
 

For whatever reason, Ted Lewis is one of the more controversial artists that I regularly feature on Radio Dismuke.  I actually receive the occasional email from people expressing their dislike for his music.  Personally, I consider myself to be a fan of his recordings.  Most are very jazzy and, I think, quite fun.   While some consider Lewis's recordings to be "corny" his band featured some of the top jazz musicians of the era including Benny Goodman, Mugsy Spanier and Manny Klein. 

Lewis was born Theodore Leopold Friedman.   In 1906 at the age of 16 he began performing in vaudeville.  He was inspired to change his last name after he teamed up with another vaudeville performer named Lewis and the act was mistakenly listed as the team of "Lewis and Lewis."  Lewis formed his first band in 1916 and called it "Ted Lewis And His Nut Band." 

Long after Lewis transitioned to records and radio, his band's performing style continued to be very vaudeville oriented with gimmicks such as his trademark battered top hat and his phrase "Is everybody happy?"   Though his popularity began to decline somewhat as the 1930s progressed, Lewis's career spanned 61 years and he continued to perform until 1967 when he retired after a farewell performance at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas.

"At Last I'm Happy" and "Maybe Who Knows" are both jazzy and upbeat. "Wear A Hat With A Silver Lining" is an example of the sort of Ted Lewis recording that some classify as being "corny."  I happen to enjoy it and think it has a certain haunting quality about it. 

- Dismuke

 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
 
 
 

Cuban Pete
Desi Arnaz And His Orchestra 
Desi Arnaz, Amanda Lane, vocals                                1944
(RCA Victor 25-1058-B)

Without You
Desi Arnaz And His Orchestra 
Desi Arnaz, Amanda Lane, vocals                                 1944
(RCA Victor 25-1058-A)
 
 

Desi Arnaz is best remembered for his "Ricky Ricardo" role on the top rated 1950s television show I Love Lucy in which he played the role of a Cuban bandleader opposite his real life wife Lucille Ball.   Arnaz and Ball also owned one of the era's most successful and powerful Hollywood studios, Desilu Productions which was responsible for a number of 1950s and 1960s hit television series.    What many may not realize is that the Ricky Ricardo role was semi-autobiographical and that Arnaz was previously a highly successful Latin-style bandleader.

Arnaz was born to a wealthy family in Cuba where his father was a successful politician and mayor of Cuba's second largest city,  Santiago de Cuba.    The family was forced to flee to Miami in 1933 when a revolution brought the regime of  Fulgencio Batista into power. 

Arnaz's big break came in 1937 when he was discovered playing in a Miami band by America's most famous Latin bandleader, Xavier Cugat, who offered him a position in his New York City band.   After a few months, he persuaded Cugat to back him in establishing a Miami-based band called Desi Arnaz & His Xavier Cugat Orchestra.   Not long afterwards Arnaz formed his own band independent of Cugat.

Arnaz's early fame was centered around his introduction of the Conga-Line to American audiences and for his popularization of conga drums.  In 1939 he was offered a role in the Broadway production Too Many Girls.  The production was successful and landed him a role in the 1940 RKO movie version of the show.  It was at RKO where Arnaz met and married Lucille Ball. 

This 1944 recording of "Cuban Pete" was a big hit for Arnaz and he made it his band's theme song.   The Arnaz band was also the house band on Bob Hope's radio program from 1946 to 1947.   The band made its last recordings in 1949 and Arnaz subsequently focused his career on his television series and production company. 
 

 - Dismuke

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December 7, 2006
 
 

 

Louise
Lou Gold And His Orchestra
Irving Kaufman, vocal                                                                  1928
(Cameo 8333 mx 3364)

Sonny Boy
Sam Lanin And His Troubadours
Walter Scanlan, vocal                                                                   1928
(Cameo 8333 mx 3372)

My Love Parade
Majestic Dance Orchestra
Scrappy Lambert, vocal                                                                1930
(Perfect 15284-B mx 9391)

The Stein Song
Hollywood Dance Orchestra
Irving Kaufman and Trip, vocal                                                      1930
(Perfect 15284 A mx 9406)
 
 

Here are some selections from a couple of "dime store" dance band records.  So called "dime store" records were low priced record labels that were distributed through outlets such as mass merchandise retail chains and the large mail order catalog retailers.   While the records were inexpensive and sometimes not of the best manufacturing quality and usually featured highly commercial tunes targeted towards audience, the recording sessions often included some of the top New York jazz musicians of the day. 

Lou Gold, Sam Lanin and Adrian Schubert (whose band appears on this update under the Majestic Dance Orchestra pseudonym)  were three of the major New York City recording studio bandleaders of the late 1920s and early 1930s.  Their bands, which frequently used the same musicians, turned out hundreds upon hundreds of recordings under a wide variety of recording pseudonyms. 

This week's recording of "Louise" features a somewhat obscure composition by Al Johns and is a completely different song from the much more famous 1929 Leo Robins - Richard Whiting tune of the same name.

"Sonny Boy" was the theme song from 1928 film The Singing Fool, an early movie musical that starred Al Jolson. 

"My Love Parade" comes from the 1929 Ernst Lubitsch film The Love Parade which starred Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier.   Be sure to listen for the outstanding "hot dance" arrangement that starts immediately after the vocal and continues through the end of the record.  I played this record for the first time the other evening while searching for selections to include in this update - and I ended up playing the last half of it over and over again at least a half dozen times. 

"The Stein Song" is a University of Maine school fight song and was a very big 1930 hit for Rudy Vallee.   The song dates back to 1904 when its two freshmen composers Lincoln Colcord (words) and Adelbert Sprague (music) entered it into a campus minstrel show song competition.   Sprague's tune was based on a German march  by E. A. Fenstad called "Opie."  I featured a version of the song by Jack Albin's Hotel Pennsylvania music on my May 19, 2005 update.

- Dismuke

 

EXTRA

This section will  present 78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop and jazz  fare that I usually  present.  Here I will feature recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
 
 

Das Lied ist aus
Richard Tauber, vocal 
Odeon Künstler-Orchester                                               1930
(Odeon O-4983a mx Be 9320)

Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizier
Richard Tauber, vocal 
Odeon Künstler-Orchester                                               1930
(Odeon O-4983b - mx Be 9321)
 
 

In his recent November 23 "Extra"  Matt From College Station featured a rare RCA-Victor Program Transcription featuring an English lyrics version of the Robert Stolz song "Don't Ask Me Why" which comes from the German Tonefilm Das Lied ist aus.   I was recently going through some records and discovered I actually had a German version of the song that I had forgotten about.   Richard Tauber was one of the most famous tenors in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s and I highly recommend his recordings. 

"Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizer" is also from the same film.  This particular recording by Tauber made it to number 7 on the German music charts in 1930. 
 

 - Dismuke