Bob Manning - The Complete Capitol Singles

The sonorous baritone Bob Manning has been heard several times on this blog, most recently with a post of his sole Capitol LP, the excellent Lonely Spell. For today's offering, I've assembled his complete Capitol singles, 32 sides in all dating from 1952-55.

Although there are some standards mixed into the group, for the most part Manning was dependent on the songwriters of the day for material. And while Capitol did provide songs from some of the better-known composers of the day, some of the material is mundane. There is much to be enjoyed, however.

Manning's first Capitol release - and his biggest hit - was a standard, "The Nearness of You." The singer actually produced this recording himself, probably in 1952, and brought it to Capitol, seeking a contract. It worked, and he was on his way to the most productive part of his career.

"The Nearness of You" was coupled with "Gypsy Girl," from the young tandem of Jerry Ross and Richard Adler, who would have two huge hits on Broadway just a few years later - The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees. Leading the orchestra was Monty Kelly, who also conducted Lonely Spell and several of the records below.

In January 1953, Manning was in a New York City studio with Sid Feller for a Capitol date that produced "The Sun Is Getting Ready to Shine," a giddy, galloping piece from Adler and Ross. More to my taste - and better suited to Manning's style - was "You Can Live with a Broken Heart."

In May, the team of Manning and Feller (who also was a Capitol A&R man) again collaborated for two songs. The better known is "It's All Right with Me," from Cole Porter's score for Can-Can, then on Broadway. "All I Desire" came from the Douglas Sirk Hollywood melodrama of the same name.

By July 1953, Manning had become Cash Box's most impressive new artist

For an August date, Capitol again paired standards with lesser-known songs. Rodgers and Hart's "It's Easy to Remember" was packaged with the Bernie Wayne-Hy Gilbert "I Feel So Mmmm," which was as unappealing as the title sounds. Ray Noble's wonderful "The Very Thought of You" was backed by the earnestly ridiculous "Venus Di Milo." ("Where are the arms and heart of you?", Manning pleads.) Monty Kelly was back in charge of the orchestra.

Capitol unaccountably gave a big push to "Venus Di Milo" - see the Cash Box cover below.

Click to enlarge

The final session of 1953, in late November, was with a small group featuring trumpeter Bobby Hackett. Capitol had enjoyed great success with Hackett providing obbligatos for soupy instrumental LPs issued under the name of comedian Jackie Gleason. This session, however, produced only one issued number, the oldie "You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)," which is associated with both Al Jolson and Judy Garland. Manning and Hackett do OK by the song, although the singer was not a belter in the style of Jolie or Judy, and Hackett for once is too intrusive.

From Capitol's Music Views magazine

For Manning's next Capitol session, in early January 1954, the label matched him with the excellent Nelson Riddle for four songs. First was Gordon Jenkins' lovely but tragic "Good-bye," which was backed by the silly "That's a-Me and My Love."

That same session produced a coupling of "Why Didn't You Tell Me" and "I Wasn't There with You," two little-known but worthwhile songs. Both are beautifully done, with superior arrangements. Manning of course excelled with this romantic material.

An uncredited George Siravo led the band for an August 1954 date that yielded the sing-songy "I'm a Fool for You" along with a coupling of "Just for Laughs" and "The Other Side of the Story." "Just for Laughs" is a standard by the talented Bennie Benjamin and George Weiss. "The Other Side of the Story" (and record) was written by clarinetist Joe Marsala, whose biggest songwriting hit was "Don't Cry Joe" a few years before. It's not a bad number, and Manning is sympathetic.

Billboard ad, December 1954

Manning's next session, in December 1954, yielded perhaps his most unusual record. The song is question was used a plot device for a "Honeymooners" sketch from Jackie Gleason's television show. In the episode, the bus driver Ralph Kramden (Gleason) and sewer worker Ed Norton (Art Carney) try to get rich by writing a popular song inspired by the noises of their tenement (shades of "Tenement Symphony"). The music and lyrics for the resulting number, "My Love Song to You," were supplied by Roy Alfred and Al Frisch, with the vocals by Manning.

