Joe was aghast when his daughter Debbie thought the Charleston was an aircraft carrier.
Sleeve Notes:
Feather boas, knee-length beads, raccoon coats, vamps and sheiks, supercharged cars and illicit stills – all treat to make up the gay, mad, “Roaring Twenties”. But there was another vital element to that fast-moving decade – its dance music and, most particularly, the infectious rhythms of the Charleston.
Joe “Fingers” Carr, the smiling master of the key-board, still has a deep affection for the rollicking dance tempos of that former age and now the word is getting round. A “back-to-the-Twenties” movement in dress is already well under way, the most “with it” mods now looking him their mothers and fathers did in those dint and dusty pictures. True, Oxford bags haven’t yet made a reappearance, but wide lapels and gangster coats are to be seen in abundance. The music too has a new and fresh appeal to the youth of today and, for once, their mums and dads don’s want them to nun down the volume for this remains their music too, the sounds to which they boop-a-dooped through their own younger days.
Joe was aghast when his daughter Debbie thought the Charleston was an aircraft carrier, so he started giving her lessons. She too got the message and Joe now has a child who can out-Charleston any old-timer who ever knocked knees in the flapper days.
The music used for those lessons is the some that Joe has captured for this album. It is filled with innuendos recalling those wondrous by-gone days when Charleston was king.
With his foot-tapping honky-tonk renditions of some great old favourites, Joe “Fingers” Carr has created music that will re-crown the Charleston – and send everyone out onto the dance floor to celebrate its coronation.
The Music – The Viennese operetta is the true child of that strange multilingual, multinational and multicultural society, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. If the operetta was born on the wrong side of the blanket, it survived such inauspicious beginnings as imitation Parisian opera to reach the heights of artistic and social acceptance. Originally influenced by French operas – especially those of Jacques Offenbach (he of Gaite Parisienne and “Can-Can” fame) – the Viennese operetta came into its own with Johann Strauss, Jr.’s still popular Die Fledermaus (1874). From then until the beginning of the First World War and the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Viennese operetta flourished – an elaborate and fascinating mixture of Hungarian czardas, Bohemian polkas, Austrian galops. Slovakian folktunes, Viennese waltzes, and Italian melodrama, both sentimental and grotesquely emphatic.
The most successful composers of the genre, Johann Strauss. Jr.. Franz Lehar, Edmund Eysler, Emmerich Kalman, Oscar Straus, Leo Fall and Paul Abraham – were men with a gift for rich melodic inventiveness and a flair for atmosphere. There work was enriched immeasurably by the performers who, coming from all parts of the monarchy to Vienna, developed a style of interpretation which gave the Viennese operetta its final, unforgettable shape.
Recognizing this, the Vienna State Opera. already famed for its inimitable performances of Mozart. Wagner and Richard Strauss, acquired a second house, the Volksoper, during its Period of reconstruction in the days following World War II, and there it has kept alive the tradition of operetta. This Institution is virtually the only theatre in Europe where one can still see and hear Viennese operetta as it was played during the reign 01 Emperor Franz Joseph.
But the presentation of operetta on the phonograph disc is knotty. In the past companies have recorded (and often very well) either the complete operetta with famous opera singers and great symphonic conductors. or to deliver melodic excerpts with pop singers. But neither pop stars nor opera divas knew the tradition – despite beautiful singing or clever delivery.
The Westminster Gold series now for the first time endeavors to present Viennese operetta in its traditional garb, and at the same time in lively fashion. In bypassing the details of the story (dialogue is cut and musical repeats serving elaboration of text are omitted as well), yet by retaining the Dramatic structure of the music in its sprightly ensembles, orchestral transitions. etc.. Westminster Gold has endeavored to preserve the true image of the Viennese operetta. giving neither excerpts nor full-blown, tedious music-drama, but a bubbling half hour show (the demi-heure operetta, if you will) that encompasses all its musical glory in the interpretation that fits it best.
