Space Chasin'

Bat Man

Space Chasin'
The Starliners
Bowie High School, Bowie Maryland

Photography: John Roseborouch

Engineers: John Burr, Ed Greene
Edgewood Recording Studio, Washington, D.C.

80-Hi Records
MM-273 Vol. 1

From the back cover:  ABOUT THE BAND... (Average age: 15%)

Formed in August 1966 under my direction (while still a Lt. Col. in the Air Force) with enthusiastic support from Tom Warthen, principal, and Bob Wiant, school music director. Debut at a PTA meeting in early '67 brought this normally sedate audience to their feet for a thunderous ovation. Subsequent concerts in the D.C. area were equally successful. The big test came on 10 May '67 in the Bowie Hi gym when the group faced the 2700 strong student body. The Band absolutely fractured 'em! (Who said the Big Band Sound was dead?) The season was "capped off" at the Annapolis Arts Festival on 18 June when the Band was billed with Count Basie and Buddy Rich.

ABOUT THE RECORD

During the 10 May concert, I asked how many of the students would purchase a record (if made) and, further, make an advance downpayment to finance the recording session with all profit (if any) destined for the stageband fund (under school control). The response was overwhelm- ingly in favor. Within a few days the band members had issued receipts for 729 records more than enough!

The recording session was held on 21 May 1967- the only date available before the end of the school year. The fourteen numbers were cut in 311⁄2 hours with minimum re-takes. Conduct, stamina and a sustained peak in quality of performance impressed the recording engineers. They (and I) consider this recording an outstanding product for such a young group.

I shall remember these young people for their consistent display of professionalism, for being a real credit to their school and community and, in the vernacular of the Jazz Man as "a blowin' bunch of cats"! I've had several kudos thrown my way for contributing my time and effort, but let's not kid one another - the pleasure was all mine! – JOE CARLEY

South Rampart Street Parade

Days Of Wine And Roses

Call Me

I Remember You

Tijuna Taxi

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

Sam's Boogie

Theme 

The Knock

The Man I Love

I May Be Wrong

Walk In The Black Forrest

Trombone Soliloquy

Batman Theme

Git Along Little Dogie

Git Along Little Dogie
Vocalist: Andy Gainley and Doug Martin
The Record Guild Of America, Inc. N.Y.

6.5 inch 78 rpm children's picture disc.

Home On The Range

Home On The Range
Vocalist: Rue Knapp - Guild Chorus
The Record Guild Of America Inc. N.Y.
6001P

6.5 inch 1940s children's picture disk

Night Herding Song

Night Herding Song
Vocalist: Doug Martin
The Record Guild Of America, Inc. N.Y.
6001P

6.5 inch 78 rpm children's picture disc

Blue Chiffon - George Shearing Quintet

Kinda Cute

Blue Chiffon

The George Shearing Quintet and Orchestra

Arrangements by George Shearing and Billy May

Orchestra Conducted by Billy May

Produced by Dave Cavanaugh
Capitol Records ST1124
1959

From Billboard February 16, 1959: The quintet is backed by the Billy May ork in a series of exciting performances. The set is exciting and offers a fresh, new and securely "new" Shearing sound. Top tracks are "Young And Foolish" and "My One And Only Love." Displayable cover. Top pop and jazz potential.

Love-Wise

For Heaven's Sake

Nocturne

Young And Foolish

Nina Never Knew

Kinda Cute

I'm Old Fashioned 

I Love You

Welcome To My Dreams

My One And Only Love

I'm Gonna Laugh You Right Our Of My Life

Like Wild! - Ray Anthony

Fall Out

Like Wild
Ray Anthony
Produced by Lee Gillette
Capitol Records T1304
1960

From Billboard - February 15, 1960: Arrangements emphasize snarling trombones and insistent saxes along with a driving rhythm section and Anthony's own potent horn work. The combination produces one of the best high-pressure big band collections, which includes such well-known Anthony efforts as "Peter Gunn" and "707," as well as new rocking arrangement of a former hit, "Bunny Hop Rock." The impact of this outfit is akin to Ingemar Johannessen's right hand.

