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Friday, August 10, 2012

I've Got You Under My Skin - Pete Fountain

Yesterday
I've Got You Under My Skin
Pete Fountain
Coral Records
CRL 757488
1967

This is badtastical lounge record. Each track is more badtastical than the next.

From the back cover: In this album, Pete Fountain returns to the kind of free-swinging small group which made one of his most successful records ever-"Pete Fountain's New Orleans" (CRL 57282). The accompanists who provide him with such a lively springboard are the formidable, highly professional and eminently sympathetic trio of Stan Wrightsman (piano), Morty Corb (bass) and Jack Sperling (drums). Pete's regular vibist, Godfrey Hirsch, lends a helping hand-and mallets-from time to time. The program includes a number of recent successes, and in some instances they are set to an appropriately contemporary beat.

Most of the recordings were made during Pete's sec- ond very successful engagement in Las Vegas, where he played at The Tropicana and used Jack Sperling as an added attraction for solos and specialities. The Vegas days seldom being so fully occupied as the nights, it occurred to producer Bud Dant that this was an ideal opportunity to record Pete under conditions which were simultaneously relaxed and stimulating.

My Blue Heaven, the opener, immediately proves this to have been a good idea, for it is surely one of the most happily realized performances in the clarinetist's extensive recorded career. Walter Donaldson's beautiful song was due for a revival, and this seems to be the interpretation likely to bring it about. The group answers Pete's theme statements before he goes into a swinging full chorus; the piano has the spotlight for sixteen bars; bass and drums duet for the rest of the chorus; the ensemble returns and they take it out in the manner established at the beginning. It is simple in outline, but extremely effective the way they play it.

Louie, Louie is a tune that has come back into popu- larity thanks to the slower tempo and folk quality of The Sandpipers' record. Pete made it in Nashville shortly after the Vegas engagement, and there he was able to use the same rhythm section and vocal group heard on his earlier records. Saxophonist Boots Randolph also contributed to this session.

Hanky Panky returns us to Vegas. Like so many other rock hits, this is the blues, and the blues are Pete's meat, as he rapidly makes clear. Meditation was recorded with just bass and light drums. Al Hendrickson, who is very inventive in the bossa nova idiom, dubbed in his guitar part at a later date. With only the bass to listen to for the harmony, Pete's ear stood him in good stead. Strangers In The Night, the popular theme of the movie "A Man Could Get Killed," is given a melodic treatment. Stan Wrightsman establishes the beat and the mood in the introduction.

The Old French Quarter was also made in Nashville. It is a blues-oriented number which seeks to recapture the party atmosphere of "Pete's Place," the clarinetist's popular club in New Orleans. The performance is graphically realistic at times, even down to the sound of people talking when they ought to be listening!

Mame, which opens the second side, is another hit by Jerry Herman, the composer of "Hello, Dolly!" The lyrics are concerned with New Orleans and the tune seems to suit Pete even better than "Dolly." Yesterday is the surprise hit written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles. Pete treats it respectfully in his best melodic style, and the song's unusual char- acter is further emphasized by the Bach-like interplay between Stan Wrightsman and Morty Corb in the bridge of the second chorus. Cole Porter's I've Got You Under My Skin is a great song at any time, but this version was partially inspired by the success and beat of the hit record by The Four Seasons. Another Nashville recording, this brings the chorus to the foreground with words and melody in the second chorus. Call Me is a swinger, but not too far out, for Pete is often content to let its melodic phrases speak for themselves. Born Free, the pretty theme of the movie of that name, is prettily played with a contemporary beat and pleasing use of Godfrey Hirsch's vibes. The vibes are prominent, too, on The More I See You, an old song which has had a new lease on life thanks to the unusual arrangement of the Chris Montez hit.

Except for the Nashville recordings, which were planned and arranged by Bud Dant, all of these performances were made from "head" or oral arrangements, to which each of the men contributed what he did best. It is in this kind of context and with this kind of freedom that Pete Fountain's imagination flourishes. The result is music that will get under your skin.


