GLCD 5131 Light Music On The Move Reviews & Broadcast

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC Light Music On The Move L’ORCHESTRE DEVEREAUX Conducted by GEORGES DEVEREAUX - DANISH STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT FARNON - SIDNEY TORCH AND HIS ORCHESTRA - THE MELACHRINO ORCHESTRA Conducted by GEORGE MELACHRINO - SPENCER-HAGEN ORCHESTRA - LOUIS VOSS AND HIS ORCHESTRA  - CHARLES WILLIAMS AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA - NEW CENTURY ORCHESTRA Conducted by SIDNEY TORCH - KERMIT LESLIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA - BILLY VAUGHN AND HIS ORCHESTRA - RICHARD HAYMAN AND HIS ORCHESTRA - GUY LUYPAERTS AND HIS ORCHESTRA - EDDIE BARCLAY AND HIS ORCHESTRA - IVOR SLANEY AND HIS ORCHESTRA - WALLY STOTT AND HIS ORCHESTRA - HARRY DAVIDSON AND HIS ORCHESTRA - DOLF VAN DER LINDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA - ROMA SYMPHO-POP ORCHESTRA Conducted by DOMINICO SAVINO - ROGER ROGER AND HIS CHAMPS ELYSEES ORCHESTRA - NEW CONCERT ORCHESTRA Conducted by FREDERIC CURZON - OTTO CESANA AND HIS ORCHESTRA - STUTTGART RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by KURT REHFELD)   01 Non Stop (John Malcolm, real name Malcolm John Batt, arr. Ivor Slaney) L’ORCHESTRE DEVEREAUX Conducted by GEORGES DEVEREAUX 02  Main Line (Jack Beaver) DANISH STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT FARNON 16 Drifting On A Cloud (Alfonso D’Artega & Harry Syracuse)  BILLY VAUGHN AND HIS ORCHESTRA 23 Bicycle Belles (Sidney Torch)  SIDNEY TORCH AND HIS ORCHESTRA 29 Night Train (Otto Cesana)  OTTO CESANA AND HIS ORCHESTRA

Contents:

The title of this collection of Light Music obviously gives the clue to the inspiration which guided the composers in creating these enjoyable works. But movement is far from being as simple as its name might at first suggest. It can be fast or slow, and can be caused by any number of factors, from humans on their own to the weird and wonderful machines they create. Whether on land or sea, or in the air – and even in outer space – you’ll find it all in this selection of varied orchestral cameos.

We make no excuse for beginning with a piece which will be immediately familiar to everyone in Britain who watched television from the mid-1950s onwards. When Independent Television (ITV) arrived in Britain in the London area on 22 September 1955 there was an understandable desire to make their programmes different from the BBC, which had held the monopoly for TV broadcasting in Britain since the world’s first high definition public television service was launched on 2 November 1936, although experimental transmissions under the auspices of the BBC had started as early as July 1926.

Geoffrey Cox was the first Editor of Independent Television News (ITN), and right from the start their bulletins were regarded as more viewer-friendly than the formal style favoured by the BBC. The word ‘newscaster’ entered the language, and the theme chosen by Cox to introduce his broadcasts was destined to become instantly recognisable. Its title was Non Stop composed by ‘John Malcolm’. It was recorded by L’Orchestre Devereaux conducted by Georges Devereaux in Basel, Switzerland, in 1950 and released on the Francis, Day & Hunter Mood Music 78 number FDH072. Despite its popularity, it was never made available commercially during the 25 years that it was used by ITN.

‘John Malcolm’ was far from being one of the established composers who provided the bulk of the mood music made available to professional users by FDH. In fact the composer’s real name is John Malcolm Batt, and he was a 17-year old schoolboy in Taunton, Somerset, when he wrote Non Stop in 1946 as one of a set of six pieces for piano, designed to illustrate to his music teacher the merits of lighter works versus classical.

A few years later he visited the FDH offices in London’s Soho Square and showed them his piece, expecting to be rewarded with a rejection slip to produce to his father to prove where he had been (for reasons which need not be divulged here!). Instead of being rejected, a contract was placed before him and he duly signed. One of the staff arrangers, Ivor Slaney (the composer of Donkey Doodle also on this CD), was assigned to orchestrate the work, and it was eventually recorded in a batch with other material for the catalogue. It provoked little attention until Geoffrey Cox chose it, after seeking advice from the distinguished conductor Sir John Barbirolli who happened to be in the office at the time.

John Batt has enjoyed a long and successful career as a solicitor but he still composes and arranges music as a hobby, and his Non Stop continues to earn him royalties from around the world. ITN eventually asked FDH to re-record it with a slightly more upbeat sound, but true admirers of this light music classic still prefer the original version as heard on this CD.