Room 43
Fall Out
Kukie Bird
Dark Eyes
Peter Gunn
Wrong Number
707
Swanee River
Fly Now, Pay Later
Bunny Hop Rock
Rock-Umba
Walkin' To Mother's

Dances Wild - Russ Case

The Salior's Dance

Dances Wild
Russ Case And His Orchestra
Arranged by Russ Case
Produced and Directed by Herman Diaz, Jr.
Photograph by Murray Laden
Recorded at Webster Hall, New York City, December 4, 12 and 20, 1956
Vik LX-1085
1957

Russ Case, at the time of his death (1964), was handling arranging chores on The Jackie Gleason Show. He was also involved in arranging a number of concept albums Gleason produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

From the back cover: Chances are you won't risk trying to cut a rug very often during this recital unless you happen to be both an exceedingly limber and exceedingly versatile dancer. For most of the pieces here that were actually written to be danced to (a couple of them were not) were intended for professionals, and even those were set down with no suspicion that one day a fellow named Russ Case would streamline them in this manner. (Nacio Herb Brown's The Doll Dance was composed as a piano novelty, while Raymond Scott's War Dance for Wooden Indians is one of several works with inspiredly nonsensical titles that he dreamed up for his unique small band back in the Thirties.)

DANCES WILD, indeed! Selecting twelve widely-varied "dance" numbers, this fellow Case has created three different instrumental combinations to interpret them, assigning four pieces to each group. The largest and most conventional of these, one in which the emphasis is on brass and wood- winds, is employed to sweep through Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance and de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance, glide through Lecuona's Danza Lucumi, and furnish some Lindy Hop music for skeletons in a revamping of Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre.

So far, so good. But it's in dealing with the re- maining eight selections that Case has come up with his most striking notions. For Spanish Dance, The Doll Dance, Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy and Gypsy Dance, for example, he has assembled a group consisting of nine guitars, bass, piano and drums, thereby drawing attention to the rhythmic content of the four most delicate works of the lot by unison strumming from the massed strings.

On the other hand, he has sought to provide a more dramatic sound for The Kerry Dance, War Dance for Wooden Indians, The Dagger Dance and The Sailors' Dance by contrasting the woodwinds with four sets of tympani, the unit being filled out with guitar, piano, bass and drums.

In the course of this jaunty and winning concert you'll hear much first class instrumental work by such expert musicians as bassist Milt Hinton, drummer Cozy Cole, guitarists Mundell Lowe, Barry Galbraith, and George Barnes, and a host of others. Once again Russ Case demonstrates his remarkable musicianship as both arranger and conductor with this striking new Vik album DANCES WILD. – DOUG WATT (Doug Watt writes musical criticism, covers the theater scene, reviews records and writes the column Small World for the New York Daily News)

Sabre Dance
The Doll House
War Dance For Wooden Indians
Danza Lucumi
Dance Of The Sugar-Plum Fairy
The Kerry Dance
Spanish Dance
The Dagger Dance
Ritual Fire Dance
Gypsy Dance
The Sailor's Dance

WIth Bells On - Sid Bass And His Orchestra

The House Is Haunted

With Bells On
Tintinnabulation
Sid Bass and His Orchestra

Arranged and Conducted by Sid Bass

Produced and Directed by Herman Diaz, Jr.

Recorded at Webster Hall, New York City, July 18, 26 and August 1, 1957
Vik LX-1112
1958

With Bells On
Sid Bass and His Orchestra
RCA Camden CAS 501
1959

From the back cover: In his previous VIK long-playing record packages, Sid Bass went a long way toward establishing himself as one of the most imaginative, slyly humorous, yet subtly sentimental arrangers on the musical scene today. His FROM ANOTHER WORLD (LX-1053) gave new color and meaning to a group of "star" and "moon" standards, while his SOUND AND FURY (LX-1084) package (among other musical magic) made truly remarkable usage of the drum as an emotion-stirring instrument.

Here Bass takes the bells, and (as Edgar Allan Poe expressed it) the tintinnabulation that so musically wells from the bells, and utilizes same in the most arresting, yet ear-pleasing blends of sounds you are likely to hear in an eon of listening. For Sid writes the entire bell family-from the delicate tinkle of the celeste to the brittle, crisp gaiety of vibes, through the majestic throb of deep chimes – into these arrangements.

Yes, tintinnabulation is the underlying motif in each of these twelve selections, yet each sounds wonderfully different from the other. Bass achieves this fascinating distinction in each arrangement first by the most adroit selection of material.

