NRR Project: The International Sweethearts of Rhythm (1944-1946)

  

NRR Project: ‘Hottest Women’s Band of the 1940s’

Performed by the International Sweethearts of Rhythm

Recorded 1944-1946; released 1984

49:07

Wow! This is a real find.

This is the story of the first integrated all-female jazz band in the United States. And they were GOOD. Before you do anything else, listen to this recording – it swings like all get-out!

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were formed at the Piney Woods Country Life School in Mississippi in 1941. This group of young (14 to 19-years-old) musicians came together for a specific purpose – to raise money for the school. This they did, until they broke away from the institution and went professional.

Composed of white, Black, Latina, Asian, Native American, and Puerto Rican members, the group toured and performed with a 17-member conplement. They faced the usual trouble working for Southern audiences; many times, the white players would have to “black up” to make their performing possible. They were refused service at hotels and restaurants. They were paid miserably.

The group only stuck together for a few years. Deaths, marriages, the rigors of traveling, and other factors contributed to the group’s demise. By 1949, the band had broken up.

Thanks to jazz historian and producer Rosetta Reitz, archival recordings of the band via such mechanisms as the Armed Forces Radio Service were uncovered and committed to vinyl in 1984. Eighteen tracks are all that survive of their output, but it is enough. They were outstanding.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’.

NRR Project: Sister Rosetta Tharpe plays 'Down by the Riverside' (1944)

 

NRR Project: ‘Down by the Riverside’

American Spiritual

Performed by Sister Rosetta Tharpe with the Lucky Millinder Orchestra

Recorded 1944

3:04

“Sister” Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973) was nothing less than the wellspring of rock and roll. Her killer guitar work, coupled with her inventive, high-charged vocals, made musical history. She called rock and roll just sped-up rhythm and blues. She pioneered work on the electric guitar.

Rosetta Tharpe was a child prodigy from Cotton Plant, Arkansas who played guitar and sang gospel songs for years at the Church of God in Christ. In 1938, at age 23, she began to record for Decca. In this same year, her other gospel single, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” was a hit; this, too, proved popular.

Tharpe brings an overwhelming intensity to her performances. She is emphatic, precise; she can scat, she can warble. Her guitar work is rough, loud, nimble-fingered. She plays like someone who has had to play to lots of large live crowds. Her attack on a song is no-holds-barred; the church disapproved of some of her more secular hits as “I Want a Tall Skinny Papa.”

By and large, though, what she performed was a sacred music transformed by her in accordance with the driving rhythms of urgency, a blues sensibility, and virtuoso sing-shouting that became the voice that rockers aspired to but could not imitate. She mixes together the best of everything; she is sui generis.

Here, she begins to skit-scat through the lyrics about halfway through, then takes a guitar break that is tough, that swings. That break would influence countless guitarists.

As she moves to the climax of the song, she burns even hotter. She moves to full-on vocalese, a kind of speechful speechlessness that is the stuff of gospel and jazz and rock. The phrase “ain’t gonna study war no more” is powerful because it is for meant for real. It has conviction, and it is repeated with a vibrant insistence unfound elsewhere.

Her 2003 compilation “The Gospel of the Blues” gives you all of her best work. She was decades ahead of her time. In 1998, she belatedly appeared on a 32-cent stamp.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.

 

NRR Project: 'Ac-cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive’ (Oct. 4, 1944)

 

NRR Project: ‘Ac-cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive’

Music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by Johnny Mercer

Sung by Johnny Mercer

Recorded Oct. 4, 1944

2:48

Johnny Mercer (1909-1976). What a giant. He was a famed lyricist, honored songwriter, popular singer. He co-founded Capitol Records. He won four Oscars for Best Original Song. He was nominated 19 times.

What did he write, or have a hand in writing? Some are “I’m an Old Cowhand,” “Too Marvelous for Words,” “Hooray for Hollywood,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “Blues in the Night,” “One for My Baby,” “That Old Black Magic,” “Laura,” “Autumn Leaves,” “On the Atcheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe,” “I Remember You”. He worked on around 1,500 songs. (He also had an affair when he was 35, married, and a new child – with a 19-year-old Judy Garland.)

And he sang. Mercer was hip, he was from Savannah, Georgia. He had a comical drawl he would fall into when he sang that was folksy and charming. He could sell his songs, so they put him in front of a microphone at let him do his stuff.

The song is framed as a bluesy sermon:

“Gather 'round me, everybody

Gather 'round me while I'm preachin'

Feel a sermon comin' on me

The topic will be sin and that's what I'm ag'in'

If you wanna hear my story

The settle back and just sit tight

While I start reviewin’

The attitude of doin' right

 

You've got to accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

And latch on to the affirmative

Don't mess with Mister In-Between

 

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum

Bring gloom down to the minimum

Have faith or pandemonium's

Liable to walk upon the scene

 

To illustrate my last remark

Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark

What did they do just when everything looked so dark?

 

(Man, they said "We'd better accentuate the positive")

("Eliminate the negative")

("And latch on to the affirmative")

Don't mess with Mister In-Between (No!)

Don't mess with Mister In-Between!”

