Welcome to the 2023 series of the music column where I am joined as always by Jazz singer and composer William Price King. We hope you will join us every Tuesday for some of the chart hits of the big band era from the 1930s through to the 1950s.
Some of the earlier videos are not of the best quality however where possible we have sourced remastered copies to share with you. Considering some are almost 100 years old, it is remarkable that they exist at all. A testament to the love of the music of that era. Along with our selections each week we will also be showcasing one of the dance crazes from the 1920s onwards and as with the music videos some are not of the highest quality and in some cases I have substituted more modern versions.
Here is my next selection from the Big Band chart in the 1930s from Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey with Jack Leonard “Marie” (1937)
“ Marie” was penned by Irving Berlin in 1929 as a waltz (3/4). This song was a hit for Rudy Vallée in 1929. In 1937 Tommy Dorsey did a four-quarter time (4/4) swing arrangement and had an even bigger hit. One of the best moments in this recording is Bunny Berigan’s trumpet solo, which has been admired, studied and played (more often attempted) by hundreds if not thousands of trumpeters since this record was released in early 1937. “Marie” topped the Billboard charts at #1 Jazz Standards and Swing Blues Jazz 78 RPM
Here is my next selection from this era of popular music from Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington “Caravan” (1937)
“Caravan” is an American jazz standard that was composed by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington and first performed by Ellington in 1936. Irving Mills wrote lyrics, but they are rarely sung. The exotic sound of “Caravan” interested exotica musicians; Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, and Gordon Jenkins all covered it. Woody Allen used the song in two of his films, Alice and Sweet and Lowdown. Steven Soderbergh used the Lyman version in his 2001 film Ocean’s Eleven. The song appears often in the 2014 film Whiplash as an important plot element. The Big Band Channel
The Black Bottomis a dance which became popular during 1920s amid the Jazz Age. It was danced solo or by couples. Originating among African Americans in the rural South, the black bottom eventually spread to mainstream American culture and became a national craze in the 1920s. The dance was most famously performed by Ann Pennington, a star of the Ziegfeld Follies, who performed it in a Broadway revue staged by Ziegfeld’s rival George White in 1926 maynardcat
Your Hosts for The Big Band Era
William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.
His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.
While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.
Sally Cronin is an author, blogger and broadcasterwho enjoyed four years as part of the team on Onda Cero International’s English speaking morning show in Marbella and then for two years as a presenter on Expressfm the local radio station in Portsmouth. She co-presented two ‘Drive Time’ shows a week with Adrian Knight, hosted the live Thursday Afternoon Show and The Sunday Morning Show guests including musicians and authors. Following this she became Station Director for a local internet television station for two years, producing and presenting the daily news segment, outside broadcasts and co-presenting the Adrian and Sally chat show live on Friday evenings.
She and her husband David have now returned to Ireland where they live on the Wexford Coast where she blogs and continues to write books.
Welcome to our show and whilst there has been some great music since 2005, we felt that hits from the 40s and 50s deserved a showcase from now to the end of the year and we hope you will enjoy.
Here is my first selection of top 1940s hits which I hope you will enjoy.
The Andrew Sisters – Rhumboogie
The Andrews Sisters (Laverne, Maxena, and Patricia) were a highly successful singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. Throughout their career they sold well over 75 million records. “Rhumboogie” is from the 1940 film “Argentine Nights” directed by Albert S. Rowell, produced by Universal Pictures and starring The Andrew Sisters, The Ritz Brothers, and George Reeves.
News Event – April 28th 1940 Glenn Miller records “Pennsylvania 6-5000”
Woodie Guthrie – This land is your land
Folk singer Woodie Guthrie wrote “This land is your land” in 1940 as a critical response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” which he thought was too patriotic and too cut off from the hard-knock life many Americans were facing during the Great Depression. The song reflected not only Guthrie’s support for the common folk, but also expressed his deep love for his country while driving home the populist sentiment that the nation belonged to all the people, not merely the rich and powerful. In 2002, “This Land Is Your Land” was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
News event – July 20th 1940 Billboard publishes its 1st singles record chart (#1 is “I’ll Never Smile Again” by Tommy Dorsey)
Now time for my first picks from the 1940s all tunes that were played in our home by my parents who were wonderful dancers and fans of the old musicals.
Artie Shaw – Frenesi
“Frenesí” is a musical piece originally composed by Alberto Domínguez Borrás for the marimba, and adapted as a jazz standard by Leonard Whitcup and others.
A hit version recorded by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra (with an arrangement by William Grant Still) reached number one on the Billboard pop chart on December 21, 1940, staying for 13 weeks, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1982
News Event: November 13th 1940 Walt Disney’s animated film “Fantasia”, starring Leopold Stokowski, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Mickey Mouse, and ballet dancing hippopotamuses, premieres at the Broadway Theatre, New York City
Duke Ellington – Take the A Train
“Take the ‘A’ Train” is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that was the signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra. Composed in 1939, after Ellington offered Strayhorn a job in his organization and gave him money to travel from Pittsburgh to New York City. Ellington wrote directions for Strayhorn to get to his house by subway, directions that began, “Take the A Train”. Although Strayhorn said he wrote lyrics for it, the recorded first lyrics were composed by, or for, the Delta Rhythm Boys.
