It’s a far cry from the pioneer motion picture “theme” songs of Ramona, Diane and Jeannine (I Dream of Lilac Time) to Laura and Ruby. It’s an even further step to the excellent latter-day musical quality of cinematic scores, as interpreted herein by Arthur Fiedler. His Boston Pops gives truly symphonic syncopation to these popularly appealing themes from the roster of top-flight and “big b.o.” (box-office) as we say on Variety pix.
With no reflection on the late 1920s when the movies first learned to articulate dialogue and music–the standard of motion picture music has also traveled a shade upward, although it is to the credit of the yesteryear Erno Rapee, Lew Pollack, L. Wolfe Gilbert. Nathaniel Shilkret and Mabel Wayne that their melodies, too, have survived. And while their counterparts exist today in the Paul Francis Webster-Sammy Fain, Johnny Mercer-David Raksin, Rodgers & Hammerstein. Lerner & Loewe, and Victor Young standards of popular songsmithing, it is a fact that it required almost a third of a century before works by Hubert Bath, Richard Addinsell, Heinz Provost and Charles Williams could be regarded as movie “themes.”
Paradoxically, a celludrama bearing the title of “Suicide Squadron” utilized Addinsell’s symphonic Warsaw Concerto as its theme, and a fragile British romance titled “Love Story,” a 1944 release starring Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Granger, introduced Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody on its soundtrack.
Movie theme songs are palpably primed as musical “trailers” for the box-office values. There are instances in plenty where a “strong” theme song hypoed the b.o. as much as $500,000 and sometimes more. From the cradling Ramona and Diane days the musical ballyhoo has traversed to the latter-day Laura, Intermezzo, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, Gigi, The Song from “Moulin Rouge” ( Where Is Your Heart) by the French Georges Auric with lyric by William Engvick, and Victor Young’s appealing waltz, Around the World in 80 Days.
There are also many instances, in films as well as legit, where a song survives its original source, to the degree that the stage or screen original is all but forgotten. Williams’ Dream of Olwen, from a lesser British film titled “While I Live,” is a case in point. While the movie is in circulation the song proves a stimulus to that film’s box-office attendance, although not as virile and vibrant as when the song and film title are one and the same.
It is most ideal when, as with Heinz Provost’s Intermezzo, it is not only the title song but is so integrated into the cinematurgy as to become part of the plot. In this instance (1939) David O. Selznick’s remake of the original 1936 Swedish production, with the same star, showed Ingrid Bergman performing the music as part of the plot motivation. The Variety review noted that “the musical score was particularly impressive and will gain critical attention. Violin and piano playing (as part of the romance action) by Leslie Howard and Miss Bergman is skillful dubbing, presumably, although Howard’s fingering seems professional, as does Miss Bergman’s at the piano.” (In actuality both stars happened to be musicians although, for slick professional purposes, Selznick had maestro Lou Forbes dub the score.)
Rounding out this Fiedler-Boston Pops caravan of movie music is the fetching March of the Siamese Children from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The King and I,” wherein Yul Brynner re-created for the screen his original stage role and Deborah Kerr assumed Gertrude Lawrence’s stage assignment. The story, done before on the screen by Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison as “Anna and the King of Siam,” made bald-headed leading men a vogue.
Arthur Fiedler is professionally partial to good music no matter from whence it stems, be it the classics, Broadway, Hollywood, or unadulterated Tin Pan Alley. If it’s good music his baton gives it good interpretation, and modern electronic technology insures good sound. It is doubtful, of course, if all these skills could is the same for one pioneer “talking picture,” when a certain Hollywood producer ordered a “theme” song written for a film titled “Dynamite Man.” It starred George Bancroft, a sort of 1920 Ernest Borgnine, and some Sunset Blvd. minnesinger came up with the “theme” song titled My Dynamite Man, I Love You. This set back the theme song business a couple of seasons!
