NRR Project: 'Tubby the Tuba' (1950)

 

NRR Project: “Tubby the Tuba”

Music: George Kleinsinger; words: Paul Tripp

Narrated by Victor Jory

Recorded 1945

11:50

This pleasant entry is masterfully written about by Cary O’Dell at the National Recording Registry – you can read that here.

The idea of creating pedagogical compositions to familiarize children with musical instruments is not new. Prokofiev did it with Peter and the Wolf; Benjamin Britten would do it later with his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. This cheerful and chipper story is meant to be a non-intimidating introduction to the orchestra.

It succeeds in the context of a modern fairy tale, written in imitation of Andersen’s Ugly Duckling. Tubby the Tuba is tired of playing just accompaniment and wants to play a melody of his own. He is mocked for this. Disconsolate, he goes to a river – and there finds a frog who also feels left out musically. Together, they create a basso melody that Tubby then takes back to the orchestra.

Fortunately, the great conductor Pizzicato recognizes the value of Tubby’s tune, and the other instruments join in and fill out the orchestration. Everyone is happy! Tubby the Tuba has been recorded many times since, but here is the original rendition, featuring the narration of character actor Victor Jory.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: On a Note of Triumph.

NRR Project: Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (April 25 - June 26, 1945)

 

NRR Project: Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization

Recorded April 25 to June 26, 1945

These recordings are another resource that is on file but not readily available to the public. First, read Brandon Burke’s excellent essay on this entry at the National Recording Registry.

As World War II drew to a close, the victors once again strove to create a governing body for all the nations of the world. This had been attempted previously, with the League of Nations after World War I , but that organization proved ineffective. Now the Allies convened in San Francisco in 1945 to found the United Nations.

NBC Radio covered the proceedings, and the audio was recorded onto disc and stored for future reference. The conferrals are all there for the scholar to examine.

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

NRR Project: Arthur Godfrey broadcasts FDR's funeral procession (April 14, 1945)

 

NRR Project: The funeral of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Broadcast April 14, 1945

 Before everyone asked where you were when Kennedy was shot, they asked you where you were when you found out that Roosevelt died.

He was my father’s President. From two years before his birth to the age of 12, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in his White House. He governed enthusiastically, dynamically, some say with a heavy-handed imperiousness. Het got us through the Depression, and largely through World War II. His mythic weight, multiplied by his radio addresses and public speeches, marked him as an articulate and thoughtful President.

That being said, I can’t access the recording involved. Arthur Godfrey was the morning guy at the CBS radio affiliate WJSV, in Washington, D.C.  (Read about Godfrey’s performance on the full day of WJSV recording in possession of the Registry essay I wrote.)

Godfrey, using his unique technique of relaxed folksiness and emotional honesty, described Roosevelt’s funeral procession from the top of a nearby bank building. Godfrey broke down, and switched the show back to the studio. Read Christopher H. Sterling’s account of it here.

It was a genuinely moving tribute to one of the Twentieth Century’s essential individuals. Godfrey’s broadcast elevated him to star status.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on International Organization.

NRR Project: 'The Guiding Light' (Nov. 22, 1945)

 

Irna Phillips

NRR Project: “The Guiding Light”

Created by Irna Phillips and Emmons Carlson

Broadcast Nov. 22, 1945

14 min.

It was the longest-running scripted show in electric media’s history. This soap opera, 15 minutes Monday through Friday, debuted on NBC Radio on January 5, 1937. It moved to CBS Radio in 1947, continuing even after the TV version began its broadcast on June 30, 1952. (For four years, the performers did it twice: once for the microphone, once for the camera.) The video incarnation lasted until Sept. 18, 2009.

It is difficult to conceive how prevalent the soap opera has been, from its beginning in early network radio. It was the great progenitor, Irna Phillips, who launched the genre with Painted Dreams in 1930. Phillips would create many more, including this show, As the World Turns and Another World. She was a genius at spawning a drama that would move forward with various and interconnecting emotional dramas, eking out mileage from conflicts, misunderstanding, and the woes of the fated, that were designed to amuse bored housewives during the day.

