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Saturday, October 10, 2015

The Golden Touch - Don Costa

Town Without Pity
The Golden Touch
Don Costa
DCP International
Don Costa Records
Distributed by United Artists Records
DCL 3802
1964

Exodus
Put Your Head On My Shoulder
Gina
Pretty Blue Eyes
I'll Take Romance
If I Had A Hammer
Personality
When The Boy In You Arms
Make Yourself Comfortable
The Magnificent Seven
Town Without Pity
Never On A Sunday

Arthur Lyman On Broadway

South Pacific
Arthur Lyman On Broadway
HiFi Record
R 818
1959

From the back cover: Stereo-wise you'll hear each instrument separately and distinctly, faithfully recorded in full range high fidelity stereophonic sound. Living, "living room" presence will come to you with a panoramic sound view of this astonishing group, made to order for stereo "Hi-Fi."

My Fair Lady
The King And I
South Pacific
Porgy And Bess

Cocktail Piano Of Rene Armand - Carlini's World Of Strings

Cocktail Piano Of Rene Armand
Carlini's World Of Strings
Under the direction of D. L. Miller
Gold Award GA-14
1970

The disc/set is broken down into 4 tracks/medleys which, for a space age lush strings budget press, feature interesting arrangements.

1. By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Mac Arthur Park

2. Romeo And Juliet Theme, Theme From Moonlove

3. Up Up And Away, Guantanamera, Where's The Playground Susie

4. Mozart's Andante, Starry Night, Love Can Make You Happy

The Power Of Brass - Al Caiola

The Morning After
The Power Of Brass
Al Caiola
Arrangements by Al Caiola with exception of Mac Arthur Park which was arranged by Ronald Frangipane
Produced by Leroy Holmes
Coordinator: Ray Barbarino
Crossway Airport Inn
United Artists
UAS 6666
1968

From the back cover: The club is called the Crossway Airport Inn. A 10-piece band (all University of Miami music students) plays there. Word has gotten around that they are good – very good. It has gotten around to Al Caiola, infectious guitarist, down from New York on a vacation in Florida. Al visits. He sits. He listens. He smiles. He signs the group to record with him. And that group is on it's way. – Mort Goode

Musicians:

Wallace E. McMurray, Jr. – Trumpet
Doug Smith – Trumpet and Fleugelhorn
George Doukas – Trumpet and Fleugelhorn
Ed Bevil – Bass Trombone
Val Houston – Tenor Trombone
Mark Bruce Hurwitz – Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute and Oboe
Steve Wittmack – Piano
Kenneth D. Conklyn – Bass
Tony Vino – Guitar
Richard Docen – Drums

Friday, October 9, 2015

Revolution - Wilbert Longmire

Revolution
Revolution
Wilbert Longmire
Orchestra Arranged And Conducted By Joe Sample
Produced By Richard Bock
World Pacific Jazz Records ST-20161
1969

Book-fold jacket hinged at the top, record inserts at bottom.

Wilbert Longmire – Guitar
Wilton Fellder – Tenor Sax
Anthony Ortega – Saxophone
Gary Barone, Gary Rains – Trumpet
George Bohanon – Trombone
Leon Spencer – Drums
Marshall Sosson, Myron Sandler, David Burk, Jesse Ehrlich and Harry Bluestone – Strings

Scarborough Fair/Canticle
Galveston
This Guy's In Love With You
Theme From Fox
Revolution
Movin' On
Bewitched
Somebody Love You
Give It Up Or Turnit Loose

My Man - Mary Lou Brewer

My Man
Mary Lou Brewer
With Sy Shaffer And His Orchestra
Westminster WST 15010 & WP 6081
1958

Available from online vendors, so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the cover and excerpts from the jacket.

Brewer seems to have disappeared from the public eye after making this record and TV appearances as noted below. She also appeared on one 1958 episode of the Jack Parr Show.

This set is one of Westminster's first stereo releases.

From the back cover: Mary Lou Brewer is "The Queen Of The Red-Hot Mamas"…

As a young girl in Washington, Mary Lou Brewer showed exceptional ability in the field of music, and was hardly out of school when she began to sing professionally. A radio guest shot on the Bill Herson Show resulted in return engagements which brought Mary Lou back to the program week after week, and more and more offers began to come in. She sang on the Jerry Strong Show on WMAL-TV, with The Royal Tones in the Officers Clubs at the Military bases in the Washington area, and then with Les Sand's WTTG-TV show "Sans Script." After Mary Lou had appeared on the Les Sand show twice Sand was so impressed that he became her manager and partner. More opportunities soon opened up in Washington – at the Hotel Shoreham, the Statler, and solid year in the Riviera Room of the Hotel 2400.