“Pop-Hit” is the name given to the most successful popular musics in the United States. A “Pop-Hit” is the song that is sung from coast to coast – from Alaska to Mexico, broadcasted by hundreds of radio and TV stations, played and sung by every band and vocalist throughout night-clubs, dance-halls and theatres. As recently as a few years ago only a small part of the American hits had any large popular success in Europe. Today the musical sensibility of Europe has changed, together with its tastes, its way of living, of thinking, of feeling. New needs are growing, not least among which there is the need to find a music that can excite and relax at the same time, a music that produces a real and direct emotion, a music that helps us to live, and is in itself an expression of our time.
You’ll find all this in the pop tunes of the most modern American style. You’ll find it particularly in the twelve tunes selected among the most successful pop hits in America today. They are issued on this records as performed by singers Jack Richard and Mark Stevens with the vocal group of the Corwins and Henk Oldman’s orchestra.
One pop hit is a big musical success: twelve pop hits are an LP record CAPRICE labelled.
WITCH DOCTOR: Put together one part of children songs, two parts of hill-billy and four parts of rock’n roll, mix them, add the voice of Mark Stevens and you will have a very pleasant music whose title is a “Witch Doctor”.
RETURN TO ME: The international popularity which many Italian songs are enjoying, has offered to the American authors a chance to create songs featuring an halo-American style. Particularly when authors are of Italian origin, as it’s the case for C. Lombardo and D. Minno, the halo-American style succeeds in offering very pleasant examples like this sentimental and romantic song, “Return To Me”, performed by Jack Richard.
DON’T YOU JUST KNOW IT: There is a long and rich musical tradition, as that one of negro folk music, behind an item like cc Don’t You Just Know It a. All the impressiveness and the emotional strength of the voices of Mark Stevens and The Corwins, in this tune, descend from negro spiritual and work songs, and from gospel singing; only the style has changed and is modern and brilliant and fit to our musical taste of today.
I WANT YOU, I NEED YOU, I LOVE YOU: A song like a I Want You, I Need You, I Love You has entered into the main American artists’ repertoire, as it’s a song created according to a modern style, to be fitted for the most pleasant interpretations, following the advices of the last vocal fashion.
WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE is a very interesting example of the modern pop’ American style, based on voice inflexions, on accents and rhythm. Some voices, a guitar and an exceptional rhythm sense are sufficient to produce a pleasant and peppered performance, such as “Wake Up Little Susie”.
TEQUILA is one of the most popular hits of the last times, in the States and in Europe as well. a Tequila a, which name is taken from that of a well known Mexican drink, was born from the meeting of rock’n roll with mambo, adding the liveliness of latin-american rhythm to the incisive jazz-beat. The result is right explosive!
KEWPIE DOLL: Here we have a song just made-up for people who wish to dance, to be happy and to feel themselves as young fellows. It’s a thoughtlessness and optimist song, with a remarkable swing rhythm and an easy-to-the-ear refrain, sung by Jack Richard. A teenagers’ song which owns that spirit, freshness and modernity to be considered as leading characteristics of youth. Kewpie Doll is one of the best interpretations given by Jack Richard, who shows the most communicative swing.
ARE YOU SINCERE is one of the sweetest and most melodious today’s songs. Jack Richard’s interpretation has obtained best consents for the control of his style, which is modern but temperate. It’s considered his best performance of the year.
SPLISH SPLASH: A particularly strong rhythm, an exciting up-beat, a dynamic melodic line fostered by the intensity of riff appoint “Splish Splash” as a first rate rock’n roll, as well as the solo of tenor sax and the voices of Mark Stevens and The Corwins. Some latin-american rhythm patterns combine with the jazz elements and add color to the piece, that is one of the most popular hits of today.
ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM: All you have to do is to close your eyes and dream when you listen to “All I Have To Do Is Dream” because this is one of the sweetest melodies, sung in one of the sweetest manners. A music for dancing in the dark, cheek to cheek; a music for dreaming.
