The Wide, Wide World Of Jazz - Dave Garroway

 

Havana After Dark

Dave Garroway Presents
The Wide, Wide World Of Jazz
RCA Victor LPM-1325
1956


From the back cover:

Flying Down To Rio
Tito Puente and His Orchestra
Side One comes up first with Flying Down To Rio by the Tito Puente band – a solid, but not heavy, mambo sound with a strange, exotic flavor given it by one tiny change in the chorus.


Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
Lee Wiley with Deane Kincade's Dixieland Band
There are probably only a dozen jazz singers who have their own individual sound, quite apart from the sounds that other have made before them, and surely Lee Wiley is one of these. On Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, and on everything else she does, there is a marvelous texture to her voice, something like running your hand over a piece of fine Harris tweed – and both tickle. Many another singer is just discovering the importance of the sense of the words in a lyric. Lee has known about words for some time now. Cutty Cutshall give her some delightful, sensuous help in the background.


California, Here I Come
Barbarar Carroll Trio
I think that, head over heals, Barbara Carroll is the freshest most creative pianist in the bushes today. Her themes are always simple and directly stated, and then, when she goes into variations on them, it becomes a fascinating exercise for the listener to follow, and to relate the variation to the theme. There is a great precision and crispness about her thinking and originality that makes the listener a happy one. And with all this, she never stop swingin' – never! My favorite pianist, you may gather.


Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen
"Peanuts" Hucko's Swing Band
The wonderful old band sounds of '35-'42 are here photographically recreated with a spirit the tmakes you think for a moment you have put on the Goodman Carnegie Hall record – and, of course, the fidelity is something else again. There's a brilliant trumpet interlude that cane be used to shave with if you run out of other sharp things. Song writer Frank Loesser may be somewhat surprised at what happens here to his lovely waltz from "Hans Christian Andersen."


Manhattan Serenade
Helen Ward with "Peanuts" Hucko's Swing Band
I've said for a long time that if I wanted to investigate somebody for a $50 loan, I'd rather hear him sing one standard theme than talk to him for half an hour. It's this way with Helen Ward. Her essential honesty shows up in her voice like a headlight. I don't think she could wrap a note if she tired, and I hope never to find out otherwise. Her warmth on this fine Louis Alter tune is admirably backed by some poetic trumpet.


Chicago Breakdown
Deane Kincaide's Dixieland Band
Deane Kincaide and his Dixie Gentlemen, including Billy Butterfield, Cutty Cutshall, "Peanuts" Hucko, Lou Stein and Cliff Leeman, take off on this Jelly Roll opus, and don't quit till all the sheep are in the corral, if that's where you put sheep. In addition to all the most correct dixie phrasing, there creeps in a n astounding and amusing modern phrase a few times. Spice on the cake; cold beer in the glass.


Spain
"Peanuts" Hucko's Swing Band
A pristine yet warm chorus by "Peanuts" get them off the ground and the trumpet is merely exquisite with it's bittersweet tone. Incidentally, this fine arrangement, along with the other three for the Hucko band, was written by Charlie Shirley.


Paris Without You
Barbara Carroll Trio
After the title catches your throat, you are free to sink back in comfort for the "other" Barbara Carroll. Listening to her Debussyesque musings seem almost sacrilegious – as though we were violating her privacy without permission. A great tune to practice writing lyrics for.


A Foggy Day In London
Helen Ward with "Peanuts" Hucko's Swing Band
One of the Gershwin giants and Helen Ward's open-faced approach that is so refreshing in these days of the gimmick singers – the ones who are around to annoy us just to the breaking point, and then drop out, to be replaced the next week by even more weird ones.


Kansas City Stomp
Deane Kincaide's Dixieland Band
Featuring some trumpet-clarinet unison work by Butterfield-Hucko that is so precise you are left wondering if there were two instruments there. There are.


Stars Fell On Alabama
Lee Wiley with Deane Kincade's Dixieland Band
One of Lee's greatest. She thinks so too – and the lady is quite a critic. Notice the surprising sweetness in her higher notes. Sometimes I feel she is singing through a fine lace handkerchief.


Havana After Dark
Tito Puente and His Orchestra
I've never been there, but if it's like this number, I'd better not waste any more time getting to it. A hard, bright mambo – and do those dancers have as much fun as they seem to?

From Billboard - January 5, 1957: Jazz for the masses, with Garroway, who emcees NBC-TV's "Wide, Wide World" show, contributing a relaxed, I don't know anything about jazz but I know what I like" type commentary. Effective and varied talent lineup includes Tito Puente ork, the great Lee Wiley with Deane Kincaide's Dixieland Band, Barbara Carroll Trio, Helen Ward with (Peanuts) Hucko's Swing Band and Billy Butterfield. Tunes carry show's travel theme – "Flying Down To Rio," etc.