The Merry Widow – Hannah, a pretty young widow, is considered to be the -catch- of Paris, not only for her beauty but also because she had inherited a fortune of some twenty million francs. The Ambassador from her native Marsovia. Baron Popoff. has received official instructions to see that Hannah marries a Marsovian, thereby keeping her money in her homeland. The man who has received the Marsovian governmental blessing is Prince Danilo, known throughout his country as one of the handsomest, gayest and most charming, of the official court circle. Despite Prince Dan., devotion to his welcome assignment. Hannah resents the meddling in her private life. particularly the idea of a destiny “made-to-order”. Moreover, before settling down to wedded life again, she is determined to enjoy One mad, gay fling in Gay Paree. This she accomplishes to the utmost, finding that Prince Danilo is much in evidence every-where. and that his romantic nature is, indeed, most appealing. At the last. Hannah and Danilo decide that theirs is a true romance, and they take each other for better or worse.
Countess Maritza – The wealthy Countess Maritza possesses so many estates, castles. etc. that she really knows but little of any of her holdings. The castle which is the setting of this operetta is being managed by a most unusual and business-like overseer. Count Tassilo Endrody. Formerly one of the gayest and most popular of the young officers of Budapest, the Count had paid off his father’s debts by selling all of the family ancestral proper-ties – the castles; estates, racing stables and the family heir-looms. Only a few of his most intimate friends even know that he has taken the position in order to earn his living. Actually, Tassilo is working to provide a dowry for his sister, the Countess Liza. Maritza has no idea of the Count’s true identity, and she is Pleasantly surprised when she comes to the castle with a large retinue of guests and sees the handsome, aristocratic and erudite young man who has, through his wise management of the estate, doubled the income of the property. Tassilo, himself, is astonished to find that his sister, Liza, is among the guests.
To forestall her usual problem of too many suitors. Maritza announces that she is engaged to marry (the imaginary) Baron Koloman Zsupan. Imagine her consternation. however, when a real Baron by this unusual name makes his appearance to claim her as his betrothed. Zsupan then proceeds to fall in love with Liza, whose very presence is beginning to cause all sorts of complications for Tassilo.
Countess Maritza gives a great ball to celebrate her home-coming and, as Tassilo stands outside the ballroom listening to the playing of the Hungarian gypsy musicians, he begins to sing, putting into song his longing for the love, romance and gaiety of his happy past. Hearing the rich. robust voice. Maritza and her guests come out on the terrace and listen to Tassilo until he finished the song. Enchanted, the Countess commands him to repeat the number but Tassilo haughtily refuses saying that he is present as the overseer of her estate, not as an entertainer. Chagrined by such defiance of her authority, Maritza orders him to leave the estate, and he prepares for his departure_ He is encouraged, also, by the gypsy girl. Mania, who loves him devotedly. The situation seems almost hopeless, until Tassilo’s rich old aunt, the Princess Bozena Klopensheim, informs him that she has bought all of his old family holdings for the purpose of restoring him to his rightful position as a member of the autocracy. The Princess then sets all matters right between Tassilo and Countess Maritza. and Maritza is happy to confess her true love for her erstwhile overseer.
SIDE ONE THE MERRY WIDOW (FRANZ LEHAR) Band 1. Act I 15 29 Band 2. Act II 16.15 ENSEMBLE AND CHORUS OF THE VIENNA OPERA VIENNA STATE OPERA ORCHESTRA FRANZ BAUER-THEUSSL, CONDUCTOR
SIDE TWO COUNTESS MARITZA (EMMERICH KALMAN) (30:14) ENSEMBLE AND CHORUS OF THE VIENNA OPERA VIENNA STATE OPERA ORCHESTRA FRANZ BAUER-THEUSSL, CONDUCTOR.
Frans Liszt was the miraculous pianist who became the “ancestral god” of all later piano virtuosi. He was a “giant” in many ways – as a lover he would have provided present-day gossip-columnists with almost inexhaustible material, as a musician he was an innovator who gave ideas to a host of composers for the next two generation – and today there are two opposite and irreconcilable views of his life, work and personality. To some his music has faded, and to others it is among the most exciting products of the nineteenth century. To some he was one of the great “Hungarian” composers, unflagging in his attachment to his nation’s freedom. To others he is primarily a cosmopolitan romantic genius, a leading figure in the movement for a “new music” that included Berlioz in France and Wagner in Germany.
