A Conversation with Chuck Par-Due on Harry James

Oregon-based musician and author Chuck Par-Due has recently published Harry James—Trumpet Icon, a new biography of trumpeter Harry James that concentrates primarily on his music. With a foreword written by none other than Harry James, Jr., Par-Due's book celebrates the music of one of the most successful musicians to ever come out of the Big Band Era and should be a welcome addition to the shelves of a myriad swing and jazz enthusiasts. Not only is the author a devoted collector and follower of James' music, but he had the privilege of knowing the great trumpeter personally and draws on a great deal of interviews that he has conducted with musicians who knew or worked closely with James. The fact that Par-Due is himself a musician certainly helps when it comes to offering a musician's view on James' work, and as a result, the book addresses several questions that James aficionados have been asking themselves for decades.

Author / musician Chuck Par-Due

On the occasion of the publication of the book, I had the chance to speak at length with Chuck Par-Due for a new episode of the Jazz Flashes Podcast, and our 85-minute conversation covers many topics, including the book, James' life and career, the heyday and demise of the Big Band Era, James' relationship with other great names such as Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra, and many more. If you are interested, you may access the entire episode of the podcast here below, and of course, I encourage everyone to check out the book, which is currently available from Amazon here.

Bing Crosby's Duets with Dixie Lee, August 1936

After a two-year hiatus, The Vintage Bandstand returns with an article about the lone single that Bing Crosby and his wife Dixie Lee cut for Decca in 1936, which featured two then-recent classics by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, "A Fine Romance" and "The Way You Look Tonight."

Born in 1909 (some sources state 1911) in the East Tennessee small town of Harriman, which will be honoring her with a historical marker later on this year, Dixie Lee Crosby (née Wilma Winifred Wyatt) was famously much better known than her future husband, Bing Crosby, when they met in Hollywood in 1929. She'd spent her childhood between East Tennessee, Memphis, New Orleans, and Chicago, and while in the Windy City, she'd won a singing contest which would eventually lead to an appearance on the Broadway show Good Times. After being spotted by an agent, she relocated to California and began a career in films that was becoming rather prominent by the time she and Crosby married in 1930. Though she would still appear in several movies in the years following the wedding (1934's Manhattan Love Song and 1935's Love in Bloom, starring George Burns and Gracie Allen, are two good examples of her screen work) and also made some records, her career ended up taking a backseat to Bing's as his star quickly began to rise in the early '30s, when he became a mass-media icon and the most popular singing star in America.

When Dixie and he met, Bing was still a member of Paul Whiteman's Rhythm Boys, along with Al Rinker and Harry Barris, but that association was about to come to an end, and Bing was about to transition into a solo career whose success was unparalleled at the time. In his 1953 autobiography, Call Me Lucky, published shortly after Dixie's passing from ovarian cancer in 1952, Bing spends quite a few paragraphs praising Dixie as a wife and a mother, as well as noting her positive influence on him when it came to remaining level-headed in the face of his incredible popularity. He adds that "it was no sacrifice for her to leave show business" (47) because "she didn't like show business and the hokum that goes with it" (46-47). Without eschewing the general loving tone he uses when talking about his wife, he then goes on to describe her as an extremely shy, private person who disliked singing in public despite her obvious vocal talent:

Although she was very frank and outspoken, she was also diffident and shy. She had little self-confidence. She never did think she was good in show business. I've known all of the others, and when it came to singing a song, Dixie had no equal. But it was a matter of life and death to persuade her to sing. (47)

Her stage fright is nowhere to be seen or felt when watching her movies or listening to her records, but it may go a long way to explain why she decided to leave show business and why she only sang at parties after a good bit of coaxing. It also explains why she mostly stayed away from reporters, made such few records, and seldom appeared on radio with Bing. However, the Crosbys did enter the studio to record two duets for Decca. The session took place on August 19, 1936, and the songs were two then-recent Fred Astaire-associated numbers written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields—"A Fine Romance" and "The Way You Look Tonight." The great Victor Young took care of the arrangements, and apparently, he had to do quite a lot of juggling with the keys to accommodate Bing and Dixie's very different vocal ranges. As Gary Giddins remarks in A Pocketful of Dreams, Young uses the transitions and changes in the melody of "The Way You Look Tonight" to adapt that melody to the differing vocal qualities of both singers:

Young shrewdly employs those transitions to facilitate and minimize the shift in keys that occurs every eight bars, as Bing and Dixie exchange passages of that length. With his wide range and finesse, Bing carries the burden of those shifts, which are brought off so well that the listener is barely aware of the elevator ride transporting each singer to a harmonically suitable floor. (458)

Bing is in fine form, but he sounds more restrained and softer than usual on these two sides, as though he were trying to adapt to Dixie's sweet, Ruth Etting-inflected vocal style. Giddins rightly notes that Young's arrangement, as well intentioned as it is, actually distances Bing and Dixie on "The Way You Look Tonight": "They sound at times as isolated as if they had been wired in from different studios, she passive and wounded, he expert and strong" (458). This is, to my ears, even more obvious on "A Fine Romance," which is in principle the perfect duet vehicle for Bing's nonchalant approach. However, the kind of rapport that is evident on Bing's duets with Rosemary Clooney, Connie Boswell, Louis Armstrong, or Bob Hope is completely absent here, to such an extent that Giddins' description of their humorous asides as "tense" actually sounds like an understatement. One wonders what Bing and Rosie could have done with "A Fine Romance" if they'd decided to include it in one of their duet albums.

