Command Performace - Harry Sukman

The Breeze And I

Command PerformanceThe Piano And Orchestra Of Harry Sukman
Liberty Records LRP 3135
1960

The April 18, 1960 Billboard put the "Special Merit Spotlight" on this album: "This is a fine new album featuring Harry Sukman, the concert pianist who composed the background score for the film based upon the life of Franz Liszt, called "Song Without End." Included here are manyh of Liszt's famous works, including "Liebestraum," "Hungarian Fanstast." and Concerto No. 1." They are played expressively by Sukman over full orchestral support. This album should have strong appeal when the film is released nationally.

Once again Liberty delivers a solid album which also features one of my favorite exotica tunes, The Breeze And I.

Sukman was a prolific soundtrack composer. His first imdb.com credit is for a 1954 sci-fi movie, Riders To The Stars. Curiously, unless I missed it, Sukman doesn't have a wiki page. His daughter, Susan Sukman McCray, has written a book for children based on her father's "young life and love for the piano". Copies can be purchase directly from her website.

The Silencers - Dean Martin

Dean Martin

The Silencers

Reprise Records RS/6211

1966

This was not the soundtrack, but a "tie-in". This movie sounds like cup of tea. The Amazon review calls it "barely a movie".

Now... I have NO idea how songs like Empty Saddles in The Old Corral or The Last Round-Up fit into the movie... if if they do at all. I can't see it. The last track on the B side is an instrumental titled The Silencers. I assume that song was actually featured in the movie (as indicated on the wiki "Silencers" page).

Total cheese for the most part, however, the tracks, Lord, You Made The Night Too Long and The Silencers instrumentals are cool.  And OK... the cover photo is great!

Latin ala Lee!

Latin ala Lee
Broadway hits styled with an Afro-Cuban beat
Capitol Records T 1290
1960

An unlikely combination of a pop singer, show tunes and latin music.

Lee is backed up by a smoking band, The Jack Marshall Orchestra. Through the first couple of songs, I was hip to the instrumentals but not Peggy. The third track, Till There Was You from The Music Man, was slow enough to allow the smoky quality of Lee's voice to take over. The same goes for Hey There, from The Pajama Game a track that also has a quirky 60s feel to it. I'm being picky, but a few tunes didn't translate well to "Latin". But the majority of tracks are wonderful, including The Party's Over from Bells Are Ringing and Wish You Were Here from Wish You Were Here.

I was draw to the album by the fun cover art which won a Grammy in 1960.

The album/CD is available online.

Sax In Satin - Bobby Dukoff

Sax In Satin

Bobby Dukoff And His Orchestra
With The Ray Charles Chorus
RCA LPM 1167
1956

There is some odd EP on Amazon (by the song download & CD) featuring Spanish(?) cover art. I also eventually found the album for MP3 download out of the UK, so I'll refrain from posting a sample.

The best info I could find on Dukoff was this article on JazzSphere. And, apparently Dukoff developed his own mouth pieces and sells them today. Dukoff's website.

I love the cover art. The album is a blend of light pop and more smoky moments nicely accented by The Ray Charles Singers.

Latin Impressions By Socarras

Capricho Brujo

Latin Impressions
By Socarras His Magic Flute And His Orchestra
Decca Records DL 8559
1957

From Billboard August 5, 1957: Interesting tone color of Alberto Socarras flute dominates mambos and cha chas derived from seemingly unlikely sources.

I fell in love with the cover art. Two white bread blonde Latin Wannabes being lured to dance by the devilish Pied Piper's flute being wielded by the Bela Lugosi-esque Socarras.

From his wiki page: In the 1950's Socarras took part in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone on TV and offered concerts of cult music at the Carnegie Hall in New York.

There is probably no tie in to the unusual... but is there?

The music is pretty straight forward Latin made bright by Socarras's Magic Flute. The last tune on the album, Capricho Brujo is a Mambo tune and the only track credit to Socarras. And the song is one of the better tunes on the album.

African Latino Voodoo Drums - Choco & His Mafimba Drum Rhythms

Fantasia Haitiana

African Latino Voodoo Drums
Choco & His Mafimba Drum Rhythms
Audio Fidelity AFSD 6102
1963

Audio Fidelity released records with great covers!

According to the back cover Choco is short for Chocolate. There is extensive notes covering the history of Afro-American folk music on the jacket, but nothing is mention about the performer(s) on this record.

