Guest Reviewer: Patti Page's New Box Set Featuring Her Lang-Worth Transcriptions, by Robert Nickora

The British label Jasmine Records has undertaken the reissue of an important part of the recorded catalog of singer Patti Page in the last few years. After releasing two four-CD box sets of studio recordings—Near to You in 2011 and Another Place, Another Time in 2013—they have just made available a third set, which, besides more of Page's studio work, includes for the first time ever the complete library of transcription recordings that she made for the Lang-Worth company in the early 1950s. Known for their rarity, these are very interesting sides because they often find Page at her jazziest and accompanied by a small group of excellent musicians. Robert Nickora, who is responsible for compiling and annotating all three Patti Page sets, has kindly agreed to write a review of the latest one in the series, entitled There Is No Greater Love. We appreciate Mr. Nickora's willingness to share his insights into these recordings with the readers of The Vintage Bandstand.

PATTI PAGE - THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE: THE THIRD COLLECTION

Jasmine Records JASCD 34-4

Producing the Patti Page collection, THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE, was very challenging and time consuming, but exceptionally enjoyable.  I worked with these recordings for more than a year prior to the release of the set.  As a result of the sales and strong reception of Jasmine’s earlier Page box sets – NEAR TO YOU: Celebrating a Career…Defining Class (JASBOX 24-4) and ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE (JASBOX 30-4) – I had already completed a third volume that combined Mercury and Columbia material, and was planning to pitch it to Jasmine Records for release consideration when an opportunity arose to compile and program the Lang-Worth Transcriptions.  These rare gems were offered to me on loan by Robert Bowling, Patti’s friend and founder of “The Patti Page Appreciation Society.”  I reworked the large set, omitting half of the material and replacing it with the Lang-Worth songs and intros.

Countless hours were involved in listening to all the material (three choices per track in some instances) and determining the very best disc transfer to submit for re-mastering.  The brief introductions Patti recorded were pressed on two separate discs with no labeling to indicate which intro would correspond with an appropriate track. These intros were very slightly edited in the final Jasmine project, creating a fine complement to the set.

The Lang-Worth Transcriptions were initially issued to select radio stations for local programming, and were never intended to be made available for sale in music stores. Some department stores, however, were later given access to these recordings, and they were utilized as background music (similar to what is sometimes referred to as elevator music).  I worked directly from the unique 8” discs that resembled the later EPs (popular with the record-buying public in the mid-‘50s).  These recordings were also available to radio stations in a 16” disc format. 

The administration at Lang-Worth recognized the rising popularity of Patti Page when her first million-seller, “With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming,” began climbing the charts.  There was mention of this new association in the December 1949 issue of Billboard, with the first recording date occurring in January 1950 and the final twelve tracks completed in March 1952.  Ensemble musicians included Lou Stein (piano), Joe Sinacore (guitar), and Stanley Kay (percussion), and accompaniments were occasionally augmented with full orchestra.  The repertoire chosen was a collaborative effort by Patti Page; her personal manager, Jack Rael, who supervised all sessions; and Lang-Worth; the scripted intros were provided by Lang-Worth writers.

Many of the Lang-Worth songs were later recorded for Mercury employing fuller and more sophisticated orchestrations.  Patti’s style began to evolve after Lang-Worth, and it appeared she felt secure in taking a few liberties with the melody lines in such later tracks as “East of the Sun,” “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me,” “Where Are You,” “I’ll Never Smile Again,” and others. A few of the lesser-known songs such as “There’s Something in the Wind,” “Accent on Youth,” and “Tormented” have become my personal favorites.  Her rendition of “The Prisoner’s Song” (with simple guitar accompaniment) might very well be the most sensitive and impressive interpretation of this classic country song.

It was a pleasure to select the fifty-five tracks from Patti Page’s vast Mercury library (many of which come from “The Great American Songbook”) for the first two discs.  A few, such as “Basin Street Blues,” “Paradise,” “Did I Remember,” “Every Day,” and “Nobody’s Darlin’ But Mine,” were new discoveries.  The exemplary re-mastering of the entire set by Tall Order Mastering is especially noteworthy.  The crisp fidelity of “The Tennessee Waltz” LP on Disc Two is particularly impressive.

Very special words of appreciation go to Timothy Akers, Patti Page’s great-nephew and devoted fan, for providing details regarding all information related to the Lang-Worth Transcriptions and the names of specific musicians involved in these historic recordings.

Robert Nickora

Thanksgiving Day 2015

Vintage Records Review Desk 6: Frank D'Rone, Patti Page, Frankie Laine & Buck Clayton, Lucy Reed

For this new installment of the Vintage Records Review Desk, we are taking a trip back to the 1950s and early 1960s and looking at four outstanding vocal jazz albums among the many remarkable ones that were produced in that time period. Two are by male singers (Frank D'Rone and Frankie Laine) and two are by female vocalists (Patti Page and Lucy Reed) and the four records in the lot are linked by their swinging, jazzy atmosphere, as well as by their undeniable musical quality.

When singer/guitarist Frank D'Rone passed away in 2013 at age 81, his obituary in the Chicago Tribune noted that on the day that he gave his last concert, he "didn't know whether he should go to the emergency room or the concert hall." Such was indeed D'Rone's devotion to music. Born in Massachusetts in 1932 but raised in Rhode Island, D'Rone developed an early interest in the guitar, and by the 1950s, he was making a name for himself in jazz clubs around Chicago, both as a singer and as a guitarist. Nat King Cole was particularly impressed by D'Rone's musicianship, to such an extent that he took the younger singer under his wing and helped him get a record contract with Mercury.

