Because many of the artists in the PHASE 4 collection are also to be found amongst the The World Ofs (TWOs), and have been discussed already, it is not so easy to set the rest of them (those as yet undiscussed) out in chapters as before - some genres might have just one member and none are likely to have many. For this reason, I have decided to take them randomly as I feel. The first character that appears in the P4Ss but not in the TWOs is Bryan Daly. Now, whilst researching him, I stumbled across another interesting thing so, first, a little history ...
DECCA records are played the world over and DECCA are allowed to use their illustrious name most places. Just every now and then, there is a country where, for one reason or another, they must use a different name. This is the case in Israel. Or at least it was back in the 60s and 70s when our records were released.
Hostilities between Israel and the Arab inhabitants of the land is nothing new and since 1945, there has been in place, an Arab boycott of Israel which was originally aimed at preventing trade between Israel and Arab states in order to hamper economic and military growth. Soon this was extended to other non-Israeli companies doing business with Israel and the blacklisting of those that continued trading.
Beginning in 1979, countries began pulling out of the boycott agreement and approaching the 1990s, too late for the PHASE 4 STEREOs, things were significantly relaxed. Today, there are just a few pockets of anti-Israel trade embargos.
In order to avoid being added to the black list, DECCA issued records in Israel under the local wing of Symphonia (Wholesale) Ltd. who released DECCA sounds on the PAX label. Now, this label, as it appears on the record may look very familiar as the only difference between the Israeli version and the rest of the world's version is that instead of DECCA or LONDON at centre top we find PAX with a 'Made in Israel' over the top of that, whilst on the LP sleeves, we can see PAX where DECCA would normally be. The label may occasionally appear different, however. Some of the earlier records appear to come in the all dark red colour and later issues may come in the silver grey with red, blue and base colour rings around the circumference, similar to the later label described in the TWOs. And why PAX? Because in Latin, it means 'peace'.
So, aaanyway ... the first personality is ...
... Postman Pat ... I mean, Bryan Daly
An easy mistake - no Bryan Daly - no Postman Pat (not as we now know him anyway!) That's right - Daly wrote the music for Postman Pat along with other TV animations. He worked with Woodland Animations and so also composed the music for such as Gran
and Bertha. Pat took Bryan Daly's ,music around the world and, after extensive research undertaken to discover how other nationalities say 'postman', I can reveal absolutely no funny answers!
When Daly was not busy with his little puppet friends, he might have been drafted into the studio to do guitar session work for people such as Burt Bacharach or TWO star Ewan MaColl. He was also in the Ramblers, Alan Lomax' skiffle band, in the mid-fifties.
As well as getting credits on Various Artist Skiffle albums such as Kazoos...Banjos: The History of Skiffle as part of the Ramblers, his name is associated with such disparate records as This is Trojan Boss Reggae for a song called 'Luciana' and Bornemusik Du Kender-Danske Bornesange-Syng Med Bornehits for a Scandinavian 'Postmand Per' sung by Ole Flick.
In our record collection we have The Velvet Guitar of Bryan Daly (PFS 4239) where he plays his gentle guitar to the melodies of, for example, 'Cavatina', 'It's Impossible', and 'Amazing Grace'. Most of the tunes are rendered in straight forward homage to the original versions but the jazzy 'Wave' which was a mainly keyboard tune when first presented by Antonio Carlos Jobim. has a fine freedom to it. With its orchestral string backing, this is a very nice Sunday morning record.
Iris Taylor
You'll find no reference to Iris Taylor amongst the Phase 4s but she is there right enough. Iris is the alter-ego of Fred Hartley, Scottish pianist, conductor and composer of light orchestral music. He became Head of Light Music at the BBC in 1946 after performing often with his Novelty Quintet there over the previous 15 years. His most well-known tunes are 'Rouge et Noir' and 'Alma Mia'. As well as pieces for orchestra, though, he was often to be heard playing the piano as he is on The Twin Pianos of Fred Hartley (PFS 4025).
Taking up the violin when he was four and the piano at six, Fred's career path was set good and early. He was a member of the Kit Cat Band - the 10-piece house band of London's Kit Cat Night Club and was kept very busy playing piano for the likes of Vera Lynn, conducting orchestras behind performers such as Gracie Fields and composing tunes to be played by, for example, brass bands. He would have been credited for one involvement or another on many albums back in the day. As he should have been on the cover of Spectacular Banjos (PFS 4081) by the Buckingham Banjos on which he played piano and which appears to be the only record released in the name of the Buckingham Banjos.
