Les Elgart's 1946-48 Singles

Les Elgart

To go with a new post on the main blog that features the Les Elgart band's singles from 1954, here we take a look at the first Elgart recordings, which date from 1946 and 1948.

The set includes six tunes in all, which I believe may have been the band's total commercial recordings before it temporarily disbanded in 1949. It would rise again to great popular acclaim in the 1950s.

While not revelatory, these numbers from the 40s are enjoyable - more for the band than the vocalists.

The first coupling is from Musicraft, which had made a big venture into pop music after the war. What appears to be the sole disc on that label is a combination of "Mabel Mabel" and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen."

"Mabel Mabel" turns out to be Dvořák's Humoresque No. 7, even though it is here ascribed to Ervin Drake, Jimmy Shirl and Henry Manners. It must have taken all three of them to come up with "Mabel, Mabel, sweet and able / Take your elbows off the table / Get out of here and get yourself a guy!" The opening of the band bellowing "Hey, Mabel!" seems to be a precursor of the famous "Hey, Mabel" slogan for Carling's Beer.

The flip side is an instrumental of "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," in which arranger Bill Finegan does show off some of his Miller moves. Finegan is credited on the labels for both this and the "Mabel Mabel" arrangement. (Musicraft threw an extra "n" into Bill's last name at no charge.)

In 1948, Les and ensemble made four sides for the small Bullet label, all with vocal group choruses, two by the Uptowners, two by the Bobsters (for both, think the Pied Pipers, but not as smooth).

The first number is "Doodle Doo Doo," previously heard on my other site in a version by Tammy Grimes. This 1924 novelty by Art Kassel and Mel Stitzel was backed by "I Lost My Heart in Hartford" by Trace and Pines. ("Trace" is presumably bandleader-novelty composer Al Trace.) The band and vocal group are both more sluggish than desirable.

The second Bullet single led off with "I Went Down to Virginia," also recorded by a certain Frank Sinatra. It's a song by Redd Evans and Dave Mann that I've always liked. The arrangement shows some signs that it was done by Bill Finegan, but even so the record is no match for Sinatra and Axel Stordahl. The band's other arrangers were reportedly Nelson Riddle and Ralph Flanagan.

"Virginia" was backed by a charming oldie, "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?", written by Jimmy Monaco, Howard Johnson and Joseph McCarthy back in 1916 and revived by Betty Hutton in 1945. A good idea, but the Bobsters are lacking.

These singles all have reasonably good sound.

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Liszt from Moiseiwitsch and Lambert

Benno Moiseiwitsch

The distinguished Russian-born English pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890-1963) has appeared on these blogs only once before, in the Delius piano concerto. Today we find him in the company of conductor Constant Lambert (1905-51), who has often graced these pages (here and here), in the music of a composer whom they both found congenial - Franz Liszt.

Franz Liszt in 1847

With the London Philharmonic, they perform Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia (Fantasie über ungarische Volksmelodien, S123), dating from 1850. In terms of recorded repertoire, the pianist was actually far more inclined to Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Schumann than Liszt, but this outing finds him entirely sympathetic to one of the future Abbé's showiest (and most enjoyable) works.

The recording comes from 1939. When issued in 1940, the critic of The Gramophone wrote, "For music such as this I do not think one would easily beat this soloist. Dash is needed rather than delicacy; bravura, swank, not subtlety. I have never excessively admired Moiseiwitsch’s tone, especially in its more firmly dug-in moments, but it has most of the qualities, and all the dexterity, that one can best enjoy in this riot of mock-rurality."

Harold Schoenberg wrote of Moiseiwitsch that "he represented the last vestiges of romanticism as it was actually practiced in the romantic period - which means pliancy, a perpetually singing line, concentration on inner voices and a free approach to the notes. In Moiseiwitsch's case, freedom was always tempered by impeccable musicality."

Constant Lambert

Lambert, himself a fine composer, was a great admirer of Liszt. His accompaniment here is supportive, but, as The Gramophone noted, "the L.P.O is not, one might put it, brought up to these high jinks; nor, perhaps, does any British band quite abandon itself to folly with the most endearing candour."

The sound here is very good for its period.

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Max Steiner's 'Searchers' EP

In 1956, Max Steiner was nearly 30 years into a Hollywood career that made him one of the most recognizable names in film music. His scores for such films as Gone with the Wind and Now, Voyager had brought him fame and great renown.

Steiner's marquee assignment in 1956 was for The Searchers, today widely considered one of the best Westerns ever made.

No soundtrack LP was issued at the time; the closest approach was via an RCA Victor EP that included just one excerpt from Steiner's score, with the composer conducting a studio orchestra. The balance was devoted to other excerpts from his music, all as much (or more) intriguing than The Searchers music.

Here are a few words about each of the selections on this EP.

