Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The story of Blue Moon — its transition from a movie song that was rewritten several times to jazz song and then pop hit — was told in The Originals Vol. 40, which included the first version, The Bad In Every Man, sung on film by Shirley Ross.

This collection of 38 versions covers all manner of approaches. There are the early jazz interpretations, most of them with vocals (though Gene Krupa, Django Reinhardt and in 1944 the Cozy Cole Allstars do it instrumentally). Then it became something of a torchsong number in the hands of jazzy crooners such as Mel Tormé (whose 1960 re-recording is my favourite version), Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, Julie London and Ella Fitzgerald. Nat ‘King’ Cole weighed in with a more upbeat version. In 1960, Bert Kaempfert — the first producer of The Beatles — contrived an easy listening instrumental that is very much of its time.

Elvis on his debut album in 1956 gave it a minimalist, slow feel, with a rare falsetto (that take is later replicated in tribute by Chris Isaak and The Mavericks). Around the same time as Elvis, The Emanons recorded a doo wop version, which with Sam Cooke’s might have influenced that by The Marcels, which became a huge hit.

In 1970 Bob Dylan released a rather unexpected cover, with a unique arrangement. Another unexpected performer in this compilation is Robert de Niro, who performed it in the 1977 film New York, New York, in which Bob played a bandleader. Likewise, alt-country rockers My Morning Jacket are not the first band one would think of in a mix of covers of Blue Moon.

I’ve included a playlist file, which runs the versions in the chronological order, as listed below.

Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra (1934)
Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra  (1934)
Connie Boswell & Victor Young Orchestra  (1935)
Al Bowlly with the Ray Noble Orchestra (1935)
Benny Goodman and his Orchestra  (1935)
Django Reinhardt  (1935)
Gene Krupa  (1939)
Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra  (1939)
Cozy Cole Allstars (1944)
Mel Tormé (1949)
Billy Eckstine (1949)
Nat ‘King’ Cole (1951)
Jo Stafford (1952)
Billie Holiday  (1952)
Oscar Peterson  (1954)
Ella Fitzgerald (1956)
Elvis Presley (1956)
The Emanons (1956)
Sam Cooke  (1958)
Julie London  (1958)
Bert Kaempfert Orchester (1960)
Mel Tormé  (1960)
Frank Sinatra (1961)
The Marcels  (1961)
The Ventures (1961)
Bobby Vinton (1963)
Dean Martin  (1964)
Bob Dylan  (1970)
Spooky & Sue  (1975)
Robert de Niro & Mary Kay (1977)
Sha Na Na  (1978)
Mark Isham with Tanita Tikaram  (1990)
Chris Isaak  (1994)
The Mavericks  (1995)
Tori Amos  (1996)
Vidal Brothers (1997)
Rod Stewart (2004)
My Morning Jacket  (2005)

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More Mixes
Song Swarms

I promised a while back to follow up the first two New York mixes with one in black & white. In the interim, the two Christmas in Black & White mixes were quite popular, so I hope that this collection of songs about or set in New York, spanning 30 years, will find an audience. And I hope that some of these songs will inspire the listener to seek out more music by some of the artists who are largely forgotten now.

Here I think of the great Anita O’Day, featured here twice, an extraordinary vocalist whose lifestory would mirror any sordid rock & roll tale. Or Red Nichols, the innovative jazzman who is said to have recorded 4,000 songs before he turned 25. Danny Kaye played him in the 1959 biopic The Five Pennies, which also starred Bob Crosby, the younger brother of Bing, who was a vocalist and bandleader in his own right, though here he appears as a guest of The Dorsey Brothers, both of who feature in this mix heading their own bands.

Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey played with Sam Lanin as did two other future bandleaders included here: Red Nichols on the cornet and saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer. Lanin was more an arranger than he was a musician, but a 1920s hit factory nonetheless (Bing Crosby got his break with Lanin’s orchestra). By the late 1930s, Lanin had retired from the music business.

