Drums Of Passion - Olatunji

 

Shango (Chant To The God Of Thunder)

Drums Of Passion

Olatunji!

Columbia CS 8210

1960

PERSONNEL

Drummers: Baba Hawthorne Bey, Montigo Joe (Roger Sanders), Taiwo Duval

Singers: Ida Beebee Capps, Afuavi Derby, Akwasiba Derby, Helen Haynes, Dolores Oyinka Parker, Ruby Wuraola Pryor, Barbara Gordon, Helena Walker, Louise Young

From the back cover: Ajido is a small town in the vicinity of Badagry in Nigeria, West Africa. It is both a fishing and trading town. When the rains are over and the market women have returned from the monthly markets at Epe, Badagry, and Lagos, the nets lie idle in the sun to dry and the voices of women may be heard singing at the weaving frames. This is the season when the Zangbetos, the raffiaed masqueraders who are the guardians of public morals and safety, are out. The big drums and the little drums, made from hollowed trees and the skins of rams, resound through the nights in circles of townspeople, and the burning lamps of clay and palm oil.

This was the Ajido of Babatunde Olatunji's childhood days. Many a night, Babatunde went with Tanyin, his great-aunt, to hear the drummers proclaim the coming of a local poli ician, Alose, as they strutted along the streets of Ajido, singing:

Ago, O, mi ja ye / Hail! I am coming

Ponpongba, ponpongba / drum beats
Ago, O, mi ja ye! / Hail! I am coming

Ponpongba, ponpongba / drum beats
Ago Alose ja e / Hail! Alose comes

Arun ma yi Powhe / What dog dare cross the path of the lion! 

Bo no ago ma tho / Without announcing his intentions

Ago, O, mi ja ye! / Hail! I am coming!

It was in this way that drum rhythms became part of Babatunde. In many places he has traveled in Africa; how often he must have heard the continuous beats of gangan, dundun, omele, bembe, kiriboto, agidigbo, sakara, go je konnongo, gbedu, igba to name a few types of talking drums that are common in West Africa, and beyond, even today.

In this recording, Drums of Passion, Babatunde Olatunji has recaptured some of his early impressions in his drum beats and has given them new zest and power in order to preserve the remnants of "primitive" folk music before its gradual disappearance from a fast-changing culture and continent, where these things can be so easily lost or forgotten.

The drum, like many exotic articles, is charged with evocative power. The drum is not only a musical instrument, it is also a sacred object and even the tangible form of divinity. It is endowed with a mysterious power, a sort of life-force which, however, has been incomprehensible to many missionaries and early travelers, who ordered its suppression and influence by forbidding its use.

Today, the oldest of musical instruments, the drum, serves the anthropologist and sociologist as a very useful and valuable cultural artifact; and, surprisingly, provides the physiologist with an immense tool for probing the human nervous system. As one listens, the mind is swayed by a strong feeling; by emo- tions of gladness and joy, grief, fear and hope.

Through the folk-songs in this album, with the fluidity and complexity of African rhythms, several epochs of music history are telescoped. As one musicologist once remarked, "Whether or not we fancy the radical trends in ultra – modern music – its unusual rhythms, its atonal scales we owe to it one debt of gratitude: it enables us much better to appreciate the music of other ages and other lands." Babatunde has lit the floodlight upon the universally human significance of primitive mores and customs, of which drumming, singing, and dancing are significant parts.

The selection of songs and African rhythmic renditions in this album definitely belong to a repertoire of the long ago and present day Nigeria. Contemporary incidents, whether religious, social, political, or economic, have always inspired compositions full of allusions to the circumstances which gave birth to them. Olatunji has brought back to remembrance certain songs,and cult rhythms of traditional significance in his boyhood days and generations ago in West Africa, recorded with musical instruments indigenous to Africa.

Drums of Passion is a danceable album. From all indications, it is probably the first African album recorded in stereophonic sound in the United States.

AKIWOWO "Chant to the Trainman"

One of the train conductors, whose name. became a household word at the stations from Lagos to Idogo, from Ibadan to Kano, was that man called "Guard Akiwowo." When he was on duty on a freight train, his humorous cry, "Eyi lo poro! (Do you call this having an easy time?)" could be heard against the fading rhythmic beat of the train. In this piece, Olatunji has captured the power and the rhyth- mic beat of the freight train. One is reminded of the new-born nation of Nigeria along the path of social reconstruction.

OYA "Primitive Fire"

In the beginning of time man discovered that he could make fire by striking together two flints. He gathered dry leaves and kindled them. The flames rose slowly, mounting higher and higher into a huge, dancing, writhing body of burning energy spreading beyond the horizon. Slowly it began to burn out-slowly losing life- slowly – then out. This is the idea Mr. Olatunji has created and interpreted so eloquently on the drums. This number is dedicated to the idea of freedom. Next to Shango it is the most powerful drumming in the collection. No electronic devices are used and what you hear is the true percussion sound, expertly played by Mr. Olatunji and his assisting artists.

ODUN DE! ODUN DE! "Happy New Year!"