If John Batt was not one of the ‘usual’ composers of mood music for publishers’ libraries, Jack Beaver most certainly was. He is represented here with two outstanding numbers – Main Line and Spaceways, both for Chappell which, for many years in the 1940s and 1950s, operated arguably the finest recorded music library in the world, thanks to its founder Teddy Holmes who put such talented writers as Charles Williams, Robert Farnon, Sidney Torch and Walter Stott (now known as Angela Morley) under contract. Beaver was born in Clapham, London in 1900, and died on 10 September 1963, aged 63. His work in the cinema extended over 30 years including Alfred Hitchcock's first huge international hit The Thirty-Nine Steps (for which Beaver received no credit) and Vincent Sherman's 1949 success The Hasty Heart. Beaver worked at the music department at Gaumont-British Studios under Louis Levy during the 1930s, and was hired by Warner Bros. to run the music department at their British studio at Teddington in the early '40s. Apart from The Hasty Heart, none of his British Warner Bros. work involved movies that had a high profile outside of the UK, although Beaver did write the scores for a pair of interesting historical dramas, The Prime Minister (1941) and Showtime (1948).

Beaver's music for the 1939 thriller The Case of the Frightened Lady is regarded by some scholars as the first notable piano-based score for film – a style which was to prove so profitable for later composers such as Richard Addinsell and Hubert Bath. It was a natural progression from writing for films that would make Beaver’s talents so attractive to the London music publishers that were busily developing their background music libraries during the 1940s. Beaver was also much in demand for scoring theatrical productions and undertook a punishing workload which eventually contributed towards his early death. His ability to create music to cover almost any mood was second to none, and his most famous composition was probably Picture Parade, which used to introduce the early BBC Television series of the same name.

Still on the subject of ‘backroom boys’ rather than the composer/conductors who enjoyed a high public profile, due credit must certainly go to the prolific King Palmer (1913-1999), represented in this collection with Jogging Along and Busy Street.  He possessed the rare gift of being able to capture in a few bars of music a particular mood or feeling, and over 30 years more than 600 pieces of his music were recorded by various production music libraries to depict almost every imaginable occasion. In the late 1930s he conducted the West End show “Miss Hook of Holland” and wrote film music for “The Dark Eyes of London” and “Secrets of the Stars”. He also arranged many works for piano and much of his music was broadcast by his own King Palmer Light Orchestra on the BBC’s Light Programme with Palmer conducting in shows such as “Music Hour” and “Music While You Work”.

But while he excelled in churning out so-called “light music” on demand, Cedric King Palmer had a serious, knowledgeable and erudite side to his musical personality. At the age of 26 he completed a study of the music of the composer Granville Bantock (1868-1946) and after the Second World War he continued as a popular writer about music. Among his most successful books was Teach Yourself Music (1944), part of the Hodder and Stoughton Home University series, which ran to several editions. He also lectured in music at the City Literary Institute.

For the Ford Motor Company’s 1946 exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall, Palmer formed the Ford V8 Shadow Symphony Orchestra which, under his baton, performed, recorded and filmed Rhythm of the Road, a number which for many years continued to turn up regularly on promotional materials and advertisements for the company. Among the most popular songs he wrote was one that became a hit in America when it was adopted in 1954 as the theme tune for the television programme “Eleventh Hour”. It was recorded as the Eleventh Hour Melody by, among others, Al Hibbler, Lou Busch and Roger Williams. However this tune first appeared as The Film Opens, one of many pieces of mood music King Palmer wrote for the Paxton Library. Palmer’s immense stock of recorded library music remains accessible to producers and, despite his not having composed for the past 30 years of his life, the royalty cheques continued to grow, demonstrating the frequency with which television and radio producers availed themselves of his output.

Among the American orchestras on this CD ‘new’ to the Guild Light Music series it is appropriate to give special mention to Earle Hagen (b. 1919) who as a young man composed one of the great popular melodies of the last century, Harlem Nocturne.  Also Otto Cesana (1899-1980) whose exciting Night Train seems to be still remembered according to comments on some internet websites. Although born in Brescia, Italy, he spent much of his career in California, and was especially active in radio and films during the 1940s and 1950s.

As well as being a respected arranger and conductor, Richard Hayman (b. 1920) was also a harmonica virtuoso, and he sometimes adapted his scores of popular melodies so that he could perform on his favourite instrument. This formula brought him two chart successes in the early 1950s, with 78s of Ruby and April In Portugal. He followed Leroy Anderson as an arranger for the Boston Pops Orchestra over a period of more than 30 years, and also served as Music Director of Mercury Records. He was regularly in demand to orchestrate Broadway shows and film soundtracks, and notable among his own compositions are No Strings Attached (on Guild GLCD 5105) and Skipping Along (on this CD).

Billy Vaughn (1919-1991) began his career playing piano and singing baritone in the group ‘The Hilltoppers’, before joining Dot Records as musical director where he accompanied many of the label’s top singers. He became one of the most successful orchestra leaders during the rock’n’roll era, and from 1955 to 1970 he managed to get 36 titles into the USA Top 200 charts, including No. 1 in 1960 with Theme from ‘A Summer Place’.

In the remaining space available we wish to pay tribute to Gilbert Vinter (1909-1969), composer of Air Display. Although his light music composing output was not prolific compared with many of his peers, his name is highly respected in Britain through his work as a conductor of the BBC Midland Light Orchestra from 1946 until his death at the young age of 60. He also served for a while as conductor of the newly-formed BBC Concert Orchestra in 1952. Vinter conducted a landmark HMV LP “The World of Light Music” in 1965, and his own Portuguese Party has become a light music ‘classic’. He is also highly regarded in the brass band world, where he contributed several test pieces for national championships.            David Ades

Page revised Friday March 09 2007