Ironically, the plot has the publisher throwing out Kramden's lyrics in favor of a professional's work - but the sheet music shows Gleason on the cover in his bus driver's outfit.

For the flip side, Capitol chose a revival of Roy Turk and Charles Tobias' 1928 hit "After My Laughter Came Tears."

A few days later, Manning was back in the studio with Monty Kelly for a date that produced four numbers. "The Mission San Michel" is one of those songs where the singer, accompanied by a heavenly choir, prays for someone to love, who then miraculously appears. The whole scenario seems vaguely blasphemous (not to mention ridiculous), but Manning's sincerity wins out. Its coupling, "You Are There," is a not unpleasant but completely conventional ballad.

Monty Kelly not only backed Bob Manning on his recording of "Majorca," he did an instrumental version for Essex

Manning and Kelly do great justice to the European hit "Majorca (Isle of Love)," an attractive song that was a hit for the young Petula Clark. The coupling was the equally attractive "It's Your Life" from the prolific Charles Tobias, working with Nat Simon.

For the balance of his Capitol stay, Manning recorded only newer songs for single release. He was distinctly better at standards, but they were confined to his Lonely Spell LP. He and Sid Feller recorded four of those newer songs in April 1955. First, the inoffensive "This Is No Laughing Matter" was backed with "What a Wonderful Way to Die," by the amazingly prolific and inconsistent Bob Merrill. This is one of his cruder compositions.

"This Is All Very New to Me" at least had the pedigree of being from a Broadway hit, Plain and Fancy, the Albert Hague-Arnold Horwitt musical that ran for more than a year. Its coupling is "Whose Heart Are You Breaking Now?" by Teddy Powell writing under the name Freddy James.

Cash Box still considered Manning a future star in mid-1955

Most of Manning's remaining Capitol sessions were devoted to his LP. An August 1955 date with Monty Kelly did yield a single coupling of "I Better Be Careful" and "Honestly," both by the interesting team of Charles Singleton and Rose Marie McCoy. The duo started out writing R&B songs, then veered into pop territory. Singleton's biggest successes came later in writing lyrics for two Bert Kaempfert instrumentals that were turned into the huge 1960s hits, "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes." Manning had no such luck with his tunes.

The singer's final assignment with Capitol was devoted to "Beggar or King," by the highly successful duo of Sid Tepper and Roy Bennett, and "The Day We Fell in Love," by the eminent Jerry Bock working with his first collaborator, Larry Holofcener. They aren't bad songs, but not as successful as Tepper's "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" or Bock's "Matchmaker, Matchmaker."

This last coupling came from a October 1955 date that the Capitol sessionography lists as being directed by Monty Kelly and the label insists was led by Earl Sheldon. My guess is that Kelly wrote the arrangements.

Manning then was to move on to RCA Victor, while his producer Sid Feller switched to ABC-Paramount. Feller subsequently produced and arranged for Ray Charles for 30 years.

Sid Feller with Ray Charles

Let me thank Nigel Burlinson for once again supplying discographical information, which makes endeavors such as this possible. The records themselves came from my collection and Internet Archive transfers. The sound is generally excellent.

If there are any Manning completists out there other than me, let me mention that Capitol's 1990s "Great Ladies and Gentlemen of Song" release devoted to the singer includes two previously unissued songs that aren't covered here.

I am preparing another post covering Manning's earliest recordings, dating from 1947-50.

Fiedler Conducts Grofé, Gershwin and Copland

This post is the result of a request for my help in cleaning up a noisy Internet Archive transfer. The record is Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, in the recording by the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler.

It seems that this is something of a rare item, at least in its stereo incarnation. Apparently it has appeared only twice - on a stereo tape and then on this RCA Victrola reissue.

The original mono issue

The suite was a relatively early exercise in stereo recording by the RCA engineers. It dates from a June 25, 1955 session in Symphony Hall that also produced a reading of Copland's El Salón México, its discmate on the original Red Seal mono issue. You may well have seen the mono LP. It was popular, with its striking photo of the Grand Canyon - much to be preferred to the stereo cover, which has a fuzzy photo of the Pops superimposed on a denatured Grand Canyon.