Overall, this summer of '36 session by Bing and Dixie has always been a source of puzzlement to me. One would think that, knowing each other as well as they did, the two of them would click in the recording studio in a much more satisfying way, especially bearing in mind the quality of the material and of the charts. However, the magic is simply not there, at least not in the way that one would expect, and I end up enjoying Dixie Lee's scarce solo recordings much more than her two duets with Bing. Yet, to the Crosby aficionado, they remain two charming sides that never fail to grab the listener's attention, if only because of their historical and biographical significance.

A FINE ROMANCE

THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT

Unsung Vocalists of the Past 8: Chester Gaylord

Unless you are an avid collector of old 78s from the 1920s and '30s, chances are you have never heard of Chester Gaylord. And yet he was an extremely busy recording artist in those years, a contemporary of Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, Russ Columbo, and Gene Austin, and an overlooked figure if there ever was one among the fraternity of early crooners. Though Gaylord distinguished himself primarily as a vocalist, he also played piano and saxophone, and in fact, his earliest known recordings are Edison diamond discs made toward the beginning of the '20s that feature him as a saxophonist. As a singer, his sound lay somewhere between those of Vallee and Crosby—while not as purely jazzy as Bing, his baritone voice sounds more powerful and fuller than Rudy's. Gaylord enjoyed a successful career on radio as a vocalist, pianist, and announcer, and many of the phonograph records he made for major labels like Columbia and Brunswick included notable jazz musicians such as Red Nichols, Glenn Miller, Manny Klein, Gene Krupa, and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, among others. But despite all these credentials, the name of Chester Gaylord remains largely obscure and all but forgotten today.

Born in Worcester, MA, in 1899, Gaylord showed an early interest in music, and during the First World War he joined the US Navy and put his saxophone-playing skills to work. Upon his return to civilian life, Gaylord briefly moved to New York, but the opportunity to work as an announcer on local radio prompted him to return to his hometown. It was then that he began his broadcasting career, jumping at any chance he had to play piano and sing over the airwaves. His frequent appearances were consistently well received by the radio audience, which must have played some part in his signing a recording contract with Columbia as a vocalist in 1923. After this stint on Columbia, Gaylord signed with Brunswick, another one of the major labels at the time, and subsequently made some of the best records of his career, accompanied by some of the jazz greats that we have already mentioned. Many of the tunes Gaylord recorded in these jazzy settings at these New York sessions, like "Mean to Me," "Memories of You," or "Glad Rag Doll" would in time become standards, and it is interesting to note that he would often sing the verses, some of which are now rarely heard.

During these busy years, Gaylord also found time to provide vocal refrains on dance band records by the likes of Jacques Renard, Jack Denny, and Red Nichols, while he also maintained a hectic scheduled on the radio, appearing on popular shows such as the Top Notchers Cola Cola Program. As a matter of fact, when Brunswick decided not to renew his recording contract sometime in 1930-31, the future of Gaylord's career lay on the airwaves, singing with excellent bands like those led by Ben Selvin, Ted Fio Rito, and Ben Pollack and eventually accepting a job on Boston's WBZ in the late 1940s. By the mid-'60s, Gaylord had quit doing radio work, though he kept performing occasionally as a singing pianist until his passing in 1984. To the best of my knowledge, no CD is available documenting Gaylord's career at the time of this writing, but fortunately, an extensive collection of his recordings and even some radio cuts can be found on the Internet Archive here, with fairly good sound. Hopefully one day a reissue label will decide to bring Gaylord out of obscurity, something that his outstanding recordings definitely deserve.

Acknowledgments

Very little has been written about Chester Gaylord, so I am indebted to a very interesting article that Mr. Chet Williamson published in 2015 in his blog, Jazz Riffing on a Lost Worcester, and that you may access here.

Ernst Van 't Hoff and His Hot Wartime Dance Band

Dutch pianist and trumpeter Ernst Van 't Hoff (the last name is also sometimes spelled Van't Hoff and Van t'Hoff) led one of the most exciting and swinging German dance bands (Tanzorchester, in German) of the 1940s, which would ultimately cause him quite a bit of trouble during the years of WWII. Born in Zandvoort, Holland, in 1908, Van 't Hoff had been playing professionally since the 1920s, mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium, working with popular bandleaders such as Robert de Kers, among others. In the mid-1930s, Van 't Hoff decided it was time to lead his own band, but success eluded his organization in these initial years, and he was forced to work as a sideman off and on with de Kers's Cabaret Kings and various radio orchestras.

By the time the war broke out, Van 't Hoff was leading his own band again, and in 1940 he even signed a recording contract with the prestigious German label Deutsche Grammophon. At that point, Holland was occupied by Nazi forces, who sent Van 't Hoff to Dresden and then to Berlin, where the band appeared at the Delphi Filmpalast, and its music was soon met with public acclaim. Though the Nazis often used jazz and swing as a vehicle for propaganda (the infamous recordings by Charlie & His Orchestra included in the Proper Records box set Swing Tanzen Verboten are prime examples of this), they considered the style as "undesirable music" (unerwünschte Musik, in German) and as such, it was banned in all Nazi-occupied territories. The sound of Van 't Hoff's band, with its rousing versions of American tunes (Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and "Pennsylvania 6-5000," for example) and its swinging original compositions, was strongly influenced by jazz, and this would eventually bring the bandleader to the attention of the Gestapo. This in turn led to Van 't Hoff's being sent back to the Netherlands in 1943, where he would keep working with radio orchestras until 1944, when he relocated to Belgium.

After the war, Van 't Hoff restricted his musical activity to Belgium and Holland, leading orchestras with varying degrees of success. By the early '50s he was living in Brussels, where his band had an engagement at the celebrated Ancienne Belgique concert hall, and where he would die from a heart attack in 1955, aged only 46. Though some of Van 't Hoff's recordings are available on YouTube and elsewhere on the internet, they are not easy to find on CD. Though the Nederlands Jazz Archief offers two compilations of his '40s sides, the most affordable collection of Van 't Hoff's music currently on the U.S. market is a volume of the series Die Grossen Deutschen Tanzorchester (Membran, 2005), which is woefully short at only thirteen tracks, all of them recorded in 1941-42. This was the heyday of Van 't Hoff's orchestra, a tightly-knit unit that played excellent arrangements full of hot passages and some very exciting solos. There are a couple of covers of American tunes ("Ciribiribin" and the Johnny Mercer-Hoagy Carmichael collaboration "Oh, What You Said") but also some fine original compositions credited to the bandleader, such as "Fünfuhrtee bei Rüthli" and "Tanz im Carlton." The band sounds powerful and swinging on these sides, which pleased dancers greatly at the time, and two of the songs spotlight Van 't Hoff's most talented vocalist, Jan de Vries, who sings "Day by Day" and "I Never Dream" in very good English. All but forgotten nowadays, Ernst Van 't Hoff remains one of the most interesting of all Tanzorchester leaders, and as these recordings clearly show, his lively, jazzy music should appeal to the most demanding of big band swing aficionados.

Julie London in Her Living Room, 1959

After a hiatus of about a year, during which I have been working on my other jazz blog, Jazz Flashes, I return to The Vintage Bandstand with a brief article about Julie... at Home, an album by Julie London that sounds so intimate, among other things, because it was recorded in her own living room!

The first time I ever saw and heard Julie London was in the 1956 movie The Girl Can't Help It, in which she appears as herself and sings her massive hit "Cry Me a River." As much as I liked the early rock'n'roll stars that are also featured in that rather inane film, I must admit that it was London that immediately caught my ear and my eye, to such an extent that I actually had to go out and find as many records by her as I could. And there were plenty of them to be had. From her first one, Julie Is Her Name (1955), many of them have at least a couple of things in common: though she has also recorded with lush string orchestras, London's voice is usually set against a sparse musical background, and the covers take advantage of her very attractive looks. But that is not all—her albums are invariably satisfying musically, and I always find myself playing them over and over again. This concept of intimacy was taken as far as possible on Julie... at Home (1959), not really because of the accompaniment (on earlier albums she was backed by guitar and bass only, and there are more instruments here) but because the album was taped in Julie's own living room. She was, then, truly at home.

Before her appearance in The Girl Can't Help It, London, who was born in 1926 in Santa Rosa, California, had worked in movies as early as the mid-1940s. But after the collapse of her first marriage (to actor Jack Webb) she met and later married singer-songwriter Bobby Troup and began concentrating on her singing career, aided by a recognizable, smoky voice and a very personal, wee-small-hours approach to the vocal art that was at once intimate, jazzy, and sexy. Besides the aforementioned mega-hit "Cry Me a River," London never enjoyed too much success as a singles artist. Her type of singing was better suited to the then-new medium of the LP, and virtually every album she cut in the 1950s and early '60s (Calendar Girl, Julie, About the Blues, London by Night) is a prime example of the jazz-inflected adult-oriented pop of the era.

Guitarist Al Viola

For 1959's Julie... at Home, with its cover picture of London lounging in the comfort of her own home, someone at Liberty came up with the idea of bringing some equipment into her living room and recording the sessions right there. London appears here in a small-group jazz setting, in a quintet that includes Al Viola on guitar, Don Bagley on bass, Emil Richards on vibraphone, and Earl Palmer on drums. It is Viola and Richards that provide most of the brief solos heard throughout, with a couple of appearances by trombonist Bob Flanagan, who, according to the liner notes written by pianist Jimmy Rowles, simply "dropped by to pay a social call." Rowles himself, who was collaborating occasionally with London in this particular period of her career, is responsible for the arrangements, creating a sound that inevitably reminds us of George Shearing. But of course, London is the star here, and she sounds decidedly at ease and relaxed in this company. As one would expect, the set list is comprised of twelve well-known standards and is as heavy on the ballads ("You've Changed," "Goodbye," "Everything Happens to Me") as it is on the more uptempo numbers ("Give Me the Simple Life," "Let There Be Love," "By Myself"). In both cases, however, London's approach is as easy-going as ever; she makes it all sound cool and easy with the help of a combo that blends in perfectly with her idiosyncratic singing. Bearing in mind the album's concept, Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to" is the right choice as an opener. "The Thrill Is Gone," highlighted by Viola's excellent work on guitar, is simply lovely, and London even prefaces it with the verse. Overall, Julie... at Home is one of London's most memorable outings, yet another example of the singer at her best in an intimate, jazzy atmosphere.

Mr. C's Formative Years: Perry Como with Ted Weems, 1936-41

In his heyday of the 1940s and '50s, particularly after he became a mainstay on the new medium of television, Perry Como became known for his relaxed, soothing approach to the vocal art. No wonder that one of his LPs was titled So Smooth, since Como was simply one of the smoothest singer who ever stood before a microphone. He was one of many Italian-Americans who found fame and fortune thanks to their crooning abilities, others being Russ Columbo, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Vic Damone, to cite just a few. Yet Como's style has a great deal more in common with Bing Crosby than it does with Sinatra, and in fact, his recording career began three years after that of Young Blue Eyes. In 1936, Como, who had been born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1912, had been singing for a while with an orchestra led by local musician Freddie Carlone, although he never made any records with that outfit. Therefore, when Ted Weems came calling, it only made sense that Como would accept a featured vocalist spot with the more popular band.

