Saturday, September 23, 2017

1941-1942 Time Life - The Swing Era Part 1

This week I going back to the past shows archive to play another program in the Time Life series. I am working on some new shows for the upcoming weeks and needed a little time to work on them. This week we highlight songs from the years of 1941 and 1942. These sets have been a listening favorite of mine since I discovered some of them at the library many years ago. The recreations were by the bands of Glenn Gray and Billy May with some of the original artists recreating their big hits. I thought it would be fun following the play order but instead of the recreations I am playing the originals if I could find it. I hope you enjoy this potpourri of songs from 1941-1942.

Here is the original cover from the vinyl set. 

Also, here is the set list from the 1941-1942 volume. I will be playing as many of the original recordings as I can


STL-346 - The Swing Era 1941-1942: Swing as a Way of Life - Billy May & His Orchestra/Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra [1972] A String of Pearls/Don't Sit under the Apple Tree/Warm Valley/Swing Low, Sweet Chariot/Flying Home//Jersey Bounce/I Cried for You/Basic Boogie/Charleston Alley/Air Mail Special//9:20 Special/The Man I Love/Summit Ridge Drive/Aidos/Golden Wedding//Beyond the Blue Horizon/Chattanooga Choo Choo/Autumn Nocturne/Benny Glides Again//The Mole/A Smo-o-th One/Blue Flame/Well, Git It!/Perdido//Song of the Volga Boatman/Contrasts/Strictly Instrumental/Dancing in the Dark/American Patrol

For a complete listing of all the volumes in the Swing Era sets go to    http://www.bsnpubs.com/warner/time-life/04swing/04swing.html

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Helen Forrest - A 100th Birthday Salute

She was one of the greatest singers of the big band era. She sang with three of the most popular big bands. Her name is Helen Forrest and she was born on April 12, 1917. I missed her birthday back in April so today we are going to be listening to some of the many sides that Helen recorded with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Harry James. When she left the James band Helen went on to a very successful solo career. She died in 1999. I hope you enjoy this birthday salute to the great Helen Forrest. Tune in tonight for Big Band Bash only on KTXK stereo 91.5 Texarkana Fine Arts Radio. Sign up for the Big Band Bash podcast on ITunes if you can't tune in or listen on line at TuneIn.com.
Thanks so much for listening.

Here is a short biography of Helen from Allmusic.com:


One of the more popular big-band-era singers, a performer that some might not consider a jazz vocalist, but one with exceptional ability to project lyrics and also an excellent interpreter. Forrest used several names early in her career, among them the Blue Lady and Bonnie Blue.
She began singing in her brother's band in Washington, D.C., then was featured in Artie Shaw's band after Billie Holiday left in 1938. Forrest joined Benny Goodman when Shaw disbanded in 1939, staying until 1941. She recorded with Nat King Cole's trio and Lionel Hampton in 1940, then began to score hits working with the Harry James orchestra. During the early '40s, she had string of successes. Later she teamed with Dick Haymes on his radio show and on six duets that were big hits. Forrest cut back her activity in the '50s, then sang with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra led by Sam Donahue in the early '60s. She continued to work on the club circut in the '70s and '80s, making a new album for Stash in 1983. Forrest died July 11, 1999 at age 82.
 Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Forrest for a more complete biography as well as a listing of charted singles.





Saturday, September 9, 2017

Larry Elgart - A Tribute

We lost another Big Band leader a few weeks ago. Larry Elgart was 95 when he passed away at his home in Florida. Larry, who led a big band with his brother, was a fine alto saxophonist and composer. He had a big hit in 1982 with a medley of big band hits set to a disco beat. It was called Hooked On Swing, a companion piece to Hooked on Classics. I'll be playing one of these selections at the close of the show.

Here's a little background about Larry from his New York Times obituary:

Larry Elgart, a bandleader who, with his brother, Les, recorded the theme song for the long-running television dance show “American Bandstand,” and who later scored a surprise hit with “Hooked on Swing,” a medley of swing classics set to a disco beat, died on Tuesday in Sarasota Fla. He was 95.
The death was confirmed by his wife, Lynn Elgart.

After playing alto saxophone with Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey and other bands, Mr. Elgart teamed up with Les, his older brother, to record a series of successful albums for Columbia that brought swing music into the 1950s and beyond.

Taking advantage of advances in recording technology, he developed a distinctive “Elgart sound, which emphasized tight choreography between the silky-smooth saxophone section and the rich, brilliant horns, to which he added two bass trombones. He lightened up the rhythm section, replacing piano with guitar, and cut back on improvised solos.

“The end result was a conversation,” Mr. Elgart wrote in a memoir, “The Music Business & the Monkey Business” (2014), written with his wife. “The saxes spoke and the brass answered, then they all talked together. Having no doubles with clarinets, flutes, etc., in the reed section, the band had even more clarity.”

The album “Sophisticated Swing was released in 1953, with the band touted as “America’s College Prom Favorite.” The Les Elgart Orchestra, renamed the Les and Larry Elgart Orchestra two years later, found a lucrative niche performing at school dances, a role reflected in their albums “Prom Date” (1954) and “Campus Hop” (1954).

In 1954, while touring the country to promote their records, the brothers met Bob Horn, the host of “Bandstand,” a teenage dance show in Philadelphia. Les Elgart proposed that the brothers record a theme song. “Bandstand Boogie” was the result. Two years later, Dick Clark took over as host of the renamed “American Bandstand,” and ABC picked up the show for national broadcast. “Bandstand Boogie” became an anthem for generations of teenagers.

In 1982, Mr. Elgart rode the disco wave with “Hooked on Swing.” Heading an ensemble called the Manhattan Swing Orchestra, he blended “Cherokee,” “Sing, Sing, Sing,” “A String of Pearls” and other big-band standards into a tasty disco stew that cracked the Top 40.

“Many people tell me that they listen to it while running, walking or doing water aerobics,” he told The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., in 1999.

Lawrence Joseph Elgart was born on March 20, 1922, in New London, Conn., and spent most of his childhood in Pompton Lakes, N.J. His father, Arthur, and his mother, the former Bessie Aisman, worked a variety of jobs to make ends meet during the Depression.

Larry took up the clarinet at 9 and later taught himself to play the flute, but it was the alto saxophone that was his ticket to fame. After studying with Hymie Shertzer, the lead alto with Benny Goodman, he was hired at 17 by the bandleader Charlie Spivak.

In 1945 he and his brother, a trumpeter, formed their own ensemble, paying top-drawer talent like Nelson Riddle, Bill Finegan and Ralph Flanagan to write their arrangements. The band failed commercially, and after selling their arrangements to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the brothers returned to being sidemen.

While playing in the pit of the Broadway show “Top Banana” in 1951, Mr. Elgart met the composer and saxophonist Charles Albertine. The two collaborated on the experimental album “Impressions of Outer Space,” released by Brunswick in 1953.


 The brothers drifted apart and reunited several times over the years. “I never agreed with him musically,” Mr. Elgart told The Morning Call. “He was more trouble than anything else.”


In the early 1960s, however, they found a new formula for success by reworking pop hits on such albums as “Big Band Hootenanny” (1963), “Elgart au Go-Go” (1965) and “Girl Watchers” (1967). Les Elgart died in 1995.

Besides his wife, the former Lynn Walzer, Mr. Elgart, who lived in Longboat Key, Fla., is survived by two sons, Brock and Brad; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His first marriage ended in divorce.