Nightcap - Dick Leibert

Nightcap
Dick Leibert
Westminster WP 6039
1957

I didn't expect to find this album online for purchase/download... but there it is.

For some reason, you don't get the fabulous original cover with the download.

I also found it curious that Westminster released a pop album as the label is best known for classical music releases.

There are references to Dick Leibert online, but for the most part he seems to be somewhat obscure.

From the back cover: Dick Leibert was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and educated at the Moravian Prep School and the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. He began to play organ professionally at fourteen years of age, when he got a job as theater organist for Loew's in Washington, D.C. Later he toured the Lowe's theater circuit, and then played for two years at the Brooklyn Paramount. Against stiff competition he won the auditions for the permanent post at Radio City Music Hall at the time of the theater's opening, and his performance there made him America's most popular organist. He now devotes much of his time to TV, radio and concert appearances.

Leibert covers a number of my favorite tunes, including Laura and September Song. However, aside from the terrific cover art, I have to recommend Korla Pandit to friends of The Atomic Attic who are looking for fab Space Age organ fare.

Destination Moon - Ames Brothers

Destination Moon
Ames Brothers With Sid Ramin's Orchestra
RCA Victor LPM-168
1958

This is the mono cover, which is basically the same as the stereo release, but designed without the "Living Stereo" graphic stripped across the top. This LP is available as MP3 download purchase so I will not be posting a sample.

Sid Ramin provides a nice space age platform to help The Ames Brothers launch to The Moon. The cover, the orchestration and The Ames Brothers smooth vocals make for solid and classy late 50s vinyl collectible!

Destination Moon
Clear Out of This World
Moonglow
East of the Sun
Count Every Star
No Moon at All
I'm Shooting High
Music from Out of Space
Stella by Starlight
It's Only a Paper Moon
The Starlit Hour
Beyond the Blue Horizon

Star Wars - Don Ellis

Music From Other Galaxies And Planets
Featuring The Main Title Theme From Star Wars
Don Ellis And Survival
Atlantic SD 18227
1977

What?!! Another Star Wars theme album blogged in The Atomic Attic this week? The Force works in mysterious ways my friends.

This album can be found on CD so I will not be posting a sample. I noted when checking for a CD on Amazon that someone connected with the Ellis estate posted an interesting review. Basically, this album was thrown together in six days because of some contractual deal with Atlantic. The reviewer apologizes for the album because of the hurried nature of the production and that he feels the quality is not as good as other Ellis albums.

This being the first Ellis album I've stumbled across... I can't compare it to his other work. I simply enjoyed the record because it all at once, very 70s (like adventure TV theme music)... but with touches of 60s light pop mixed up with pop jazz passages and, of course a touch of space. The music is an interesting hybrid that I think lovers of 70s/60s/jazz/disco/a touch of space albums will love... er... if you know what I mean.

Life Is Just A Bed Of Neuroses - Katie Lee with Ray Martin

Life Is Just A Bed Of Neuroses
Katie Lee with Ray Martin And His Orchestra
RCA Victor LSP-2214
1960

Oh man, to bad, this LP is available on a CD. A CD that feature 35 Lee tunes (tunes from this album and Songs Of Couch And Consultation) so I will not be posting a sample.

Normally I don't get into comedy albums and music... but this project is different. It's insane. Well, OK... you can see where I'm going with this review.

The presentation of the vocals and orchestration isn't over the edge. The vibe is easy listening/broadway/space age with very pleasant and straight forward vocals by Lee. The contrast and humor are born from the lyrics which are terrific. And, if we might consider that behavioral science terms weren't common in most households in 1960... this record, to my thinking... would seem crazy to most.