The Mills Brothers may be most widely remembered better for their 1952 proto-doo wop hit Glow Worm, but by then they were veterans in the music game, having started in 1928, paving the way for the similar Ink Spots. The brothers stopped performing 61 years later, in 1989 (by then having been decimated to two by death).

Dolly Dawn, known to her mother by the more demure name Theresa Maria Stabile, was a massive singing star in the 1930s and early ’40s. She was one of the very fist female singers to lead her own band, the Dawn Patrol. Her career was cut short when many members of her band were drafted to serve Uncle Sam in WW2.

The 1920s and ’30s were the golden age of African-American vaudeville acts ó the age of the tap dance and the soft-shoe, silver-capped canes and gleaming cufflinks, the Bojangles scene. Jimmy Lunceford, whose orchestra began as a high school band which Lunceford taught in Memphis, is perhaps the best example here of that influence on jazz, incorporating humour in the music (in much the some way the Italian Louis Prima would). Rumour has it that Lunceford died in 1947 after being poisoned by a restaurateur in Oregon who resented the presence of a black patron in his establishment. More extreme things happened in the sorry history of 20th century US racism.

TRACKLISTING
1. Anita O’Day - Take The ‘A’ Train (1958)
2. Tommy Dorsey & Jo Stafford – Manhattan Serenade (1943)
3. Dolly Dawn and her Dawn Patrol – Blossoms On Broadway (1937)
4. Mound City Blue Blowers - She’s A Latin From Manhattan (1935)
5. Louis Prima and his Orchestra – Brooklyn Bridge (1945)
6. The Dorsey Brothers feat. Bob Crosby - Lullaby Of Broadway (1935)
7. The Quintones - Harmony In Harlem (1940)
8. The Mills Brothers - Coney Island Washboard (1932)
9. Patsy Kelly & Barry Wood - I’m Gonna Hang My Hat On That Tree That Grows In Brooklyn (1944)
10. Albert Ammons & Pete Johnson - Sixth Avenue Express (1941)
11. Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra – Cowboy From Brooklyn (1938)
12. Judy Garland & Fred Astaire – A Couple Of Swells (1948)
13. Lee Wiley & Ellis Larkins – Give It Back To The Indians (1954)
14. Dinah Washington – Manhattan (1959)
15. Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Autumn In New York (1956)
16. Gene Krupa feat. Anita O’ Day - Let Me Off Uptown (1941)
17. Cab Calloway Cotton Club Orchestra – Manhattan Jam (1937)
18. Mills Blue Rhythm Band – There’s Rhythm In Harlem (1935)
19. Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra - Slumming On Park Avenue (1937)
20. Artie Shaw and his Orchestra – To A Broadway Rose (1941)
21. Tempo King’s Kings Of Tempo - Bojangles Of Harlem (1936)
22. Red Nichols and his Orchestra - The New Yorkers (1929)
23. Sam Lanin’s Orchestra with Jack Hart - The Broadway Melody (1929)
24. Frankie Trumbauer – Manhattan Rag (1929)
25. Leadbelly – New York City (1940)

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(Mirror 1 Mirror 2)

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NYC – Any Major Mix Vol. 1
NYC – Any Major Mix Vol. 2

The first Christmas in Black & White retro mix was quite popular (if not so much in numbers of comments than in numbers of downloads). So here is a second volume, as promised. The oldest song here is Paul Whiteman’s Christmas Night In Harlem from 1934 (more of which shortly), followed closely by Tommy Dorsey’s early cover of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, from 1935. The youngest track on the mix is Dean Martin’s A Marshmallow World, which even in 1966 must have sounded a little dated. The best song must be Art Carney’s Santa And The Doodle-li-boop.

Whiteman’s Christmas Night In Harlem is a bit dodgy. It includes some racial stereotyping we would rightly object to today. Louis Armstrong in the ’50s recorded a cleaned-up version of it later, as did Ramsey Lewis. So let it be clearly noted that I do not endorse racial stereotyping, even if it was unremarkable in the 1930s. Even so, it is a song of historical value. Whiteman was one of the big bandleaders of the time, but is rather forgotten now. And yet, Duke Ellington described Whiteman as “The king of Jazz”, a title Ellington has some claim to himself (provided we crown Armstrng the emperor). Singing with Whiteman’s band here are Johnny Mercer, the great Tin Pan Alley alumnus, and trombonist and singer Jack Teagarden. It includes an early usage of the word “dog” (today spelled “dawg”, I believe) as a form of address.