WEAR MY RING AROUND YOUR NECK is an extremely popular song among American students and teenagers, surely for its dynamic and modern character. We are meeting with a love song, performed with a swing rhythm, with all vivacity and sprightliness of rock’n roll.
LOVE ME TENDER: Due to its peculiar characteristics, “Love Me Tender” owns the charm and the sweetness of the old traditional American ballads and its sentimental vein is particularly given prominence by the efficacious Jack Richard’s interpretation.
Label: Caprice LP-CA 58-1 Cover photo and design by Gian G. Greguoli
ANDRE PREVIN Few young artists can point to such consistent accomplishment in a variety of fields as Andre Previn, and perhaps no one has achieved the same level of performance. Consider: within a comparatively short space of time, he has (1) participated in one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, the jazz edition of My Fair Lady; (2) has super-vised and conducted Porgy and Bess for the movies; (3) was soloist in an outstanding collection of mood music; and (4) appeared with Andre Kostelanetz and the New York Philharmonic in an enthusiastically acclaimed performance of the Gershwin Concerto in F. And all this, mind you, happened while he continued to turn out notable jazz performances for records and a number of original scores for the screen.
In this collection, he turns his talents to a dozen fine songs dealing with love, serving as piano soloist and conductor as well, and further shows his amazing creativity by providing two of the songs: “Like Love,” and “Looking for Love.” (Another original, “Nothin’ to do With Love,” is by Russ Freeman.) The result is as romantic as the most deeply-smitten swain could wish and at the same time as musical and rewarding as either jazz or classical musicians could ask for. It is, in short, Andre Previn at his best.
Born in Germany in 1929, Andre Previn began his musical training in Europe and continued in the United States after his arrival in 1939, numbering Castelnuovo-Tedesco among his teachers. Apart from two years in the Army, he has been writing film scores since 1949, and has been nominated three times for an Academy Award, winning the Award in 1959 for his musical scoring of Gigi. “Like Love” presents Andre Previn in his debut on Philips Records as pianist, conductor, arranger and composer and displays his amazing inventiveness in all four roles. That it also provides endlessly delightful listening needs no emphasis at all; such rewards are understood when the pianist is like Previn.
The cover of this record is a fine example of that age old maxim, “less is more“. By choosing to show only a portion of the woman’s face, mainly the eyes, we are left wanting to know more, to see more. The colours are mostly restricted to the reds and blacks of the colour spectrum, further creating a minimalistic look. What do you think about this record cover? Let us know.
Sleeve Notes:
The tragic story of Madam Butterfly begins when Lieut. Pinkerton, of the American Navy, is inspecting the house he has taken for his Japanese bride-to-be, Madam Butterfly. An American consul, Sharpless, tries to dissuade Pinkerton from the marriage-and explains that Butterfly has coot given up her religion for it. The marriage is celebrated, but not without opposition from the family and denouncement of Butterfly by her uncle, a priest, for forsaking her faith. Act One closes with the beautifully moving love duct, which also closes the first side of this record.
Butterfly has a little boy who has never seen his father, because Pinkerton, recalled to America, never kept his promise to return. Butterfly is sure he will come and sings of her faith in him in the world-famous aria ‘One Fine Day’. Sharpless tries to tell her of Pinkerton’s marriage to an American girl, but Butterfly doe’s not listen to the explanation and still believes Pinkerton will come back into her life. An American ship arrives in the Bay and Butterfly and her maid, Suzuki, decorate the house for Pinkerton’s arrival.
Pinkerton eventually arrives with his American wife and Sharpless, but when he realizes the position he cannot bear to stay. Butterfly hears that Pinkerton wishes to adopt the child and promises that within half an hour he may take the boy away. Left alone she embraces the child and then kills herself by falling upon her father’s sword.
The wonderful voice of Marie Collier, who played Butterfly so successfully in the Sadler’s Wells theatre production, repeats her fine performance on this disc. Miss Collier is already a firm favourite with visitors to Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden. Since she recorded this album she has gone from strength to strength.