"Indian Idyll" from The Searchers

The Searchers is John Ford's violent film of obsession and revenge with John Wayne in the central role. The "Indian Idyll" is uncharacteristically calm music in this tense tale of the post-Civil War West.

"Forward the Light Brigade" from The Charge of the Light Brigade

This time we're not in the Old West, we're in India in 1856, but the motivation is the same - revenge. Errol Flynn's Capt. Vickers is out to seek vengeance for a massacre of women and children. The music is not an idyll; it is instead Steiner's version of a rousing march. The film is from 1936.

"Petite Waltz" from The Fountainhead

Steiner wrote one of his most admired scores for 1949's The Fountainhead, based on Ayn Rand's novel of an individualistic architect resisting conformity and the pressures of the marketplace. The critics hated the film, but it has been since re-evaluated as a major work from director King Vidor - one that is still influential today. Here we have the "Petite Waltz," which again is not characteristic of the score as a whole but is undeniably charming.

"Symphonie Moderne" from Four Wives

The three selections above were shoe-horned onto one side of the EP, with the second side devoted to what to me is the most interesting music on the disc. It is the so-called "Symphonie Moderne" from the 1939 film Four Wives. The music is of great significance, both in the film and in foreshadowing a fashion for quasi-piano concertos in the decade ahead.

In brief, Rosemary Lane is the widow of a composer who died while writing his "Symphonie Moderne." The widow resists the attentions of another composer, until she has discovered that he has completed the symphony. Yes, this is symbolic, folks - they fall in love.

But while the "Symphonie Moderne" was a precursor of the faux concerto trend, it was soon overshadowed by the extraordinary popularity of Richard Addinsell's "Warsaw Concerto," heard in the 1941 English film Dangerous Moonlight. The latter is a catchy bit of fake Rachmaninoff that surpassed the Symphonie Moderne in popular appeal. Even so, Steiner's piece is well worth hearing in this performance led by its creator.

These selections did appear on LP. RCA included them on a 1956 album mainly devoted to Steiner's music from Gone with the Wind. I believe those latter pieces were themselves excerpted from a 1954 LP entirely devoted to the 1939 score.

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The Honey Dreamers with Hits (?) from 1956

The Honey Dreamers vocal group has appeared on this blog and the main blog several times. In today's installment, the RCA Camden folks have them perform four of Today's Hits. "Today" in this case is defined as 1956.

Camden put out any number of such low-price records - both as EPs, as here, and in the LP format. The idea was to combat the budget labels that were cranking out cover records day and night. On this blog, we recently heard from Camden's Snooky Lanson; there also were older entries by Bob Carroll and Gisele MacKenzie. The main blog has played host to Stuart Foster and various artists.

On today's EP, the Honey Dreamers take on two songs that really were hits and two that were better defined as aspirants.

The biggest chart success was surely "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," an infectious number that brought young Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers to prominence. One of the female voices in the Honey Dreamers takes over from high-voiced Lymon for this one, and isn't terribly convincing. The harmonies, the Earl Sheldon band and the recording are fine, however.

Incidentally, the label credits the composition to Lyman and label honcho George Goldner, but the song seems to have been mostly written by another Teenager, Herman Santiago.

There were several iterations of the Honey Dreamers - this is the group shown on the label above

"Rock Island Line" is another song with a murky past. It may have had a folk origin, but first came to wider notice after folklorist John Lomax recorded a prison group singing it in 1934. Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) adapted the number and recorded it several times. Finally, over in England Lonnie Donegan modelled his version on Leadbelly's - himself adapting the lyrics - and it became a massive hit there in 1955-56. Bobby Darin and Don Cornell, among others, then recorded it in the US. The Honey Dreamers' version is surprisingly good.

"Molly-O" is another oddity. This folk-like song comes from Elmer Bernstein's music for the 1955 film The Man with the Golden Arm. That score is mostly in what is now called the "crime jazz" style - and it's a great achievement. The record credits "Molly-O" to Bernstein and lyricist Sylvia Fine. As far as I know, the most popular version of this song was called "Main Title and Molly-O" by Coral's Dick Jacobs, whose arrangement incongruously plopped Molly in the middle of Bernstein's extraordinarily tense main theme for the film. (You can hear Jacobs' version here.) The Honey Dreamers focus only on "Molly-O" in their version.

Finally, we have "The Campus Rock," which was a new item for me. It was a song by Glen Moore and Buddy Dufault that the Philadelphia group the Tyrones put out on the Wing label. I don't think it was a big hit, but maybe it was popular regionally - and Camden, NJ is just across the Delaware River from Philly. The Honey Dreamers do the number quite well.

If the trade papers of the time are to be believed, the Camden label and the group hoped that their version would be a hit in its own right. And it was indeed issued on a single along with its EP appearance.

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