Bandleader Ted Weems

Weems, also a Pennsylvanian, had been fronting a band professionally for over a decade and was based in Chicago. Moreover, he was looking for a "boy singer," as male vocalists were often called in those days. Como was the perfect fit, especially for singing the slower, more romantic ballads, and so he was featured with the orchestra both on radio and on records. The Weems band had a Decca recording contract, and in a span of five years, Como cut two dozen sides, none of which charted, though "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" would become a million seller when it was reissued in 1947, by which time Como was already an established star. Back in 1999, Jasmine Records, of England, collected Como's recordings with Weems on a CD appropriately titled Class Will Tell. And class is definitely something that the Weems band had plenty of, no doubt. In the liner notes, Michael Dunnington echoes Mr. C's complaints that "the good songs went to the other members of the band, and he got the ones that nobody else wanted." However, even the most cursory listen to this CD reveals that this is not always so. Though not all the songs are winners—what big band vocalist of the era can claim such a thing anyway?—there are some lovely songs here, including "Lazy Weather," "Class Will Tell," "You Can't Pull the Wool over My Eyes," and "In My Little Red Book," this last one also recorded by Guy Lombardo and country singer T. Texas Tyler.

The Weems orchestra was a tightly-knit dance band that sounds professional and at times quite exciting, particularly on ensemble passages, since the arrangements do not seem to leave too much room for solos. Vocally, Como shows a noticeable debt to Bing Crosby, especially to the sound we hear on Der Bingle's records of the 1920s and early '30s, when Bing was singing in a higher register and had not yet totally refined his smooth baritone as he would from the '40s on. Como sounds a great deal like Crosby here—which apparently prompted Dave Kapp at Decca to wonder why the label needed another Bing—but as times goes on, he gradually starts to find his own style, as we can hear on "That Old Gang of Mine," "It All Comes Back to Me Now," and "Angeline." Yet even then his style is still heavily influenced by Crosby, something that can also be said of several other singers of his generation, such as Buddy Clark or Dick Haymes. After leaving Weems, Como would go on to bigger and better things, including smash hits like "Till the End of Time" and "Prisoner of Love," to name just two from 1945-46. But the recordings on this Jasmine release are very enjoyable and interesting because they illustrate the formative years of a great crooner.

This Love of Mine: Jack Jones's Tribute to Songwriting Singers

Despite the fact that he has enjoyed a long and productive career, Jack Jones is one of the 1960s crooners about whom we do not seem to hear too much these days. In his heyday, Jones scored big hits such as "Lollipops and Roses," "Wives and Lovers," and "My Best Girl," and many of his albums—especially the ones he cut during the sixties—are fantastic and, to my mind, constitute great examples of classic pop singing at its very best. In the 1970s, though, some of his records became rather erratic, as he attempted to sing contemporary songs that were ill-suited for his voice and style. Had he concentrated on singing standards with jazz-inflected backing, the way that, say, Rosemary Clooney did for Concord in the seventies and eighties, his output would have been perhaps more satisfying. Yet it is easy—and clearly unfair—to make this kind of judgment with the benefit of hindsight. As it stands, Jones's recorded legacy, its ups and downs notwithstanding, is impressive and includes some very enjoyable titles.

Noted jazz critic Will Friedwald has always had a soft spot for Jones's singing. In his excellent Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, he gives the vocalist a great deal of credit for the many LPs he cut for Kapp Records in the sixties, stating that "he was precisely right for that decade—and all of those that have come since—and the classic albums he made back then will probably be prized and listened to longer than nearly all of the so-called in-the-moment pop acts of the time" (255). In the face of titles such as Call Me Irresponsible, Where Love Has Gone, and There's Love & There's Love & There's Love (a superb collaboration with arranger Nelson Riddle), among several others, it is hard to disagree with Friedwald. But the album that usually slips through the cracks whenever Jones's career is discussed is a pre-Kapp effort that he made in 1959 for Capitol entitled This Love of Mine.

Jack's father, actor Allan Jones

The son of actor and singer Allan Jones and actress Irene Hervey, Jack Jones had been born in Los Angeles in 1938 and had enjoyed the benefits of belonging to a showbiz family. He had always been fascinated with pop music, particularly with singers like Frank Sinatra and Mel Tormé, and by the 1950s he was appearing in nightclubs with his father, which led to a promising recording contract with Capitol. But the company, showing really poor judgment, had him record a slew of teenage pop singles that went nowhere mostly because Jones's heart was not in that kind of music. What he wanted to record was adult pop, the type of material that had made Bobby Darin a household name. Unfortunately, Jones only got one opportunity to do this at Capitol, when he recorded the Voyle Gilmore-produced This Love of Mine. This was an unusual concept album in that the underlying theme that held the eleven songs together was that they were tunes penned by songwriters who were better known as singers, or whom the public in general did not associate with the songwriting craft.