The lyrics used by the Ellington band were added by Joya Sherrill, who was 20 at the time (1944). She made up the words at her home in Detroit, while the song played on the radio. Her father, a noted Detroit activist, set up a meeting with Ellington. Owing to Joya’s remarkable poise and singing ability and her unique take on the song, Ellington hired her as a vocalist and adopted her lyrics.
News Event: February 15th 1941 Greek-American singer Maria Callas makes her professional opera debut as Beatrice, in Franz von Suppé’s “Boccaccio” at the Olympia Theatre in Athens, Greece
William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.
His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.
While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.
Sally Cronin is an author, blogger and broadcasterwho enjoyed four years as part of the team on Onda Cero International’s English speaking morning show in Marbella and then for two years as a presenter on Expressfm the local radio station in Portsmouth. She co-presented two ‘Drive Time’ shows a week with Adrian Knight, hosted the live Thursday Afternoon Show and The Sunday Morning Show guests including musicians and authors. Following this she became Station Director for a local internet television station for two years, producing and presenting the daily news segment, outside broadcasts and co-presenting the Adrian and Sally chat show live on Friday evenings.
She and her husband David have now returned to Ireland where they live on the Wexford Coast where she blogs and continues to write books.
Welcome to the first of William Price King’s music columns for 2019. And today he is sharing the work of the iconic Duke Ellington, composer, pianist and Jazz orchestra leader for over 50 years.
Edward ‘Duke’ Ellington was born in 1899 in Washington D.C. to James and Daisy who were both pianists. At the age of seven, Edward began taking piano lessons and with his mother’s guidance began to adopt an elegant and well-mannered approach to life. Daisy dressed him with style, which resulted in his childhood friends calling him ‘Duke’, a nickname that stuck with him throughout his career. Despite Daisy’s efforts, Duke preferred baseball over the piano… and whilst at high school is first job was selling peanuts at the Washington Senators baseball games.
At age 15 and working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Duke wrote his first composition “Soda Fountain Rag”… also known as “Poodle Dog Rag”.
“I would play the ‘Soda Fountain Rag’ as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango and fox-trot”, Ellington recalled. “Listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was established as having my own repertoire.” In his autobiography, Music is my Mistress (1973), Ellington wrote that he missed more lessons than he attended, feeling at the time that playing the piano was not his talent.
Ellington started sneaking into Frank Holiday’s Poolroom at the age of fourteen. Hearing the poolroom pianists play ignited Ellington’s love for the instrument, and he began to take his piano studies seriously. Duke began listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not only in Washington, D.C., but in Philadelphia and Atlantic City,where he vacationed with his mother during the summer months.
To improve his technique he took private lessons and he was also inspired by his first encounters with James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Eventually he began playing in cafes and clubs around Washington and it became his focus and he turned down a scholarship in 1916 to the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York. To pay the bills Duke worked as a freelance sign-painter and began assembling groups to play for dances. In 1919 he met drummer Sonny Greer from New Jersey, who encouraged Duke to become a professional musician. His career was helped by his growing sign-writing business as he would offer his services to anyone who asked him to make a sign for a party or an event.
He formed his first group “The Duke’s Serenaders” in 1917 and from the mid- 1920s he was based in New York City where he gained a national profile through his orchestra’s appearances at the world famous “Cotton Club”.
Although widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase “beyond category” as a liberating principle and referred to his music as part of the more general category of American Music rather than to a musical genre such as jazz.
Some of the jazz musicians who were members of Ellington’s orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in the idiom. Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, with many of his pieces having become standards. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizol’s “Caravan”, and “Perdido”, which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. In the early 1940s,
Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, as well as additional short pieces.
Following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in several films, scored several, and composed a handful of stage musicals.
Ellington was noted for his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and for his eloquence and charisma. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Award for music in 1999.
Here are some of only a few of the exceptional pieces written by Duke Ellington.
“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” written in 1931 by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Irving Mills was characterized as a legendary, prophetic piece with a prophetic title, by historian Gunther Schiller. Critic Spike Hughes called Ellington a prophet. Nonetheless, Ellington was not a fan of reading too much into a song.
However, this song took Ellington out of the category of being simply a ‘bandleader’ and elevated him to the league of ‘composers’. According to trumpetist Bubber Miley, this song was the expression of a sentiment which prevailed among jazz musicians at that time and has since been covered by practically all of the jazz greats, including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Nina Simone, and Lionel Hampton.
“Sophisticated Lady”, composed as an instrumental mood piece by Duke Ellington in 1932, featured solos by Toby Hardwick on alto sax, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Lawrence Brown on trombone, and Ellington on piano. This recording entered the charts in May 1933 and peaked at number three. The tune was actually a composite musical sketch of three women, three of young Ellington’s grade school teachers in the U Street neighborhood of Washington D.C. Ellington said: “They taught all winter and toured Europe in the summer. To me that spelled sophistication.”