The Hungarian and German aspects of Liszt are reflected in the bare facts of his birth and death. He was born Ferencz Liszt at Raiding in Hungary, in 1811.
He died in 1886 at Bayreuth, the centre which his son-in-law, Richard Wagner, had built in Germany for the performance of his own operas. And in a curious way, the events at Bayreuth reflected both Liszt’s musical powers and the decline of his reputation. For the innovations of Wagner, as the “composer of the future”, had pushed those of Liszt entirely into the background. Yet is was from the Liszt tone poems that Wagner had taken many of his ideas, and even actual musical motifs. The story is told that in 1876, when Wagner attended with Liszt a rehearsal of Die Walkare, he said, “Now, papa, comes a theme which I got from you.” Liszt answered, “All right, then one will at least hear it.
The Hungarian Rhapsodies embody the national Hungarian aide of Liszt. James Huneker wrote wittily of them. “The majority begin in a mosque and end in a tavern.” This points to the origin of both Hungarian folk music and Gypsy music in the East, and the use of Gypsy bands for uproarious town entertainment. For it was Hungarian popular music as it has been taken up and developed by the Gypsies that Liszt used in his Rhapsodies. He thought that the Gypsies had given Hungary its folk music, and admired them as apostles of untrammelled freedom:”they reject all despotism of law,” he wrote in his book, The Gypsies and their Musk in Hungary. Modern research has disclosed a Hungarian peasant music quite different from the popular and urban music of the Gypsy bands. But to the defence of Liszt comes none other than the great Hungarian composer who more than anyone else has studied and disclosed the old and basic folk music of Hungary. Whilst disapproving of the tunes themselves that Liszt chose in the name of “Hungarian music,” Bela Bartok wrote that the Rhapsodies “are perfect creations of their own kind. The material that Liszt used in them could not be treated with greater artistry and beauty.” And nobody has put better than Bartok the contradictory sides of Liszt as a composer. “Everything that had ever existed in music, whether trivial or sublime, left a lasting imprint on his work. Side by side with triviality, he displayed almost everywhere amazing boldness, either in form or in invention. The boldness was really a fanatical striving towards something rare and new.
The first fifteen Hungarian Rhapsodies, composed for piano, were published by Liszt in 1848-53. Four more appeared in 1882-5. Six of the most popular teem arranged by Liszt, with the collaboration of Franz Doppler, for orchestra. The four on this record correspond to the piano versions as follows: Orchestra: No. 1 in F minor No. 2 transposed to D minor No. 3 transposed to D No. 4 transposed to D minor Piano: No. 14 in F minor No. 6 in D flat No. 2 in C sharp minor No. 12 in C sharp minor.
Noël Coward is one of those legendary figures of the entertainment world (Shakespeare a another, Oscar Wilde a possible third) whose legend, far from diminishing with the passage of time, actually increases with the years. Whatever critics may have said in the past (for Coward like, Shakespeare and Wilde, has had his near-failures too), the purely personal interest aroused by his name, the magic touch of the born artist seen even in lesser Coward, and the myth attaching to him, are so powerful that the box-office never has to close down on one of his shows for lack of customers – only for lack of seats. …
And that in itself is something of a phenomenon On superficial evidence it would he easy to say that Noël Coward established himself so firmly as the typical representative of one small part of the twentieth century, the riotous, sad decades of the ’20’s and ’30’s, which now seem almost as dated as the sumptuous plushery of the Edwardian Era, and more than that as the representative of one rigidly exclusive group of the society of that period, the Bright Young Things, that, with the decline and fall of the spirit of the ’20’s, Coward’s own star would have waned. In fact, it was predicted when his lyrics and sketches scintillated on the stage for the first time, that his brilliant success would be short-lived, and that when he passed the age for being a Bright Young Thing he mould degenerate into that very dreary bore, a Middle-aged Young Thing. But of course Noël Coward triumphantly, and with the polished ease with which he does everything in the theatre, proved his gloomy prophecy false. It had to be false because in the first place it missed the vital point that he is constitutionally incapable of being dreary, of being a bore, he his always, in every sense. entertaining. He fooled the prophets by catching, the effervescence of the ’20’s so well, the flappers and crazy parties and irresponsible gaiety, that