This is Batatunde's own original composition representing the first bar of the hymns, "Ikore de," of the United African Methodist Church, an orthodox African separatist church in which Mr. Olatunji was a member of the choir in his teen-age years. The festival may mark the celebration of the harvesting of Yam, of the New Year, or the Easter, or Shango.

JIN-GO-LO-BA "Drums of Passion"

When there is a duet between the mother drum and the omele drum, what a match! The pattern sounds like this:

Mother-drum: Jin
Omele: golo
Mother-drum: Ba

In this piece, Olatunji attempts what may be called a symphonic drum drama. Each drum speaks a part.

KIYAKIKA "Why Do You Run Away?"

In this piece, the drummer asks of a friend: "My friend, what's the matter with you, that you are in such a big rush?" With the chang- ing tempo of life in Africa today, many are in a hurry to get somewhere. People are in a hurry to get rich quick; to travel by fast- moving vehicles; and to develop the country speedily. Friends no longer have time to stop, salute, and gossip as before. Instead they wave to one another at a distance, and say "gudubai" – goodby! The drum artist is surprised at these things, and is particularly disturbed at the thinning cord of friendship. So he resorts to the drum. Hear the beats simulating the hasty pace, as he sings "salo e; salo e; salo e..." But time does not heed the artist as it bears in new fads and foibles.

BABA JINDE "Flirtation Dance"

This is a number which does not need much explanation because of its title, Flirtation Dance. It is a play dance made famous by the first great teacher of African dance in this country, Asadata Dafora. In this dance a young man is faced with the difficult task of selecting the dancer who has responded best to the compelling rhythms. Aquasiba Derby is featured in the number with Olatunji.

OYIN MOMO ADO "Sweet as Honey"

This number reminds one of a common prac- tice throughout Africa of advertising a commodity through songs. Also, when the ancient Hebrews wanted to express their joy at the receipt of some good news, they praised the bringer of the news with these words. "How beautiful are the feet of him who bears good tidings!" Like other Africans, Yorubas express the same idea with a different idiom: "Onireki, o gboyin de, Oyin momo ado!" (the owner of the sugar, he brings news, sweet as honey). One of the indigenous instruments of Africa, known there by many interesting names and to the Western world as "the thumb piano," is featured in this song by Olatunji, with drums and voices blending in harmony.

SHANGO "Chant to the God of Thunder"

With thunder and lightning, Shango, the God of Thunder and the deified King of Old Oyo, revisits the earth, as his devotees chant his invocationary praise. Listen, as Babatunde invokes him:

"Shango, protect me! gatekeeper of the 

   passenger train. Today belongs to the passengers; 

   tomorrow belongs to the 

   gatekeeper.
Shango, you lap blood
Like the cat that laps palm oil
Costumed like the acrobatic masquerade, 

   labala,
With the cloth of death,
Shango, you are the death that drips, 

   drips, drips
Like indigo dye dripping from an adire 

   cloth."

Notes by AKIN AKIWOWO and BABATUNDE OLATUNJI

Akiwowo (Chant To The Trainman)

Oya (Primitive Fire)

Odun de! Odun de! (Happy New Year)

Jin-Go-Lo-Ba (Drums Of Passion)

Kiyakiya (Why Do You Run Away?)

Bada Jinde (Flirtation Dance)

Oyin Momo Ado (Sweet As HoneyBee)

Shango (Chant To The God Of Thunder)

Featuring Andre Previn

 

Featuring Andre Previn

Featuring Andre Previn

Sutton SSU 200 Stereophonic

Ain't Misbehavin'

That's Where The South Begins

I Got A Feeling I'm Falling

Honeysuckle Rose

Stealin' Apples

Malagueña

Aye, Aye

Habanera

Espana

El Relicario

Ray Eberle Plays Glenn Miller Favorites

 

It's A Blue World

Ray Eberle Plays Glenn Miller Favorites

Tops/Mayfair Stereo L9573 (translucent deep red vinyl)

From the back cover: That this is not the first tribute to Glenn Miller is a certainty. That this will not be the last tribute to this ever famous band leader is equally certain. But, as sure as anything can be is the fact that no tribute that is made to recall and honor the name and great talent of the late Glenn Miller can be more befitting and dynamic than this fabulous collection of Glenn Miller tunes brought to you in Hi-Fi by the Ray Eberle Orchestra.

For it was Ray Eberle, as Glenn Miller's featured vocalist, whose thrilling voice sang the lyrics to such million record sellers as "Serenade In Blue", Elmer's Tune", "Moonlight Cocktails", and "At Last". ("At Last" is here included and is again sung by Ray. He sounds better than ever in the magnificence of Hi-Fi).

No American band leader seems to have the succession of hits that Glenn Miller had. The "Miller Sound" seemed to take a tune and give it a wonderful excitement and originality that would at once endear it to the imagination and heart of musical America. That unique sound has not been forgotten, nor is it likely to be. It is a living memory of millions who were youngsters in the forties, as well as being alive to today's generation of newer dancers.

Ray Eberle, his voice and his orchestra recreate the sound of Glenn Miller by getting to the heart of some of the greatest Miller tunes. As played and sung here they sound better than ever, thanks to the use of superb Hi-Fi recording equipment.

ABOUT RAY EBERLE

Ray Eberle, the handsome, personable young man, was born in the thriving community of Hoosick Falls, New York on January 19. His "big" break came at 18 when he was hired to fill the featured vocalist spot with the late, great Glenn Miller, who was organizing an orchestra. During the prewar years when he was a mainstay of the Miller Band, Ray consistently won vocalist polls and was regarded by trade observers as the top band singer. His voice was heard coast-to-coast on the Chesterfield program thrice weekly and while a featured member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Eberle was seen in two 20th Century Fox musicals, "Sun Valley Serenade" and Orchestra Wives".

He put in six years as Glenn Miller's featured vocalist and toured the nation with the band. His name became a byword in music to the millions who flocked to see and hear the Miller band wherever it appeared. Among the many showcases where Eberle's name and fame were spread were: Paramount Theatre, New York; Oriental and Chicago Theatres in Chicago; Statler Hotel in New York; Palladium in Hollywood and all other top locations and theatres where the top name orchestras regularly appear.

Going on his own just before the war broke out, Ray seemed headed for the top. He made eight feature films and six short subjects for Universal and was star of his own CBS radio show from California. However, the call to the service stopped short his budding career as a solo star. Coming back again after a service hitch, Eberle started again doing a single. Engagements in the East and Mid-west proved he had lost none of his polish or popularity. He has been featured twice a week on WPIX-TV and is a great favorite wherever he appears.

In The Mood

Fools Rush In

String Of Pearls

Moonlight Serenade

Skylark

Tuxedo Junction

Blue Champagne 

Little Brown Jug

It's A Blue World

Sunrise Serenade

Deep Purple

At Last

Paris At Midnight - Skitch Henderson

 

If You Love Me

Paris At Midnight

Skitch Henderson, His Piano and Orchestra

Decca Records DL 8339

1960

From the back cover: MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is an hour that is filled with an aura of promise. All that is lovely, gay, and beautiful seems to be awaiting immortality – to be set on canvas, written to music, or capsuled with a sonnet.

This is the hour when dark cellars of the "bas fonds" on the Left Bank are magically transformed into dimly-lit dens of pleasure. At Le Petit Balcon, an apache and his gigolette are engaged in a frenzied dance. From the Vieux Colombier and Le Club St. - Germain-des-Prés blaring trumpets and syncopated rhythms lure lovers of le jazz hot. The Place Pigalle boasts nightclub acts guaranteed not to be seen else – where: the Naturiste, Chez Eve and Romance present continuous spectacles glorifying the female.

This is the hour when aspiring artists seek the colorful Paris night-life that inspired Toulouse-Lautrec. In the Montmartre district they cluster around sidewalk tables at the Café Flor sipping cognac and coke. The white domes of the Sacre Coeur serve as an incongruous background for Le Mabillon Café and other restaurants on the Place du Tertre which are packed with arty young Parisians intent on the unconventional.

This is the hour when theatre-goers gush forth from the Opéra, the Comédie- Française, and the Odéon, and scurry to their favorite midnight haunts: to Maxim's for a sumptuous supper, to the Lido on the Champs Elysées for a brassy cabaret show, to the Shéhérazade for gypsy fiddlers, or to the Nouvelle Eve for champagne.

This is the hour when the gourmet's dreams are fulfilled. In Paris kitchens are shrines, chefs are national heroes, and menus are sheer poetry. Food is prepared lovingly, served ceremoniously, and eaten reverently. At such world-famous restaurants as the Café de Paris, the Ritz, George V, or the Crillon, eating is an art – and mating the right wine with the right course is a matter for serious discussion. From Apéritif to brandy, each dish is a never-ending delight: escargots (snails) stuffed and baked with parsley-and-garlic butter; noisette d'agneau truffé (lamb and truffles); quenelles de brochet (a breaded river fish topped with a mushroom and cream sauce); banana soufflé; crêpes with flaming liqueurs; the wines-Chablis, Burgundy, Bordeaux; and the cheeses-Brie, Camembert, Gruyère. Paris is accurately named the Capital of Great Eating.

This is the hour when Paris, the grande dame of cities, is her most provocative and exciting. As beautiful as any masterpiece in the Louvre, as ageless as the Notre Dame, as majestic as the Arc de Triomphe, as turbulent as the sinuous River Seine ... this is Paris at Midnight.

Parlez Moi D'Amour

La Vie En Rose

Pigalle

The Last Time I Saw Paris

My Lost Melody (Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin)

Valentine

I Wish You Love (Que Rest-t-il de nos Amours?)

Padam... Padam... (How It Echoes The Beat Of My Heart)

If You Love Me (Hymne A L'Amour)

April In Paris

Under Paris Skies (Sous Le Ciel de Paris)

Comme Ci, Comme Ca

Mimi

Domino

Autumn Leaves (Les Petite Valse)

Un Grand Amour (A Great Love)

Woodchopper's Ball! - Woody Herman

 

Who Dat Up Dere?