One might think that such a concept would make for a weak album, but it is not the case, as the repertoire is very well chosen. There are two songs co-written by Sinatra, the title track and "I'm a Fool to Want You." The former dates back to Sinatra's tenure with Tommy Dorsey, while the latter is supposed to chronicle the difficulties that he underwent during his tempestuous relationship with Ava Gardner. Jones decides to take both at a noticeably faster tempo than Sinatra, which is most surprising in the case of "I'm a Fool to Want You" given the highly dramatic nature of its theme. On "This Love of Mine" there is an unexpected guitar solo that fits the mood of the tune nicely. From the songbook of comedian Steve Allen come "Impossible," an agreeable ballad, and the classic "This Could Be the Start of Something Big," which shows Jones's confident approach whenever he is called upon to swing. The album also includes two songs by Nat King Cole ("With You on My Mind" and "To Whom It May Concern," both originally recorded by Cole for Capitol) and two by the outstanding pianist-singer-songwriter Matt Dennis—the lesser-known "Show Me the Way to Get Out of This World," sung in a laid-back swinging style and featuring an interesting trumpet solo, and "Angel Eyes," the famous saloon song that Sinatra had just included in his album Only the Lonely and undoubtedly one of the highlights of Jones's debut LP.

Arranger Bobby Hammack

Jones approaches the witty "I Don't Know Enough About You," penned by Peggy Lee and her then-husband Dave Barbour, with gusto, in an easy-swinging sort of way, and perhaps to show that he can also join the ranks of those singers who also dabble in songwriting, he offers a composition of his own, "What Would I Do," which actually turns out to be quite a respectable effort. The album closes appropriately with the beautiful Frankie Laine ballad "We'll Be Together Again," another one that Sinatra also recorded for Capitol (on Songs for Swingin' Lovers). Released toward the end of 1959, This Love of Mine earned a rather positive review from Billboard (November 30, 1959):

After a few efforts, this is the initial LP by a lad whose work augurs a strong potential. Jack Jones is the son of former stars Allan Jones and Irene Hervey, and he has been playing nitery dates with his dad in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He shows a feeling for a swinging rhythm, an ability to project his personality and a pleasing way of styling a ballad. Strong backing by Bobby Hammack's ork.

The reviewer is certainly right about Jones's way with both swingers and ballads, as well as about the assessment of Bobby Hammack's arrangements, which are strong without ever getting in the way and feature some interesting touches such as the brief organ solos on "Angel Eyes" and "We'll Be Together Again." The cover is a different matter altogether—it is anyone's guess why the powers that be at Capitol thought that it was appropriate to have Jones photographed in full caveman attire, wielding a big club, and stepping on a scantily clad woman lying in the foreground, while some kind of dinosaur observes the scene in the background. Looking at it almost sixty years later, one wonders how the cover can be in any way related to the theme of the album, what kind of audience the producers were trying to target, and simply what was going through the heads of whoever decided to approve such a horrifying cover. It is, indeed, one of the strangest, most mystifying pieces of LP artwork I have ever seen. Whatever the case, in spite of the favorable review from Billboard, the album was not much of a hit, and it was not until he signed with Kapp two years later that Jones's career would actually take off. Yet This Love of Mine—which may be easily found on CD these days as part of the European reissue Jack Jones: Six Classic Albums, from Real Gone Music—remains one of my favorite albums by Jones and a very enjoyable early effort that in many ways already indicates greater things to come.

Unsung Vocalists of the Past 7: Johnny Marvin

Calling Johnny Marvin an unsung vocalist may seem like a little bit of a stretch. After all, he was one of the most popular singers in the country during his brief heyday of the late 1920s and early '30s, a couple of CD reissues of his work are currently available, and authors Michael Pitts and Frank Hoffman have devoted a whole chapter of their excellent book The Rise of the Crooners (Scarecrow Press, 2002) to discussing his life and career. And yet, Johnny Marvin is almost totally forgotten today, to such an extent that it is difficult not to agree with Pitts and Hoffman when they state that he "is a crooner waiting rediscovery" (184). Born in Butler, Oklahoma, in 1897, Marvin grew up around music because both his parents could play, though they never played professionally. His complete name was John Senator Marvin, and it was as Senator that he began playing informally with his father while still barely a teenager. A barber by trade, Marvin had a brief stint as a Navy barber during WWI, but at the end of the conflict, he decided that the life of an entertainer was for him, and so he started appearing on the vaudeville circuit, often as a solo act but also as part of Sargent, Marvin, and the Four Camerons, a group he formed with baritone Charles Sargent.

By this time, Marvin was already proficient on the mouth harp, the musical saw, and a number of string instruments, including the guitar, the fiddle, the steel guitar, and particularly the ukulele, which ranked high in the preferences of the public due to the enormous success of Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards. Though he had cut some records around 1924 with Sargent, Marvin began to make his mark on the record business with his solo records in the style of Edwards, some of which even featured Ukulele Ike's proto-scat routine known as "eefin'." Marvin's recording contract with Columbia, however, was not exclusive, so he was at liberty to make records for other companies, and his output was very prolific throughout the late 1920s, both on major and dimestore labels. Pitts and Hoffman report that, at the highest point in his career, "over ten million homes throughout the country owned Johnny Marvin records" (171), which, together with his successful vaudeville appearances, meant that he was a major force in two of the mainstream entertainment media of the day: records and vaudeville. And yet, despite the success of his performances of songs such as "Breezin' Along with the Breeze," "Half a Moon," and "All Alone Monday," Marvin has not remained associated with one particular tune, which may be one of the reasons for his current obscurity.