they wrote him off as merely another clever young man. The clever young man showed, however, in his play “The Vortex”, and has shown since in works like “In Which We Serve”, The Astonished Heart”, and “Cavalcade”, that he could respond, none more sympathetically, to the spirit not merely of a decade and a group, but of a whole time, a whole nation. And although his own songs and satires hale a brilliant finish, a darling surface, they are successful because they penetrate below the surface. his sharply witty revue pieces Noël Coward created situations and people worthy to be ranked as small masterpieces: the four young men of The Stately Homes of England who knew “how Caesar conquered Gaul and how to whack a cricket-ball…”, the “toughest Malay bandit” pausing to ponder over the madness of Englishmen, and more recently the solid citizens, formidable in their mackintoshes, who forbade us to make fun of the Festival. But there is another side to the acidly serene mocker, the debunker admired even bu his victims that is more sentimental Coward, the troubadour, whose gentler songs – Sigh No More, Dear Little Cafe, Room With A View, I’ll Follow My Secret Heart, I’ll See You Again, and many more – are featured on this record. The fact that he has a gentler side, that he makes his appeal to the warm-hearted plebs as well as to the glittering debs, and that his songs in this manner are as beautifully executed as the verbal ingenuities of the revue pieces, ensures that the legend will never die. As id to remind us of his virtuosity, Noël Coward at the age when most men are thinking of devoting their energies to bumbling golf, has recently appeared in two new roles, that of the smart and wildly popular cabaret entertainer, and , boldest of all, the man who dared to make Oscar Wilde wittier, in “After the Ball”. But who could be more fitted to the task, when the world is wondering, comes up as sharp and suave and gentle as ever, to astonish us again? Frank Chacksfield, who guides us on the week-end tour, is now one of this country’s leading light music conductors. Records such as Ebb Tide and Limelight, the first record he made for Decca and which won him the “New Musical Express” Record of the Year award, have earned fro him a worldwide reputation. In America, in 1953, he was voted by the juke box operators in a nationwide cash Box Poll to have the most promising new orchestra of the year, a result justified by the magic of his latest recordings. He was born in battle, Sussex, and studied music from the age of seven, displaying an unusual interest in musical theory for a boy of that age. He learned to play the piano and the organ, passed the Trinity College exams, and appeared as a soloist at the Musical Festival in Hastings, by the time he was fourteen. At the same time he was deputy organist at Saleshurst Parish Church, near Robertsbridge, Sussex. He formed his first dance band at the age of fifteen, but his parents were against a musical career and he entered a solicitor’s office. It became a case of working all day at the Law, and working all night at Music until ever-increasing popularity convinced him that music was to be his career – a happy decision for his now international legion of admirers. the war broke out and Frank joined the Army in 1940. During a period of convalescence from an illness, he made his first broadcast from the B.B.C. Glasgow studios, singing songs at the piano. Transferred to the Southern Command Entertainments Section of the R.A.S.C. at Salisbury, he became staff arranger to the War Office show “Stars in Battledress”, and shared an office with Charlie Chester, both being demobbed on the same day. This led to a job with “Stand easy” at Blackpool, with Frank conducting the orchestra. later he became composer, conductor and arranger for the B.B.C., working with shows such as John Pertwee’s “Puffney’s Post Office”, the “Frankie Howerd Show”, and “Up the Pole!” he made his first record in 1948, and has recorded with, among many, Charlie Chester, Petula Clarke, Bill Johnson and the Radio Revellers. After many successful recordings he recorded Limelight for Decca in April 1953, and so the success story continues. So here is the Chacksfield Orchestra in its present full glory, with a selection of songs eminently suited to its style, and, we hope, to the listener’s taste.
Over the last few years Ray Conniff has made a name for himself as one of the foremost conductor-arrangers of our time, dynamic, highly imaginative and equally skilled in handling voices and instruments. As this truly delightful album demonstrates, he has struck out along bold new paths; he has explored the fields of colour and texture with such effect that he has attracted a host, of imitators who are unable to conjure up his magic but are conscious that he has recreated the essence of popular music.