Buckingham Banjos.
Surely this record demonstrates a misuse of a perfectly good instrument. Poor,
defenceless, little banjos put through tunes like 'Music Music Music' and 'Hello Dolly' - good tunes in their place but not for banjo, surely. No luthier spent time and perspiration moulding the perfect instrument, gently coo-cooing to his new born banjo with the intention of such abuse evidenced here, surely. Surely, a banjo only wants to play 'Duelling Banjos', 'Foggy Mountain High', 'Cripple Creek' etc. Surely. Not 'Mr Sandman'! Good tune in its place but ... All I'm asking for is a little respect for the honest, hard-working banjo.
Maybe Fred Hartley asked NOT to be credited on the album cover.
Guy Lombardo
Canadian/American bandleader and violinist, Guy (Gaetano Alberto) Lombardo was the eldest of five brothers and two sisters and at age 12, enjoyed his inaugural public performance along with one his brothers, Carmen, at the Mother’s Club church party.
Five years later, young Guy had recruited one of his other brothers, Lebert, and Freddie Kreitzer on piano and now, with a real band of their own, the Lombardo brothers decided that it was time to leave school for good. Daddy Lombardo did not discourage them as he had always urged them to learn to play music – he had them marked out for careers in entertainment early on, being an amateur baritone singer, he wanted a band to accompany himself. In 1923, when Guy was 21, The Lombardos really took off, being offered bigger and bigger gigs and later that year, the band, that had grown to ten members, including younger brother Victor, left home to begin playing in other American towns as The Royal Canadians. Youngest sister, Rose-Marie, was to join them some years later as vocalist, staying for seven years.
The band featured on film in 1934 in American comedy, Many Happy Returns.
Guy Lombardo also had a parallel career as a speed boat racer. He actually won the Gold Cup in 1946 followed by other prestigious competitions in the following years. He was the national champion from 1946-49.
The Lombardos are reckoned to have sold up to 300 million records with something like 128 top ten hit singles in the US Billboard charts including 'Charmaine' and 'Red Sails in the Sunset'. Incidentally, the lyricist of 'Red Sails ...', Jimmy Kennedy, also wrote the words of 'The Teddy Bears Picnic'.
One of Guy Lombardo's many LPs is Every Night Is New Year's Eve With Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians: Live At The Waldorf Astoria! (PFS 4283) - a record that catches the band doing what they became famous for: celebrating the end of one year and beginning of another.
Norman Candler
Who is Norman Candler? Does even he know? He has so many pseudonyms. Is he Jim Harbourg,? Or John Epping? Is he Jurgen Jaenner or Mac Prindy? What about Otto Sieben, Paul Prennessel, Renato Pegado, Xyco, Rolf Steinfelder, Sammy Burdson, Tony Tape, Walt Rockman or Gerhard Narholz?
Oh well, let's stick with Norman for now because that is the name on PFS 4360:
Candler By Candlelight by The Norman Candler Magic Strings. He is a composer, arranger and conductor and has written bits of everything from film scores through easy listening to pop songs and he founded the Pro Viva record label. Norman also founded the Sonoton Music Library from which came his music for SpongeBob SquarePants! It appears as though he reserved the Candler nom de musique for his work with large string orchestras.
Now, I would not usually be recommending easy listening string orchestras but Norman's has a good solid sound that I can appreciate. 'Petite Fleur' and 'Theme of a Summernight' have a nice feel to them like a big lush sixties romance movie ... er ... not that I watch such films .. I mean, I just like to listen to the ... doh!
Oh, and the real Norman Candler is ... ... Austrian/American Gerhard Narholz.
John Wilbraham
A brilliant classical trumpet player, nay, a well-tempered trumpet player, exponent of the piccolo trumpet, mainly of the Baroque style solo stuff – he was only 23 years of age when he recorded his first solo record and soon he was involved in film scores, TV and radio. In fact, for one, he was the player of the Brideshead Revisited theme. We have him here on one Phase 4 LP, The Well Tempered Trumpet (PFS 4325).