Tin Pan Alley lyricist Mitchell Parish (Stardust, Ruby, Moonlight Serenade ) added words to Ellington’s melody, telling a story of a wealthy, love-lost socialite. Ellington accepted Parish’s lyrics, though they did not entirely fit his original conception. “Sophisticated Lady “ was featured in the musical revue “Sophisticated Ladies” on Broadway in 1981 which celebrated the work of Duke Ellington. This song also appeared on the soundtrack of the 1989/90 documentary “Sophisticated Lady”, celebrating the life of singer Adelaide Hall, who recorded with Ellington in 1927, 1932, and 1933.
“ Prelude to a Kiss” Ellington’s success allowed him the privilege of becoming more ambitious and experimental in his compositions, thus abandoning the « Tin Pan Alley »* style hooks and dance tempos for melodic lines and harmonies mostly found in classical music. The result was « Prelude To a Kiss. » Its blending of classical and jazz sensibilities contributed to the song’s originality and splendor. This song was originally recorded as an instrumental in 1938. Weeks later, Ellington recorded it again, adding lyrics by Irving Gordon and Irving Mills.
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century – a reference to the sound of pianos, comparing them to the banging of tin pans, coming from songwriters modifying their pianos to produce a more percussive sound.
“Take the ‘A’ Train” is a 1939 composition by Billy Strayhorn which referred to the ‘A’ subway service that ran through NYC, going at that time from eastern Brooklyn, on the Fulton Street Line (opened in 1936) up into Harlem and northern Manhattan, using the Eighth Avenue Line which was opened in 1932. Strayhorn wrote this piece after Ellington offered him a job in his organization. Ellington sent him directions to get to his house by subway, directions that began with “Take the ‘A’ Train… “. Strayhorn initially wrote the lyrics to this song which was recorded by the Delta Rhythm Boys. Later, Joya Sherrill, 20 years old at the time, wrote new lyrics for the instrumental version of this piece. Thanks to her poise, vocal ability and her unique take on the song, Ellington hired her as a vocalist and adopted her lyrics which became the main stay.
“Satin Doll” was written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in 1953, with lyrics added after the song was a hit in its instrumental version, by Johnny Mercer. According to Mercer Ellington, the Duke’s son, his father wrote “ Satin Doll “ for his longtime mistress Bea ‘Evie’ Ellis. Capitol Records released this song in 1953, peaking at #27 on Billboard’s Pop chart. This piece is well known in musical circles for its unusual use of chords, and its opening with a turnaround.* Ellington used “Satin Doll” as the closing number in most of his concerts.
In jazz, a turnaround is usually the two measures at the end of a section of music whose function is to help you segue into the next section of music creating a strong sense of forward motion, harmonically.
William Price King is an American jazz singer, crooner, and composer.
His interest in music began at an early age when he studied piano and clarinet in high school. At Morehouse College in Atlanta where he grew up, he sang in the Glee Club and studied classical music. After graduation he went off to the Yale School of Music where he earned a Masters degree. From there he journeyed to New York where he created a jazz trio ‘Au Naturel’ which performed in some of the hottest venues in Manhattan including gigs on Broadway and the famous ‘Rainbow Room.’ These gigs opened doors for performances in Montreal and a European tour.
While touring Europe he met a lovely French lady, Jeanne Maïstre, who, a year later became his wife. King left the group ‘Au Naturel’ and settled in the south of France where he started a new life on the French Riviera, opening his own music school – the “Price King Ecole Internationale de Chant.” He has had the pleasure over the years of seeing many of his students excel as singers on a professional level, and some going on to become national celebrities. He continues to coach young singers today, in his spare time.
His debut jazz album was entitled “Home,” and was a collection of contemporary compositions he composed, with lyrics written by his wife Jeanne King. His second album was a Duo (Voice and Guitar) with Eric Sempé on the guitar. This album included original songs as well as well known standards from contemporary jazz and pop artists. The “King-Sempé” duo toured France and thrilled audiences for more than three years before going their separate ways. King has formed a new duo with French/Greek guitarist Manolis, and is now exploring new ideas, in a smooth jazz/soul/folk direction.
In addition to singing and composing, King has been collaborating with author Sally Cronin over the past few years on her blog “Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life,” with the series “A Man And His Music – Jazz, Contemporary, Classical, and Legends” and now, the “William Price King Music Column.” Working with author Sally Cronin has been an exhilarating experience in many ways and has brought a new dimension to King’s creative life. King has also created a micro blog, “Improvisation,” which features and introduces mostly jazz artists from across the jazz spectrum who have made considerable contributions in the world of jazz; and also artwork from painters who have made their mark in the world of art. This micro blog can be found on Tumblr.
His vocal mentors are two of the greatest giants in jazz, Nat King Cole and Mel Tormé. King has a distinctive wide-ranging voice which displays a remarkable technical facility and emotional depth.
Christina Strigas is a Montreal, Greek-Canadian, who has self-published three novels. a trilogy based upon the real life of Zaharoula Sarakinis, a spiritual healer.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine 