The record changer (Jan 1955-Dec 1957)

15 g especially the Westward expansion of the Sierican people. Unlike the ballads in the eviously reviewed albums, these 27 numrs are all folk songs which have come wn to us through an oral tradition. Pete eger, one of the best singers of folk songs this country, is his usual self here. There is informality in his presentation which ikes one forget these songs were recorded a studio. Most of this material has been |eviously recorded, but its inclusion all in ,r!e album makes it readily available as a j^jluable study aid. UXADS OF THE CIVIL WAR sung by fermes Nye with guitar (2-10" Folkways !,s FP 48-7 & FP. 48-8; also available xed together, FP 5004) Like the ballads included in the first two Jpums reviewed in this article, the 21 balli ills and songs sung by Hermes Nye in this ! bum give an insight into another of Ameri;'s wars. Despite the title, however, other kn Civil War songs are included. The i/olitionist Hymn, the first song in the !>um, dates back to 25 or 30 years before \s war; Davy Crockett (not to be confused ■ [ih the currently popular song) is a com' 'lation of folk tale and folk song, the ! fire in which Hermes Nye does his best Irk; Lincoln and Liberty is a political jnpaign song which helped to elect Lin •Of the songs from the War itself, the most |eresting numbers are When This Cruel ir Is Over (certainly a popular sentiment iring any war), There Was An Old Sol:r, General Patterson, and Longstreet's \ngers. The album also contains many Iter known songs like Battle Hymn of the public, The Bonnie Blue Flag, The Cumiand's Crew, Goober Peas and Old Rebel he Unreconstructed Rebel.) A. major criticism which must be directed jiinst this album is that it offers not a tie one of the Negro songs and spirituals fch properly belong in any collection of nl War songs. Mr. Nye's singing is reled and unpretentious, and Moe Asch's ies again are a great aid in recalling the Ijiod of the songs. f NGS AND BALLADS OF AMERICA'S llRS sung by Frank Warner (10" Elektra Nj\ EKL-13) Felix the Soldier; The Press "f tag Sailor; Montcalm and Wolfe; Doodle fl'jndy; Paul Jones; The British Soldier; 'll'ry's Victory; Battle-Cry of Freedom; The Ifenty-Third; Virginia's Bloody Soil; The fjithern Girl's Reply; An Old Unrecon'flicted; The Bonnie Blue Flag. jlpere in one album, Elektra and Frank iljirner have tried to present a survey of the Jigs of four American Wars. Considering Mi! limitations which are placed on such a Jlject only in terms of recording time, I iMpld say they have been successful in their i»pmpt. More than half of the songs have jjrer been commercially recorded before, jlii those that have are presented here in |i§liightforward versions without cliches, pf special interest are the first three songs :d above, all from the French and Indian r. Among the songs from the Revoluhary War, one especially stands out. ipdle Dandy is as spirited a marching g as this reviewer has ever heard. I find lard to believe that no other versions of aave ever been collected for it is certainly wonderfully rousing as Yankee Doodle. frank Warner sings these songs "as the sing them." He tries to "reflect, with ing and respect, the style and the accent Uhe people who gave them to us." In this y does Anne Warner, who supplies an excellent set of informative notes for the songs, describe her husband's singing of the songs they have collected. Full texts of all the songs are supplied. SONGS AND BALLADS OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND OF THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENTS sung by various traditional singers (12" Library of Congress LP AAFS L29) Phil Sheridan; The Iron Merrimac; The Cumberland's Crew; The Battle of Antietam Creek; The Southern Soldier; Washington the Great; Zolgotz; Mr. Garfield; Charles Guiteau; Booth Killed Lincoln. The Music Division of the Library of Congress has issued many fine recordings from the Collections of the Archive of American Folk Song. All of these will be reviewed in the next and subsequent articles. But none are finer or more functional than the songs and ballads in this album. It contains some wonderful songs from our history, as sung by traditional singers. More than that, it serves as a lesson to folklorists that folk songs are transmitted in the oral tradition on all levels of society. Two Civil War Songs, Phil Sheridan and The Iron Merrimac, are sung by the famous jurist, Judge Learned J. Hand. Judge Hand was a fine singer and the songs ring true. The last four songs on the record are sung by the noted collector Bascom Lamar Lunsford, whose rendition of the ballads on assassinations of Presidents is certainly in the folk manner. Lunsford's rendition of Mr. Garfield is an unusual combination of song interspersed with commentary. Considering the relatively primitive equipment on which much of this material was originally recorded, the Recording Laboratory of the Music Division is to be complimented on a fine job of transferring these songs to LP discs. The album comes complete with a booklet containing texts and informative notes