Charles Craig is not new to records. This record was produced as a tribute to his fine performance in the Covent Garden production of ‘Butterfly’. His performance as Lieutenant Pinkerton was greeted with rave reviews by the critics after the opening night and his first record certainly deserved the title ‘Fame in a Night’. He has since made many records and operatic appearances.
Ann Robson is no newcomer to the role of Suzuki – she has played it many times – and Gwyn Griffiths as Sharpless joins with hoe to add great support to Marie Collier and Charles Craig.
The Sadler’s Wells Orchestra is conducted by Bryan Balkwill, who once again gives the faultless performance that one has come to expect of him.
We have always admired Della Reese’s singing and were enormously pleased when the opportunity came fur as to bring her to RCA. We began her RCA history with a single recording, Don’t You Know, that underlined her warm, lyrical quality in ballads. In preparing her first album for as we felt that new Della’s considerable capacities for swinging should be given freedom.
We decided on Neal Hefti as the arranger and conductor for these sessions because he has the range of experience and insight as well as the technical skills to provide exactly the right complement to Della’s style.
Our role as A&R men is to arrange marriages – between a song and an artist, between an artist and an arranger. We wanted to take special can with Della’s first RCA album, and accordingly we bad at least half a dozen conferences with Neal before he even began to write.
Della was on the West Coast during some of the preparatory sessions. We’d arrange for her to be in a studio with a piano, call her, discuss the tunes and arrangements, and she in turn would send us tapes of her ideas.
What resulted, therefore, was an album in which the framework for each song has a distinctive character – the best possible that we felt could be devised both for the song and for Della’s musical personality.
We want to make clear how much respect we have for Della’s talent. She’s young, has already accomplished so much, and has years to grow even more. We believe she will be one of the greats of show business, not just an artist with a few hits. In fact, we’ll go on record as saying that Della Reese will be among the top ten popular entertainers in the next decade.
Della’s career has been remarkably diversified. She was a member of the gospel group of the nonpareil Mahalia Jackson by the time she was thirteen and during her college years. Wayne University in Detroit, she formed her own gospel unit,”The Meditation Singers”.
Della began to branch out into blues and pop music at the Flame Club in Detroit. She gathered more experience with Erskine Hawkins, and, more recently, as an increasingly successful headline performer in clubs, theatres, and on radio and TV. She’s also been in films (Columbia’s Les Reek) and her reputation has become international.
We feel that now on RCA, Della Reese’s career will reach even more impressive levels. And we fully intend to select those songs and arrangers that will make it possible for the public to know all of Della Reese. She is unique in the popular field in that she can do so many things well. In this album you’ll hear how warm she can be and how fully she can swing.
We suggest you pay special note to the way she uses words. It’s very much like the way a musician uses an instrument. She bends, bites and projects the lyrics of a song in a way that no artist we know can do. We are delighted to have helped bring this album into being.
“Say it with a beautiful song,” sing Irving Berlin’s charming lyrics for the title tune of Ray Conniff’s latest, and that is precisely what America’s Number One dance arranger does. More-over, he does it with a Latin beat, just a hint of the intriguing rhythms from the tropics. The brilliant Conniff way with a tune is too famous to need further mention, but the saucy extras he has added to this new programme add up to entertainment that is brighter than ever.
Ray Conniff’s novel methods of blending voices and orchestra have brought dancers hurrying back to the floor and caused even casual listeners to sit up and take notice. Female voices are doubled with trumpets, high saxophones or clarinets, while the male voices are paired with trombones, trumpets or saxes in the lower registers. This subtle colouring intensifies the soft tones and at the same time mellows the harsher ones. And it produces the glossiest dance music anyone could desire.
Ray began his recording career as an arranger (for Johnny Mathis, It’s Not for me to Say; for Guy Mitchell, Singing the Blues; for Johnnie Ray, Makin’ My Baby Back Home, among others) but so vivid were his talents that he was soon signed as an artist himself. During the brief period that Ray has been arranging and conducting his dance albums, more than a million Conniff records have been sold, with demand growing every day.