So, you may ask, why didn't the Victrola reissue include the Copland? I'm not sure, but I don't believe the Copland has ever appeared in stereo, and the Victrola folks must have wanted to include another two-channel recording as a coupling. Thus the inclusion of the 1963 Pops recording of An American in Paris.

RCA has reissued El Salón México in the ersatz "electronic stereo" format, so its stereo master may have been lost or damaged. Or the work may have not been recorded in stereo, although that seems unlikely.

Too bad, because the Grand Canyon Suite is quite a good early stereo recording. These early examples of two-channel recording used simple microphone setups and can provide a convincing facsimile of an orchestra in a concert hall. That's more than can be said of the Gershwin recording, which, while punchy, sounds nothing like the "real thing."

Arthur Fiedler

The download includes the Grofé, Gershwin and Copland works, the latter in unmolested mono, along with the usual scans and reviews. The performances are good, with the characteristic Fiedler drive that never turns brusque.

Remembering Anita Kerr

Anita Kerr achieved a great deal of acclaim for her singing, arranging and productions during her long career, but even so remains insufficiently recognized.

Kerr, who died last week at age 94, was for 15 years one of the strongest influences on the Nashville sound. But she has never been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Although Kerr is associated with C&W, she spent most of her career in Los Angeles and Europe, and the recordings under her own name are largely straight-ahead pop - even many of those made early in her career when she was resident in Music City.

Kerr's vocal recordings and arrangements -  elegant, understated and even a little melancholy - influenced many other artists. At a time when group vocals could be blaring (the Four Lads) or overtly hip (Lambert, Hendricks and Ross), hers were subtle. Bland? At times.

Her earliest records are from 1950, when she was a session organist for several Victor artists, starting with Eddy Arnold. Her first vocal break in Nashville was recording gospel songs with Red Foley in 1951, and virtually all her earliest records are in that genre, one to which she would often return.

During most of her early years, Kerr was a Decca artist. Later in 1950s she recorded her only album for that company. It is the first of two Kerr recordings transferred for this post, which I believe are her two first LPs. You will note that on both LPs, there is nothing that sounds identifiably country or Nashville. Her own records are squarely in the pop realm, and she would become a very successful mainstream recording artist in the 1960s.

Voices in Hi-Fi

Kerr's groups were generally called the Anita Kerr Singers. That name was on her early Red Foley records and most of her work after she moved to Los Angeles in 1965. Today's LPs, however, came from the Anita Kerr Quartet. 

The Singers were originally an eight-voice ensemble, but Kerr trimmed the group for a 1956 appearance on the television show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. She took that Quartet that into a New York studio a year later for the Decca release Voices in Hi-Fi. The sessions were in May and September 1957.

The vocalists, who I believe recorded with her throughout much of her time in Nashville, were Dottie Dillard, alto, Gil Wright, tenor, and Louis Nunley, baritone - along with Kerr's soprano.

Most songs on the LP are standards, with a few well chosen exceptions such as "With the Wind and Rain in Your Hair," a very good 1940 pop song. Perhaps the only misfire is "Rockin' Chair," where the group cooing "Fetch me my gin, son, 'fore I tan your hide" doesn't really work.

The instrumental arrangements are by Jack Pleis and Ralph Burns. Both are facile arrangers from the big band tradition. Oddly, in his "For You" arrangement Burns uses a riff also heard prominently in Sinatra's "Witchcraft" - even though the Kerr song was recorded a few weeks before Nelson Riddle conducted the Sinatra session. They both may have borrowed the riff from the same source.

Decca's sound is very good. Their cover is dorky, as usual with that company, with the singers staring wonderingly at the back of a woofer.

Velvet Voices Through the Night

The second offering by the Anita Kerr Singers is Velvet Voices Through the Night, made circa 1959 for the publishing rights organization SESAC and sent to radio stations. Another such LP, by the Elliot Lawrence band, recently appeared here.