Woodchopper's Ball

Woody Herman and His Orchestra

Decca Records DL 8133

1955

From the back cover: The wailing, deep-down, and lonesome Blues and the high-spirited, daring and swift-driving Jazz are pure American idioms. They are immediately recognized and have been imitated all over the world. The Blues have a special significance in this connection, for they formed the basis of the Herman Herd, as the Woody Herman organization has been nicknamed. In 1937, one year after the orchestra had made its debut, Woody had a new theme song, "Blue Prelude," and sported a tag line, "The Band That Plays The Blues." After that, Woody went from one success to another – always with the Blues as his background. Woody's successes have been as commercially rewarding as they have been artistically influential. The present collection includes some of his most spectacular numbers. It is headed by the item with which Woody and his orchestra made his first big record hit for Decca – none other than "The Woodchopper's Ball." Here it is, accompanied by seven other characteristic pieces in the Herman mood and rendered in the true Herman manner.

He was born Woodrow Wilson Herman, son of a member of a vocal group known as The White City Four. Before he was nine years old, when he bought his first saxophone, Woody was earning money as a singer and dancer. He learned to play his horn in his home town, Milwaukee. At eleven, Woody picked up his first clarinet and soon was doubling. He left the stage three years later for his first job as a musician and singer with a local band led by a Myron Stewart. Soon afterwards, Herman, slightly built and pucker-lipped, joined his first travelling band, a unit led by Joe Lichter.

Woody left Lichter to return to Milwaukee to complete his high school studies and to enter Marquette University. But barely after he completed his initial semester at the university, Woody got the call from Tom Gerun, whose band was one of the big things of the late twenties and early thirties. He joined the Gerun organization and stayed with it for four years. Aside from Woody, Gerun's vocal department was rounded out by a guy named Al Norris, who doubled as a saxophone player, and a pretty brunette named Virginia Simms. Both have since graduated to pretty fair success under the respective names of Tony Martin and Ginny Simms. From Gerun's band, Herman went to work with Harry Sosnik and Gus Arnheim. Early in 1934, he joined the Isham Jones orchestra, which, when Jones retired from the band business in 1936, became the basis for the first Woody Herman orchestra.

In 1939, after a couple of years of valiant struggle and fighting a constant battle to retain its musical principles, the band played a historic engament at the Famous Door, the 52nd Street night club. Woody's band began to draw engagements and captivate 'audiences in the leading showcases of the nation: the Strand, Paramount, and Capitol theatres on Broadway, the Hotel New Yorker, and others. Woody, the musician, is a clarinetist with a tone and technique that are all his own, (He plays excellent alto saxophone as well, though he didn't feature the horn with his band until recent years.) Woody, the singer, has a flair for phrasing and sings with such feeling that he has earned widespread recognition, both among trade and general public, as a true vocalist and top stylist.

Woodchopper's Ball

The Golden Wedding

Who Dat Up Dere

Yardbird Shuffle

Down Under

Indian Boogie Woogie

Blue Flame

Four Or Five Times

Irresistible You

Chip's Boogie Woogie

Las Chiapanecas

Woodsheddin' With Woody

Frescoes - War In Heaven / The Cave Of Orcus - William Bolcom

 

Frescoes - War In Heaven / The Caves Of Orcus

William Bolcom

Frescoes

Part I: War In Heaven 

Part II: The Caves Of Orcus

Bruce Mather - Piano & Harmonium 

Pierrette LePage - Piano & Harpsichord

Engineering & Musical Supervision: Marc J. Aubort, Joanna Nickrenz (Elite Recording, Inc.)

Mastering: Robert C. Ludwig (Sterling Sound, Inc.)

Dolby-system Recording

Coordinator: Teresa Sterne

Cover Art: Griesbach/Martucci

Art Direction & Design: Paula Bisacca

Special thanks for invaluable help during the recording sessions to harmonium expert Gdalia Kowalsky, and to Baldwin Piano's Concert Technician Steve Borrell

Nonesuch Records H-71297 (Stereo)

1974

Jacket Notes: The word "fresco" refers to the technique of painting on fresh plaster. Early Italian Renaissance fresco masters are known to have worked quickly before the plaster dried; the speed of their work undoubtedly contributed to both the size of the frescoes and the sweep of their gestures in space. (A modern counterpart might be Jackson Pollock, whose "action painting" would have been far less "active" on a smaller canvas.) I am sure any painter, writer, or composer feels the need sometimes to "hew the air"; a sort of damn-the-torpedoes attitude takes over and there doesn't seem to be time to go over details-only to plunge full speed ahead. I felt the need to write Frescoes this way.

The work's most immediate source-material was an early piano duet of mine I rediscovered while visiting my old school-friend Bruce Mather in Montreal; I had written the piece as an experiment around 1960 when we were both students in Paris, and it didn't work as a piece then or now. But the germ idea - a pitting of two triads (C major and E-flat minor) against each other- seemed intriguing enough to set a new work in motion. Many composers, after years of trying to reject tonality, are now re-espousing it in one form or another, often using it in different ways from the classical masters. In Frescoes, the tonal element partakes of both traditional and non-traditional uses, ultimately reducible to the two triads just mentioned.

Jumbled half-remembrances of frescoes at the Campo Santo in Pisa (which, reportedly, also inspired Liszt's Totentanz), friezes at Pompeii, bits of Virgil and Milton, a cantata by one of the earlier Bachs, and a frightening brush with the Abyss were all geneses of the piece. The apocalyptic mode may come too easily to us today (one gets the image of artists returning again and again to the edge of doom, like tourists), and I suspect that in these times the most difficult thing to write would be something akin to Haydn's healthy joyousness. All the same, Frescoes is undeniably "apocalyptic"; I could not write it any other way. Ours is an era wherein the refrain of William Dunbar's 500-year-old macaronic poem returns to toll like a great mournful bell: Timor mortis conturbat me ("The fear of death tortures me").

In Johann Christoph Bach's cantata Es erhub sich ein Streit, depicting the war in heaven between Michael and Lucifer, two choruses hurl C-major chords at each other almost endlessly, in a bold Monteverdian stroke. Suddenly the two tremendous angels battling in midair appear in the mind's eye, motionless (to our accelerated time-sense), poised in eternal combat. This is the central image of War in Heaven; the great battle is described in the Book of Revelation and in Book VI of Paradise Lost. Milton's account is especially vivid:

...now storming fury rose,
And clamor such as heard in Heav'n till now 

Was never, Arms on Armor clashing bray'd 

Horrible discord, and the madding 

Wheels Of brazen Chariots rag'd; dire was the noise 

Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss 

Of fiery Darts in flaming volleys flew, 

And flying vaulted either Host with fire. 

          VI, 207-214.

I see armies enmeshed in enormous tugs-of-war, swords and trumpets gleaming in the blinding sunlight; precipitous darknesses; Michael rending mountains to overcome Satan's mighty engines of war; the blasted plain afterward, smoke rolling "in dusky wreaths, reluctant flames"- and finally the inevitable irony of the whole enterprise. Giants are reduced to lead soldiers by this alchemy, for the war is not won. In Revelation: "And the great dragon was cast out... into the earth." Feeding the irony are efflorescences of early-19th-century battle-pieces and gospel organ-tunes on the vast canvas. The war becomes what it is: a cosmic joke.

Orcus was the lower world in Roman mythology, best described in Virgil's sonorous periods:

Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus orci 

Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae;
pallentesque habitant Morbi, tristisque Senectus, 

et Metus, et malesuada Fames, ac turpis Egestas, 

terribiles visu formae, Letumque, Labosque; 

tum consanguineus Leti Sopor, et mala mentis 

Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum, 

ferreique Eumenidum thalami, et Discordia demens, 

vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.
          Aeneid, VI, 273-281.

Before the very entrance, in the outer jaws of Orcus

Grief and the avenging Cares have made their beds; 

there dwell the pale Diseases and dismal Old Age,
and Fear, and evil-counseling Famine, and loathsome Poverty: 

forms terrible to see; and Death and Toil,
and then Sleep, Death's kinsman, and all the Evil Joys
of the mind, and there against the threshold, death-bearing War, 

and the iron couches of the Furies, and raging Discord, 

her serpent hair entwined with bloody bands.

In The Caves of Orcus, the Stygian journey gives onto larger and larger vaults: Death's progress, as in the description in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, comes in stages. We pass by the denizens of Death in a dance that has no hope of cease, that has gone on forever; finally we arrive at the last cave, the end of everything. At the Campo Santo, Hell, in great Dantesque circles, holds at its center a huge Devil merrily devouring some unfortunate miscreant – almost a gay and noisy image. Here, however, in the "land of Shades," reign deep silence. and the eternal hopelessness one finds in the eyes of those elegantly-coiffed creatures in Roman friezes – a hopelessness that is the only hope they know. WILLIAM BOLCOM

Frescoes was written for Bruce Mather and his wife, Pierrette LePage, who gave its premiere performance in Toronto, July 21, 1971, during the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Summer Festival.

For each player, two keyboards are set at right. angles to facilitate rapid change between instruments. In this recording the first pianist also plays a two-manual Neupert harpsichord equipped with 4', 8', 16', and lute stops; the second pianist alternates with an electrified Estey parlor organ probably dating from the turn of the century. Both pianos are Baldwin SD-10s. None of the instruments is amplified.. -W. B.

Canadian composer and pianist Bruce Mather (b. 1939, Toronto) studied piano with Alberto Guerrero and Alexander Uninsky in Toronto, and with Lazare Lévy in Paris; in composition, he worked principally with Darius Milhaud in Aspen and Paris. He earned degrees in music from Stanford University and the University of Toronto. Since 1966, Mr. Mather has taught composition at McGill University, Montreal; he plays regularly for the Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec concert series.