In this collection, Ray plays a dozen favourite songs, touching them lightly with a Latin inflection. Four are by Cole Porter, others by George Gershwin, Sigmund Romberg, Peter de Rose and, of course, the Irving Berlin title tune. Each of them is, to quote Mr. Berlin again, “a melody mellow,” and each of them is another Conniff delight.
An understated cover that matches the feel of this record perfectly. Watch Sabicas in action by following the YouTube link below.
Sleeve Notes:
Sabicas, master of Flamenco Guitar, was born of gypsy parents in Pamplona, Spain. He was only five when he began playing the guitar – without tuition – quite an achievement for one so young, and within three years was ready to take part in a national contest held in Madrid. As a result of winning an important prize in that same contest, he eventually began touring Spain as a performing artist. Everywhere he toured his artistry met with success. and by the time he was twenty Sabicas was already considered a major Flamenco Guitarist. Sabicas left Spain in the late ‘thirties and went to live in Mexico for the greater part of twenty years. He then made successful tours with his own company and with that of Carmen Amaya, a combination which proved immensely popular, making a number of films, recordings and television appearances together. Flamenco music, the music of Spain, is by turn, fiery, haunting, and passionate. It is charged with great emotion with a pure musical beauty that few forms of music contain. This very beauty, together with the depth of feeling captured by the guitar in the hands of Sabicas, forms an album which without doubt is one of the finest ever presented.
“Young lady visitors will have the experience of encountering for the first time the Italian male, who is renowned internationally for his amorous persistence. Like the little boy with the sick donkey, he just will never take “No” for an answer.“
Sleeve Notes:
Christmas is usually the signal for the offensive to begin. News-racers and magazines during Christmas week suddenly sprout a rash of glowing advertisements from all manner of travel agencies, tourist bureaux and other professional organisers of vacations, telling you just why you must not hesitate an instant longer before booking the dream holiday of your life. It doesn’t matter that the sky outside is full of fog, rain, sleet or snow, and that you inside are full of turkey and Christmas pudding. Now’s the time to plan your holiday. The offensive gathers momentum as the weeks of January slip by. Commercial television adds its weight to the holiday propaganda, and you dutifully fill in requests for free brochures and look out your passport with its police-type photograph of yourself. You’ll need that because ninety-five per cent of the advertisements are touting overseas holidays on the Continent.
What’s more, ninety-five per cent of that ninety-five per cent talk confidently about the unlimited supplies of sun and good weather which they have to offer. The sun is the magnet which draws away more and more of the faithful every year from the bracing squalls of the British coastal resorts, luring them to bask on the burning beaches of Barcelona and Bilbao. Of course it rains there sometimes too, but a lot harder than at home usually, and without that irritating British drizzle and sea mist. And you frequently get a first class display of tropical thunder and lightning to boot.
Speaking of boots, Italy is a leading contender in the sunlight stakes. From the north right down to her southern toe and heel, you can rely on sweltering happily in relentless heat wherever you choose to go. Apart from the climate, there are innumerable attractions for tourists and holidaymakers in this ancient and historic land. Young lady visitors will have the experience of encountering for the first time the Italian male, who is renowned internationally for his amorous persistence. Like the little boy with the sick donkey he just will never take “No” for an answer.
Having enjoyed our braising in the torrid Italian sunlight, we naturally think about a musical souvenir to take back home with us. Something to remind us of that charming little cafe with the gleaming juke-box, the friendly flies who shared our food, and the sultry waitress who thought that we thought the looked like Sophia Loren. That’s where this record comes in.
Let it be said right away that it contains modern Italian popular music – brash, melodic, romantic and rhythmic in turn. There are no nasal Neapolitan tenors crooning about Catari over their guitars to remind us of the night we sipped our Chianti and glanced nervously up at the mephitic, sulphurous glow suffusing the crater of Etna. There are no Venetian gondoliers ululating lustful songs of love to recall the night we reclined in a gondola and were gently poled through an interesting array of flotsam and jetsam near the Doge’s palace. Instead we have an interesting array of contrasting songs reflecting Italian and foreign influences sung by an interesting array of leading pop artistes.
