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Orchestra and Chorus Directed by Burt Bacharach Kapp KS-3577 (Original Number: KS-3447) 1968
Trains And Boats And Planes My Little Red Book Anyone Who Had A Heart There's Always Something There To Remind Me 24 Hours From Tulsa Walk On By Wives And Lovers Don't Make Me Over Blue On Blue Don't Go Breaking My Heart What's New Pussycat
Far Away Places
Enoch Light And His Orchestra
Featuring Harpsichord and Exotic Percussion
Originated and Produced by Enoch Light
Associate Producer: Julie Klages
Recording Chief: Robert Fine
Mastering: George Piros
Designed by Charles E. Murphy
Command Records RS 33-882 / RS 822SD
1961
From the inside cover: The word "exotic" may conjure up different images to different people. To some it may mean the mysterious East, the sinuous motions of seemingly boneless dancers and the warm, musky odor of tropical plants. To others it may signify the endless, glowing beauty of the desert at twilight, the awesome splendor of the Alps or the lush, luridly colored fertility of the jungle depths of South America. And, of course, looking through the other end of the telescope the peoples of these lands may consider the skyscrapers of New York as the height of exoticism.
Wherever we are, it is that which is far away
that has the lure of the exotic. The tour of Far Away Places that Enoch Light and his orchestra takes us on in this remarkable collection of performances has the requisite spread of geographical locations to deal validly with what would seem exotic to a resident of any corner of the earth.
But this is no mere invocation of place names. Like all of Enoch Light's famous and inimitable Command Record productions, it is a meeting and mixing of truly adventurous spirits in the newly allied worlds of music and sound recordings.
Lew Davies' arrangements have been conceived not only in terms of the sights and sounds but of the very feelings that are conjured up by the alluring places that lie behind these selections - Jamaica, the South Pacific, Sumatra, Paris, Vienna, Calcutta, Australia, Antigua and still other absorbing locales. An amazing variety of instruments, drawn from these and other far reaches of the universe, have been carefully chosen to contribute the unusual shadings, accents, tonal colors and rhythms that you hear in these arrangements.
Before the final selections were made, more than a hundred different drums were listened to analytically. Each had a different tonality and produced a different sound. Forty sizes of gongs were auditioned. Innumerable cymbals were tested. Each one was appraised for the musical seasoning that it might add to the finished product.
That how the remarkable assemblage of percussion instruments that you hear in these pieces was brought together. There are temple blocks, finger cymbals, Egyptian cymbals, Turkish cymbals and a Chinese bell tree; an Israeli clay drum, three sizes of bongos, an oriental gong, guiro,
claves, tambourine, xylophone, vibraphone, orchestra bells, tympani, maraccas and a variety of snare drums. Adding their own personal accents are a bass guitar and a gut-string guitar along with a standard ukulele and a tenor ukulele.
All this, however, is only the foundation. A vocal group has been woven into the fabric of these arrangements, treated as though it were another instrument and contributing a musical quality that could be produced by no other instrument than the human voice. These voices play a role parallel to that of Doc Severinsen's glowing trumpet and the variety of woodwinds over which the versatile Phil Bodner presides.
And on top of all this is the most unusual and in this context-the most unexpected sound of all: a harpsichord.
This ancestor of the piano is usually thought of in connection with music of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. It is heard relatively infrequently today not only because there are few true harpsichords available but because there are even fewer musicians who are willing to devote their careers to this attractive but sonically temperamental instrument.
Moreover, the harpsichord is an extremely difficult instrument to record. Unlike a piano, it has almost no resonance and when a note is hit, it dies immediately. Because the harpischord has none of the overtones that are the resonant body of a note, it is all but buried when it is played with an orchestra.
Yet in these recordings we hear a sparkling, vital Twentieth Century harpsichord played with exciting authority by Billy Rowland and, despite its use in orchestral surroundings, recorded with amazing clarity. This is another brilliant example of the imaginative application of very advanced recording techniques that have enabled Command Records to reproduce the most complex amalgam of musical sounds with amazing clarity and hair- line definition.
The harpsichord that is heard in these perform- ances was brought to New York all the way from England. The magnificent lucidity with which it is recorded in this album more than justifies its long journey. For it provides the final and essential touch in an exotic musical recipe -- that last, unique bit of seasoning that draws out the full flavor of all the other ingredients and welds them into an offering that will ravish the senses of even the most confirmed, pipe-and-slippered stay-at-home.