All songs on the record were handled by a SESAC-affiliated publisher. SESAC was much smaller than ASCAP or BMI, so that limited the compositions that would qualify. As a result, five of the 12 songs were classical adaptations and presumably newly republished, with a sixth a folk-derived tune.

Kerr is credited with the Beethoven adaptation ("Moonlight"), the Offenbach ("Wondrous Night') and the folk song ("All Through the Night"). The Schubert ("All My Life I've Dreamed of You") is not attributed. It's likely that Kerr handled the instrumental as well as the vocal arrangements for the LP, but the cover is ambiguous on that point.

Of the non-classical items, the best known piece is Heinz Provost's "Intermezzo," from the 1939 film of the same name.

The performances are all very fine, aided by three Nashville colleagues of Kerr - trumpeter Karl Garvin, guitarist Hank Garland and keyboard player Mary Elizabeth Hicks. SESAC's sound, however, is not that good, with slight distortion at climaxes and a great deal of vocal sibilance, which I've tamed to an extent. My pressing was faulty, so I had to resort to lossless versions for most of the first song on each side. The sound is better elsewhere on the record.

There is more about Kerr's career in this New York Times obituary. I hope to devote another post to her later recordings.

The Anita Kerr Singers after moving to RCA in the early 1960s

Bour Conducts d'Indy

The music of French composer Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931) is not often heard in the concert hall, but various record companies have kept it alive through their releases.

Even so, the current record catalogue displays few contemporary recordings of the composer's most popular work, the Symphonie Sur un Chant Montagnard Français (Symphony on a French Mountain Air). It's amazing that such an extraordinary delightful work should be so neglected. And perhaps d'Indy's best work, Jour d'Été a la Montagne (Summer Day on the Mountain), is even less known.

This Ducretet-Thompson release from 1954 pairs the works in fine performances from two artists who are themselves underrated - conductor Ernest Bour and, in the Symphonie Sur un Chant Montagnard Français, pianist Daniël Wayenberg.

1951 commemorative postcard

Although d'Indy was an important teacher (Roussel, Magnard, Canteloube Milhaud and Honegger were among his students), he also was something of maverick. A disciple of Franck, he was a champion of German music at a time when other French composers, such as Saint-Saëns, were little inclined to look outside of France for inspiration. He also was out of favor with such younger composers as Ravel.

But that's irrelevant to enjoying the music on this disc. The Symphonie Sur un Chant Montagnard Français is pure pleasure, building on memorable folk tunes, and superbly presented here, particularly by the graceful pianist Daniël Wayenberg.

Jour d'Été a la Montagne is "one of the noblest musical scores inspired by nature," or so wrote critic Peter Hugh Reed in a review included in the download.

Ernest Bour

Conductor Bour (1913-2001), born in Alsace-Lorraine, was known as an exponent of contemporary music. He led premieres of works by such composers as Górecki, Ligeti, Rihm, Stockhausen and Xenakis, while serving as music director in Strasbourg and Baden-Baden.

Daniël Wayenberg

The gifted pianist Wayenberg (1929-2019) was of Dutch extraction but lived most of his adult life in Paris. He was first-prize winner at the 1949 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition. Wayenberg also was a composer and maintained an interest in jazz.

Reviewer Reed credits Wayenberg with sharpening the conductor's rhythm, but I can find no fault with the direction. If you are familiar with the French orchestras of the time, these performances will seem typical. The Symphonie is with the Orchestre du Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, which may be a nom du disque for one of the many Parisian orchestras, possibly the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, which gave concerts at the time in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. (The Conservatoire orchestra had recorded the Symphonie in 1953 with its music director, André Cluytens.)

For Jour d'Été a la Montagne Bour conducts the Orchestre Radio-Symphonique, which may have been the Orchestre National de la Radio-Télévision Française, the present-day Orchestre National de France.

The recordings are good for the time. Note that Jour d'Été a la Montagne begins at a very low level, depicting the dawn. For the release, Decca-London provided a cover in children's picture-book style, a contrast with the pastels of the French cover at left.