Piccolo trumpets are the smallest trumpets and are set an octave higher than regular Bâ™ instruments. The other major difference is that the smaller trumpets, in most cases, have four valves (the bits that the fingers push down on) instead of the normal three for the regular trumpets. This extra valve helps players hit the lower notes where necessary.
What do they sound like? Well, most of us are maybe more used to hearing them played in pop songs such as the Beatles’ ‘Penny Lane’. Paul McCartney was after something different for the solo instrumental bit and had heard the piccolo trumpet used in Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto and became curious. Sadly, I cannot state that it was J Wilbraham who played it for the Beatles (incidentally, for those who are chasing quiz night questions, it was a chap called David Mason) but our man was a session musician on The Magical Mystery Tour album, the LP with which Penny Lane was associated. The song was originally intended for inclusion on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album but was released as a single prior to the release of that album and, in keeping with the band’s policy of not putting tracks that were used as previous singles onto LPs, was left homeless until it found a place on the US version of the Magical Mystery Tour record.
Larry Adler
Lawrence Cecil Adler was ten years old when he had his first harmonica. He had enrolled into piano school but was soon expelled for lacking a musical ear and talent. Unperturbed, he ordered a piano to play at home … without letting his parents in on his plans. Well, it turned up and, because the store owner was impressed with his gumption, at age ten, remember, he added in a mouth-organ for good measure. It seems as though the piano immediately took a back seat whilst young Larry concentrated on his new toy.
At 13, he won a local championship competition performing Beethoven’s ‘Minuet in G’. Following this success, he thought that he has earned a shot at New York’s bright lights, and much against his parents’ objections, at age 14, he left home. He found work,
alright, and, after a while, was working in the movie world alongside Fred Astaire et al. At age 20, he appeared in Many Happy Returns, on the strength of which, he was invited to London where he discovered that English audiences were more receptive to the sound of the harmonica than American. After a brief return home to the US, where, in 1948, he was accused of being a communist sympathiser and, unable to appease the people there, Larry came back to England. Settled now, he began composing music for film soundtracks, one of his most popular being Genevieve. In his later years the writing became the major part of his work though he did perform on record with the likes of Sting, Meatloaf, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Sinéad O’Connor.
His one Phase 4 record is Larry Adler – Harmonica (PFS 4429). It contains ‘Genevieve Waltz’ and ‘Sabre Dance’ along with classics like Claire de Lune’ and ‘Concerto de Aranjeuz’. Oh, and he had an affair with Ingrid Bergman!
Iliana Vered
Israeli classical pianist Iliana Vered has 8 LPs in our collection. Yellow River Concerto (PFS 4299), Iliana Vered Plays Chopin (PFS 4313), Plays Rachmaninoff (PFS 4327), Plays Mozart (PFS 4340) Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto (PFS 4362), Piano Moods (PFS 4387), Piano Concerto No. 2 (PFS 4428) and Beethoven Piano Sonata (PFS 4433). Quite a haul!
Iliana is particularly known for playing and recording the music of Moritz Moszkowski, none of which appears on any Phase 4 record which seems a little odd as it was with DECCA that she recorded the complete 15 Etudes de Virtuosité, Op. 72, which at the
time (1970) was a world premiere. Perhaps putting some of those pieces on other LPs such as the Phase 4s, would have diluted the power of the Moszkowski bundle. Her Phase 4 records were released from 1974 – 77 and so may have been in competition with it.
The Yellow River Piano Concerto is the result of a collaboration between a group of Chinese composers who arranged the piece around the Yellow River Cantata, composed by Xian Xinghai. It was premiered in 1970 during the Cultural Revolution when its director was the wife of Chairman Mao, Jiang Qing. The music represents the determination of the Chinese people during this time of change.
It was actually written in 1939, its eight movements depicting the struggle of the Chinese against the Japanese invaders during the Sino-Japanese War using the Yellow River metaphorically to evoke images of tumultuous waves and a respect for the wrath of the river as it struggles along its way.
The rest of PFS 4299 is taken up by music by Mozart. PFS 4387 comprises the music of various composers. There is stuff by Satie, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Schubert, Bach, Ben-Haim and two pieces by Liszt. And the Piano Concerto under consideration on PFS 4428 is by Brahms.