My Blue Heaven
Louie, Louie
Hanky Panky
Meditation
Mame
Yesterday
I've Got You Under My Skin
Call Me
Born Free
The More I See You

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Penthouse Serenade - Jay Gordon Orchestra

The Breeze And I
Penthouse Serenade
The Jay Gordon Concert Orchestra
Tops L1557
1957

This album features standard big band easy arrangements for the period. However the violin heard on the exotica staple tune, The Breeze And I, makes for an interesting sample.

Murmurio (Murmur Of Love) - Walter Wanderley

Samba On The Beach
Murmurio (Murmur Of Love)
Walter Wanderley
Tower T5058
1967

From the back cover: First came the guitar sounds of Almeida, Bonfas, and Gilberto, to tantalize the ear like softly effluent wisps of smoke, breeze-born from Brazil. Then the piano of Jobim, gently lustrous cascades of notes, like pearls flung across white satin. More recently came the buoyant ensemble sounds of Sergio Mendez and his group. And now the newest delight to reach these shores from Rio: the deft, light, billowing, silken sounds of

Walter Wanderley at the organ.

"Above all, his music is Brazilian," wrote one commentator from Walter Wanderley's homeland. For this excellent musician has steadily resisted the United States-influenced bossa nova styles, and continued his own highly personal explorations of the Southern hemisphere "new swing." The huge success of his delightful "Rain Forest," and the hits which have followed it, have confirmed the validity of his choice.

In this album, Walter Wanderley supplements the sound of his organ with his own fleet, expert piano, and with guitar, bass, tenor sax, and percussion. With wonderful songs like the lilting "The Girl from Ipanema," the lively, delightful "Ze from Conceicao," and the bewitching "Murmurio" - destined to be a new Walter Wanderley all-time favorite - Walter and his musicians translate into irresistible jazz-samba sounds the intimately whispered essence of romance. Murmurio. Murmur of love!


Murmurio
The Girl From Ipanema
I Only Dance The Samba
Only Samba
Ze From Conceicao
What I Like About You
Airplane Samba
Samba On The Beach
Melancholy
O Samba Brasileiro

More Blue Mist In The Mood For Sax - Sam "The Man" Taylor

Tenderly
More Blue Mist
In The Mood For Sax
Sam "The Man" Taylor
Cover Photograph by Lester Krauss
MGM E3783
1959

From the back cover: The king of velvet-toned jazz has recorded another collection of haunting, provocative melodies which linger in a nostalgic, love-filled realm of blue mist. Here is that genius of the tenor sax playing with and conducting his own flawless orchestra in a presentation of mood music unequaled for its romantically poetic themes and captivating mellowness.

Sam "The Man" Taylor, accompanied by his magical tenor sax and eloquent orchestra, has made a musical journey through those hidden melodies which tell of dreams, desire, love-found, and love-lost. And from this exciting excursion through the sensuous and the cherished, MGM Records has produced an album which brilliantly evokes all the diamond-clear and velvet-soft tones that fly from the wizardry of jazz- king Sam "The Man" Taylor's conducting and his masterful playing of the tenor sax.

***

Sam "The Man" Taylor has been a professional musician since the age of sixteen and has played with such diverse groups as his own college band at Alabama State Teachers' College, Sherman (Scatman) Crothers' Orchestra, the Sunset Royal Entertainers, the Cootie William Orchestra, and the Cab Calloway Orchestra. He is well-known and admired by jazz fans for his virtuistic playing of the tenor sax and performances as soloist-conductor with his own superb orchestra.


Tenderly
Prelude To A Kiss
I'm In The Mood For Love
If I Ever Love Again
Reflections
Stella By Starlight
Love Me
Willow Weep For Me
This Love Of Mine
(I Got A Woman Crazy For Me)
She's Funny That Way
I Should Care
Close Your Eyes (Bramham's Lullaby)

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Dick Kesner's Golden Favorites

Amor
Dick Kesner's Golden Favorites
Golden Favorites
Coral Records
CRL 757435

Dick Kesner's Golden Favorites means Coral repacked tracks from other Kesner projects including The Music Of Hawaii and Amor Latino. This makes for an uneven presentation but you do get to hear some of the cooler space age Kesner tunes.

Kesner was best known for his work on the Lawrence Welk Show.