The Young David Allyn - 1946-49

Two recent posts here celebrated the vocal artistry of David Allyn - presenting one of his best LPs, from 1959, and his earliest recordings, from 1940-45. Today we complete the survey of Allyn's work in the 1940s, including work with Boyd Raeburn, Johnny Richards and others dating from 1946-49 - 24 sides in all.

These include all his commercial discs from that period (to my knowledge) along with a number of transcriptions. These came from my collection, with a few additions from Internet Archive.

As I wrote about Allyn in the first installment of this series, "He was a warm, flexible and intelligent artist who was as comfortable with ballads as he was with jazz ensembles." In short, he was one of the finest vocalists of the 20th century, still too little known.

With Boyd Raeburn, Part 2

We start with seven circa 1946 transcriptions with Boyd Raeburn's band, and it's immediately clear that the 27-year-old Allyn had already become a secure artist, comfortable at all tempos and with varied material. The first item, "I Don't Care Who Knows It" is a standard pop song of the time, but Allyn puts it across convincingly, with the assist of a good boppish chart from an unnamed arranger.

We do know who did the next chart - 20-year-old prodigy Johnny Mandel handled "If I Loved You" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's new show, Carousel. It's proficient work, but the real interest is in Allyn's caressing vocal, warm and wistful. The bass sax solo is by bandleader Raeburn (shown above on tenor sax, accompanying Allyn).

David Allyn

George Handy returns with one of his best-known songs, "Forgetful," heard in the first set in its commercial recording. As I wrote before, "'Forgetful' is not a good tune, but Allyn puts it across with authority."

Allyn was to return to Handy's hipster "Where You At?" in 1963 with Bob Florence, but here is supported by a good chart from the composer, a vocal from Ginny Powell (sounding like Peggy Lee), and a trumpet solo from Ray Linn.

Next is the excellent Arlen-Mercer song, "Out of This World," introduced by Bing in 1945 and a hit for Jo Stafford. Considering the title, Handy's surrealistic arrangement may be appropriate, but how Allyn could sing so beautifully with such distracting backgrounds is a mystery.

"Picnic in the Wintertime" also was included in the first collection in a live recording. This transcription is mercifully without that version's Ernie Whitman announcements.

"Blue Echoes" appears in this set in two versions - first the transcription and then a commercial recording for Jewel made in June 1946. It's not a great song, especially with a Handy arrangement that seems to throw in effects at random. Both editions use the same chart, but the Jewel performance is smoother.

The Jewel side is taken from an album called Innovations. The cover below is an amusing period piece, with Boyd shown in the center with a plant thing coming out of his head and the bearded Handy next to him. You are welcome to examine this artwork for any meaning you can derive from it.

The more straightforward inside cover below has several excellent photos of the band. That's Raeburn on the lower left with his wife, Ginny Powell.

The final Jewel single was recorded in February 1946. "I Only Have Eyes for You" has a relatively restrained Handy arrangement (still loud but with not as many peculiar interjections) and a sensitive Allyn interpretation. 

The First Solo Singles

The Raeburn band was to break up late in 1946, but by then Allyn had begun recording as a single artist for small labels.

Atomic records issued four songs under Allyn's name. Bandleader Frank Devenport and label owner Lyle Griffin collaborated on the first composition, "Chinero." It's an OK song, with better melody than words (e.g., "Like the stars shining in the heavens above, you shine"). The record features good guitar work by Al Hendrickson, himself a singer who later recorded an LP as Tommy Hendrix. The other star of this date was tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, one of the best instrumentalists of the time.

Lucky Thompson

"Sweet and Lovely" is another song Allyn later returned to, although with an up-tempo interpretation. It's on a 1964 Everest album that also contains a revival of "Forgetful." Here he and Thompson take their cues from the song's title, with satisfying results. 

"Snowbound" is a fine song by Lyle Griffin and bassist Red Callender. The tenor obbligato is by Thompson. The pianist for these sides is one "G. Style." The speculation is that Mr. Style is actually Dodo Marmarosa, who was more or less Griffin's house pianist at the time.

"Penthouse Serenade," a popular song of the time that has become a standard, gets another heartfelt reading with celeste by Devenport. Thompson and "Style" lay out for this one.