Les Paul
Innovator, inventor, pioneer, indeed, some would say, The Father of Modern Music! Lester William Polsfuss or Rhubarb Red (as he called himself on his very first recording) is venerated as the developer who established the solid body electric guitar as the go-to instrument of choice for just about all aspiring modern musicians! He also had a hand in sound production techniques such as the use of reverb and his ‘technological wizardry’ (as it says on his web-site Home - Les Paul (les-paul.com) ‘transformed the music industry’.
Les Paul designed his solid body electric guitar in 1941, when he would have been 26, and guitar maker, Gibson, began producing them in 1952.
Paul’s entrepreneurial bent was first exercised, however, in his early teens when he got the idea of electrifying his acoustic axe by attaching a radio as an amplifier. Doesn’t sound too promising really but from small acorns …
And it wasn’t just guitars he experimented with – in the recording studio, he wanted to record a tune but his two playing partners, Ernie Newton and Jimmie Atkins, were not there. Well, he thought that he might as well record his backing track and then play over that – then he thought that he might as well record that track on top of the backing track and, obviously, if he could do that once, why not do it again and play all three parts and overlay them all. Et voila! Multitracking is born. His new-found technique has been refined over the years, of course, but there was Les Paul at the beginning.
Les must have been a handful when he was young – as well as messing about with radio amplifiers, by his mid-teens he had filled his acoustic guitar with plaster of Paris in an attempt to create a solid body instrument and he also invented a device for flipping his harmonica over so the he could play both sides of it whilst continuing to strum his axe. I should think that there is little controlling of a kid with such a constant itch and the hands to scratch it with.
Les Paul's first album release was Hawaiian Paradise in 1949 but his one LP in the Phase 4s was not put out until 1968. Most of the tunes on the record were from his singles discography, which began in 1945, including ‘Bye Bye Blues’, ‘Tennessee Waltz’ and its b-side, ‘Little Rock Getaway’ along with ‘How High the Moon’ and a couple of other b-sides, ‘Whispering’ and ‘Lover’. Of course, it sounds a little dated today but back in the 1940s, the sounds that you hear on this record were pretty radical.
Mike Leander
Mike Leander (born Michael George Farr) signed to DECCA as a musical director at the age of just 22. By this time he’d already discovered session guitarist, Jimmy Page, later of rock behemoths Led Zeppelin, dragging him from art school to the music world. In fact, he was in at the start of the careers of many stars of the future, among them, TWO’s Marianne Faithfull and 16-year-old Lulu.
And here is where the Beatles come back into our story. During the recording of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul McCartney came up with the idea for a new song for which he wanted orchestral backing so, he called George Martin to get there as soon as possible to sort it out. Martin was too busy with Cilla Black at the time but Macca wouldn’t wait. The call went out and Mike Leander responded. ‘She’s Leaving Home’ is the only Beatles song that was scored by anyone other than George Martin during his time with them.
Leander was with DECCA for just three years but was instrumental in starting so many pop and rock careers. From here he went on to climb the heights of the game with such as … er … Gary Glitter … Oh well, happily, this episode did not stall a brilliant career in music production, arranging and directing.
Mike has one LP in the Phase 4 collection PFS 4068, Cool Drinks and Warm Company, an instrumental easy listening record of songs like ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, ‘Desafinado’ (which, incidentally, means ‘out of tune’ in Spanish) and ‘Moon River’.
Andre Gagnon
Canadian pianist, composer conductor arranger and, when he had time, actor, Andre Gagnon was the youngest of nineteen siblings!
Gagnon at age six, was already composing music, however, it wasn’t until 1974, when Andre would have been 36, that he released Saga, the first LP of his original stuff. The following year saw the release of Neiges which caused a flurry of activity, selling 700,000 copies and loitering around the US Billboard’s Top 10 for 24 weeks. It is this record cover that represents Gagnon in the Phase 4 series but not the actual record. Imagination (PFS 4384) is a compilation album of tracks from his first two records, called Imagination for the UK and European Phase 4s and Surprise for the North and South American market. You see, an extra track A1 called ‘Surprise’ has been snuck in on the LONDON American version, which has the cover of Andre’s first LP with the word ‘SURPRISE’ stencilled on it. Ah well, ours is not to reason why etc. etc.