SIDE ONE
1. WALTZING MATILDA. Our first stop is Australia which produced this tale of "the jolly swag man" that was carried around the world by Australian troops during World War II. Lew Davies' arrange- ment is a fascinating example of the variety, shading and gay rhythmic excitement that can be produced by short, sharp percussive sounds with many different timbres. The percussive potential is suggested immediately in the opening figure by the harpsichord, snare drum and bongos, a figure that is heard first on the left and then repeated on the right so that you may check the acoustical balance of your two speakers. But when it is repeated on the right, notice the subtle change in sound tex- ture that results when a conga drum plays the phrase that had been played on the left by bongos. And then there follows another balancing passage using contrasting devices – the vocal ensemble and the fast, sharp report of handclaps. Later the voices are paired on the right with the xylophone to produce an even tighter percussive effect.
2. BANANA BOAT SONG. The island of Jamaica in the British West Indies lies in the sunstrewn Carib- bean just south of the eastern end of Cuba and slightly west of Haiti. The calypso rhythms that are the highly individual musical expression of the Jamaicans have an attraction that has appealed to the peoples of all parts of the world, typified this glimpse of a man working a banana boat. Its bright happy rhythm is established in a speaker balancing patterns moving from right, first in the hollow, knocking resonance of the claves, then with a and, the third time, with a cymbal and conga drums joining in. The tumultuous gaiety that can be drawn from a shifting, kaleidoscopic use of harpsichord, trumpet voices is exploited merrily in the first chorus, only to be topped in the second by the bubbling charm of Phil Bodner's piccolo. And notice the unusual tonal effect achieved between choruses when the conga drummer changes the tonality of his drum by sliding his arm across its surface.
3. THE THIRD MAN THEME. Vienna, alternately a city of intrigue and splendid gaiety during the course of its historic ups and downs, is portrayed with suggestions of both sides in this bright-tempered treat- ment of a film theme that has proven to be one of the most memorable tunes written in the past half century. Originally heard in "The Third Man" being played on a zither, the tune transfers readily to the somewhat similar sound of the harpsichord. But the new, fresh elements that Lew Davies has brought to this arrangement are the highly percussive use of the muted trumpet and of the blend of trumpet, bass clarinet and accordion; the voluptuous warmth that is woven into the essentially hard sound of the harpsichord by the vocal ensemble; and the added impetus given to the harpsichord by the underlining accompaniment of a bass guitar.
4. SUNRISE OVER SUMATRA. This evocative new tune, written by Enoch Light and Lew Davies, con- jures up a romantic vision of the largest of the islands that make up the Republic of Indonesia. Sumatra lies in the heart of an area that has always stirred Occidental imaginations just below the South China Sea with Singapore only a bird's flight across the Malacca Strait. The atmosphere is established by the rustle of the Chinese bell tree, the rattle of temple blocks and, oddly enough, the rich accordion phrase that is heard first on the left and then on the right. It is deepened in the next passage by tom-tom and xylophone. The harpsichord and guitar, both on the left, carry out the airily tinkling effect that underlies the music of this region but in this case it is given unusual and fascinating implementation by the use of a muted trumpet for accents, tight, percussive accordion fills and the steadily rattling beat of bongos.
5. BALI HA'I takes us eastward into the South Pacific and that vast, watery domain studded with little dots of land known as Oceania. Richard Rodgers' lovely mood setting for "South Pacific" is given a rich and sinuous treatment with the harpsichord balanced against the tandem of flute and accordion in the first chorus, broken only by a soprano voice soaring in high, lovely lyricism like a bird rising gracefully from the curved, sandy shore. The mood is extended and varied in the second chorus when Doc Severinsen plays a gentle and eloquent muted that skirts playfully in and out of the melody.
6. MIMI. Suddenly we're across on the other side of the world in that Paris of Maurice Chevalier that is always as gay and bubbling as a freshly poured glass of champagne. And we can actually hear that champagne being poured in the second chorus of this lighthearted, good humored romp which is given tremendous brilliance not only by the harpsichord and the light, airy voices but by such combinations of compellingly bright sounds as the guitar, xylophone and accordion that are heard in the introductory balancing passage.
