10"

Tony has every Circus record ever.  Here’s “Circus Time Fun” on the fun Moppet Records label.  Musical Songs and Stories with the Tiny Town Orchestra!

“Ferias” NA ITALIA.  Vox records.  So good.  Check her out.  And the smoke trail from his pipe.  You don’t see illustration much these days.  Certainly not like this.

The Dave Brubeck Octet on Fantasy. #3-3 (1950)  “Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals”  Cool fifties modern art.

Brubeck, Desmond, Tjader with Bill Smith, David Van Kriedt, Dick Collins, Bob Collins and Jack Weeks.  “The Way You Look Tonight”, “Love Walked In”, What Is This Thing Called Love”, September in the Rain”, “Prelude”, “Fugue on Bop Themes”,  “Let’s Fall in Love” and “IPCA”.

“What Flying Saucers Did to the Female Sex!’ A Bert Tenzer production. (1962)

“Music for Jennifer”  Selections from the Motion Pictures of Jennifer Jones by Paul Weston and his Orchestra on Columbia.

“Songs We Remember” One of a series of “Background Music” records on Capitol. “Music blended to mix graciously with social gatherings”

Storyville presents Jackie and Roy. Burt Goldblatt design. (1955)

It’s hard to go wrong with the jazz vocals of husband and wife team Jackie & Roy. After joining forces in 1946, they joined Charlie Ventura a couple years later. Shortly after leaving Ventura in June 1949, they were married and worked together on a regular basis for the next fifty years. Jackie and Roy had their own television show in Chicago in the fifties, worked in Las Vegas during 1957-1960, and settled in New York in 1963. Working in a mode that was deeply informed by bop, Jackie and Roy hit vocal lines that only the hippest of the fifties singers could match. Some cuts on this Storyville 10″ feature scatting, others vocalese, and still others just great straight-up readings of the lyrics. The small combo features Roy on piano, Barry Galbraith on guitar, Bill Crow on bass, and Joe Morello on drums. Titles include “Slowly”, “Thou Swell”, “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was”, “Cheerful Little Earful”, “Hook Line & Sinker”, and “Yesterdays”.

Having raided and fully absorbed my step-father’s one cabinet of records as a kid, I was familiar with a couple Jackie and Roy records growing up. Listening to songs like “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” “Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block” and “You Smell So Good” didn’t win me any friends and fewer dates.

“Hank Jones’ Piano” (1947) A solo showcase produced by Norman Granz on Mercury Records. Jones is working solo throughout. Titles include “Blues For Lady Day”, “Tea For Two”, “You’re Blase”, “The Night We Called It Day”, “Yesterdays’ and “Blue Room”.

Thelonious Monk Plays.  Prestige Lp 189 with Percy Heath and Art Blakey. (1954 Session). Tracks are: “Work”, “Nutty”, “Blue Monk”. “Just a Gigalo”.

Work — Only recorded once, in a trio setting on September 22, 1954 (Prestige PRLP 189), Work is a dissonant, difficult, wild melodic ride that artists have been willing to take. The title speaks for itself. Besides Monk’s version of Work, for which he alone is responsible for stating the melody, one of the few musicians to take up the challenge was soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, who recorded it on his debut album (Prestige 7125) in November of 1957

Nutty — First recorded on September 22, 1954, in a trio setting with Percy Heath (bass) and Art Blakey (drums), “Nutty” was among Monk’s more popular tunes. Perhaps the most famous recording of it is with John Coltrane, July 1957 (Jazzland JLP[9]46). A few writers have strangely tried to link the title to Monk’s alleged state of mind (!), but any such claims betrays an ignorance of the “hip” lingo of the day. In the 1940s and 50s (and even later), “nutty” commonly meant “excellent” or “cool”-like “insane,” “mad,” and “crazy.

Blue Monk — Monk recorded “Blue Monk” more than any other composition besides “‘Round Midnight.” His first recording dates back to September 22, 1954 (Prestige PRLP 189 LP7027).  Abbey Lincoln added lyrics and recorded it under the title Monkery’s the Blues. Monk himself was summoned to the studio to hear Lincoln’s version and to get his blessings. He approved.

In the early 1950s Monk recorded four albums for Prestige. In 1953 Prestige released two 10-inch LPs, Thelonious Monk Trio (PRLP-142) and Thelonious Monk Quintet with Sonny Rollins and Julius Watkins (PRLP-166), the latter his trio (with drums and bass) augmented by Rollins’ tenor sax and Watkins’ French horn. In 1954 Prestige released two more 10-inch LPs, Thelonious Monk Quintet (PRLP-180), and Thelonious Monk Trio (PRLP-189). The material on these four 10-inch LPs was repackaged and reissued by Prestige on a series of 12-inch LPs in 1956 and 1957 (Thelonious Monk, PRLP-7027; Monk, PRLP-7053; Thelonious Monk/Sonny Rollins, PRLP-7075), which were themselves reissued with new titles and catalog numbers starting in 1959 and continuing into the mid-1960s (as Monk’s Moods, PRLP-7159, a reissue of 7027; Work, PRLP-7169, a reissue of 7075; and We See, PRLP-7245, a reissue of 7053). (We See was later again reissued as The Golden Monk, PRLP-7363; Monk’s Moods as The High Priest, PRLP-7508; and Work as The Genius of Thelonious Monk, PRST-7656 – in “electronically rechanneled” fake stereo.)

Notes courtesy Robin D.G. Kelley.

Another Yvette Horner record. This time her crazy dog has the accordion!

Riding Along with Miss Frances on Ding Dong School Records.

Tokyo Night Club  Armando Federico “in His Japanese Mood”   Victor Japan.

“Music for Morticians” “Les Pallbearer and His All-Ghoul Orchestra” This has to be one of my rarest records. I believe it was made as a goof by guys working in the design department at Capitol records Who knows how many were made.  It’s dated on the label 1951.  I’m assuming it’s them in the cover photo. I wonder who they got to be the corpse?! I’d love to hear from anyone who might know anything about it, though I imagine that’s unlikely. Still, a great cover and right in the spirit of our obsession.

“Whizzer”  “The Talking Airplane”  A singing and talking sound record by “Sonovox” on Jackalee Records.

“A Velha Guarda” on Sinter Records. Wow! What a sweet cover from Brazil in the fifties.

Par-dee Records.  These records came with, and were meant to be played as the soundtrack to, some 8mm movies from the National Films company (in Toledo, Ohio, don’t cha know).   We can only imagine what those films were since I only have the records.  Of course, the attraction for me are the vintage 1950’s graphics here.   Par-dee!!

This incredible, essential Sinatra Capitol 10″ includes “Violets for Your Furs,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” “I Get a Kick Out of Your” and other “Songs For Lovers” that set the standard for standards and provided the make-out soundtrack for a generation of bobby-sockers in the fifties. Nelson Riddle conducts! This one’s for Jerry who told me about Tom Waits on stage with a mini light post.

This 1950’s kiddie record, “The Ever-So-Many Amazing Adventures of Johnny” was put out by Atlantic Records and can play 256 different stories - a different story each time it’s played.