Tempos Of Tahiti

Theme From Mutiny Of The Bounty

Tempos Of Tahiti
The Catamaran Serenaders
21 Channel Sound
MGM E 4091
1962

I didn't have high hopes for this record. The cover just didn't spark the collecting juices, however, this is the typical layout for a 21 Channel Sound cover. The album is designed as a book-fold after a trend set by Enoch Light's Command label. However, the set is good space-age fair.

From Billboard - December 8, 1962: Spectacular sound and orchestration make this one of the top collections of Island music, perhaps in part because of the 21 separate channels used by MGM in taping. Most of the tunes are Hawaiian rather than Tahitian in origin, but all are done in lively and listenable fashion that should earn plenty of air play. Included are two themes from "Mutiny On The Bounty."

Love Songs From 'Mutiny On The Bounty'
Little Brown Gal
Pagan Love Song
My Little Grass Shack In Kealakekua, Hawaii
The Hawaiian Wedding Song [Ke Kali Nei Au]
Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula
Theme From 'Mutiny On The Bounty
Hawaiian War Chant
Paradise Moon
Steel Guitar Hop
Steel Guitar Hop
Aloha Oe [Farewell To Thee]

Orientale - Carmen Dragon

Orientale

Orientale
Carmen Dragon Conducting The Capitol Symphony Orchestra

Cover Photo by Leigh Wiener
Capitol P8453
1963

Procession Of The Sardar - Arranged by Carmen Dragon

Tambourin Chinois - Arranged by Carmen Dragon

Orientale 

Turkish March

Song Of India - Arranged by Carmen Dragon

Kashmiri Song

Arabian Dance (Nutcracker Suite)

Chinese Dance (Nutcracker Suite)

Ballet Egyptien (First Movement)

Persian Dance (Khovantchina)

Oriental Fantasy

Oriental Fantasy

Gianni Monese and his Orchestra
Vox ST-VX 25 780
1958

This was a great find today. Needless to say that cover image is a great collectible.

The musical content not at all like I expected. Side one and two are singular pieces of music that blend into one another with no track separation. Like any good exotica or soundtrack recording this LP is an auditory adventure that holds your attention from start to finish.

There are several, probably mono covers posted on the web, but this is the only stereo cover. Both the same with the exception of the stereo logo. But I thought that is would be nice to know the release also came in stereo.

I can't find any hard bio info on Monese. There is a mention of him in the August 11, 1956 Billboard in an article about VOX releasing a Monese album titled Cook's Tour Of Venice.

I usually only post a track by way of sample, but will post side one for you enjoyment.

Side 1: In A Persian Market (Ketelbey), Theme From Polovetsian Dances (Borodin), Alla Turca (Mozart), Nel Sahara (Langosz), Arabian Dance From Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky), Serenata Araba (Frontini)

Side 2: Marcia Turca (Turkish March - Beethoven), Orientale (Cui), Aranian Dance (Grieg), Theme From Strings Quartet (Borodin), Theme From Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov), Serendade Orientale (Gangloff)

Percussion Espanol - Pirouette

Cordoba

Percussion Espanol
The Big Sound
Pirouette Records RFM 54

I can't find a release date for this album, but my guess would be 1960. A while back I blogged an album on the TIME label featuring the same title and stylistically similar cover art. I have to assume that one label was following the others lead. In this case, many of the songs lead in with ping-pong percussion, an effect Enoch Light developed in the early 60s.

No artists are credited. There really isn't much percussion other than the ping-pong effect. And the percussion effects are only found on side one. Apparently that's was all the budget called for. Side two features no percussion at all.

Music Of America

My Momma Didn't Raise No Dummy - Louise Holmes/Erica Laine

Exotic Dancers - Raymond L. Fields/Erica Laine

I Found My Love - Robert Roth/Carlton St. John

Music Of America
Hollywood Artists Recording Co.
HAR-32

Song poems strike again...

Hollywood Studio Orchestra

Hackett Funeral And Fight

Hollywood Studio Orchestra
Main Theme From Spectacular Movies
Wyncote
W-9172
1967

Over all this "Hollywood" budget record, released towards the end of the Wyncote label life span, is good easy listening fare with that 60s light pop touch. The Impossible Lover is actually cool and Hackett Funeral And Fight? I know nothing about the movie that this tune came from (The Wrong Box, 1966), but I love this tune and it is a standout on this album.

