GLCD 5142 The 1950s Volume V - Sunny Side UP Reviews & Broadcast

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIGHT MUSIC The 1950s Volume 5 - Sunny Side UP ROBERT FARNON, BERT KAEMPFERT, FRANCK POURCEL, RAY MARTIN, DAVID CARROLL, RON GOODWIN, BERNIE WAYNE, LAURIE JOHNSON, FRANK SINATRA, DAVID ROSE, CYRIL ORNADEL, GEOFF LOVE, MAHLON MERRICK, DOLF VAN DER LINDEN, LOUIS VOSS     02 Las Vegas  - BERT KAEMPFERT AND HIS ORCHESTRA (‘BOB PARKER’ on record label) 03 Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White  - CYRIL ORNADEL AND HIS ORCHESTRA 07 Toot Sweet  - DAVID CARROLL AND HIS ORCHESTRA 09 Bumps-a-Daisy - GEORGE SIRAVO AND HIS ORCHESTRA 11 Pizzicato Waltz  - GEORGE LIBERACE AND HIS ORCHESTRA 27 My Last Love  - GEOFF LOVE AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA

Contents:

The human brain is – quite simply – amazing. Described in one dictionary as being a “convoluted nervous tissue in (the) skull of vertebrates”, it is capable of a seemingly endless stream of thoughts and actions, and older people will often claim that experiences from previous decades are still locked in, just waiting for something to release them once again. Music can often trigger memories previously believed to be long forgotten, and some of the tracks in this collection may well provoke a glow of recognition among those hearing them for the second time around.

This selection has been chosen with the aim of recalling the cheerful, bright and breezy style of music that – over fifty years later – our memories tell us seemed prevalent in the 1950s. Typically the entertainment profession at the time was trying to provide an antidote to the post-war misery and austerity that was still afflicting so many countries. Listening to these happy sounds one can be forgiven for forgetting that the early 1950s witnessed rationing and shortages of most luxury items, while the later years in the decade were overshadowed by the threat of global nuclear war. They were hardly the happiest of times to be alive, but you will find plenty of clues to suggest otherwise as you listen to this CD!

The title track Sunny Side Up sets the tone admirably, with a Robert Farnon (1917-2005) arrangement that was chosen as the play-out music for many of Kenneth Horne’s shows on the BBC Light Programme. Usually only the first few bars were heard by listeners at home, which was a pity because this is a fine example of the way in which a full concert orchestra can be made to swing like a dance band. Farnon had learned this technique during his period as conductor of the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War Two, and it was to be the kind of orchestration that would add such a tremendous backing to Tony Bennett when the two of them worked together on radio, television, records and in the concert hall in later years.

Bert Kaempfert (who was born Berthold Heinrich Kämpfert, 1923-1980) became one of Germany’s most famous musicians on the international stage from the 1960s onwards. He could play the accordion, clarinet, piano and saxophone, but more importantly he was also a gifted composer and arranger. Working as a producer at Polydor in Hamburg he was ideally placed to promote his talents, but before his career really took off he was obliged to look after many of the label’s top singers. Under the pseudonym ‘Bob Parker’ he made several orchestral records of his own compositions, and Las Vegas revealed that he was the equal of many writers working in a similar fashion in Europe and the USA at that time. As his career progressed he tended to move away from light music and achieved considerable success with an easy listening style that inclined towards jazz and often relied upon a rhythmic beat described in Germany as ‘knackbass’ (crackling bass).

Johnny Gregory (born Giovanni Gregori in London, 1924) is best known as a prolific arranger and conductor who worked for various British labels including Philips where his contract lasted for over 20 years. He is also a composer and has written the music for some 27 films, scored over 500 compositions and made numerous records which span the broad scope from light music to Latin American and Oriental. In 1976 he received an Ivor Novello Award for Introduction and Air to a Stained Glass Window and is generally recognised as one of the best orchestral and string ensemble composer/arrangers. His greatest international fame came from his many recordings of Latin American music as ‘Chaquito’. In this collection he appears early in his career as the arranger of Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White for an album featuring Cyril Ornadel and his Orchestra for World Record Club before it was taken over by EMI. When first launched, it offered a cheap alternative to the major labels, and kept its costs low by selling its LPs in standard plastic sleeves with no individual covers.

Cyril Ornadel (b. 1924) rose to prominence in Britain during the 1950s, largely due to his weekly appearances conducting the orchestra for the popular television series “Sunday Night at the London Palladium”. He was MD for numerous top musicals in London’s West End, and his composing credits include the hit show “Pickwick” and the song Portrait of my Love which gave Matt Monro an international hit.

Monia Liter (1906-1988) was born in Odessa, and was a child prodigy who was presented to the Czar when aged only six. He left his homeland following the 1917 Russian revolution, working as a pianist in a cinema orchestra in China. From there he moved on to many varied jobs in the Far East, finally ending up in Singapore where he spent seven years leading a dance band at the prestigious Raffles Hotel. While in Singapore he became a naturalised British subject, and came to Britain in 1933 where he worked with many of the top bands, including the famous vocalist Al Bowlly. In 1941 he joined the BBC as a composer, conductor and arranger, initially with the Twentieth Century Serenaders. After 10 years at the BBC, he left them to concentrate on concert work and composing. He was also in demand for films, recording and television, and later worked in the Light Music department at Boosey & Hawkes, writing many works for their Recorded Music Library. His commercial recordings in his later career were surprisingly few, with Baffi being a relatively rare single from 1957.