His popularity with the record-buying public opened the doors to Hollywood, and Marvin made several early short sound films for MGM and Vitaphone to promote some of his songs. While these shorts were praised by trade publications such Billboard and Variety, Marvin never got around to starring in a feature film like some of his contemporaries (Al Jolson, Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby, to name but three) and so his main claim to fame in the cinematic medium lies in having been one of the main stars of short-subject sound films. In 1926, Marvin appeared, as Honey Duke (one of several pseudonyms under which he cut records) in the hit Broadway show Honeymoon Lane, recording several of the songs he sang on stage for different labels with a great deal of success. Around this time, he was in high demand as a provider of vocal refrains for dance-band records, often working with studio orchestras led by Nat Shilkret, Roger Wolfe Kahn, and Johnny Hamp, among others. A measure of his popularity is the fact that the Harmony company began selling an ukulele known as the Johnny Marvin ukulele, and his records were successful enough in England that in 1928 he signed a contract to appear at London's Kit Kat Club, an establishment that was popular with the cream of English society. By all accounts, Marvin was a big hit in England, though his London engagement was unfortunately cut short due to some throat problems that he developed while in the British Isles.

Frankie and Johnny Marvin

Back home in the United States in the summer of 1928, and completely recovered from his health issues, Marvin maintained a heavy recording schedule, and both his discs and his theater gigs were met with great acclaim. By this time, he began appearing with his younger brother, Frankie Marvin, who was at least as gifted a musician as Johnny, and who would also enjoy a solo career. The Depression still lay ahead, however, and Marvin's career would be dramatically affected by it, particularly because the new economic climate would have a very negative impact on the record industry and would effectively wipe off vaudeville. Even though at first it seemed that Marvin would survive the onset of the Depression, he would soon start feeling its effects and, in fact, his career as a performer would never fully recover. By the early 1930s, Marvin began concentrating primarily on radio work and on songwriting. In the latter capacity, he specialized in Western songs, many of which were sung by his friend Gene Autry in the many movies he made for Republic Pictures. Marvin had been instrumental in getting Autry's career off the ground—both Johnny and Frankie Marvin had even played on the singing cowboy's early sessions—and the two men remained very close until Johnny's death.

An ad for the Johnny Marvin ukulele model

As a radio personality, Marvin appeared in several shows, starring in one of them as Dr. Cheer for the NBC network in 1931. The concept behind the program was that he would sing songs inspired by problems described by listeners in their letters. Fortunately, some recordings of the show survive, and they can be found on the CD compilation A Voice of the 20s (Take Two). He also made some radio transcriptions for MacGregor in the late 1930s, but by that time he had mostly abandoned his recording activities to concentrate on songwriting. According to Pitts and Hoffman, his last commercial recording session (for Decca) took place sometime towards the end of the 1930s, but judging by some of the songs he cut ("Me and My Shadow" being one) he was mostly seen by then as a relic of what seemed like a distant past. During WWII, Marvin became involved with the USO, entertaining troops as far afield as the South Pacific, where he contracted malaria, and the disease would lead to his passing in December 1944, when he was merely 47 years old.

Anyone interested in getting acquainted with Johnny Marvin's melodious, smooth singing style and dazzling ukulele playing may seek out two CD releases. The aforementioned A Voice of the 20s features three tracks from the Dr. Cheer radio series (including a spoken commercial for Columbia Cleaners, the show's sponsor) as well as fine sides made between 1927-1930, like "I Still Get a Thrill," "Crazy Rhythm," "I'm in Seventh Heaven," and even the outstanding instrumental "12th Street Rag." Though now out of print, Breezin' Along with the Breeze (ASV / Living Era) is a rather comprehensive compilation of both solo recordings and dance-band sides for which Marvin provides vocal refrains, all cut between 1926-1930. Highlights include "Just Another Day Wasted Away," "Blue Skies" (a duet with Ed Smalle), "Ain't That a Grand a Glorious Feeling?," "Happy Days and Lonely Nights," and Al Jolson's "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder," among many others. Those who still remember Johnny Marvin today often tend to think of him as a composer of Western tunes performed by Autry and Roy Rogers, but that is only a small part of his legacy. If we go back to the late 1920s and early '30s, we will discover the appealing work of a smooth crooner and an excellent ukulele player. And, as Pitts and Hoffman remind us, it is a body of work that is awaiting rediscovery.

New Releases: Bing Crosby's Good and Rare, Volume 3

Back in 2009, the British reissue label Sepia Records released the first volume in the Good & Rare series of Bing Crosby compilations, with a second volume following a year later. Now, almost a decade later, we have the third installment in the series, and as is the case with the other two, this new issue is highly recommended for any serious Crosby fan. Just like the rest of Sepia releases, this CD is up to the European company's high production and packaging quality standards, and the compilation is supervised by International Club Crosby members and Crosby specialists and collectors John Newton, David Currington, Malcolm Macfarlane, and Wig Wiggins. Bearing in mind the age and sources of some of the material, the sound is good overall—in many instances it is excellent—and the occasional imperfections never get in the way of our listening pleasure. Even though the tracks are arranged in strict chronological order, the CD is well programmed, and each cut flows into the next with great ease.

Crosby (center) with the Rhythm Boys

As the title of the collection implies, the material included here is of undeniable rarity, most of the tracks being available on CD for the first time. The earliest cuts take us back to the late 1920s, when Crosby was a featured vocalist with the Paul Whiteman orchestra, as well as a member of Whiteman's Rhythm Boys, a trio made out of Crosby, Harry Barris, and Al Rinker. Two of the songs, "Everything's Agreed Upon" (a long-forgotten composition by Barris that does not seem to have been cut by anybody else since) and "A Bench in the Park," come from an NBC radio show starring the trio, and they clearly prove that Crosby's voice already stood out from the rest at a time when the crooner was on the verge of stardom. Other interesting recordings from this early period of Crosby's career are "Poor Little G-String," an alternate take of "Ol' Man River" with Whiteman, and "Song of the Dawn," which John Boles, and not Bing, sang in the Whiteman extravaganza, The King of Jazz. The CD is full of alternate takes of songs originally released by Decca ("After Sundown," "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," "Red Sails in the Sunset") which are often subtly different from the issued versions and show that discarded takes by Crosby are usually just as good as the versions chosen for release. The 1934 film recording of "It's Easy to Remember" included here differs greatly from the issued version, and a truncated 1944 attempt at Cole Porter's "Night and Day" is interesting because we actually get a chance to witness Crosby's reaction to his rather bouncy performance of the classic Porter ballad.