SIDE TWO
1. CALCUTTA. The second half of our musical journey takes us back again to the far side of the Pacific Ocean, this time to the great seaport that stands just above the mouth of the Ganges, facing out into the Bay of Bengal. The sonorous rattle of the tambourine and the deep throb of the conga drum, joined later by the penetrating ring of the harpsichord and the low strumming of the ukulele, suggest in the introductory balancing passages the melange of humanity that drifts through this teeming city. Later we hear Dominic Cortese playing his accordion in musette fashion, calling out to all the sailors to whom this is an international instrument. And, as a triumph of masterful sound record- ing, notice the remarkable brightness, sharpness and completeness of the muted trumpet on the right playing over the equally sharp sounds of the tambourine.
2. THE COCKEYED MAYOR OF KAUNAKAKAI is the occasion of our stop in one of the United States. Disdaining the obvious, Lew Davies does not introduce the mayor with throbbing ukuleles but, instead, with a decidedly more impressive combination of conga drum and temple blocks, heard this time first on the right and then on the left. The first chorus is evolved as a series of bright, piercingly percussive exchanges between the harpsichord, on the right, and the xylophone, on the left. The pixi- lated quality of this happy view of Hawaii is exemplified in the second chorus when Doc Sever- insen's muted trumpet eases into a swinging rhythm that is a subtle cross between American jazz and the swaying allure of grass skirts and leis.
3. THEME FROM THE SUNDOWNERS. A second stop in Australia picks up the very impressive theme of Fred Zinneman's motion picture, "The Sundown- ers." Although the treatment is essentially smooth and balladic, it is underlined by the slogging sound of marching feet, produced by muffled guitar strings. Notice how the silken suavity of the rich sounds poured out by the accordion, the alto flute and the vocal group is given point and validity by the very contrasting sharpness of the harpsichord. 4. LISBON ANTIGUA. A two-for-one travel special- the old world sophistication of Portugal's capital combined with the remnants of a very different old world romanticism found on the island of Antigua, which is one of the Leeward Islands facing the Atlantic Ocean in a long sweep of tiny pinpoints of land north of Venezuela. The tinkle of a triangle contrasts first with the guitar and later with the harpsichord in the introductory checkout patterns. The arrangement is light, frolicking and melodic, tossed airily between the harpsichord on the left and the blithe vocal group on the right and, later, invoking Cortese's bubbling musette effect.
5. HOW ARE THINGS IN GLOCCA MORRA? From the land of the leprechauns comes an inviting and be- guiling performance that floats on a wave of blarneying charm. This charm is typified by the descending figure played by flute and trumpet on the left which leads into the melody by the harpsi- chord on the right. Notice the contrast between the harpsichord, right, and the accordion, left, as the melody is developed, a juxtaposition that pits a soft, warm sound against a hard, brittle one with amazingly sparkling results.
6. THE POOR PEOPLE OF PARIS. For the finale, we are back in Paris again-in the Paris of gaiety and high spirits. Both of these qualities are underlined by the blend of harpsichord and maraccas that opens this piece. This is a rollicking excursion for the harpsichord (underlined by the jubilant voices), for the sprightly blending of guitar and piccolo, and for the tremendous, driving spirit that is engendered by the glancing, shifting changes of timbre and accent as the various combinations of instruments weave their varied patterns through this infectious melody.
From Billboard March 6, 1961: Here's another standout recording, bound to grab a lot of attention. The sound here features a harpsichord with various types of percussion. Strong wax for sound and mood buyers with a cover which carries out the theme with names of countries set into blocks of different colors and shapes. This one merits a lot of attention.
Waltzing Matilda
Banana Boat Song
The Third Man Theme
Sunrise Over Sumatra
Bali Ha'i
Mimi
Calcutta
The Cockeyed Mayor Of Kanuakakai
Theme From The Sundowners
Lisbon Antigua
How Are Things In Glocca Morra
The Poor People Of Paris
Dancing Zither
Carl Swoboda's Fabulous Zither Swings With A Big Band
Philips PHM 200-203
1966
From the back cover: Karl (this is how the copywriter spelled Swoboda's first name in the notes) uses the delicate instrument more like a guitar, in that he has freed the zither from its usual traditional use in a chordal mode with his conception of a free flowing single note melodic line. The zither has many tone qualities which can remind one of the piano, harpsichord, harp or guitar. In the hands of Karl Swoboda it takes on a very warm and personal sound with a timbre on certain numbers not unlike that of the great gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt.
Yesterday
Theme From A Sumer Place
Stranger On The Shore
Goldfinger
A Walk In The Black Forest
Ebb Tide
The Sweetheart Tree
Sole, Sole, Sole
Unchained Melody
The "In" Crowd
A Taste Of Honey
Theme From Zorba The Greek