Born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, U.S.A.. Ray received his initial musical training on the trombone, taught by his father. Within a remarkably short time, there were two trombonists in the Conniff family, and by the time Ray entered his junior year in high school, he was playing and arranging music as well. The second musical talent was largely self-taught, with some help from a mail-order device which taught him the difference between chords. Graduation in 1934 took Ray to Boston, where he worked with a number of society-type orchestras and other musical groups, improving both his playing and his ability as an arranger. In 1936, he moved to New York, and found work with Bunny Berigan’s band, where he was heard as trombonist and arranger for two years. Thereafter he played with Bob Crosby’s orchestra on numerous tours, and then moved along to Artie Shaw’s group where Ray emerged as a first-rate arranger (vide such memorable contributions as Prelude in C sharp minor and Jumping on the merry-go-round). During the four years he remained with Shaw. Ray also worked on various radio shows and studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
After service in the Army, Ray was hired by Harry James not as an instrumentalist but as an arranger. He thereupon turned out such fine settings as Easy on. The Beaumont ride. and September song. While working with the James group, Ray wrote so many fine arrangements that he soon attracted the attention of recording companies, and was signed to write backgrounds for such vocal stars as Rosemary Clooney, Johnnie Ray, Guy Mitchell and many others. From there it was a short step to full-scale musical direction. His success can be measured in terms of a magnificent series of records, some of which we list for your interest.
Take a long and careful look at the titles on this latest Chartbusters and then sit back and reflect where you saw them before. If the titles ring a bell in the memory then it’s because the place you’ve seen them is in today’s (yes today’s) pop charts and you’ve also heard them played endlessly on radio. And because they’re today’s hits, today’s songs and the most popular by virtue of their record sales they’re obvious targets for the Chartbusters team. Leader of the team is producer Tony Palmer who has that unenviable task of peering into the crystal ball of pop in order to come up with an amazingly accurate reflection of the chart hits. And that, let nobody kid you, is no easy task. Then once he’s selected them Tony chooses with the same care the artists and musicians who will perform them and each must be capable of giving to a chart hit the kind of chart performance treatment that got it there in the first place.
The rest of the production of the Chartbusters item rests with the technicians and once they’ve completed their task YOU have a rather unique kind of record album. An album that is filled with today’s sounds, performed with gusto and enthusiasm by young musicians and singers whose names you don’t need to know and yet who Possess great musical ability. So if we at Pye Records boast that this is the very best Chartbusters album we’ve produced we mean it. Until the next one, that is!
Einen weiteren interessanten Einblick in the – Phase 4 Stereo – Serie vermitteln lhnen al.., the weiteren Emfuhrungsplatten -Stereo a la carte 1-5″, the Ihr Schallplattenhandler ebentalls zu einem Vorzugspreis fur the bereithalt.
Another interesting insight into the Phase 4 stereo series is provided by all of the others (in the series), the “Stereo a la carte 1-5” recordings, which are available at a preferential price from your record dealer.
La luce soffusa dell’abat-jour accresce la potenza evocatrice della musica, mentre it pianoforte di Pino Calvi suggerisce mille sogni di evasione alla nostra fantasia. Provate ad appoggiare a caso il pick-up su ciascuna delle due facciate del disco, ogni volta ascolterete una musica ben note: dai “classici” senza tramonto di ieri come “Begin the Beguine” “Laguna addormentata” ed “estasi d’amore” a quelli di tempi piu recenti come “Yesterday” e “Acca-rezzame (di cui e autore lo stesso Calvi) ai grandi temi da film come “Anonimo veneziano” e “As Time Goes By” leit-motiv dell’indimenticabile “Casablanca”. Un programma di musica leggera di gran classe the Pino Calvi esegue con it suo inconfondibile tocco e la consueta eleganza, accompagnato da una sezione di altri valenti solisti che aggiungono un affascinante background alle atmosfere sognanti evocate dal suo strumento.