Belshazzar's Feast - William Walton

Belshazzar's Feast
William Walton
London Philharmonic Choir
Dennis Noble Baritone
Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra Conducted By Sir Adrian Boult
Westminster XWN 18253
1956

I bought this record because I was drawn to the outstanding illustration. But the music, if you are into exotica and or soundtrack, is an interesting listen. A few passages remind me of the mutants singing to the bomb in the movie Beneath The Planet Of The Apes. Well... it just does!  I sampled the first part of the record. Sorry, that's just the way I do things here in The Attic... just a taste.

This from the Belshazzar's Feast wiki page: Musical structure: The music throughout is strongly rhythmic, and richly orchestrated. The rhythms and harmonies reflect Walton’s interest in jazz and other popular music, pressed into service to tell a religious story. Despite its jagged rhythms and strident orchestral effects, the work is essentially conventional in its tonality. Walton's biographer Michael Kennedy writes, "diatonicism is at the root of the matter ... stringtremolandi, brass fanfares, and masterly use of unaccompanied declaration work their customary spell." Kennedy adds that the chilling orchestral sounds which introduce the writing on the wall derive from Richard Strauss's Salome.

The World At My Fingers - Hal Shutz

Zexpa-Biem

The World At My Fingers
Hal Shutz
Hammond Extravoice
Epic Stereorama BN 582
1960

From what I can tell, Shutz made one other album, Organ And Firelight (Columbia, 1956). It was offered by The Hammond Organ Company as a demonstration record.

This record seems way more obscure. The only other instance I could find was a listing in an Epic ad that ran in the November 7, 1960 Billboard.

Valley Of The Dolls - Hollywood Sound Stage Orchestra

Vally Of The Dolls

Theme From Valley Of The Dolls
Hollywood Sound Stage Orchestra
Somerset SF-30400
1968

Here's a gem. Apparently 101 Strings wasn't enough for Somerset and D. L. Miller so they created the lesser known Hollywood Sound Stage Orchestra. From the cover notes the orchestra was a 70 piece affair.

It's difficult, or impossible for me to piece together how many "Sound Stage" albums were released. I've got several. They seem to be way budget, more so than 101 Strings, which was a successful franchise for Somerset.

This music is lackluster 60s easy listening that is thematically all over the place. But you can't beat the budget cover! The cover model looks strikingly like Susan Hayward from the movie, Valley Of The Dolls.

Rhapsody - Ferrante and Teicher

Swedish Rhapsody

Rhapsody
Ferrante And Teicher
And Their Magic Pianos
Urania USD 1009
1955

From the back cover: Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher, two enterprising pianists, have fused their talents to produce a new commodity in the world of music and sound. They tailor a wide variety of concert, semi-classical and pop compositions to their instruments, and on occasion, to ginger up pop selections, they even tinker with their instruments to produce novel sound effect. In serious repertory, however, they cut no capers. There they are noted for lucidity, precision, adaptability to many styles of music, and fingers that are fleet far beyond the ordinary. In the past ten years, they have come to  be admired by countless thousands on nation-wide concert tours, on radio and TV, and on several notable record releases. Their clever arrangements of Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Saint-Saens or of Porter, Kern, etc. endow familiar compositions with new vitality and enrich sonorities. As for the various ways in which they "prepare" the piano for programs, they justify their innovations by maintaining that historically "the piano contains its ancestors – harp, lute, dulcimer, zither, clavichord and harpsichord," and they are only attempting to bring these submerged sonorities to the fore. Although only in their thirties, Ferrante and Teicher have appeared as performers of serious music with the New York Philharmonic, Rochester Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Toledo Symphony and New York City Symphony Orchestra. On the airways, in serious as well as light classics, listeners have heard them regularly on ABC's Piano Playhouse, NBC's Eddie Dowling Show, or NBC's Carnation Hour. Sophisticated m.c.'s such as Steve Allen, Garry Moore, Ernie Kovacs and Mitch Miller have been proud to introduce them on their TV shows. In all the media, they have received rave notices for their thorough mastery of their craft, their versatility, and the artistic rapport which transforms them into a excitement in the modern manner. They are ideally suited to the diablerie which is the breath of ice to most rhapsodies.

Charles Wildman - Swedish Rhapsody

George Enesco - Roumanian Rhapsody in A Major, Op. 11, No. 1

Franz Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Hubert Bath - Cornish Rhapsody

George Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue

Ferrante And Teicher - Hollywood Rhapsody