When the partners decided that Mary Lou was ready for the Big Time they went off to New York to audition for the Arthur Godfrey Talent Show. A week after her appearance on the Talent Show of February 17, 1958, Mary Lou got a call from the Godfrey office… "Mr. Godfrey would like to have you his morning show for a week starting this Monday."

For a week Mary Lou sang the songs that caused Mr. Godfrey to say, "We've got a new Queen of the Red-Hot Mammas." At the end of the first week she was held over for a second week, and then for a third week, with promises of return engagements of the show.

Now, for her first album for Westminster, Mary Lou Brewer offers a group of wonderful performances under the able baton of Sy Shaffer (of the Godfrey morning show). Sy, in addition to conducting the band for the session, also wrote all the sparkling arrangements.


My Man
Mad About The Boy
I'm Just Wild About Harry
I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues
You're Not The Kind
Mamma Goes Where Papa Goes
Some Of These Days
I May Be Wrong
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
How Come You Do Me Like You Do
My Kinda Love
A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Catch A Little Rhyme - Eve Merriam

A Matter Of Taste
Catch A Little Rhyme
Poems For Activity Time
Read By Eve Merriam
Caedmon TC 1339
1971

Terrific children's set that works on many levels for kids and adults alike. Great poetry read in a subtle, quite manner, live and unrehearsed manner to a group of children who spontaneously interact with Merriam.

The strange cover image in credited to "Artwork by Mazin-Wyckoff, from Caedmon's What Is Poetry? filmstrip series.

From the back cover: Although I have not made a statistical investigation, I doubt that there is a more versatile talent in this country that Eve Merriam's. Born in 1916 in Philadelphia, Eve Merriam has published twenty-eight books, and there are at least three more in the works. They include Family Circle, which was awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize: Figleaf, an unreserved exposure of the fashion industry in the U.S.A.; The Double Bed and After Nora Slammed The Door, witty examinations of the war between the sees which would have startled lbsen; The Trouble With Love, a sequence of compelling poems which are both passionate and probing; Basics, subtitled "An I-Can-Read Book for Grownups;" The Inner City Mother Goose in which the old nursery rhymes are neatly turned into devastating social satire; as well as such captivating books for children as Funny Town, Miss Tibbett's Typewriter, and three volumes revealing her preoccupation with what makes poetry: It Doesn't Always Have To Rhyme, There Is No Rhyme For Silver, and Catch A Little Rhyme, some of the sources of this record. – Louis Untermeyer

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The 2 Sides Of Cliff Juergens

Summertime
The 2 Sides Of Cliff Juergens
Arranged And Conducted By Cliff Lash
Sheir 101
1966

I assume the title refers to Juergens singing some numbers while playing the trumpet on others. Stylistically, the set is all over the place.

On The Street Where You Live
The Music Goes Round And Round
Sour Cream
Daddy's Little Girl
You Stepped Out Of A Dream
Sugar Blues
Paper Doll
Wang Wang Blues
Mountain Greenery
What's New
Summertime
Chattanooga Cha Cha

Street Of Dreams - Jan Garber

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Street Of Dreams
Jan Garber And His Orchestra
Decca DL 74191
1962

From Billboard - April 21, 1962: The many Jan Garber followers will enjoy this new set. It spotlights the ork playing a well chosen selection of tunes. The stereo recording is well made and the ork is in fine form.

Street Of Dreams
Dancing In The Street
On The Street Where You Live
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Spellbound
All I Do Is Dream Of You
I'll See You In My Dreams
It Looks Like Rain In Cherry Blossom Lane
A Little Street Where Old Friends Meet
Basin Street Blues

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Intimately Yours - Jacques Foti

Man'selle/My Funny Valentine

Intimately Yours
Jacques Foti
Signature SM1016
1959

From Billboard - December 21, 1959: Romantic semi-talk warbling by continental charter Foti.

From the back cover: Foti retains the debonair charm which seems automatically a part of a Parisian born. Having spent his life in Budapest, the youngster absorbed his feeling for the continental atmosphere and the moving music of the gypsies. Musically inspired, Foti shone brightly as a student at the Commercial Academy. He became a piano prodigy and popular entertainer of his fellows.