The first three tracks on the B side are Fantasia Haitiana. From the back cover: The Fantasia Haitiana Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are unusual because they show how, in the hands of an artist like Chocolate, primitive rhythms can be developed into a set of metrical variations.

The entire recording focuses on subtle variations of drum percussion.

Another Time Another Place

Music To Watch Girls By

Another Time Another Place
Mari and Barbara Lee
Miracle Records
Rite Records, Cincinnati, Ohio

Rite 1945 - 20627 (matrix numbers)

I picked this fun vanity press lounge record at my favorite record store today. A local pressing that features a four piece band. The entire record sounds pretty much like the sample. Incredible! Love it!

Baxter's Best

Baxter's Best
The Star Line
Capitol Records T 1388
1960

This is a nice collection of Baxter tunes recorded from 1951 - 56. The May 16 Billboard called this "package of old sides" but gave the record "very strong sales potential".

What's nice about hearing these tunes together, for me, is that Baxter understood where pop music was headed, on the light side. I give Enoch Light a lot of credit for farming light pop, but apparently I have to back up and take a second look at Baxter.

You can visit bax music and sample tracks from a number of Baxter projects.

Love That Bert Kaempfert And His Orchestra

Love That Bert Kaempfert
And His Orchestra
Decca DL 74986
1968

I always shied away from Kaempfert. I expected the mundane. I did, however, purchase a few albums that sported fun cover art, such as this one. The music is extremely light for 1968. That fact aside, it turns out to be a lot more fun that I expected. Great easy listening with a sense of humor.

Much of Kaempfert's work is on CD, including this release, so I can't post a sample. But the CD crops the cover art, so I thought that it might be nice to post a more original image.

Percussion Expanol

Andalucia

Percussion Espanol

Time Series 2000
S/2006
1960

High quality recording on the TIME label with arrangements by Al Caiola.

The jacket is a double truck and I think this record must have been Time's answer to Enoch Light's Command Percussion Series.

By way of a sample, I picked Andalucia (better known as The Breeze And I) because the tune is so widely known as an "exotica" tune. It's also the best track off the record in my opinion.

Al Caiola also played guitar on this album as well as Mr. "X", John Pizzarelli and Don Arnone. Who Mr. "X" is... I have no idea. There are no online references for someone who would have been playing that many decades ago. Someone under contract to another company? Who knows?

Anyway, this isn't a "guitar" album, but more of an small band light 60s percussion/pop album. It's pleasant and consumable. The August 15, 1960 Billboard loved the album. " Al Caiola did the arrangements and they have much showmanship and brilliance."

Carnival In Paradise

Come To The Caribbean

Carnival In Paradise
Carib (A Product Of Caribbean Folk Music)
LP 2036 Stereo
1962

Here is an obscure and terrific compilation album. Not only is the cover a treat, but Carib did a great job of assembling together a number of smoking "island" tunes including, Chippy's Junkanoo Street Carnival. A wild percussion based tune that is apparently a Christmas song and sounds like it could have been recorded by a New Wave band in the 70s. The Eloise Trio's, Come To The Caribbean is very Yma Sumac-like and therefore, so cool that I immediately went searching to see if I could find other Eloise Trio records to purchase.

Wings Of A Dove with Vocalist Lionel Lotmore is also a cool tune featuring a Reggae beat. That song is followed by one of the smoothest covers of Yellow Bird I've ever heard by Roy Shurland. Other songs I really enjoyed were Junkanoo In Nassau by Tony Alleyne & The Big Bamboo Orchestra and Bahama Lullaby also by Roy Shurland at the Big Bamboo.

Highly recommended!

Esso Steel Band - Hubert Smith Jr.

Elbow Beach Merengue

Esso Steel Band
With Hubert Smith Jr.
Bandstand Recording
Recorded at the Opera House In Bermuda
1959

According to the jacket notes Hubert Smith Jr. was 19 years old when he made this. His performs on this LP with a group called The Wonders Quartet.

Very nice stuff for a "souvenir" album.

Acapulco

La vida se nos va

Acapulco
Dueto Caleta
Musica De Agustin Ramirez
Vik MLV-1009

Late 50s Vik release I stumbled across at a local record store. Not being able to read the notes, I can't offer any information.

Exciting Sounds Of The Clebanoff Strings & Percussion

Quite Village

Exciting Sounds Of The Clebanoff Strings & Percussion
Mercury Records SR 60869

The March 6, 1961 Billboard loved this album. "The arrangements are both tasteful and musical, and what is more they engage attention and hold it all the way through."