After studying with Constantin Klimoff in Quebec City and Alberto Guerrero in Toronto, Pierrette LePage (b. 1939, Montreal) continued piano studies in Paris with Lazare Lévy. Returning in 1962, she toured the Canadian universities under the auspices of the Canada Council. She taught at the University of Toronto for several years and in 1966 joined the faculty of McGill University. Miss LePage has appeared as soloist with the Toronto Symphony and performs frequently for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

As duo-pianists, Pierrette LePage and Bruce Mather have toured Canada and have performed in Europe at the French Festival International de Royan and in Brus- sels' Reconnaissance de la Musique Moderne. Mr. Mather has recorded for RCA Victor and the C.B.C. International Service; this album marks the record debut of Bruce Mather and Pierrette LePage in joint performance.

Born in Seattle in 1938, William Bolcom entered the University of Washington at age 11 as a private student in piano (with Berthe Poncy Jacobson) and composition (with John Verrall and George McKay), and earned his Bachelor's degree there. In 1958, he began study with composer Darius Milhaud in California and Paris; in 1964, he received the first Doctor of Musical Arts degree conferred by Stanford University. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Bolcom has taught music at the University of Washington and at the City University of New York (Queens and Brooklyn colleges), and has been Composer in Residence at the Yale Drama School and the NYU School of the Arts. Since Fall 1973, he has taught composition at the School of Music, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Bolcom has produced a wide variety of works for the stage and for instrumental and vocal ensemble –  among them Sessions I-IV (Session IV recorded on Philips 839.322 DSY) and Black Host for organ, percussion, and tape (performed by William Albright on Nonesuch H-71260) and a large body of piano music, including 12 Etudes (recorded by the composer on Advance FGR-14S), and numerous rags, two of which are heard in Bolcom's album Heliotrope Bouquet/Piano Rags 1900- 1970, Nonesuch H-71257, 12 others in his recording for Jazzology, JCE-72. A prolific writer on musical subjects, William Bolcom is also co-author with Robert Kimball of Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake, a book about Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle's contribution to the black musi- cal theater of the '20s (New York: Viking Press, 1973).

Grass - Ceremony I & III - Paul Chihara / Neville Marriner

Paul Chihara - Grass/ Ceremony I & II

Paul Chihara

Grass (Concerto for Double Bass & Orchestra

Buell Nedlinger, Double Bass

Ceremony I

London Symphony Orchestra

Neville Marriner, Conductor

Lead Soloists

Roger Lord - Oboe

Maurice Meulien & Douglas Powrie - Celli

Robin McGee - Double Bass

Michael Frye - Percussionist

Ceremony III

London Symphony Orchestra

Neville Marriner, Conductor

Solo Flutist: Peter Lloyd

The amplified Hichi-Riki performed by Mr. Suenobu Togi

The Hichi-Riki is a traditional Japanese double-reed instrument used in Gagaku (Court Music)

The Contemporary Composer in the USA 

Turnabout QTV-S 34572

Quadraphonic / Stereo Compatible

1974

From the back cover: Buell Neidlinger is principal bass with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and teaches at the California institute of the Arts. He has been a member of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, the Houston Symphony under Sir John Barbirolli, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf. He has also served on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York under Lukas Foss. Mr. Neidlinger has given numerous solo recitals, notably at Carnegie Hall in New York and Jordan Hall in Boston, and has been soloist at the Ojai, Aspen, and Tanglewood Festivals. In 1968, he was a featured soloist at the Stravinsky Festival at Lincoln Center, New York. In Houston, he was director of the Contemporary Music Society. Mr. Neidlinger is perhaps best known for his performances with jazz artists Cecil Taylor and Gil Evans, and Frank Zappa. His performances on recordings of classical, rock, and jazz music are numerous. More recently, he has produced rock and roll records.

Grass was composed at the request of the noted bass virtuoso Bertram Turetzky, and first performed by him at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on April 14, 1972. Originally conceived as a concerto for bass and orchestra, it eventually evolved into a symphonic meditation on nature (and death), in which the soloist is the principal actor. Grass takes both its inspira- tion and its title from a poem "The Mower's Song" by the sixteenth century English poet Andrew Marvell:

My mind was once the true survey 

Of all these meadows fresh and gay; 

And in the greenness of the grass 

Did see his hopes as in a glass; 

When Juliana came, and she
What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

Though often sunny in its imagery, pastoral poetry is gen- erally sad and elegiac, both in tone and subject matter. So, too, I hoped my composition would suggest deeper responses than its surface sound images. The Marvell poem, recited through the five trombones, is incorporated into the generall orchestral pulse and fabric without focusing attention exclusively on its linguistic properties. Other bits and fragments of personal nostalgia, both literary and musical, find their way into the score – most notably, two sentimental old songs of mine, "Pammy's Tune" and "Whisper Julie." Grass is, I think, a very sad composition, a sort of orchestral requiem, and it dwells largely within a private world of personal associations and images. It is in five movements, played without pause.