PFS 4384 is a fine album of piano-based music with orchestra, a style made for film soundtracks and this is where it led Andre Gagnon – he had written music for Running, Phobia, The Hot Touch and Tell Me That You Love Me by the early 1980s and then, appropriately, The Pianist in 1992. He also wrote for television and theatre productions along with music for pop songs. As well as albums, he put out a bunch of singles amongst which is ‘Surprise’ and ‘Wow’ b/w ‘Ta Samba’, all three of which feature on our LP. Another tune from our record, ‘Nelligan’ was used to inspire the music for an opera of that name that Gagnon wrote all of the music for.
Alan Tew
More easy listening tunes from Alan Stanley Tew on This is My Scene (PSF 4120).
Tew started work in the 1950s as a pianist and music arranger who began to compose music, too. He wrote much of his better-known pieces for TV including the themes and/or incidental music for The Two Ronnies, Doctor in the House and The Sweeney! He also worked with Frankie Vaughan, Dusty Springfield, Cat Stevens and Anita Harris.
The Phase 4 record is of versions of largely well-known pop tunes. There are fun, punchy versions of 'Yeh Yeh' and 'These Boots are Made for Walking' alongside the relaxed slouch of 'Detroit City' to the Vaudeville of 'Winchester Cathedral'. And who are the players apart from Tew's orchestra? Well, on guitars we have Big Jim Sullivan, on piano, Nicky Hopkins and on bass guitar, John Paul Jones!
Jim Sullivan, whose parents knew him as James George Tomkins, was known as a session guitarist who played with just about everyone back in the day. He also cropped up on television quite often, too, in diverse shows such as Shang a lang, the Bay City Rollers nineteen seventies vehicle and Space 1999 episode, 'The Troubled Spirit' in which he starred as a crew member who was performing in concert on sitar. He also wrote the music score for this episode, too.
He contributed to 750 singles that hit the UK charts, 54 of which got to the Top Ten. Amongst these latter we find:
Mike Sarne – 'Come Outside'
Frank Ifield – 'I Remember You'
The Bachelors – 'Diane'
Tom Jones – 'It's Not Unusual'
Marmalade – 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'
Dana – 'All Kinds of Everything'
Nicky Hopkins also did much work as a session player - on piano this time. Alongside many others, he worked with the Rolling Stones (e.g. Their Satanic Majesties Request, 'Street Fighting Man', 'Angie' and 'Fool to Cry'), The Kinks (The Kink Kontroversy to The Kinks are the Village Preservation Society), John Lennon (Imagine, 'Happy Xmas [War is Over']) and The Who (My Generation, The Who by Numbers).
Hopkins also did keys on:
'Revolution' - The Beatles
'Wild Tiger Woman' - The Move
'Barabajagal' - Donovan
'Jasper C. Debussy' - Marc Bolan
No Secrets - Carly Simon
Somethin's Happening - Peter Frampton
Breakaway - Art Garfunkel
Break Like the Wind - Spinal Tap
And finally, John Paul Jones, who I doubt needs an introduction as he was the bass player of Led Zeppelin alongside guitarist, Jimmy Page, mentioned above. Prior to his commitment to the Zep though, Jones did a lot of session work on keyboards as well as bass. He lent a hand on:
Their Satanic Majesties Request - Rolling Stones
Mellow Yellow - Donovan and
The Road Home - Heart
More recently, John Paul made a kind of super group with Them Crooked Vultures, a project undertaken with Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters). Jones contributed piano, mandolin, clavinet and optigan as well as bass.
An optigan? I hear you ask. Well ...
Optigan is a shortened form of OPTIcal orGAN, a kind of Band-in-a-Box from the seventies; a kind of organ into which one fed optical discs; optical film discs about the size of an LP. These discs were loaded up with sound tracks of chord patterns played in various musical genres. The genres, for example, Rock 'n' Rhythm or Waltz, were all on individual discs so you simply chose your required style and loaded up the appropriate disc.
The organ has a keyboard, much like a regular organ though it may be shorter, accompanied by a control panel featuring a button for each chord and a tempo dial. The melody would be played with the right hand as normal whilst the left commits to the control panel.
Sounds like fun! Expensive fun …
Well, all this you may have known but did you know that Jones' real name is John Richard Baldwin?!