The holocaust of World War II soon enveloped young Foti, who found himself in a Nazi labor camp loading coal in a steel plant, when he refused to join the Hitler Legions, with whom Hungary had allied herself. At an opportune moment, Foti escaped to join the underground only to be tricked into giving himself up with a number of others during the infamous "40 minute amnesty." Slated for a firing squad, Foti was spared when the Nazi penal forces elected to shoot only every tenth man. In the crazy game of firing squad roulette which followed, Foti stood at attention while the man next to him crumpled.

Years later, after a series of harrowing story book episodes with the Nazis and later the occupying Soviet forces, Foti found his way to his lifelong goal, America. His first employment here was anything but the elusive, starring role in front of the spotlights at the grand piano. Instead he became a dishwasher at Bickford's cafeteria in New York City. Fortunes ebbing, Foti had $1.50 left in his pocket when he was hired to appear in the Town Room, Milwaukee, not as a dishwasher, but as featured entertainer. He remained for six months.

Foti's admirers and abettors have been numerous since then. He has been befriended and helped along the hard road to success by such luminaries as Mr. and Mrs. George Liberace, Jack Webb, and the mother of George Feyer, popular Hungarian pianist who is now a top recording artist here.

Since that early Milwaukee engagement, he has had successful engagements in the best clubs in Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago, Montreal, Miami Beach, Hollywood, Palm Springs, Dallas, New Orleans and Houston where he also had his own late night TV show "Rendezvous with Jacques" on KGUL-TV for six months.


Man'selle/My Funny Valentine
I Love Your Lips
You Go To My Head
Holding Hands
I'd Like It
Autumn Leaves
Intimately Yours
September
You're My Thrill
How Old Are
When I Fall In Love
You Make Me Feel So Young
When The World Was Young
For All We Know


Monday, October 5, 2015

On A Caribbean Cruise - Jimmie Thurston

Johnny Cake (vocal by Lord Rad)
On A Caribbean Cruise
Jimmie Thurston And His Orchestra
Featuring George Moxey At The Piano
From The Fort Montague Coral Room
Actually Recorded In Nassau, Bahamas
Decca Records DL 8601
1957

From Billboard - October 7, 1957: This is a potpourri of society-tinged dance music and calypso material by a group well known in Bahama circles. Tho there is a great deal of calypso on the market to fill a lessened demand, this can still achieve some action due to its inclusion in the label's current "Around The World," multi-album promotion. As part of this group, it will receive extra display and promotion which can bring at least limited action.

Oh, The Underground Train
Conch Ain't Got No Bones
That Glamour Girl
Ron-Con-Cay Banana
Oye Nigra/Nague
Why, Uncle Joe
Governor Gate
Pretty Boy
Johnny Cake
Push! Push!
Old Fowl
Junk-A-Noo

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Love Letters From Maureen O'Hara

You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
Love Letters From Maureen O'Hara
RCA Victor LPM-1953
1959

Recorded in Hollywood, California, July 22, August 18 and 25 and September 26, 1958. Arranged and conducted by Bob Thompson. Produced by Simon Rady.

My Romance
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
The Nearness Of You
Yours Sincerely
Dearly Beloved
The More I See You
I Only Have Eyes For You
Whispering
My Shining Hour
Love Letters
All Through The Day
My Love Is Forever

MUZAK Stimulus Progression 5

Last Tango In Paris
Muzak Stimulus Progression 5
Specialists In The Physiological And Psychological Applications Of Music
1973

Nick Perito, who is featured on the back cover, is given credit for arranging the entire set and is featured: Mr. Perito writes to fully accomplish the musical objectives MUZAK has set. While each instrumental is given a specific assignment, he enjoys sufficient scope to play to the best advantage of his talents. A totally buoyant interpretation of each arrangement is thus realized.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
How Little We Know
C'mon Smile
I Am Woman
It Never Rains In California
Dynamite Dan
He's My Guy
Last Tango In Paris
Living Together, Growing Together
I Believe In Music
The Last Happy Song
Let's Have A Party

MUZAK

Tower Of Strength
MUZAK
Stimulus Progression
A Unique Programming Concept
1974

From the back cover: Move the needle of your record player from one selection to the other. Listen a few seconds to each. Feel the change in mood as the stimulation increases from the first selection to the last. The effect is both psychological and physiological: proof that MUZAK is more than music.

Star Eyes
Lady Blue
Kate Mc Shane
Volare
This Is My Country
Dance With Me
Teach Me Tonight
Jubilation
3 Day Of The Condor
When Things Were Rotten
Tower Of Strength