As a concerto, it makes heavy demands on the soloist, both technically and compositionally. In the final two movements, for example, he performs against a variety of orchestral textures-some delicate and others raucous, and in a number of different musical styles, from classical to jazz to funky rock. He is asked to integrate these disparate stylistic elements. with his own musical personality, moving naturally from strictly – notated to freely– improvised passages and cadenzas. Mr. Neidlinger, who performs the solo part brilliantly in this recording and who is equipped with the most dazzling technical facility, as well as the broadest musical awareness, meets all demands with gratifying ease and sensitivity.

The Ceremony series of compositions belongs to its own sound world, quite distinct from that of Grass. The word "ceremony" implies for me a stylized ritual corresponding to some deeper, often spiritual transformation. I view these compositions as a kind of musical "rite of passage;" they deal with levels of transformation, and as such may be considered studies in continuous development or variation. They are concert meditations on simple musical objects, such as the unison, the rhythmic ostinato, the triad, etc. Textures are not so much composed as generated, the lines being "woven" by simple but incessant operations on the given materials in incantatory fashion. The principal harmonic interval is the unison (not the octave) – all other combinations being con- sidered dissonant or passing.

Ceremony I was written (and first performed) during the Marlboro Festival of 1971. Ceremony I (not represented on this recording) was composed the following year for the New York flutist Paul Dunkel and members of Speculum Musicae. Ceremony III was completed at Tanglewood in August, 1973, among the beautiful trees of the Berkshire Mountains. It was first performed in November of that year by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (who commissioned the work) under Neyille Marriner. 

Paul Chihara

Paul Chihara was born in Seattle in 1938. His principal teach- ers of composition were Robert Palmer at Cornell University, Nadia Boulanger, and Gunther Schuller. He has received numerous awards and commissions, most recently from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Fromm Foundation for the Houston Symphony, and the San Francisco Ballet. His Forest Music for Orchestra, which is the concluding work in his Tree Music series, has been performed with much success by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in America and on their 1972 tour of Japan. It was also performed by London's New Philharmonia Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival of 1973. Mr. Chihara is a music adviser to the Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, a free-lance composer, and part-time teacher at UCLA. His compositions are published by C. F. Peters.

Neville Marriner is music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as of London's Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. A former violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra and conducting student of Pierre Monteux's, Mr. Marriner ranks among the most honored and sought after of internationally active conductors. His recordings have won him many awards, including the Netherlands' Edison Prize, Vienna's Mozart Gemeinde Prize, Paris' Grand Prix du Disque, and "recording of the year" from High Fidelity, Stereo Review, and The Gramophone. Ceremony III is dedicated to him and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

 

The Swinging 30's

 

The Swinging 30's

The Swinging 30's

Unknown Artist

Riviera (STEREO) catalog number:  R0030 (as marked on the jacket), STR030 (as marked on the disc label) and RST 0030 (as marked on the disc run-out)

1959

Paris Swing

London Swing

Hati Swing

Hong Kong Swing

Pin A Rose On Me

Goodbye Little Girl

Mr. Dooley

Bill Bailey 

Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries

I Don't Care

At The Jazz Band Ball - The Dukes Of Dixieland

 

Blue Prelude

At The Jazz Band Ball

With The Dukes Of Dixieland

Vik LX-1025

1955

From the back cover: 'Way back in 1917 our Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, closed New Orleans' famed Storyville, and jazz took the rap. Jazz flourished in Storyville as part and parcel of the entertainment. When the "Closed" signs appeared, the New Orleans jazzmen, aided in their quest for gold by Representative Andrew Volstead and his 19th Amendment, headed for Chicago, then known as a city of booze, barons and big money. For a long, long time New Orleans wasn't the same. Gradually, a jazz renaissance came about in New Orleans. There were outside influences, to be sure, like the Lu Watters Yerba Buena Jazz Band in San Francisco. But mainly it was the forces from within, pushing up again against a tide that wasn't pulling too hard. Bunk Johnson had a lot, to do with the rebirth of jazz in New Orleans, and so did a group of youngsters who called themselves THE DUKES OF DIXIELAND. The Dukes got themselves organized right after the fighting stopped in World War II. They were kids, but that didn't seem to matter. Six years ago they walked into the Famous Door in New Orleans for a four-week engagement, and they stayed there for something more than five-and-one-half years. In that time the saloon was remodeled two times. The drawing power of the Dukes was such that the owner had no trouble at all digging up the necessary cash to pay for the expensive redoings. In April of '55, the Dukes were signed for an engagement at the Preview Lounge in Chicago. It was such a terrific success that they've now been signed there to a long-term contract. Because of this, the air should be purer in the old Windy City.

But we have gotten ahead of ourselves, for you should know just who the Dukes of Dixieland are. As of today, the roster reads:

Frankie Assunto - Trumpet & Trombone

Pete Fountain - Clarinet
Roger Johnston - Drums 

Artie Seelig - Piano 

Bill Potter - Bass
Betty Owens - Vocal

Frankie, now all of twenty-four years of age, was the real organizer. The Assunto boys, like each member of the Dukes, were born in New Orleans. They got their musical training from their father, who is still a mean man with the slide trombone. The front line, trumpet, trombone and clarinet, incidentally, is exactly the same today as it was at the beginning, and both Johnston and Seelig have been members almost since the start.