Allyn also recorded two sides with Griffin as leader and trombonist. "Deep in the Blues" is a terrific record with a quasi-R&B sound and growl trumpet from Al Killian. Hal McKusick received a label credit for his alto work.

"It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream" is a conventional ballad, with the love object traipsing through the singer's dreams, a la "It's the Same Old Dream," recorded by Frank Sinatra at about the same time. 

Also in 1946, poet Fran Kelly engaged Allyn to record two songs for her Fran-Tone label. Arranger Tom Talbert brought in everyone but an ophicleide player for the date, including (according to one source) oboist Ray Still (later the Chicago Symphony principal), hornist Vince DeRosa (a Hollywood studio stalwart) and pianist Erroll Garner. 

Kelly's songs are more interesting than you might expect. "Black Night and Fog" is a film-noirish essay in loneliness, with an appropriate early-exotica backing by Talbert. "Please Let Me Forget" is another downer, but again with a chart worth hearing. Allyn was not in particularly good voice for this date.

With Johnny Richards and Paul Smith

Allyn did not record in 1947 or 1948. (The latter year was lost to a musicians union strike.) Things picked up in 1949, with two dates for the Discovery label.

For the first date, in September, Allyn was in excellent voice and backed by a large ensemble led by arranger Johnny Richards. His rendition of "It Never Entered My Mind," one of the greatest Rodgers-Hart songs, is definitive vocally, and the busy arrangement is not too distracting.

Another Rodgers and Hart standard, "Wait Till You See Her," gets a sensitive reading, if lacking the sense of exhilaration implied by the lyrics. Harry Bluestone fiddles like he is in a salon orchestra.

Johnny Richards

Allyn is appropriately impassioned in Max Steiner's "Wrong" (formally, "It Can't Be Wrong") from the recent film Now, Voyager, with lyrics added by Kim Gannon.

The final number was "When Love Comes," a good song by arranger Phil Moore that gets a superior vocal from Allyn and a hyper arrangement from Richards.

Paul Smith, the pianist on the Richards date, led the second Discovery session, held in late December and devoted to three standards.

Paul Smith

"The Touch of Your Lips" is an excellent Ray Noble song first recorded by the composer with Al Bowlly in 1936. Allyn's version is ardent, backed by the fluent Smith piano. This session also featured a Novachord, a sort-of electric harpsichord that polluted the occasional record in the 1940s.

Also from the 1930s is "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking," a 1933 hit for Harry Revel and Mack Gordon. Not one of my favorites, but here in a good reading.

Allyn's 1940s recordings ended with Jimmy McHugh's 1926 "I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me," with both Allyn and Smith in high spirits and the Novachord under control.

Despite the excellence of these 1949 vocals, Allyn did not venture back into the studios until the late 1950s. For him this period was marred by drug addiction and a prison sentence for forging prescriptions. He rose above these troubles and was to make many excellent records in the years to come.

Andre Kostelanetz's Complete 1940s Recordings of Richard Rodgers

As might be expected from someone who recorded so much music, Andre Kostelanetz returned several times to the works of Richard Rodgers during his long tenure in the studios.

Kostelanetz made a number of 78s in the 1930s, but his recording career began in earnest with a move to Columbia records in about 1940. His first album for that company was titled Musical Comedy Favorites, and it was a hit, quickly spawning a sequel. Both included songs by Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

Today we will present all the Kostelanetz-Rodgers recordings from the 1940s, notably the 1946 album Music of Richard Rodgers but also several other items. Let's take things in chronological order, starting with that 1940 album.

Musical Comedy Favorites

Kostelanetz's two volumes of Musical Comedy Favorites date from 1940 and 1941-42, respectively. The earlier set included Rodgers' "Falling in Love with Love" from The Boys from Syracuse, a 1938 production.

The conductor reached back to 1929's Spring Is Here for the Vol. 2 selection, "With a Song in My Heart," which has been interpolated into many films since then, and even was the title song of the 1952 Jane Froman biopic.