Marylin Horne
Dorothy Dandridge was a singing actress who received an Academy Award nomination for her role in Carmen Jones. Marylin Horne was an American opera singer who, around the early 1970s, was known early on in her career as one of the foremost Carmens. She had had some training in the role in Bizet's masterpiece aged just 20 years as she dubbed the voice of Carmen in the above 1954 film Carmen Jones. So, how did Dottie qualify for a nomination for her part in the film? Are you keeping up with me here?
Well, it seems that miming might be more difficult than doing the actual singing as Dandridge’s biographer, Donald Bogle, was happy to note that Dorothy achieved some of the ‘finest lip-syncing in the history of the American movie musical’.
Dorothy Dandridge earned her nomination by working at this lip-sync malarkey – she watched Marylin Horne sing and noted her neck movements and facial expressions with view to imitating them – and Horne was only just out of her teens! Prior to her Carmen gig, she had already done some background singing work for TV sit-coms and even appeared in an episode of The Odd Couple as a wannabe singer!
Anyway, if there is any other information that you require about Marylin, you could do worse than visit the Marylin Horne Museum! Yes, it does, indeed, exist. In Bradford! That is, Bradford, Pennsylvania. That is, 2 Marylin Horne Way, Bradford, Pennsylvania. Here, there are 3,400 square feet of space set aside for her extravagant stage costumes, interactive exhibits and various artifacts from her life on the stage.
Horne married conductor, Henry Lewis, who happens to conduct the orchestra on the one Phase 4 record on which Marylin performs, Sings Carmen (PFS 4204). It is, however, just one of seven on which Lewis has his name. The remainder of his list is as follows:
Beethoven - Pastoral Symphony No. 6 In F Major, Op. 68 (PFS 4188),
Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No. 1 In B Flat Minor (PFS 4196),
Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra (PFS 4202),
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor (PFS 4214),
Richard Strauss - Don Juan/Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (PFS 4215)
John Philip Sousa, Hershy Kay Symphonic Sousa (PFS 4382)
He has sole billing in the conductor’s stand and, except for PFS 4382, it is the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at whom he points his baton. On the above mentioned, it is the National Philharmonic.
Lewis was a child prodigy (another one). In 1948, at age 16 he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in so doing, became the first African/American instrumentalist, playing double bass, in one of the big symphonic orchestras. Another first was achieved when he became the first African/American to conduct a US symphonic orchestra.
Merle Evans
The Day the Clowns Cried
The Hartford circus fire of 1944 was one of the worst such disasters in the US with at least 167 people losing their lives and 700 being injured.
The afternoon of the fire, there was an audience of around 7000 having fun at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the largest circus in the country in Hartford, Connecticut.
The band were playing and it was band leader, Merle Evans, who noticed the first flames. He had the band begin playing ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’, the tune that acted as a distress signal to all members of the circus.
Before the circus personnel could attempt to control the situation, the audience made up their own minds and started trying to leave in panic. The big top was destroyed within eight minutes. Many people were killed in the crush to get out of the tent, two exits of which, were blocked by large tunnels used to get performing big cats in and out of the ring.
Even today, the cause has yet to be determined.
For most of the commotion, the band, under leader, Merle Evans, continued to play in a vain attempt to calm the audience but even they had to give in when a pole plummeted towards the bandstand. They emerged safely, reformed outside and began playing again to be fondly remembered for their bravery.
Merle apparently decided not to use his middle name, Well, by way of explanation as to why, I can here reveal that his full name was Merle Slease Evans. In his time, he wrote eight circus marches which he performed in Europe as well as the US. One of his tunes, Symphonia March, features on Circus Spectacular (PFS 4122).
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein was 22 years of age when making his conducting debut with Fellow Phase 4ers, the Boston Pops Orchestra. This promotion came as the prize for winning
the Boston Herald Traveller Music Quiz. Anybody else would have received a scholarship to study at prestigious Tanglewood but young Len had one of those already. And if you are curious, it was Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg that he had to wring out of the Boston Pops. No mean feat!
Bernstein was also a pianist composer who could write anything from symphonic orchestral music to ballets and operas to, well, West Side Story!
When Leonard Bernstein conducted, at the end of a performance he was wont to dash off stage to be met by his assistant who would be prepared with a towel for the maestro to wipe his perspiring brow, a scotch which he would get down in one gulp and a lit cigarette from which he would take a deep drag before returning to rapturous applause.