Betty Owens, who is the Duchess and who sings like it was all fun, is from Baton Rouge, which is in Louisiana too. For a while she sang as a child hillbilly star with Governor Jimmy Davis. She came to the Dukes in 1947, and we might guess that she'll be around for as long as they are, as she is married to Freddie Assunto.

There's a whale of a difference between the Dukes and a lot of the other jazz bands you hear nowadays. It's all to the good. Too many Dixieland bands play like it was just a dose of medicine they have to swallow each night; the Dukes don't they obviously get a tremendous wallop out of their music making, and it comes through clear and sharp on this disc. Some younger bands depend almost entirely for effect on enthusiastic effort. The Dukes combine their enthusiasm with enormous ability. They are crisp. They work together as a unit, and the solo playing is fresh and imaginative. They kick into the final ensembles like the liner United States plowing into twenty-foot waves. They are equally at home with standards and popular songs of the day, with tunes that are fast and slow. In other words, the Dukes have it in diamonds, doubled and redoubled, right down to the toes of their argyles.

As for this recording, it deals strictly with the great old Dixieland war horses, with the exception, perhaps, of Blue Prelude. This is the lovely Gordon Jenkins - Joe Bishop tune that was used as a theme for years by Woody Herman, and it's used by the Dukes as a marvelous expression for Freddie Assunto's trombone.

If one single work must be picked as the outstanding number of the album, my choice would be Tin Roof Blues, that ancient collaboration of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings which became so popular as Make Love to Me in 1954. In this one there is a crackerjack and extended solo by one Peter Dewey Fountain, Jr., who is a tremendous clarinetist! There are a couple of times when the clicking of the keys on the instrument can clearly be heard, which may be a good proving point on how well the record was recorded. And a lot of the time, behind Fountain's soulful and expressive blowing, is the undercurrent theme of Yancey's Special. The effect of this is superb.

For Tiger Rag, which should be at least accredited to Jelly Roll Morton, Freddie Assunto plays some handsomely guttural trombone. The Dukes don't treat the Tiger as a race horse, but instead subject her to a steady, good gallop, which is the way it should be. Frank Assunto can be heard singing Saints, in the same kind of an "arrangement" used many years ago by Louis Armstrong. Don't miss the tromboning of Freddie on Muskrat Ramble either. Maybe he was thinking of another trombonist when he was playing this tune, another trombonist named Kid Ory who happened to write the thing. Incidentally, Muskrat Ramble didn't have a name right off the bat. It came up for recording during a session by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five. After it was all over, someone or other asked Ory for the name, and he was saved by Lil Armstrong who simply looked up and said: "Oh, that's Muskrat Ramble." Some time later Mr. Melrose of the Melrose Music Company changed the Muskrat to Muskat, because he didn't like the sound of the "rat," but it never did stick.

Panama, At the Jazz Band Ball, That's A-Plenty are wonderful expressions by the full band-solid rhythm, driving horns, magnificent clarinet and excellent solos. The album plays, to a fare-thee-well from stem to stern, and that's the way it was intended by the Dukes of Dixieland, who are, as you will so readily hear, one of the real fine jazz outfits of this or any other time. So, let the record spin. As a lady on my block is apt to say, "It couldn't possibly be more fun!" – FRED REYNOLDS

At The Jazz Band Ball

Beale Street Blues

Muskrat Ramble

Blue Prelude

That's A-Plenty

Original Dixieland One-Step

Panama

Wolverine Blues

Fidgety Feet

Tin Roof Blues 

Tiger Rag

When The Saints Come Marching In

Hit Instrumentals From Western TV Themes - Al Caiola

 

Tall Man Theme

Hit Instrumentals From Western TV Themes

Al Caiola

Guitars with Orchestra

Arranged and Conducted by Al Caiola

Produced by Don Costa

United Artists UAL 3161

1960

From the back cover: The music of the West has been traditionally designed guitar, and it was only a matter of time until Al Caiola, a master of the instrument, and the best of the themes from Western television shows were brought together. The result of this marriage is one of excitement, both for the listener and for the fans of the various video series represented.

One of the most versatile musicians recording today, Al Caiola has been a featured performer on records ranging from Jazz to Rock and Roll. Yet his major success as a star has been with music from the wide open spaces. "Magnificent Seven," a fine motion picture, gained even greater renown when Caiola recorded the title theme and saw it become a big hit. His follow-up, the theme from "Bonanza," also featured in this album, won accolades from musicians as well as millions of fans who bought the record.

The themes contained in this album will be familiar to all television viewers. But the treatment of this music, the way it has been arranged, orchestrated and performed, will add great new dimensions to each and every note you will hear. This is, indeed, a living, musical history of the great West as it has been portrayed to the entire nation through television.

Law Man

Laramie 

Theme From The Rebel

Maverick

The Ballad Of Palidin 

Tall Man Theme

Gunslinger

Wagons Ho!

The Deputy

Bonanza

Rawhide

Bat Masterson