Arranger Buddy Bregman

But, in my opinion, there are two sets of tracks here that are absolutely worth the price of admission. First, there's a group of demos recorded by Bing in 1937-40 with minimal instrumental accompaniment (just John Scott Trotter on piano and Perry Botkin on guitar), including "The Moon Got in My Eyes," "Where Is Central Park?," "Beware (I'm Beginning to Care)," "East Side of Heaven," "Sing a Song of Sunbeams," "When the Moon Comes over Madison Square," and two versions of "Laugh and Call It Love." These are absolutely delightful stripped-down readings of these songs that will appeal to listeners who enjoy listening to Bing in a small-group setting. And then there are three alternate takes from Crosby's 1956 sessions with Buddy Bregman that yielded the album Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings, an entry in Bing's discography that has caused quite a division and heated debates among Crosby aficionados over the years. Although the liner notes say that these alternate takes previously "popped up on an Australian LP," they were not included in the Verve reissue of the Crosby-Bregman collaboration, so they make their first appearance on CD here. The songs are "The Blue Room," "Cheek to Cheek," and "Mountain Greenery," and again, they are only marginally different from the versions included in the original album, but they are extremely interesting for those of us who appreciate Crosby's recordings with Bregman.

John Scott Trotter and Bing Crosby

All in all, this CD will be of greater interest to the serious Crosby collector than to the casual fan, but most of the material offered here is notable not only for its rarity, but also for its consistently high musical quality. The liner notes by Mr. Macfarlane are, as always, informative, knowledgeable, and well written, and everyone involved in the production of this third volume in Sepia's Good and Rare series deserves the gratitude of all Crosby fans. Hopefully we will not have to wait another nine or ten years to see a further installment in this very appealing series.

Where to Find This Album

This CD is available from all major internet retailers and directly from the Sepia Records website here. Also, Crosby fans in the United States may obtain it by contacting Mr. Wig Wiggins via e-mail (wigbing2012 [at] gmail [dot] com) or via regular mail (5608 North 34th Street, Arlington, VA 22207).

Interview with Singer Bobby Rydell: "I grew up listening to the music of the big bands, and this music was in my blood from my childhood"

Our first post of 2016 is an interview we recently did with singer Bobby Rydell, in which he discusses his life and career, as well as two excellent early 1960s albums he made for the Cameo / Parkway label, mostly paying tribute to the music of the pre-rock era, which was more of an influence on his own style than one may think.

In the late 1950s and early '60s, between the first outburst of rock'n'roll and the arrival of the so-called British Invasion, the airwaves were suddenly filled with a gentler, sweeter kind of pop music, epitomized by teen idols such as Frankie Avalon, Ricky Nelson, and Fabian. One of the most popular among them was Philadelphia-born Bobby Rydell, whose memorable recordings of hits like "Kissin' Time," "Wild One," and "Swingin' School," among several others, turned him into a national sensation starting in 1959. After achieving great success on records and through appearances on top-rated television shows, Rydell made his movie debut in the now classic musical Bye Bye Birdie, alongside Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke, a role that did a great deal to further his career. Rydell has announced that in 2016 he will be publishing his autobiography and a pictorial of his career, and anyone interested in more information about this forthcoming book should check his website.

Rydell with Domenico Modugno

Despite the fact that, just like Bobby Darin, Rydell started out as a teen idol, he was steeped in big band music and pre-rock pop crooners (one of his hits was a cover of Italian crooner Domenico Modugno's "Volare," also cut by Dean Martin), and to this day his live act includes many tunes out of the Great American Songbook. In fact, in the 1960s he cut a few albums celebrating these influences, namely Bobby Salutes the Great Ones (1961), Rydell at the Copa (1961), and Bobby Rydell and the Bernie Lowe Orchestra Recreate the Big Band Days (1962). Back in October, these three LPs, along with a 1961 collaboration with label mate Chubby Checker, were reissued on a two-CD set by the British label Jasmine Records. As soon as we heard about this release, we got in touch with Mr. Rydell, through his assistant, Ms. Linda Hoffman, and he graciously agreed to an interview with The Vintage Bandstand to discuss his career in general and these albums in particular. We now present the full interview here.

Anton Garcia-Fernandez (for The Vintage Bandstand): You were born in Philadelphia. Please tell us a little bit about your childhood there. What kinds of music did you listen to? Who were your earliest musical influences?

Bobby Rydell: I grew up listening the music of the big bands.  My father used to take me to a theatre in Philadelphia that often showcased the legends of this era and I fell in love with the music at about age seven.  As a child I saw the incredible Gene Krupa live and it stayed with me until this day.  I remember telling my dad "That's what I want to be—a drummer."  Dad was responsible for everything I became.  He bought me my first set of drums and gave me drum lessons.  If the singing thing hadn't worked out, that's what I'd be doing today. 