Another remarkable jazz record is Slam Stewart’s take on Jingle Bells; the annoying old chestnut becomes a rather good tune in Stewart’s bass-playing hands.

Fans of originals will appreciate Spike Jones’ 1948 recording of All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth), with the vocals by his band’s trumpeter, George Rock, then 29. The song had been written in 1944 by second-grade music teacher Donald Yetter Gardner after surveying the dental state of his pupils.

The collection ends on a note of bah humbug, with Paddy Roberts voicing some misgivings in 1962 which give lie to the notion that the crass commercialism of Christmas is a recent phenomenon. Of course it isn’t. As we saw on the first mix, Red Foley demanded already in 1953 that Christ be put back into Christmas.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and I have banged together another front and back cover, with Norman Rockwell art, for those who have use for them (does anybody though?).

TRACKLISTING:
1. Andy Williams – Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season (1963)
2. Frank Sinatra – The Christmas Waltz (1957)
3. Dean Martin – A Marshmallow World (1966)
4. Gene Autry – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (1949)
5. Art Carney – Santa And The Doodle-li-boop (1954)
6. Nat ‘King’ Cole – Caroling, Caroling (1963)
7. Margaret Whiting & Jimmy Wakely – Silver Bells (1950)
8. Doris Day – I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1964)
9. Bing Crosby – God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (1942)
10. Slam Stewart Quartet – Jingle Bells (1945)
11. Frankie Laine – You’re All I Want For Christmas (1948)
12. Eddie Cantor – The Only Thing I Want For Christmas (1939)
13. Louis Prima & his New Orleans Gang – What Will Santa Claus Say (1936)
14. Tommy Dorsey & his Orchestra – Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (1935)
15. Andrews Sisters with Guy Lombardo - Christmas Island (1948)
16. Louis Armstrong - Christmas In New Orleans (1955)
17. Leadbelly – Christmas Is A-Comin’ (Chicken Crows At Midnight) (1941)
18. Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas (1957)
19. Hank Snow – Reindeer Boogie (1953)
20. The Youngsters - Christmas In Jail (1955)
21. Paul Whiteman & his Orchestra – Christmas Night In Harlem (1934)
22. Michel Warlop with Django Reinhardt – Christmas Swing (1937)
23. The Paris Sisters - Christmas In My Hometown (1954)
24. Gayla Peevey – I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas (1958)
25. Spike Jones - All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) (1948)
26. Art Mooney - Santa Claus Looks Just Like Daddy (1955)
27. Red Foley and the Little Foleys - Frosty The Snowman (1951)
28. Vince Guaraldi Trio – Christmas Time Is Here (1965)
29. Paddy Roberts - Merry X-Mas You Suckers (And A Happy New Year) (1962)

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As a bonus, the best of all Christmas songs. Written in 45 minutes on a hot summer’s day in 1944 by Mel Tormé with lyrics by Bob Wells (who tried to keep cool by conjuring images of winter), it was first recorded in 1946 by the King Cole Trio, also on a hot day. These recordings apparently did not make great waves. Cole, Moore and Miller recorded a new version in 1953, with an orchestral arrangement by Nelson Riddle. The version that we are familiar with is Nat ‘King’ Cole’s  1963 recording, which is closely patterned on the 1953 take, right down to the jingle bells outro.

Tormé recorded the song he co-wrote in around 1954, and again in 1961 for the My Kind Of Music album, and in 1992.  Also see this delightful video of Tormé and Judy Garland (wondering about flying rainbows) from Garland’s 1963 Christmas show, for which he arranged the music but on which he appeared only twice before the two had an acrimonious falling out.

Mel Tormé – The Christmas Song (1961).mp3
King Cole Trio – The Christmas Song (1953).mp3

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