Franck Pourcel (1913-2000) was one of the leading light orchestra leaders in France, and thanks to his collaboration with Paul Mauriat (1925-2006) he became internationally famous with the song I Will Follow Him. Although some of Pourcel’s recordings can be categorised as light music (and Clown On The Eiffel Tower is certainly one example), he later tended to veer towards jazz and rock following the pattern of some of his contemporaries. With hindsight one can ask which kind of audience he was really trying to attract, but his career flourished (he is said to have recorded over 2,000 songs) and he was held in the highest esteem in his own country.

The Synchro-Fox mood music library issued its first British mood music 78s in 1957, and we feature two of the early ones. Easy On The Eyes is by Marvin M. Wright whose credits include cues for the American TV series “Felony Squad” (1966-1969). The other title from Synchro-Fox brings us a typical Roger Roger (1911-1995) composition Holiday On The Road (Peter Pares is credited as co-composer) which sounds like it may have been recorded in Roger’s own studio in Paris.

Cyril Watters (1907-1984) was highly respected within the music profession and, although from 1953 to 1961 he was chief arranger with Boosey & Hawkes, he often contributed to the recorded music libraries of many of the top London music publishers. One of his greatest successes was the wistful Willow Waltz (chosen as the theme for the television series “The World of Tim Frazer” in 1960) but he was equally at home with brighter, up-tempo numbers such as Flat Spin on this CD. For several years during the 1960s he guided The Light Music Society through a difficult period when broadcasters and record companies seemed to be turning their backs on the genre, but his quiet persuasion undoubtedly benefited many of his colleagues. He was a true gentleman, in every good sense of the word, and was widely admired by his friends and colleagues for his personal qualities, as well as his tuneful music.

Ernest Tomlinson (b.1924) is one of Britain’s most talented composers, working mainly in light music, but also highly regarded for his choral works and brass band pieces. During a very productive career, he has contributed numerous titles to the recorded music libraries of many different publishers, often under the pseudonym ‘Alan Perry’. One of his best-known numbers is Little Serenade, which he developed from a theme he wrote as incidental music for a BBC radio production “The Story of Cinderella” in 1955, and another piece from the same source is Fairy Coach on this CD. His suites of English Folk Dances have also become part of the standard light music repertoire. In recent years Ernest has worked hard to preserve thousands of music manuscripts that would otherwise have been destroyed, and he is the present Chairman of the Light Music Society.

The American Van Phillips (1905-1992) was a talented man whose achievements covered a wide variety of activities. He was brought to London by Carroll Gibbons (1903-1954) in 1925 to play saxophone in the Savoy Havana Band. A few years later he was a recording studio manager at Columbia Records, working with the bands of Jack Payne, Billy Cotton, Ambrose and Henry Hall. He also made 78s under his own name which were highly praised for their innovative arrangements and musicianship. His career soon involved West End shows (“Bow Bells” was his first musical show orchestration in 1931), and British films also used his skills – “Contraband” in 1934 was his first full score, to be followed by work for Richard Tauber and Jack Buchanan, among others. BBC broadcasts and a 39-week series for Radio Luxembourg further enhanced his public profile, and in the 1950s he composed the distinctive music for the landmark BBC Light Programme radio series “Journey Into Space”. Phillips’ contribution to this CD is his composition Practical Joker, which he wrote for the newly-launched Impress Mood Music Library in 1956. Comments at the time pointed to the similarity with well known works by Robert Farnon and Angela Morley (when she was working as Wally Stott), but no doubt this was at the insistence of the label’s manager. Other works revealed his own particular style, which soon became recognisable to light music admirers. In later life his hobby of travel photography took over his life completely, and his 1966 “Traveller’s Book of Photography” sold over 150,000 copies. He remained active in this field until 1987, when he finally retired from his travels at the age of 82.

Mahlon LeGrande Merrick (1900-1969) began his musical career as a saxophone player, but eventually he concentrated on working in radio, films and especially television. He was associated with a number of popular television series notably "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" and "The Jack Benny Program", remaining the musical director for the popular comedian for thirty years. A versatile composer, a number of his works appear under the pseudonym ‘Gene LeGrande’, and his best-known piece Look Sharp Be Sharp - also known as the Gillette Look Sharp March (played by the Boston ‘Pops’ Orchestra) is on Guild GLCD 5135. Prairie Duster comes from an album called “Seven Winds” he recorded for the small US label Urania in the mid-1950s.

In the summer of 1956 Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) conducted an album of orchestral music to celebrate the opening of the new Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood, supposedly built to resemble a stack of records. Critics have observed that by this time Sinatra will have regarded that his comeback was secure, thanks to his best-selling albums and critically acclaimed films. Like many creative artists before him, he wanted to do something completely different, so he engaged a team of top composers and arrangers to create short works based on poems by his radio scriptwriter, Norman Sickel. The poems were all about different colours, so the album was appropriately called “Tone Poems Of Color”. Capitol assembled around sixty Hollywood musicians for their star singer, who proceeded to make one of the most unusual recordings of his long career. The line-up included some of Sinatra's well known arranger/conductors such as Nelson Riddle, Billy May, and Gordon Jenkins, as well as iconic figures like Elmer Bernstein and Andre Previn. Photos taken at the sessions reveal that Nelson Riddle was on hand (at least part of the time) in case he was needed, but seemingly Sinatra managed to cope although the resulting LP was hardly among the top ten favourites of his loyal fans, and it remained out of the catalogues for many years. The piece selected this time is Orange by Nelson Riddle (1921-1985) who was a trombonist during his early career, which could explain why that particular instrument was featured in some of his most inventive arrangements for Frank Sinatra. Riddle’s scores also enhanced the recording careers of many top stars, from Nat ‘King’ Cole and Dean Martin to Judy Garland and Peggy Lee. He made a few instrumental albums on his own, but one is left with the impression that he could have achieved more in this area, had he not been so successful accompanying the finest singers around.                                                                                                                                        David Ades

Page revised Tuesday March 25 2008