on the songs by Duncan Emrich, Chief of the Folklore Section of the Library of Congress. Art Department: Some very incongruous news comes about plans for Jack Webb's "Pete Kelly's Blues." Mr. Webb insists on authenticity, say the press boys, and has carefully checked all the songs and cars to be used in the picture to make sure that none date later than 1929, the year in which the action takes place. However, as if to give the lie to this profound dramatic theory, both Peggy Lee (who's Peggy Lee?) and Ella Fitzgerald are up for singing parts. And who is going to drum? Max Roach? . . . The recent or forthcoming (where do you live?) "Blackboard Jungle" has the Bix and his Gang record of Jazz Me Blues on the soundtrack, somehow . . . Cinerama Holiday, which, in Benny's opinion, is the widest travelogue ever made, features a rather moving, though obviously staged, New Orleans funeral sequence and some of Papa Celestine's club act. It now appears that Columbia will issue the music that Celestine's group recorded for the picture on LP, including some that was cut in the final version. History Department: If you have ever wondered why the Chicago Victor dates of Morton and Dodds were so beautifully recorded, it was because, in those early days of electric recording, the Negro musicians were stuck away in a back studio with a single mike. Meanwhile, Stowkowski was favored with about twenty-five pick-ups, all over the place, fully equipped with engineers and dial board — and produced some of the most peculiar sounding things in the history of recordings. . . . Some day the story of the tremendous influence of Willie "The Lion" Smith may be written. Musicians say that the Duke, for example, haunted the speak-easies where the man played in the middle twenties and patterned much of his compositional and orchestral manner after The Lion's playing. Later, Count Basie was the constant visitor and they say that Smith used to growl, "Learned to play the piano yet, boy?" at him often. The Lion, of course, was playing diminished chords in those days as a matter of course. . . . When Duke Ellington first expanded his Orchestra, he was determined to have a New Orleans man on clarinet (what else?). His first choice was Omer Simeon. But Simeon couldn't be had so he took Bigard and made a clarinet soloist out of him — or, at any rate, that was the idea. Shamus Department: Collectors might care to know that the bootlegging of hit records in the pop field has become so flagrant that one label has hired a bunch of private dicks to track down the source of it. And the crooks not only take the music, they even copy the labels. Current Events Department: Collectors should be aware of the fact that many V ocalion-Okeh records of the late 30's are sneaking out on 12" Epic LP's, including many by Basie, Hackett, and the Ellington units. The dubbing job is sometimes pretty bad, the packaging is silly, and the good lady who writes the notes should mind not only her rhetoric but her facts. Meanwhile, Coral-Brunswick squats on white label Vocation like a bull terrier in the archives. Decca, however, has announced that it will immediately undertake to "push" its jazz catalogue. Exactly what that announcement means is anybody's guess, except that reissues are supposed to be part of the operation. But what? Cleo Brown again? ... So far, the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival committee has announced that it hopes to get Louie, Basie, and someone named Dave Brubeck, and has got Duke Ellington. . . . Muggsy Spanier celebrated thirty-five years as a cornetist last month. How he did the celebrating no one seems to know except that some musicians from the Sig Meyer band (Spanier's first job) showed up to help. '. . . Benny Frenchie's traditional second annual jazz quiz will feature such questions as : How many records did Jelly Roll Morton appear on not under his own name (excluding vocal accompaniments) and what were the names used? For an answer' of sorts, see below, and, for the complete quiz, see this column next month — or maybe even the month after. . . . There were a few raised eyebrows around the apple when Bob Maltz announced that his Stuyvesant Casino clambake one Friday would feature Miles Davis. But some mouths fell open the next week when such people as Don Elliott, Oscar Pettiford, and Chris Connor showed up along with Peewee Russell, Miff Mole, and Joe Sullivan. A noisy time was had by all, as usual. . . . The Mills Brothers' father was ill at this writing, and the three brothers were doing it alone. Benny's Special Jelly Roll Answer Department: Okeh: St. Louis Levee band, Vocation: Levee Serenaders, Columbia: Johnny Dunn and Wingy Manone, Gennett: NORK, and definitely a couple of others that even Benny can't name, but which Riverside knows about. Any others? A Thought For The Month: Has it occurred to anyone to remark that the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet is closer in many ways to that of Johnny Dodds' washboard Band than it is to that of Fletcher Henderson and even to that of the early Gillespie-Parker groups?