I can't find SR 60869 / MG 20869 anywhere online. I found this album featuring another cover design dated 1961/mono. This is the stereo release, which must have come a little later and seen little distribution.

I don't know what Billboard means by "tasteful and musical"... but the record is engaging, mixing a variety of styles from easy listening folk to groovy Enoch Light "light pop".

Music From Bach To Rock

Music From Bach To Rock
Harry Fields His Piano and Quartet
A Souvenir Of The Wonderworld Of Gas
Capitol Custom
1966

Once you get the obvious jokes out of your system... you'll discover that this is a decent jazz album.

I've seen another cover for this album. That cover features the same cover graphic sans the large yellow gas bubble and includes a sub head that reads "a salute to the 150th anniversary of gas" I've also seen another album titled "Music For Cooking With Gas featuring the Harry Fields Quintet"

I don't know what the deal was with America Gas Association and I don't know why I can't find any real mention of Fields outside of these two albums with the exception that he may have made a record in 1950 (Harry Fields and The New Yorkers - Caravan) that Billboard didn't like (Instrumental group built on the Irving Fields style suffers by comparison). Ouch...

The back cover indicates that he taught Mickey Rooney, Mae West, Judy Canova and Vince Edwards paino. He also was the author of an "...excellent piano instruction book entitled A Field Day at The Piano".

The sample track is a live track recorded at the 1963 American Gas Association Convention at The Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. The band included Pete Condole (played with Woody Herman and Stan Kenton), Plas Johnson (played on records by Peggy Lee, Nat "King" Cole" and Frank Sinatra), Victor Feldman (worked with Benny Goodman, George Shearing and Miles Davis) and Stan Levey (considered one of the earliest bebop drummers).

Cal Tjader

Cal Tjader Quintet

Fantasy 3313
1956

Something I've never seen in a thrift or even in a record store in this area is a Fantasy label record. I discovered Fantasy when I bought my first Korla Pandit album. Fantasy pumped out a ton of cool records on the West Coast.

So I was happy and surprised to find this red wax Fantasy Tjader album at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift today. I didn't color correct the cover, it is as dark as you see it on your monitor. Apparently this is one of the few notable straight-ahead jazz albums Tjader cut for Fantasy.

Tjader made a ton of records. Check out his discography and bio on his wiki page.

Of course, all of these tunes have be had on CD or by download at the usual online outlets. So I won't be posting a sample.

Zither In 3/4 Time - Ruth Welcome

Paradise

Zither In 3/4 Time
Ruth Welcome
Capitol T 1318

The cover of this album is a bit misleading. I expected the music to be a bit more "stuffy" or "easy listening". The feel of the album is almost "topical" or Hawaiian. Welcome plays the Zither like a steel guitar against the vibraphone.

The album is quite, slow and consistent. Welcome creates and sustains a mood much in the same way that Jackie Gleason does on his romantic albums.

Hawaiian Holiday - Lani Scott and Orchestra

Hawaiian Starlight

Hawaiian Holiday
Lani Scott and Orchestra
Golden Tone 658

Here's an interesting album. First, of course, I'm thinking this photo looks like stock art that was not shot on Hawaii. One clue is that the photo is credited on the cover to the British West Indian Airways...

Secondly, the title track, Hawaiian Holiday is smoking hot. Why didn't I feature that track? Well... because it is the SAME track as featured on a Pirouette label album of the same title. However the band on that album is billed as Terry McKee And His Band.

It's the same record. I blogged it a while back. Check out the cover and tune.

The Fiddling Viking - Svend Asmussen

Tabu

The Fiddling Viking
Svend Asmussen and his Dancing Strings
Columbia CL 1175
1959

This album turned out to a bit of a surprise. The cover art, graphically, seems more modern than 1959. And the music, thankfully turned out to be delightful big band easy listening pop with a modern or jazz or swing feel. The record number one track is a nice cover of Tabu, an exotica standard.

From the cover notes, it seems as though this album may have been Asmussen's introduction to American's record buyers. According to his wiki page, Asmussen toured the states in the late 50s. The article doesn't mention this album, but goes on to state that Asmussen recorded with Duke Ellington on Jazz Violin Session in 1963.

Here's another online article that goes into more detail. This album seems to have fallen through the cracks in this bio and it doesn't appear on his discography.