Music
At last, the promised music review page. This will feature periodical reviews of records in my collection, with a heavy emphasis on vinyl to begin with. There will also be some discussion of what has been on the Radio. Apart from a few late night jazz shows on Radio 2, the demise of Desmond Carrington’s Sunday lunchtime programme means that Radio 3 is the only mainstream wireless station offering anything approaching decent music.
As promised, here is the first of an entirely random review of CDs/records accumulated…
SINATRA AND SWINGIN’ BRASS (Reprise 9 27021-2)
One of the first five of Sinatra’s albums for his own label, Reprise, recorded in April 1962, only six months after his last, memorable, Capitol LP “Point of No Return”. This up tempo, brassy set saw the legendary arranger Neil Hefti team up with The Voice. Hefti had made his name with Woody Herman’s First Herd and later with the atomic Mr. Count Basie. Mr. Hefti is probably best remembered today for the “Batman” TV theme.
No TV ephemera here, I am glad to say. This is a stylish collection of stylish songs, with no less than four by Cole Porter. “I Get A Kick Out of You” is particularly good, inviting favourable comparisons with the earlier version on “Songs For Young Lovers”. I have always been a great admirer of the lyrics of “At Long Last Love”, with its references to mock turtle soup etc - justice is done to it here. Two Johnny Mercer numbers bring back Big Band memories - Benny Goodman in the case of “Goody Goody” and Jimmy Dorsey when listening to “Tangerine” - and Glenn Miller is recalled in a mid-tempo version of “Serenade In Blue”. Two Astaire and Rogers favourites are included in the form of “Pick Yourself Up” (”Swing Time” 1936) and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” (”Shall We Dance” 1937).
“I’m Beginning To See The Light” is another homage to Ellington, via Harry James, and the ancient “Ain’t She Sweet” is given a more modern treatment. “Dontcha Go Way Mad” is another one from the Swing Era, recorded by Harry James amongst many others. “Love is Just Around The Corner” is an almost tounge-in-cheek rendition of an old standard.
This album bears the stamp of Sixties Sinatra, but always with a strong nod to the Forties and his musical roots. He couldn’t resist updating these great standards, thereby allowing them to stand the test of time. Mr. Sinatra clearly likes these songs - no attempts to belittle here, as there are on some other albums that we will randomly examine.
The dozen become fifteen with three extra tracks. The curio on this compilation is “Everybody’s Twistin”, which is an attempt at the tempo of Mr. Chubby Checker which never really works, mainly because it is a corruption of the magnificent “Truckin”, a dance hit of 1935 written for the Cotton Club and immortalised in the 1984 film of that name. This was released as a single, with “Nothing But The Best”, a Skip Martin arrangement which is the best thing about it, on the B side.
Finally, from 1963, a truly delightful Nelson Riddle arrangement of the Maurice Chevalier classic, recorded by Sinatra (to another Riddle arrangement of course) on his seminal “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers”, “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me”. This number is to be heard on the soundtrack of the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward film “A New Kind of Love”.
This is an album for motor vehicles, parties or for the sort of mood that should prevail in every civilised home.
The second in this occasional series:
MUSIC OF RICHARD ADDINSELL (ASW CD WHL 2108)
Richard Addinsell, the composer who died nearly thirty years ago, is best remembered for the Warsaw Concerto, which is the score written for the film “Dangerous Moonlight” (1941) starring Anton Walbrook. It is proper and inevitable that this should be the first piece on the recording, made by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Kenneth Alwyn in 1996. Richard, or Dick, Addinsell is also fondly recalled as having collaborated with Joyce Grenfell in writing songs and often as her piano-accompanist .
Happily, things do not end there. The waltz theme from the film version of Blithe Spirit is included, conjouring up images of Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcati (”she’s bats!”) and a rather pasty-looking Rex Harrison. He was, of course, supposed to look pasty by the end, because his character had died. Noel Coward did not approve of the film, but his voice is heard at the beginning: “You would be quite, quite, WRONG”.
The majority of the other offerings relate to films that are rather obscure; one, entitled the “Greengage Summer”, starred Kenneth More and a young Susannah York. I haven’t seen it, but the suite written by Addinsell conjours up a summer in France, with a hint of the loss of innocence to come. It is all rather delightful.
One or two marches - “Cavalry of the Clouds”, written for the first propaganda feature film of WWII, “The Lion Has Wings” is stirring in an appropriate way. His “March for the United Nations” is a reference to the wartime Allies, rather than the postwar institution based in New York. It was written for a 1942 BBC radio broadcast called “Britain to America”, narrated by Leslie Howard. Is this still in the archives, I wonder?
A welcome addition for those who enjoy “light music”.
A random trawl of the CD shelves produces this gem:
AS TIME GOES BY - THE BEST OF JIMMY DURANTE (Warner 9362-45456-2)
At first blush, this CD looks like the sort of corny compilation of old songs from a well-known personality issued in the wake of some revival or film where the music formed part of the soundtrack - in this case, “Sleepless In Seattle”. The reality is somewhat different. This is a delightful compilation of several Durante albums reocrded in the late ’50s and early ’60s, when the comic was in the latter part of his career.
As the sleevenotes recall, these lush settings (Gordon Jenkins is one of the arrangers) are a far cry from “The Lost Chord” and “Inka Dinka Doo”. They are the wistful reflections of an old man. His version of the Kurt Weil/Maxwell Anderson classic “September Song” is redolent of Walter Huston’s original version. There is a sense of anxiety, if not urgency, to “As Time Goes By”, as if time was all too short for this singer. When he sings “Hello, Young Lovers”, he really is looking a long way back indeed!
All twelve songs on this album are old favourites of mine - particularly “I’ll See You In My Dreams”, with his reference to “Mrs. Kalabash” at the end, and “Make Someone Happy”, the delightful Comden/Green and Julie Styne number.
Before I picked this album up a dozen or so years ago, Durante was a comic who really couldn’t sing. This disc proved me wrong.
TOSCA - PUCCINI - DG 431 775-2
This Deutsche Grammophon recording of Puccini’s greatest opera dates from 1992. Conducted by the late Giuseppe Sinopoli, the Philarmonia Orchestra and the Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden provide the backdrop to the singing of Domingo, Mirella Freni and Samuel Ramey as Cavaradossi, Tosca and Scarpia. A young Bryn Terfel sings the role of Angelotti.
This is not the place to repeat the dramatic and powerful story, but needless to say its political content has always given it a special resonance for me. To take this as a political drama would, however, be a mistaken approach. For example, Scarpia isn’t just a music hall villain - his relationship with Tosca is complex and in many ways as strong as the relationship she has with Cavaradossi. In this recording, Domingo is in his prime as the artist who cannot resist and who perhaps does not want to resist the tide of heavy and dangerous politics in the Napoleonic era.
One to keep in any collection, I think.