The soft light from the lampshade increases the evocative power of music, while the piano of Pino Calvi suggests a thousand dreams of escape from our fantasies. Try choosing tracks on each of the two sides of the disc at random, each time you listen to well-known music: from the “classics” of yesteryear like “Begin the Beguine” “Sleeping Lagoon” and “Love Ecstasy” to those of more recent times such as “Yesterday” and “Accarezzame (of which Calvi himself is the author) to great film themes such as” The Anonymous Venetian” and “As Time Goes By” leit-motiv of the unforgettable” Casablanca”. A high-class music program by Pino Calvi with its unmistakable touch and the usual elegance, accompanied by a section of other talented soloists who add a fascinating background to the dreamy atmospheres evoked by his instrument.
“Here is your complete home discotheque on one long playing record.“ Jo Ment was the show-biz name of Jochen Ment, a German musician who followed in the wake of the popular Bert Kaempfert and James Last albums of the sixties. This album contains segued tracks with crowd applause and shouts presumably to generate a party atmosphere as you listen to it. Jo Ment’s Happy Sound! The cover seems at odds with this featuring as it does three bendy ladies caught in the middle of a kind of Twister game with not a drink or apparent source of music anywhere to be seen. Unless that’s Jo’s idea of a party atmosphere. “Start dancing – Jo Ment will do the rest” as the sleeve notes say. In that case, fetch me a beer.
Sleeve Notes
Here is your complete home discotheque on one long playing record, with the services of one of the continent, leading band. at your command.
Joe Ment and his “Happy Sound” of trumpets, trombones, saxes, electric guitar, organ and percussion offer you a sophisticated evening of happ music for a jet set clientele, with melodies and rhythms as enjoyed in the chicest night spots of the world, With Joe Ment you are on the French Riviera, in London, Mayfair, or living the dolce vita in any dream spa you care to mention.
The driving, pulsating beat of the saxes start us off with “Rock Around The Clock” and there’s no letting up as we move along with Chuck Berry and the Beatles to meet Paul Anka, “Diana”. This young lady, who was in real life one of the singer-composer’s girlfriends, brought him no less than eight Gold Discs. Then we go “Down Town” with the Tony Hatch composition that our own Pet Clark took around the world, returning to a post war Vienna and “The Third Man” for whom Jo Ment provides a thin disguise with the rhythm of the cha cha cha. One of Germany’s favourite singers is Freddy (Quinn) and one of his greatest hits was Heimweh, or in the English language version “Memories Are Made Of This”. Jo Ment has a particularly pleasing passage for trumpet, organ and drums In this highly danceable fox-trot. Domenico Mondugno put the beat into Italian popular music when he carried off first prize at the 1959 Sen Remo Song Festival with Piove, which he followed with another international top-liner “Volare”, in which he told how his heart had wings. “Vaya Con Dios” reminds us of these great multi-tracked guitar recordings of the American couple Les Paul and Mary Ford while with “The Banana Boat Song” we travel to the West Indies in the company of Harry Bellafonte (incidentally, in Germany this was another Freddy Quinn success).
Similar international ingredients make up the second part of Jo Ment’s programme. What could he more American than “West Side Story”? To drive the point home we have the song “America’. Cole Porter, playboy, poet, composer wrote the classic “I Love Paris” for the show “Can-Can” and ‘True Love’ for “High Society” – giving us in the latter one of the greatest love duets ever heard on the screen, between Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby. The Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis transformed a little song be had written several years before into “Zorba’s Dance” for another film, “Zorba The Greek” whilst the music for “Strangers in the Night’ was composed by Bert Kaempfert for yet another film, “A Man Could Get Killed”, although it became international through the voice of Frank Sinatra. Sydney Sachet, the American negro soprano sax player settled in Paris many years before his death and consequently many of hie works have French titles, not the least of which is “Petite Fleur”. There’s a delightful flute solo in ‘Island In The Sun” – another tribute to the West Indies and Harry Bellafonte. Jo Mint concludes this dance party of his with a trip to Dixieland and two rousing numbers: “Whatever Will Be, Will Be’, which many of us still associate with Doris Day and “Hello Dolly”, which in this style is inseparable from the name of the late Louis Armstrong.
These brief notes do not mention every title brought to you by Jo Ment, Happy Sound, but perhaps they point in the right direct., Start dancing – Jo Ment will do the rest.