The whacked thing is that the songs seem as fresh and funny now as back in the day. They don't make neuroses like they used to! Visit Lee's website: http://www.katydoodit.com/

Themes For Secret Agents - The Roland Shaw Orchestra

I Spy

Themes For Secret Agents
The Roland Shaw Orchestra

Produced by Tony D'Amato

Engineer: Arthur "Butch" Bannister
Phase 4 Stereo
London SP 44076
1966

From Billboard - April 23, 1966: The Roland Shaw Orchestra takes the cream of the secret agent themes from films and TV and comes up with a real cloak-and-dagger album. There's "Thunderball," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Goldfinger" and more. The sound is outstanding.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Mr. Kiss-Kiss Bang-Bang

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

Goldfinger

The Ipcress File

The Saint

Thunderball

The Avenders

From Russia With Love

I Spy

Our Man Flint

The James Bond Theme

Motion In Percussion - The Hollywood Pops Symphony

Voodoo Moon

Motion In Percussion
The Hollywood Pops Symphony
Conducted By Robert Lowden
Miller International

Sonic Workshop - Project No. 0100
1960

This is a curious album that was produced by D. L. Miller. Miller of Somerset Records, his budget label that produced some good product, including 101 Strings projects (there are some great 101s out there).

Miller seems to have distanced himself from the "budget" side of his business for this project. It might appear that he wanted to try his hand at producing a slick and trendy album. This package was obviously influenced by Enoch Light's Command label. The jacket is a book-fold construction and more, the red panel on the cover, featuring the word "MOTION", is die cut into the jacket. The insert is a piece of plastic that "blinks" when you turn the jacket one way and then the other.  The color changes from red to yellow and the word motion repeats, but changes in size. This was an EXPENSIVE jacket to produce. Design credit goes to W. Dressler.

The engineering is very good on this record (recorded at United Recording Studios, Hollywood, CA). The quality is close to what I hear coming from Command or Mercury during this period.

The content of this album is as good as many of the fun, light pop records coming from Command at the time and Miller is right on top of the trend, borrowing ping pong and percussion stylings from Light. Voodoo Moon is probably one of the cooler tunes off the album. There is also a cool cover of Caravan on the album as well as a dramatic cover of Ski Run from the movie Spellbound.

Malaguena
Sabre Dance
Old Soft Shoe
Bats In The Belfry
Ghost Riders In The Sky
Voodoo Moon
Roller Coaster
Dizzy Fingers
Caravan
Flight Of The Bumblebee
Beguine For Bongos
Ski Run

More Mission Impossible - Lalo Schifrin

More Mission Impossible
Arranged And Conducted By Lalo Schifrin
Paramount PAS 5002
1969

Wow! What a great record! Schifrin wrote the Theme From Mission: Impossible (a song that is on this album). It was a treat to hear that song again, to refresh my memory as to how unique the tune is.

Needless to mention, a CD is available so I won't be posting a sample.

The track Self Destruct is also standout. I've never heard tubular bells used with such effect.

Read about Schifrin's brilliant career on his wiki page.

Folkdance Underground

Kostursko Opo (Macedonia)

Folkdance Underground
1975

Curious private press with a home-made cover. The record content, according to the cover, is copyright free material which was assembled onto 200 copies costing $1.75 each. Copies were being sold for $2 to help pay for the pressing so that the responsible collective could give away free copies to "folkdance" groups.

There is a complaint at the outset of the copy which goes on about one nameless record merchant (who apparently they all know) who was appropriating music without consent, pressing and selling 45s and profiting from sales without compensating the artists. This person so incensed these people that they former the Folkdance Underground to help guide other performers through a fair record making process and to help with the ins and outs of personal appearances.

Click on the image above to read the entire page.

Jungle Odyssey

Jungle Odyssey
Evolution/ RPM Records, South Africa 2005
1966

When I found this album in the bin at the thrift... I almost put it back because the cover and song titles suggests that the album is a childrens record. I then noted on the back cover a list of instruments used in the recording that included Vibes, Xylophone, Congo Drums, Clavinette, Harpsichord and Bongos. How could any record go wrong with a set up like that?

If I had read the too small jacket notes I would have then learned that a composer/arranger by the name of Mike Simpson, a 30 year veteran of the music business, had produced this album. Simpson worked with the likes of Henry Mancini, Gene Krupa, Jack Teagarden and Danny Kaye and had written music for TV and films. THEN I would have figured out that the record was originally marketed to adults. Not that children would not LOVE this record!