Not only are the tunes ideally suited to the sometimes delicate, sometimes thrilling tintinnabulations of the various bell scorings, but Bass has artfully blended the bells with other key instrumental sections. Some of the arrangements feature bells and woodwinds, notably the saxes; others have the bells working with and against brash brass; and yet another group of tunes find the bells accenting, complementing and supplementing sweeping strings. But in every single case there is the tintinnabulation of the bells used with the exciting imagination which has become characteristic of one of today's finest arrangers, Sid Bass. Whether you like good music, or are seeking interesting new high fidelity sounds, or both, this package is definitely for you. – JUNE BUNDY (June Bundy is one of The Billboard's ace reporters.)

The Bells Are Swinging

What Is There To Say

Pick Yourself

Say It With Music

(In The) Wee Small Hours

You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To

Ridin' High

Soon

Blue Bells

Blue Room

The House Is Haunted

Love Walked In

Korla Pandit - Latin Holiday

Orchids In The Moonlight

Latin Holiday
Korla Pandit At The Pipe Organ

Fantasy F-1818 8027

From the back cover: SURELY NO ONE on the "Fantasy" label is more closely linked to that word than Korla Pandit. A set of curious circumstances first brought him to my attention several years ago in Hollywood-where all the fantastic and curious people eventually turn up. I was walking down Sunset Boulevard on a wet evening before Christmas. In between a funeral parlor and a hamburger stand which featured something called "Fun On A Bun" a large crowd of people had gathered to watch a television screen in an appliance shop window.

With a few noticeable exceptions they were all ladies, immobile and mute, hypnotized by a young man playing the organ on a television screen. He was wearing a white turban with a bright jewel in the front that bounced gently against his brown forehead as he played.

On his face was the merest suggestion of a smile-a combination of Sabu and the Mona Lisa.

Behind him incense smoked in long wisps and superimposed across the screen were the words "Korla Pandit." It was obvious that the gentleman in the turban was adored by the on-lookers because as he smiled into the television cameras, his audience smiled right back at him.

"He's the most soothing person on television," volunteered one of the ladies without taking her eyes off the screen. And it's quite possible that the lady was right.

This fascinating young musician played his special Christmas pro- gram which consisted of "Silent Night," "Jingle Bells" and several other old Indian folk tunes without altering his smile. Part way through the program the cool night winds began to blow off the Hollywood Hills and the ladies stamped their feet to keep the circulation going. But no one left.

After the carolling had stopped and the incense had cleared away, Pandit was nothing more than a melodic memory, but the ladies con- tinued to stare at the blank screen until a singing commercial for little liver pills jarred them back into the harsh reality of the neon-lighted world of the Sunset Strip.

"He's a real experience," sighed one woman as she lifted her shop- ping bags and walked off into the night.

Later I learned that there were little groups like this standing in front of television sets everywhere in Los Angeles. It was apparent that Korla Pandit was the most hypnotic personality to hit Southern Cali- fornia since Aimee MacPherson set up camp there in the Twenties.

And he did it all without opening his mouth!

Months afterward when I finally met Pandit in San Francisco, I found the same quiet lad with the exotic features who had kept the viewers spellbound on a stormy night on Sunset Boulevard. But I also discovered a modest and sincere young musician who is concerned with something bigger than merely playing organ music. He is interested in what it is saying, for, as he expressed it, "Music speaks the great inter- national language."

Pandit is seen in many cities across the country in a syndicated film series made for television many years ago. It is currently showing in Boston, in Florida, and in Milwaukee where it won a television popularity poll.

"The only way I find out about it is when the mail begins to come in from a new town," said Pandit.

Recently he discovered that his international language of music is now being spoken in Japanese television stations. He learned about it when he received a letter from a Japanese girl which said, simply and sincerely:

"You have fan in Japan."

Pandit's first album for Fantasy featured the music of Europe and America. His most recent one, "Music of the Exotic East" was full of the pageantry of the East suggesting silks of shimmering colors and fountains playing in hidden courtyards.

Latin Holiday, his third Fantasy album, continues his international journey into the Latin countries. There is actually nothing incongruous about a turbanned Indian playing Mexican folk music on a California pipe organ because his is an international language.