NICOLA ARIGLIANO is a graduate of the night club circuit. His first vocalising was directed at his comrades while engages, upon his national service, and they liked his voice enough to encourage him to continue after demobilisation, playing bass as well as singing. This record presents his greatest hit – the bi-lingual I Sing – Ammore – with its mixture of Latin and jazz in the accompaniment the angelic ComeUn Angelo, a ballad ideally suited to his mellow voice; and Permettete Signorina, an up-tempo plea to a member of the fair sex which should not go unheeded or unrewarded.
Speaking of the fair sex. JULIO DE PALMA contributes three songs too. A familiar voice on most of the European radio networks, Milan-born Julio is also a regular participant in the various song festivals, including the famous one at San Remo. She sings three of her disc successes here: a melodic E’ La Luna, a rhythmic Noi Siamo, and a bi-lingual Lezione D’Inglese, inspired possibly by a romantic English visitor.
ENRICO INTRA achieved nationwide fame as a jazz pianist in Italy before extending his talents to singing popular songs as well. Here he is heard in his vocal capacity performing a languorous cha cha cha with bi-lingual attractions Be Mine Signorina – and obviously aimed hopefully at visiting ladies who speak English.
SILVANA SEVA, another young damsel of song, is a comparative newcomer to the Italian pop scene after a string of first prizes in various Mimi competitions. She sings Wendy Wendy, a ditty falling into the rock-a-cha-cha genre.
FRANCO AND HIS G.5 group are Italy’s most famous exponents of Latin American rhythm. The G stands for giglio – lily- the symbol of the city of Florence, and the 5 denotes the number in his original ensemble formed in 1950. Here they play cha cha ilia called Raggazina and a straight example of il rocko named Innamorata Di Te.
PINO DONAGGIO started his entertainment career as a violinist and dancer before beginning to sing pop songs. Here he’s accompanied by bleeping guitars and echoing choir in a rock-a-cha-cha opus entitled Sulla Verde Terra.
Instrumental in obtaining his recording contract for him was young pianist PINO CALVI, who completes the L.P. with a rhapsodic rendition of Umberto Bindi’s lovely theme Il Nostro Concerto. Twelve items giving an authentic cross-section of current Italian pop music. Short of our impregnating the sleeve with the odour of freshly-cooked spaghetti, you couldn’t find a more realistic souvenir – or appetiser – for a stay in ITALY.
Ray Conniff has developed a completely new and refreshing sound in the field of popular music. His sparkling rhythmic treatments, with a vocal chorus used as a section of the orchestra singing syllables rather than words, were one of the freshest new ideas in popular music since the early Forties.
There are several distinct qualities that are always found in any Conniff album. First of all, the vivid sound. To achieve this, Ray has worked many long hours with the sound engineers. The choice of songs is always tasteful and musically the Conniff orchestra is always superb, because of the painstaking efforts of its perfectionist conductor.
Ray has always had a special knack for featuring great musicians on his albums. Billy Butterfield plays a beautiful trumpet solo on “Love Letters in the Sand”. Bernie Leighton is the featured pianist throughout the album, and Doc Severinson plays that exciting trumpet on “Three Coins in the Fountain”.
The twelve songs selected for Ray’s new album are among the biggest hits of the past ten years, and each is certain to recall many pleasant memories to all listeners.
The title song, “Memories Are Made of This”, gets things started with a delightfully happy sound and infectious beat. A new Conniff rhythmic sound is heard for the first time on “Tammy”, as flamenco rhythms of guitars add a new richness to the orchestra’s Latin beat. This same treatment is used to exciting advantage again on “Around the World”, “No Other Love”, “Three Coins in the Fountain,” and “My Foolish Heart”