Unfortunately I can't post a sample because this album is available for purchase/download. Too bad, because this record is so crazy good! You've got to get a copy! The vibe is hard to describe... It is like Exotica was visiting the zoo one day. She was walking along minding her own business, intently sucking on a lime Slurpee.  Suddenly she trips over a jungle root blocking her path finds herself flung headlong into a pit swarming with 60s Ping-Pong Light-Pop. The creatures don't rip her to shreds... rather they mate with her. Later she gives birth to this record.

I think that is clear enough.

The Mancini Touch - Henry Mancini

A Cool Shade Of Blue (LSP-2001)

The Mancini Touch
RCA Victor LPM-2101 & LSP-2101
Produced by Dick Pierce
Recording Engineer: Al Schmitt
Recorded at RCA Victor's Music Center of the World, Hollywood, California, on August 10, 11 and 14, 1959

(1960 release)

Featured Performers:
Bob Bain - Guitar
Vince DeRosa - 1st French Horn
Vic Feldman - Vibe and Marimba
Ronnie Lang - Baritone Sax and Alto Flute
Shelly Mann - Drums
Dick Nas - 1st Trombone
Ted Nash - Alto Sax
Johnny Williams - Piano

From the back cover: THE MANCINI TOUCH, like swing, is something hard to define but easy to recognize. Put the two together and you get a swinging touch like nothing you've ever heard.

Henry Mancini gave a new sound to television when he came up with the modern jazz background music to Peter Gunn. Now he gives an equally new sound to dance music, a rare and exciting combination of modern jazz ideas and swinging dance rhythms.

Mancini won two Grammys (the Oscars of the recording industry) for his RCA Victor Peter Gunn album-best album of the year and best arrangements of the year. And he had the additional pleasure of seeing his double winner become one of the best selling albums in history.

As a young musician, he played everything from jazz to Pennsylvania polkas. Later he brought his composing and arranging talents to Universal-International studios in Hollywood. In a very short time, he has won wide acclaim both as a composer and arranger, with many great motion pictures to his credit as well as one of the country's leading television shows.

However, in this album, Henry Mancini exposes still another side of his many talents. Remembering the lush days of the '30s when the Goodmans, Millers, Dorseys, et al., combined good jazz and good dance music into one, Mancini decided to turn his thoughts and talents somewhat in this direction – the results being presented in this album.

Using the finest Hollywood musicians, Mancini has put together a thirty-five piece orchestra-twenty strings, four French horns, four trombones, five rhythm (including vibes), and two solo woodwinds. It is an unusual instrumentation, but one which pays off sensationally in the soft swing approach he is using. There is a lushness to the strings, a brilliance to the brass, and organized background fullness against which the jazz soloists ad lib with bold inspiration.

Similarly surprising and original in his choice of material, Mancini has come up with some well-known but not over-worked favorites from the past, and has added to them a group of originals.

Thompson and "Illinois" Jacquet wrote Robbin's Nest as a theme for Eastern disc jockey Fred Robbins, and it has since become something of a jazz classic. And speak- ing of jazz classics, one of the great ones is Bijou, a Ralph Burns composition for the Woody Herman Herd. Of a more recent vintage is Like Young, an Andre Previn original, and Free and Easy, which Mancini wrote for the Universal- International picture "Rock Pretty Baby." The other four are brand new Mancini material, here being given their musical debut. The titles: A Cool Shade of Blue, Politely, Let's Walk and Mostly for Lovers.

There have been big bands before, swinging bands. They've had fine arrangements and outstanding soloists. But no other band has ever had one thing that this band has. You can hear it... and it's worth listening to. You can feel it... and it's worth dancing to. It's THE MANCINI TOUCH. – HAL LEVY

From Billboard - January 26, 1960: Henry Mancini proves on this fine new album that he can do more than the music for "Peter Gun" with this very attractive big band waxing that could turn into another best-seller. The outstanding Mancini arrangements are played by the 35-piece ork with a sharpness and precision that is a pleasure to hear. Tunes include Mancini originals such as "Let's walk" and "A Cool Shade Of Blue" and standards including "Snow Fall" and "That's All." The stereo sound is excellent.

Bijou

Mostly For Lovers

Like Young

My One And Only Love

Politely

Trav'lin' Light

Let's Walk

Snowfall

A Cool Shade Of Blue

Robbin's Nest

Free And Easy

That's All