Mercer sells it with a sincere, super- cool delivery. In the throes of World War II, songs like this were a comfort to folks at home. Looking up and staying brave were character traits stressed at the time. The Allies were looking close to conquering Germany in the fall of 1944; the Battle of the Bulge would ignite in December. The nation wanted to believe that right made might, a continental myth of martial prowess combined with virtue that would come to paper over many a fault.

So Mercer gives us a feel-good toe-tapper that’s catchy and emblematic of the call to think positively in the face of international tragedy. It’s an aural pick-me-up.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and ‘Down by the Riverside.’

NRR Project: Leonard Bernstein's debut conducting the New York Philharmonic (Nov. 14, 1943)

 

NRR Project: Leonard Bernstein’s debut with the New York Philharmonic

Nov. 14, 1943

Leonard Bernstein is the best-known and most honored conductor in American history. His commanding presence, supreme interpretive skills, and ease of communication made him a master of classical music in performance. He vaulted to overnight fame after this concert.

Bernstein was a newly hired, 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. On Nov. 14, 1943, a Sunday afternoon concert by the orchestra was scheduled at New York’s Carnegie Hall, set to be broadcast live on CBS radio. The guest conductor, Bruno Walter, became ill. The Philharmonic’s regular conductor, Arthur Rodzinski, was snowed in miles from the venue. It was up to Bernstein to lead the orchestra – without a single rehearsal.

Bernstein delivered. The program featured Schmann’s “Manfred” Overture, Rozsa’s Theme, Variations, and Finale, Strauss’ “Don Quixote,” and Wagner’s Prelude to “Die Meistersinger.” Hearing the selections today, it is remarkable how assured he seems with these not-so-easy pieces. The orchestra responds magnificently to his direction. The audience in the hall and those listening at home were amazed by Bernstein’s confidence and vitality. He received the plaudits of the crowd.

Bernstein would go on to become the music director of the orchestra, and would play world-wide. His numerous televised Concerts for Young People turned a whole generation of children onto classical music. Then, as a composer he created everything from symphonies to choral works to musicals such as On the Town and West Side Story. His remarkable career started with this pinch-hit triumph, which propelled him to the headlines of newspapers around the country.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Johnny Mercer sings ‘Ac-cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive’.

NRR Project: Horowitz/Toscanini, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 (April 23, 1943)

 

NRR Project: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 23, B-flat Minor

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Vladimir Horowitz, piano; Arturo Toscanini; conductor; NBC Symphony Orchestra

Recorded April 25, 1943

31:27

I simply can’t do better than Caesare Civetta’s essay at the National Recording Registry.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Leonard Bernstein’s debut.

NRR Project: Mary Margaret McBride interviews Zora Neale Huston (Jan. 25, 1943)

NRR Project: “Mary Margaret McBride” – McBride interviews Zora Neale Hurston (Jan. 25, 1943)

45 min.

This is another entry I can’t explore as a recording is not available. Read Cary O’Dell’s excellent essay at the National Recording Registry.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 23, B-flat Minor. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Vladimir Horowitz, piano; Arturo Toscanini; conductor; NBC Symphony Orchestra. (April 25, 1943)

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NRR Project: 'Straighten Up and Fly Right' (Nov. 30, 1943)

 

NRR Project: “Straighten Up and Fly Right”

Written by Nat ‘King’ Cole and Irving Mills

Performed by the King Cole Trio

Recorded Nov. 30, 1943

2:26

It’s important to know that Nat ‘King’ Cole was originally renowned for his piano playing, not his smooth, warm, and effortless voice.

Beginning in the early ‘40s, Cole was renowned as a session pianist whose playing constituted part of the West Coast bebop movement. Cole’s clear, crisp attack is clear as a bell, melodic and measured.

At the same time, he became the “name” in the trio that also included the sensational Oscar Moore on guitar and Wesley Prince on bass. In 1940, they scored a hit with “Sweet Lorraine.” These three produced immensely pleasurable numbers, including “Route 66” and “Too Marvelous for Words.”

“Straighten Up and Fly Right” was Cole’s and Irving Mills composition, a little musical fable rendered in a catchy swing arrangement.

“A buzzard took a monkey for a ride in the air

The monkey thought that everything was on the square

The buzzard tried to throw the monkey off his back

But the monkey grabbed his neck and said, ‘Now listen, Jack’

 

Straighten up and fly right

Straighten up and stay right

Straighten up and fly right

Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top

 

Ain't no use in divin'

What's the use in jivin'?

Straighten up and fly right

Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top

 

The buzzard told the monkey

You are chokin' me

Release your hold and I'll set you free

The monkey looked the buzzard right

Dead in the eye and said

"Your story's so touching, but it sounds

Just like a lie"

Straighten up and stay right

Straighten up and fly right

Cool down, papa, don't you blow your top

Fly right!”

It was a big hit for the trio. Sadly, Cole had sold his rights to the song for $50 in the late 1930s. By 1950, Cole was on his own and working primarily as a singer, although he could get to a piano bench and accompany himself expertly.

His career was marred by racism. Throughout the 1950s, he consistently charted with his velvety ballads, but he suffered from racial prejudice as well. Ahead of his time, he hosted the first variety show featuring a Black man, albeit for one brief season. He was only 46 years old when he died in 1965 from lung cancer.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: “Mary Margaret McBride” – McBride interviews Zora Neale Hurston.