TVB: Around 1950, you first appeared on the TV show Teen Club, which was hosted by legendary bandleader Paul Whiteman, and you stayed on that show for about three years. What do you remember about that show? Did you get to have much interaction with Mr. Whiteman?

Mr. Rydell: I was sort of the "mascot" on the Whiteman show. I was about eight years old when I won a talent contest and became a regular on the program.  I won a TV set (the first on our block!) in the contest for the show.  I don't remember a time that I wasn't performing.  Yes, Mr. Whiteman was very involved with the show—he was the person who first changed my name from Bobby Ridarelli to Bobby Rydell. He said no one would remember Ridarelli!

TVB: In the late 1950s, you signed a contract with the label Cameo / Parkway which led to big hits like "Kissin' Time," "Swingin' School," and "Wild One," among others, and which turned you into a very popular teen idol. How did that contract come about?

Mr. Rydell: I used to cut school to hang out at the studios (which were a two-by-four space, nothing major like you'd imagine).  I knew Bernie Lowe (one of the founders of the label) from the Whiteman show - he was a piano player on the show.  It wasn't until I met Frankie Day (my first manager) by chance at a show I was playing in one of my first bands - that I got an "audition" with the label - and the rest kind of just took off. 

TVB: On one of your albums for that label you were teamed up with another big star of the era, Chubby Checker. What do you remember about the sessions that produced that collaboration between the two of you?

Mr. Rydell: Being that we were both under contract with the same record label, they thought it would be a novel idea to have the both of us do a "duets" album to be released just before the holidays and toss in a couple of holiday songs.  One of those tunes, "Jingle Bell Rock," is really popular to this day on the radio stations during the holidays.  Chubby and I knew one another from the South Philadelphia area where we were both born and raised, and of course through the label and we had toured together in Australia a few times.  It was a natural type of recording session and a brilliant move by the label.  I think it became one of the top-selling albums for the label.  We still see one another on the road to this day.  We both still live in the same area of suburban Philadelphia. 

TVB: One of your most remarkable albums is Bobby Rydell Salutes the Great Ones, which includes rocking versions of standards such as "That Old Black Magic," "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams," and "Nice Work If You Can Get It." What was the concept behind this LP and how did it come about? Did you select the songs? And if so, how did you select the songs?

Mr. Rydell: My manager and I selected the songs, submitted them to Cameo and they loved the idea.  This music was in my blood from my childhood and felt very natural that I record it - we did it with a touch of the contemporary and it worked.  When I started performing on shows like Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Perry Como  - this was the type of music they wanted me to perform on their shows - not the "Swingin' School," etc. 

TVB: In 1961 you first performed at the Copacabana, in New York, and the album Rydell at the Copa features a recording of your nightclub set there. How did the contract at the Copa come about? Your repertoire seems to be more adult-oriented. Did you get to choose your set lists for your engagement at the Copa?

Mr. Rydell: My manager, Frank Day, was the brains behind the Copa job.  He felt I was "ready" to graduate from the rock and roll shows onto the night club circuit.  He hired a stage coach for me, taught me dance steps, stage posture - even had a script written for the show with jokes, song medleys - it was a smash.  I got rave reviews by the tough New York critics calling the show a "powder keg of talent."  It was a thrill beyond belief for me. At age 19 I went down in history as the youngest performer ever to headline the famed Copa.

TVB: One can't help but notice that both Salutes the Great Ones and At the Copa feature several songs associated with Al Jolson ("My Mammy," "April Showers," "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder"). Was Jolson one of your musical influences? 

Mr. Rydell: No, Jolson wasn't really an influence.  

Rydell and Ann-Margret

TVB: One of your most memorable movie roles came in the 1963 film musical, Bye, Bye Birdie. How did you get involved in this movie? Are there any memories of co-stars Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke that you would like to share?

Mr. Rydell: Ann and I are friends to this day.  She calls and checks in often.  When she does she asks if "Hugo" is there.  We were 2 kids back then.  My original role of Hugo did not call for any singing (in the stage version) and only a few lines.  My audition with Ann was magnetic and the producers decided to expand Hugo's role. They thought we were magic together and wanted to play that up to the younger audience.  Every day we came to the set my role got bigger and bigger.

TVB: Finally, after all these years, you are still performing. For instance, you toured Australia last year. That shows that you must really enjoy music. Do you still listen to much music these days? And if so, what kinds of music and artists do you like listening to?

Mr. Rydell: My tour schedule today is full. [You can check it out here.]  I work frequently in a show called The Golden Boys, which is a production by Dick Fox, my present manager.  We have been performing this production  to sellout audiences for the past 30 years.  "The Golden Boys" are (officially) myself, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian.  When this first started we joked it would be good for about 6 months—never dreamt that people would still be buying tickets 30 years later.  The show features old film footage of our teen idol days, lots of production numbers with the three of us together, we individually do our separate shows, then come back together for a tribute to our fellow performers who have passed on.  There's even a dance contest.  I also do my solo show in Las Vegas and around the country, which is a mix of my oldies and lots of my favorite "standards" big band style.  Some of my shows (like one I'm doing at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City) are with eighteen-piece orchestras and are songs from the American Songbook.

In 2012 I really thought it was over, though. I spent most of that year in and out of hospitals with tubes down my throat.  Never thought I'd sing again.  I needed a double organ transplant (kidney & liver).  Through skilled surgeons at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and my organ donor and the family who lost her, I am here today.  I'm still singing and telling my audiences the importance of becoming an organ donor.  They are able to come to the show because of one unselfish person. My donor's name was Julia, and she was in her twenties.

Of the artists today I'm especially fond of Diana Krall and Tower of Power.