How it all began....

My first step

A long time ago, in the mid-1970s, when I was in grade school, I’d run home from school through the woods, turn on the TV, jump into the rocking chair, and watch the old movies that started at 3:00. Each week, they featured an actor, actress, or group of actors, like Gary Cooper Week, The Marx Brothers Week, or The Thin Man Week.

It was late into John Wayne Week when they previewed next week’s feature: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Week. Never heard of them.

On Monday, as usual, I ran home from school, turned on the TV, and waited patiently….

On came Flying Down to Rio from 1933. Wow. This one had it all! All the things a kid in the Northland wanted: the sun; the beach; Rio de Janeiro; and…

Dolores Del Rio:

For more on her, check out this interesting post:

And literally, a flying, flying trapeze (skip ahead to 1:50 for that, but take in the great Fred Astaire singing Flying Down to Rio) with near-miss aerial disasters:

Of course, it had Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing - in and of itself something spectacular. But I realize now what really got me most of all was the music.

For example, this song conducted by the great Max Steiner:

What makes this particularly interesting is that this is probably THE FIRST "soundtrack" record ever released. It was not recorded specifically for a 78 RPM release. It was an edited version actually transferred from the optical soundtrack recording used in the film and then released later in 1934.

---

I remember the first time I saw a 78 RPM record. During the week, My buddy, Jeff Butcher (you can find him here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124686/) and I would look in the paper for estate sales and ride our bikes to them on Saturday. We were looking for movie memorabilia: books, sheet music, magazines, etc. Like this beautiful sheet music from Flying Down to Rio:

One Saturday, we rode our bikes to an old house some 7 miles on the other side of the lake. Down in the basement, we found a bunch of strange records. They weren’t LPs like the ones my folks had, and they weren’t the 45 RPMs that my brothers and sister had. They were pre-WWII 78 RPM records. I bought one because it looked cool: Billy Murray’s 1919 Freckles. I like the flip side better with You’d be Surprised. Murray was one of the most popular singers in the United States in the early 20th century. Here’s that record:

If you’re curious about how You’d Be Surprised sounds like:

Catchy Irving Berlin tune, but that’s about it.

I can’t remember if I was able to play it at home, but I think not. I just kept it until the day came that I could. We went back the next weekend, and I bought three more. I’d heard of Maurice Chevalier from movies like Fanny and GiGi.

…and Al Jolson from The Jazz Singer and Mammy.

I can still remember lugging those records in one hand riding our bikes back home. As you can see, I still have them. These are gems from the Jazz Age - the 1920s up until the 1929 market crash. It was smack in the middle of the Jazz Age, in 1925, that Louie Armstrong and Duke Ellington made their first 78 RPM recordings. I had recently read The Great Gatsby, and the records I had in my hand were my way of inserting myself into the romance of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.

They say the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was his visit to Long Island’s North Shore, but my friend Jeff and I knew he was writing about White Bear Lake, our hometown. When viewed from the Yacht Club, on the right you see the gated Manitou Island, the old money. On the left, you see “The Peninsula”, the new money. This corresponds directly with the East and West Eggs Fitzgerald wrote about. In the same way that Jay Gatsby watched the green light at the end of East Egg dreaming of Daisy and his future, as 12-year-olds, Jeff and I dreamed of our futures.

It would not be too long after this that I moved away from early Jazz Age music on 78 RPM records to movie soundtracks on LPs, played by musicians I would one day learn much more about and grow to admire. At the moment though, it was all about the sound and some movies had that sound. But before we move on to that, I’d like to share a few 78 RPM classics.

---

---

78 RPM Music Interlude:

In the middle of the Jazz Age, two years after The Great Gatsby was published, the legendary Bix Beiderbecke recorded I’m Coming Virginia:

Coleman Hawkins, the Hawk, played in Fletcher Henderson’s band until it broke up in 1934. Fletcher Henderson was the father of Swing and Coleman was the first great jazz saxophonist. After the breakup, Hawkins went to Europe and in 1935 recorded this classic with the Ramblers, a Dutch band:

In 1938, Lester Young, The Prez, with the Kansas City Six, recorded one of my all-time favorites on the epic Commodore label. Lester is known for his tenor sax, but on this song, he plays clarinet, and sweetly:

Check out this cool photo of the owner, Milt Gabler (in the middle with the funky tie), along with Herbie Hill, Lou Blum, and Jack Crystal at the Commodore Music Shop, New York City (1947)

Classic!

Finally, another personal favorite, here’s Claude Thornhill and his orchestra from 1941:

Thornhill’s arranger was Gil Evans, who was an important figure in the development of Cool Jazz (we’ll spend more time on that later in our journey). Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool nonet was modeled in part on Thornhill's sound and unconventional instrumentation.

You can see the development of jazz over the years in these four tunes.

There’s something nostalgic about hearing these pre-war records played on an old record player and if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

Incidentally, I mentioned Fletcher Henderson above. I must add a few words regarding this American pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer, hugely important in the development of big band jazz and swing music.

In 1935, Benny Goodman's Orchestra was selected as a house band for the NBC radio program Let's Dance. Since Goodman needed new charts every week for the show, his friend John Hammond suggested that he purchase some from Henderson. Many of Goodman's hits from the swing era had been played by Henderson and his own band in the late 1920s and early 1930s, usually as head arrangements, which he then transcribed from his records and sold to Goodman. I have to say that most of my favorite Goodman tunes are his earlier ones arranged by Henderson - they have more edge than his later post-Henderson tunes.

In the 1940s, Sun Ra, who we’ll learn a lot more about later in our journey, played piano and wrote arrangements for Fletcher Henderson at the Chicago African-American nightclub, Club DeLisa (for more information, go to this cool site: https://clubdelisa.net/). The legendary Club DeLisa, known as “Chicago’s Cotton Club,” was a “black and tan” club, code words for integrated.

Later in Sun Ra’s career, he started to feature more standard Henderson arrangements in his live concerts. For example, here’s the Sun Ra Arkestra and Limehouse Blues from 1978:

---

---

At the moment though, for me it was all about the sound and some movies had that sound. For example, the 1960 soundtrack to The World Of Suzie Wong has some solid and swinging jazz takes. Like At The Namkok:

…and Out of Nowhere:

…and finally, Groove for Suzie #2:

The next year, Breakfast At Tiffany’s brought it even harder. Like :

These soundtracks are packed with the hip West Coast cats that cut all those great Contemporary and Pacific Jazz records of the 1950s (more on them a little further on our journey). For example, the great sax players Art Pepper and Gerry Mulligan recorded the soundtrack to The Subterraneans, a 1960 film based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Jack Kerouac. Here’s Carmen McRae singing Coffee Time from the movie:

---

In the 1970s, I watched all these movies on TV. I was lucky to have a channel that put out all the best. My mom told me about a man she knew, Bob DeFlores, who was bringing in all these great old movies to the local TV station.

Bob is an amazing man. He has one of the largest private film archives in the country. You can learn more about him here:

http://ampers.org/mn-art-culture-history/bob-deflores-film-archivist/

…and here:

https://www.growlermag.com/craft-culture-preserving-the-magic-of-motion-pictures-with-bob-deflores/

I owe a lot of my Jazz journey to Bob. But perhaps the most impactful person on my journey was John Barry, the creator of the “Bond Sound”. Next week, we’ll look at the early Bond soundtracks….

---

Feel free to contact me at any time to talk shop. I welcome and encourage that….

Until then, keep on walking….