Celebrating the life of Leonard Bernstein, we have just one LP, The Music of Leonard Bernstein (PFS 4211) on which is his, generally considered, greatest hits. The overture to Candide is a fun, jumpy introduction to what is generally considered to be a riotous romp. More of a riot than originally planned. The operetta was based on a book of the same name by Lillian Hellman, who saw it as a play with music much like her previous work, The Lark, which is a rather serious account of the trial and eventual demise of Joan of Arc except, in the play, Joan is rescued due to a legal irregularity. It was Bernstein who persuaded the author to write Candide as a comic operetta. There follow tunes from On the Town, On the Waterfront and Fancy Free before the 'Symphonic Dances' from West Side Story.
The record is conducted by pianist and composer, Eric Rogers. So what did Eric compose? Well, for starters he wrote the music for 22 Carry On films! And as for conducting, it was he that pointed the baton for the score of Dr No (James Bond). He went on to conduct scores for animations such as What's New Mr Magoo? and write the theme and incidental music for, for example, seventies TV show, Wonder Woman.
Here are some of the Phase 4s credited to Eric Rogers:
Rogers, in his early twenties and during the Second World War, played piano for beer. Now that's how to learn to play a musical instrument!
Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops was born from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, playing its first concert in 1885 after the founder of the Symphonic, Henry Lee Higginson, came up with the concept of a band to play lighter music, initially to play to the Boston audience, only. For the first 45 years there were 17 conductors associated with the Boston Pops Orchestra until 1930, when Arthur Fiedler took over. He then stayed at the helm for the next 50 years!
During Arthur’s occupation, records were invented. This meant that music fans from all over the globe could listen to the Boston Pops which, along with TV and radio, increased their popularity enormously. Fiedler was keen to make classical music more accessible to the masses so this was the perfect situation. As well as performing easily digestible light classical music, he also involved good pal Leroy Anderson who wrote a few novelty tunes especially for the Pops. Sadly, none of these feature on the four Fiedler/Boston Pops Phase 4s.
The first LP comprises Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker Suite’ and ‘Peer Gynt’ by Grieg (PFS 4352) then The Blue Danube – The Great Strauss Waltzes (PFS 4353) and Fiedler Encores (PFS 4426), an album of the music of Sibelius, Smetana, Dvorak, Vaughan Williams and Charles Ives whose modernist ‘Variations on America’ should be called ‘Variations on England’ as it is the melody of ‘God Save the Queen’ that is played in its
various forms, first faithfully and then, less faithfully but with respectful fun.
Gershwin (PFS 4438) sees the music of George Gershwin given the Boston Pops treatment and they sound as competent playing more poppy stuff as they do on regular classical music.
Though it does not feature here, 'Summertime', from Porgy and Bess, is one of Gershwin's best known songs. This song has apparently been covered an incredible 33,000 times!
The song has appeared in the UK pop singles chart a handful of times by artists as diverse as Ella Fitzgerald and Fun Boy Three, who took it to No. 18 in 1982.
Porgy & Bess (PFS 4109) and Gershwin:
If you know anything about Porgy & Bess it is probably that it was written by George Gershwin… but it was nearly not so!
The popular musical stage show was taken from the novel, called simply ‘Porgy’, by Edwin DuBose Heyward. At the same time that Gershwin was mulling over the work required to produce the musical version, Al Jolson was too, only, Jolson had a comedy adaptation in mind. DuBose Heyward was under some financial pressure to achieve a quick response and it was Jolson who won out, Gershwin being too busy to begin working on it straight away. Well, it was a year and a bit later, by which time, the Al Jolson version had fallen through, that George Gershwin got the rights to begin work. This was made easier by George’s brother, Ira, who handled the reworking of DuBose Heyward’s words to something more singable, but still it took more than eighteen months to finish the work. When it was presented to the public, it had gained a couple of words to the title: said words were/are ‘and Bess’, added in order to distinguish it from the DuBose Heyward book.
Ah well, that will do for now, I reckon. See y'all next time.
Photographs of LP covers will be added as soon as I have them in the collection.
References available on request
Regarding the LP cover images, they are photographs of the records in my own collection and are taken by my own hand (which explains the slight wonkiness of some of them). All images should, however, be considered the property of Decca.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of any image in any form is prohibited.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the text in any form is prohibited, restricted by permission of the author.