FYI - Columbia combined the two volumes of Musical Comedy Favorites on an LP. My transfer can be found here.

Oklahoma! Medley

Rodgers had a huge (and highly influential) success with his 1943 show Oklahoma!, with book and lyrics by his new partner, Oscar Hammerstein II.

Kostelanetz surely wanted to record the music from the score immediately, but the 1942-44 Musicians Union strike presented him from doing so. On November 11, 1944, Columbia finally capitulated to the union, and the next day, Kostelanetz and orchestra were in the studio to record a two-sided medley of songs from Oklahoma!

The Music of Richard Rodgers Album

In May and September 1946, Kostelanetz and his forces assembled in New York's Liederkranz Hall for their most extensive look yet at Richard Rodgers' compositions. The sessions resulted in a set of eight 12-inch 78s entitled Music of Richard Rodgers. My transfer comes from the corresponding LP issued a few years later.

The album includes 11 songs, all standards with the possible exception of the title song from 1926's The Girl Friend, the biggest hit show to that time for the 24-year-old composer.

The album closes with one of the ballets from Rodgers and Hart's superb On Your Toes, the enduringly popular "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," here abridged (as it generally is).

Kostelanetz generally did not repeat himself in his various recordings. So there is nothing in this set from Oklahoma! And while he included "It Might as Well Be Spring" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's much-underrated 1945 film musical State Fair, he saved the irresistible waltz "It's a Grand Night for Singing" for a later album (see below).

A Motion Picture Favorite and an All-Time Hit

Following the success of his Musical Comedy Favorites sets, Kostelanetz turned his attention to Hollywood in 1947 with a set of Motion Picture Favorites. Despite Rodgers having done little work for film, he was favored with a spot in this eight-song album. "It's a Grand Night for Singing" is a marvelous piece that was introduced by Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine et al.

The conductor's final project of the decade was an album of Eight All-Time Hits, recorded in late December 1949 and early January 1950. Rodgers was represented by "The Carousel Waltz" from the 1945 show. The number opens the musical, but Kostelanetz saved this spectacular piece for the end of his program.

As I mentioned above, the Music of Richard Rodgers LP comes from my collection, and "The Carousel Waltz" is from my LP of Eight All-Time Hits. (A complete transfer of Eight All-Time Hits is available here.) Otherwise, I went back to the original 78s, cleaned up from transfers available on Internet Archive.

I wish I could tell you who arranged the various songs in this collection, but Kostelanetz seldom if ever credited his arrangers. He did mention in his biography that his radio arrangers included Carroll Huxley, Nathan Van Cleave and George Bassman. We also know that Amadeo De Filippo, a CBS staff arranger, did some work for him. And I have read elsewhere that Jimmy Carroll, Leo Addeo and Bill Finegan arranged for him at various times.

An amusing article on the Space Age Pop site likens listening to Kostelanetz records to being "gently anesthetized." But I find the listening to be absorbing. The arrangements are ingenious; the conducting and playing are wonderfully alive; the recordings are sonorous. Kostelanetz' métier was (as I have written before) conducting popular classical music and classy popular music, and at that he succeeded brilliantly.

Interestingly, Rodgers himself chose to gently distance himself from the Kostelanetz approach in his liner notes to the Music of Richard Rodgers album. He explained that he wrote the music to function in a dramatic setting, adding, "Its popularity has been a corollary, and a decidedly welcome one." Rodgers also admitted to the lure of compensation - "let it never be said that I resist the idea of large sheet music and record sales. Mr. Kostelanetz and I have formed the habit of eating and we like it."

Kostelanetz was not done with Rodgers' music. In 1951 he would record Robert Russell Bennett's South Pacific Symphonic Scenario and a repeat of the "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" music for a Columbia LP made with the Philadelphia Orchestra Pops. The Kern Show Boat Scenario for Orchestra also is on the disc. I have the record and hope to transfer it soon.

Later in the mono era, Kostelanetz came out with The Columbia Album of Richard Rodgers, a mix of new recordings with some from the 1940s. And there were a few more excursions into Rodgers' music later on.