Korla Pandit is now living in the San Francisco Bay Area where he recently completed another television series. For those who may wonder, the jewel on the turban still bounces gently from his brown fore- head and the fans still stand three deep at the TV store windows whenever he appears. Even on stormy nights. – TERRENCE O'FLAHERTY

About Korla Pandit

Mr. Pandit, born in New Delhi, India, was a musically gifted child. His father, a member of one of India's first families, and his European-born mother nurtured the talent, allowing it to expand and ripen in an international atmos- phere. Journeying to Europe, England, and eventually to America, the handsome prodigy continued his formal study, finishing at the University of Chicago.

The professional career of Korla Pandit has been a suc- cession of impressive "firsts" in concert and television presentations, nationally as well as locally, in Hollywood and New York. He is responsible for several innovations in organ construction and intepretation, including Indian drum and percussive effects previously untried. His greatest success has been in television (Mr. Pandit gave the first all-musical TV program in Hollywood in 1949), and his one-hour weekly show in California won countless admirers and many awards. He has performed, too, in churches and temples on numerous occasions.

Korla Pandit brings deep spiritual contemplation to his music, but his primary goal is to create beautiful music for you, the listener. His skill and finesse, combined with a profound conviction in the divine nature of music, explain why listening to his music is a refreshing emotional experience. In Korla Pandit's own words:

"Music may not save your soul, but it will
 Cause your soul to be worth saving."

Espana

No Me Quiero Tantos

Festival Of Flowers

Orchids In The Moonlight

Estrillita

Granada

La Comparsita

It Happened In Monterey

Las Manzanitas

Besame Mucho

Maria Bonita

Joyful Tango

Korla Pandit Album Covers

I'm posting the Pandit albums I have in my collection to help me keep track of what I've got. But also to aid in indexing my Pandit Blog Posts. You can click on the title and load that post if you are interested

Korla Pandit - The Universal Language Of Music - Vol. 1 - 1954

Korla Pandit - The Universal Language Of Music - Vol. 3

Korla Pandit Selections From The Grand Moghul Suite - 1951

Korla Pandit's Musical Gems - 1951

Korla Pandit Plays Music Of The Exotic East - 1958

Korla Pandit - Tropical Magic - 1959

Korla Pandit (stereo) - At The Pipe Organ - 1960

Korla Pandit (mono) - At The Pipe Organ - 1960

Korla Pandit - Music Of Mystery And Romance - 1960

Korla Pandit - Latin Holiday - 1959

Love Letters - 1960

Hypnotique - Fantasy 8075 - 1961 (blue vinyl)

The Grand Moghul Suite - Part 1 - 1971

Tropical Magic - Korla Pandit

Tabu

Tropical Magic
Korla Pandit At The Pipe Organ

Cover Photo by Tom King at San Francisco's most exotic restaurant, Alexis' Tangier. 

Mr. King chose this famous Nob Hill setting as being most fitting in lighting and atmosphere to serve as a background for Korla Pandit's personality.
Fantasy 3288

From the back cover: THE BLAZING, BROWN EYES of Korla Pandit could charm a cobra. Seated at the pipe organ, his turban-topped face has the mobility of stone. He becomes a Svengali wringing awesome tones from the world's most majestic musical instrument. Then, in swift transition to a lighter vein, he flashes an unexpectedly disarming smile. It wilts women and makes men nervous.

At least that's what I've been told by women who watch him on television and bitterly complain whenever he periodically disappears.

For several years, off and on, Korla has been northern California's most talked about television personality. Once, following his temporary departure from a San Francisco station, TV Guide ran a popularity poll and Korla won it six months after he was off the air.

In this album you can't see the eyes that hypnotize but you will hear music surpassing his best efforts on television. There, he worked with a small electric organ. Here, he plays a mighty pipe organ at the Whitney Studio in Glendale.

It is an enormous instrument with three big lofts that spread out like a symphony orchestra. It has a piano built into the keyboard. It is equipped with marimbas, drums, bells, cymbals and dozens of complex sound devices all available to and used by Korla as he plays music of the tropical islands.

Sometimes it seems Korla is accompanied by a score of musicians, but he works alone. He is a one-man band with organic overtones. His nim- bly racing fingers produce sounds forgotten since the long ago years of silent movies when big theaters used big pipe organs to entertain patrons between pictures.

Perhaps that's why the older generation particularly enjoys Korla's music. Perhaps it recalls with fond memories their glamorous yesteryears.

But Korla is a much finer musician than the average organist who made music in the motion picture theaters. He is an orchestral minded organist. He approaches his work as does a conductor, or an arranger, particularly in this album.

In his first, "Korla Pandit at the Pipe Organ," he played comparatively simple arrangements of popular tunes. In his second, "Music of the Exotic East," he went "farther out," as they say in jazz circles. In this album, he is "real gone"-as far gone as you can go on a pipe organ, that is.

The result is something to savor because it best expresses what Korla has been striving for all along.

By way of background, you should know that Korla is a student of philosophy, a seeker after truth, a preacher of universal brotherhood. He firmly believes that music is the universal language of man. He is dedicated to authentically recreating the music of all climes and climates for the ears of our civilization.

He was born in India, educated in London. Later, he attended the University of Chicago and while there he first went on radio as an organist. Subsequently, in Hollywood, he created the radio mood music for "Chandu the Magician" and became the first musician to have his own television show.

Korla won audience applause and numerous awards but he hungered for the luxury of solitude, for a place to quietly reflect, pursue his studies and compose his own music. With his wife, Beryl, and his young sons, Sari and Karam, he found a retreat in the heart of the Santa Cruz redwood country where towering, 4,000 year old sequoia sempervirens are nature's oldest living links with antiquity.

There he retired and from there he occasionally emerged to do a television series and receive favorable reviews including this description of his music written by yours truly in a rare burst of unabashed enthusiasm: "exotic, mystic, moody, hypnotic-as gentle as drifting lotus blossoms, as savage as jungle drums."

These elements are recaptured in this album as it reflects the moods and mysteries of the South Seas and the East Indies, of Bali, Hawaii, Haiti, Tahiti and other faraway tropical islands. It includes Korla Pandit versions of popular themes, "Taboo," "Moon of Manakoora," "The Breeze and I," even a swingy treatment of "Lovely Hula Hands." It embraces themes created by Korla.

All of it is image music-designed to stimulate the imaginative mind with mental pictures of trumpeting elephants, slave girls, richly robed caliphs, savage jungle natives, sarong-sheathed dancing girls, sacrificial fire ceremonies, voodoo torture dances, pompous processions.

Here you will hear the tropical sounds-the growl of erupting volcanos, the crack of quaking earth, the murmur of coastal breezes, the swaying of palms, the roar of the surf-all subtly woven into island rhythms.

The album seethes with the imagery of demons and devils, priests at prayer, rites of old, things mysterious, things exotic, things exciting. Drums thud amidst the pealing of bells and the crashing of cymbals.

It is music to read by, romance by or daydream by. It is music to travel with on flights of fancy. It is about as far from current popular "commercial" music as an album can get. – DWIGHT NEWTON

About Korla Pandit

Mr. Pandit, born in New Delhi, India, was a musically gifted child. His father, a member of one of India's first families, and his European-born mother nurtured the talent, allowing it to expand and ripen in an international atmos- phere. Journeying to Europe, England, and eventually to America, the handsome prodigy continued his formal study, finishing at the University of Chicago.

The professional career of Korla Pandit has been a suc- cession of impressive "firsts" in concert and television presentations, nationally as well as locally, in Hollywood and New York. He is responsible for several innovations in organ construction and intepretation, including Indian drum and percussive effects previously untried. His greatest success has been in television (Mr. Pandit gave the first all-musical TV program in Hollywood in 1949), and his one-hour weekly show in California won countless admirers and many awards. He has performed, too, in churches and temples on numerous occasions.

Korla Pandit brings deep spiritual contemplation to his music, but his primary goal is to create beautiful music for you, the listener. His skill and finesse, combined with a profound conviction in the divine nature of music, explain why listening to his music is a refreshing emotional experience. In Korla Pandit's own words:

"Music may not save your soul, but it will
 Cause your soul to be worth saving."

Lotus Love
Moon Of Manikoora
Strange Enchantment
Poinciana
Tango In D
The Breeze And I
Blue Moon
Lovely Hula Hands
Trade Winds
Tabu

Cowboy Two Step

Cowboy Two Step

Cowboy Two Step

Executive Producer: Pam Tims

Narrator and Program Format: Toots Richardson

Engineer: David Powell

Cover: Susan Estes

Recorded at Unique Productions, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Melody House Publishing, Oklahoma City, OK
MH-35

Fiddles: Benny Kubiak

Guitars: Rocky Gribble

Bass: Eric Lemmons

Piano: David Powell

Drums: Steve Wright

This program was design to teach "western swing dancing".

If you learned how to cowboy dance from this LP, good for you! I have no idea how you managed it. The instructions quickly go from the simple to the complex.

Cowboy Two Step

Cotton Eyed Joe Jr.

Oklahoma Skip

Four Corners

Polka

Cowboy Waltz

Cowboy Two Step

Jackie Gleason - Music, Martinis and Memories

Yesterdays

Jackie Gleason Presents

Music, Martinis And Memories
Produced by Richard Jones

Bobby Hackett (featured trumpet)
Capitol Records SY-4518 (re-issue)

Jackie Gleason Presents

Music, Martinis And Memories

Capitol W509 (High Fidelity)

1955

I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
My Ideal
I Remember You
Shangri La
It Could Happen To You
Somebody Loves Me
The Song Is Ended
Once In A While
I Can't Get Started
Yesterdays
I'll Be Seeing You
Time On My Hands

Hal Aloma - Songs Of The Islands

Song Of The Islands

Hal Aloma
Songs Of The Islands

Photograph: George Jerman

Design: Frank Daniel
Pickwick SPC-3099

Previously released on DOT Records
1968

Song Of The Islands

Lovely Hula Girl

South Of Pago Pago

Puamana

There's No Place Like Hawaii

Hawaiian Love Song

Pretty Maui Girl

A Flower Lei

Pearly Shells

The Aloha Waltz

Million Sellers - The Today People

More Million Sellers

More Million Sellers
The Today People
Vocalion VL 73883

A Shaftesbury Production

Vocalion, A product of Decca Records, a Division of MCA, Inc., New York, N.Y., USA
1969

Studio covers of the original hits.

Love Me Tonight

Games People Play

Dizzy

My Way

Gentle On My Mind

Get Back

Happy Heart

Israelites

Goodbye

Grazin' In The Grass

18 Golden Hits Of 1971

Maggie May

Proud Mary

18 Golden Hits Of 1971
Million Selling Songs
The Sound Effects
Alshire International / QMO Products QMO-111

The Fantasy Film World Of Bernard Herrman

The Fantast Film World Of Bernard Herrmann
Conducting The National Philharmonic Orchestra
Phase 4 Stereo Decca/London Records
1974

The Day The Earth Stood Still, spanning 11:15 on the B side, followed by Fahrenheit 451 are particularly wonderful mood setting pieces. Both tracks flow nicely together. The music is full of engaging experimentation and complex twists and turns.

Much can be found online about Herrmann. I just wanted to mention this LP because I collect exotica and like music that takes you for a journey.

The Phase 4 engineering is excellent on this record.

Disco Gold Atomic Bomb

Disco Gold
Top Tunes Of Today
Dimensional Sounds
Goldendisc Industries

Out of all the goofy things I find that reflect my actual life... this find today makes a great mirror.

This is a disco record with very little disco on it, the tracks are recorded by a fake band and the cover sports a bad atomic bomb explosion photo that requires a moment of study to figure out what the blob represents. Unbelievably, there are at least SIX albums in this series, but this copy found at the thrift has Disco Gold number TWO inside. God knows where number six is today.

How does this find reflect my life? Most days I feel like I don't fit my skin. As if I am an old AM pop song done over by a lame cover group and served up smothered in cheesy atomic age icing. I'm the wrong person in the wrong number 6 jacket lost on a sagging shelf in a run down thrift. Worse yet...  my life appeals to me.

All that aside... this is both the wrong record in the right jacket and the right record in the wrong jacket. I love fake "top hits" cover albums. And there are some great horrible tracks on this one.

Korla Pandit - Music of Mystery And Romance

Kumar

Korla Pandit
Music Of Mystery And Romance
A Concert Performance Of The Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ
Fantasy 8061
1960

From the back cover: HERE once was a wise old professor of music at the University of California who said that "musical sounds, moving in time just as do the human emotions, form the most complete artistic expression of Man's soul." The professor might well have been speaking of Korla Pandit, a unique artist who has devoted the largest part of his life to music and to considering the nature and character of the soul of Man. The result of this dual mission, as you can hear in every distinctive note on this record, is an organist who brings the light of philosophy to his already incandescent and highly individualistic music.

In private life Mr. Pandit is a mild, smiling young man who appears to be the personification of his own musical belief in the Golden Union of the East and West. His easy, relaxed manner suggests neither the intense interest in matters metaphysical nor the purposeful dedication to music that carried this man around the world from India to the top stratum of America's entertainment world. More apparent, though, is his success in wholly personal terms. Korla Pandit is a devoted husband, a proud and busy father of two, and a popular personality about town. He is most popular of all, of course, with the followers of his music, particularly when making one of his rare theater appearances. His recent concert, at Oakland's Paramount Theater, which resulted in this on-the- spot recording, was an especially happy occasion for the Pandit fans who were able to attend. Playing for a live audience always does something special to a performer, and on that magic night in Oakland Korla Pandit was no exception to the rule. Caressing the great Wurlitzer pipe organ keyboards with even more affection and finesse than usual, the handsome young musician seemed to play each song as if it had been composed for him alone. (As a matter of fact, three of the selections heard here were composed for the inimitable Pandit organ style. Kumar, Kartikeya, and Trance Dance were written by the organist himself!)

Because Fantasy engineers were there to capture the entire event on tape, we have a delightful program of old favorites and Korla Pandit originals in a live concert performance that is without doubt a high point in Mr. Pandit's illustrious musical career. And the awesome Wurlitzer pipe organ, a powerful and magnificent instrument, was exactly the right final ingredient to make that night at the Paramount a memorable one indeed.

Getting back to the fundamental question of music as an expression of Man's soul, it is interesting to see what Mr. Pandit himself has to say on the subject. Writing in the San Francisco Star, the organist put it this way: "Music that fails to arouse any response in the listener may be likened to frozen orange juice. It must have the water added to reach its original form. Written compositions are frozen music until the per- forming artist breathes the water of life back into them.

"Machines have been built that reproduce music more flawlessly and accurately than any human being. But no machine has yet appeared that can substitute for the human soul.

"In India, we believe that music never dies, but ever materializes into newer and equally beautiful forms. Thus we complete the circle, bringing to the world the Universal Language of Music in its truest form." This, then, is the credo by which Korla Pandit lives and plays his music. It is his deep belief in the value of the human soul that sets his work apart from and above that of ordinary musicians. He does not, for example, reply upon written music to guide him through complex and exciting arrangements like Tales from the Vienna Woods, Song of India, or Granada. Rather, Mr. Pandit interprets the original composition as inspiration of the moment tells him to. By so doing, he acts within the time-honored traditions of his ancestors.

"India's music," explains Mr. Pandit, "is based upon Ragas (scales, or family of tones) and is best taught through the system of oral trans- mission, the true method of learning for the artist, because every performer must be in some degree a composer... He is taught not merely to repeat a given song, but to sing or play in a given mode or mood. And because it is so great an advantage for the true musician to need no external aid to memory, such as the printed score. The music itself cannot persist as a part of everyday life unless it is thus handed down as a sacred tradition."

There, in the artist's own words, is the explanation of the freshness of each Pandit performance. No matter how often he has played the selection before, each rendition is a new and stimulating experience for the organist and, of course, for his listeners as well. We can now understand, too, this man's ability to go to the heart of each song, whether it tells the story of India, Spain, or, as in his Hawaiian medley, an exotic segment of the American scene.

Listen now to the inner voice of Korla Pandit as he speaks to you through music, "the most complete artistic expression of Man's soul." The old professor who originated that phrase had something all right, but he might have added, "if the performing artist possesses sufficient amounts of formal technique, musical sensitivity, and philosophic insight."

Or, to say it still another way, if the performing artist is Korla Pandit. – PETER MOSS

Espana

Kumar 

Tales Of Vienna Woods

Kartikeya

Granada

Someday

Trance Dance

Song Of India

Jalousie 

Hawaiian Medley: Blue Hawaii, Lovely Hula Hands, Sweet Leilani