Frank D'Rone

In his book Jazz Singing, Will Friedwald observes that "D'Rone has a forties-type voice . . . in a fifties Capitol F[rank] S[inatra] setting . . . and generates genuine warmth" (331). This Sinatra connection is particularly evident in his album After the Ball, recorded in 1960, partly because the vivacious arrangements are by Billy May. The twelve songs on the LP are loosely tied by the concept of an imaginary conversation between two lovers who have just attended a dance. Perhaps not enough to speak strictly of a concept album, but the set works well because both the songs and the arrangements are top notch, and the tracks range from a high-octane swinging reading of an old chestnut like Charles K. Harris's "After the Ball" to versions of well-known standards such as "My Melancholy Baby" and "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to" and even more contemporary tunes such as Bart Howard's "Let Me Love You" and Matt Dennis's "Will You Still Be Mine." Whether it is an all-out swinger or a longing ballad, the warmth of D'Rone's voice shines through as he, according to the anonymous liner notes, "re-lives the whole early-morning romance vocally."

Also from the Mercury Records catalog comes the next album. Though known primarily for her pop versions of country hits like "Tennessee Waltz" and for bland novelty tunes such as "Doggie in the Window," as well as for her tendency to harmonize with herself through overdubbing, Oklahoma-born Patti Page was a credible jazz singer whenever she set her mind to it. Too bad that she did not record in that type of setting more often. One such session took place in Hollywood in May 1956, when she cut the album In the Land of Hi-Fi, arranged by Pete Rugolo, who surrounded her with a band that was full of West Coast jazz luminaries such as Pete Candoli, J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Bud Shank, and Georgie Auld, to name but a few. The whole LP has a brassy feel about it, and the band swings easily even on slower numbers like "The Thrill Is Gone" and "A Foggy Day." Rugolo's clever, modern-sounding arrangements are a welcome change from Page's fifties hit singles, and she tackles every song in a joyful, effortless manner, proving that she can hold her own in a jazz setting. Her nonchalant reading of "Mountain Greenery" is magnificent, and so are her percussion-laden versions of "Love for Sale" and "Nevertheless." With perfect sound and a bonus track, the CD reissue of this set (Verve, 1999) should make everyone wish that Page had made many more records in this vein.

Another singer who was known for novelties and pop adaptations of country material is Frankie Laine. But his album Jazz Spectacular (Columbia, 1956), which pairs him up with trumpeter Buck Clayton and an orchestra featuring, once again, Johnson and Winding, along with Urbie Green, Dickie Wells, Sir Charles Thompson, and Jo Jones, shows that jazz was clearly Laine's first love. Many of Laine's Mercury recordings, as well as his late-forties series of Standard transcriptions, already have a jazzy feel to them, but it is particularly this mid-fifties Columbia LP that best illustrates his abilities as a jazz singer. Loosely structured as a sort of jam session, with plenty of room for hot and cool solos from the musicians in the band, the album often reminds us of Billie Holiday's 1930s sessions with the likes of Teddy Wilson and Lester Young, because Laine's vocals are usually brief and underscore the fact that he should be seen merely as another soloist in the combo. In fact, Buck and the guys do "My Old Flame" as an instrumental, without the participation of Laine, who felt that this "was more of a girl's song." If the album lives up to its title, it is both because of the fantastic contributions from all these great jazzmen and because of Laine's sprightly vocals, which prove that he is perfectly at ease in this small-group context. Though there is not a single forgettable song here, high points of the set are "You Can Depend on Me," "That Old Feeling," "Stars Fell on Alabama," and "Baby, Baby All the Time." The 1999 Columbia/Legacy reissue is splendid and includes new liner notes, photos, personnel information, and a bonus track from the sessions—an instrumental version of Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to." As in Patti Page's case, it is really a pity that Frankie Laine did not make more records in this mold.

Like Frank D'Rone, Midwesterner Lucy Reed did not record extensively and never became a household name, which is unfortunate judging by the quality of the recordings she did make. Born in Wisconsin in 1921, Reed sang briefly with orchestras led by Woody Herman and Charlie Ventura in the early stages of her career, and the 1950s found her in Chicago, where she began to make the rounds of the clubs. She cut two albums for Fantasy in 1957, both of them excellent and fortunately available on CD at the time of this writing. Recorded between New York and Chicago in January of that year, This Is Lucy Reed, with its strangely somber cover, is the second of these and showcases her beautiful voice, at times powerful and at times delicate, in a small-group setting. The New York sessions have a collective personnel that features Gil Evans on piano, George Russell on drums, Art Farmer on trumpet, Milt Hinton on bass, and Barry Galbraith on guitar.  Some of the arrangements include a flute, a bassoon, a tenor violin, and an English horn, which add warmth and intimacy to ballads such as "There He Goes" and "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." At the session held in Chicago, Reed is backed by a quintet led by pianist Eddie Higgins, and the repertoire is split between extremely slow ballads ("You Don't Know What Love Is," "Easy Come, Easy Go") and more uptempo numbers ("Lucky to Be Me," "St. Louis Blues"). Finally, Reed's moving readings of "Love for Sale" and "No Moon at All" are undoubtedly among the highlights of a remarkable album that should have marked the beginning of a long, successful career for a vocalist that, in the words of critic Nat Hentoff, was "a fine-grained, intelligent, and sensitive (without a capital S) singer."

Pianist Gil Evans provided some sensitive arrangements for Lucy Reed's second album