Looking at a schedule of daily broadcasts, it is instructive to see that soaps dominate the hours between the morning news and the afternoon kids’ shows. Some titles: Adopted Daughter, Backstage Wife, John’s Other Wife, Life Can Be Beautiful, Myrt and Marge, The Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters.

Phillips produced her own stuff, then sold it to sponsors and the networks. She somehow wrote (or rather dictated) 30,000 words a week, composing multiple series simultaneously, keeping things clear with charts. For a time, she had the inhabitants of three different soaps – Guiding Light, The Woman in White, and Today’s Children – interpenetrate each others’ stories.

At the show’s beginning, its protagonist was Rev. John Ruthledge, who ministered to the folk of “Five Points” in Chicago. He and his daughter Mary (the great Mercedes McCambridge) interacted with the parish, and the usual heavy drama ensued, year after year, effortlessly making the move to television.

Karen Fishman’s story about this entry is top-notch and must be referred to. She has heard the actual episode and I have not. It takes the form of a Thanksgiving sermon, the first since the end of the war. Fishman quotes from it extensively: it is well worth a read. The gist of it is the reaffirmation of the spirit of brotherhood in mankind. Such noble sentiments are true and good, even if unenforceable. However, it reflects a time during which America was seen as the moral conscience of the world, and could best deliver salvation thereunto through democracy and capitalism. We were sick of war; we really wanted the unification of the human race (well, except for with the godless Communists -- the Cold War was already brewing).

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: F.D.R.’s funeral.

NRR Project: Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics (July 8, 1945)

 

NRR Project: Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics

Broadcast July 8, 1945

Go to Cary O’Dell’s explanatory essay for not only an extensive outline of this entry but a look at the political uses of radio broadcasting during the period.

Fiorello LaGuardia (1882-1947) was an extraordinary politician who is most famous for serving as the mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He was progressive, reform-minded, gregarious, a natural and ebullient communicator.

Growing up, he worked all kinds of jobs. He earned a law degree and began to work in the system. He was the deputy attorney general of the state, and went on to serve as a Congressman, He won the mayoral election and got to work.

He was a little dynamo, a short, squat figure with tons of energy. He got the city back on its feet, helped the poor, improved the city’s infrastructure. He was an interventionist – he outlawed burlesque houses, pinball machines. When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were threatened by American Nazis over their creation of comic-book hero Captain America, LaGuardia provided protection for them.

Most memorably though it is his widely publicized reading of the comics to New York City’s children (over New York City’s radio station, WNYC) that he is remembered for. The reason for this was a strike by newspaper delivery personnel. LaGuardia disapproved; his solution to the deprivation of the funny papers to the children of the city was simple and direct – he read them to the kids.

Listening to an excerpt, it is clear LaGuardia was a practiced showman. With great enthusiasm he describes the panels from the cartoons and reads the dialogue, interrupting to editorialize about how a life in crime results in misery.

For three weeks, LaGuardia kept it up. And it was a political stunt, sure, another platform for the mayor to direct his beliefs through. But he was engaging.

The strike ended. Things got back to normal. But many would remember the chipper voice of New York’s “Little Flower” mayor breathlessly updating us to the status of Dick Tracy.

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 Guiding Light.’

NRR Project: 'Ko Ko' (November 26, 1945)

 

NRR Project: ‘Ko Ko’

Written by Charlie Parker

Performed by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Curley Russell, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie

Recorded Nov. 26, 1945

3:01

A new chapter in jazz starts here. Charlie Parker (1920-1955) is responsible.

The young saxophonist practiced incessantly and quickly became a virtuoso. However, he wanted more out of jazz than the usual melody-based improvisations. They were boring and predictable to him, and he longed to express a music that he heard but could not quite articulate.

"I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time,” he said, “and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it ... Well, that night I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.”

Parker’s ability to write new tunes over standard chord changes, his speed, his inventiveness, gave him the power to soar free above the musical conventions of the day. It remained only for him to record it. A musicians’ strike from 1942 through 1944 meant that no new music could be recorded. It was during this lull that “bebop” developed. This new style consisted of music definitely not crafted with the dance floor in mind. Faster tempos, complex rhythmic approaches, unusual harmonies, and a general sense of cutting free from the crowd-pleasing ethos of the swing era informed this new music.

On Nov. 26, 1945, Parker, trumpeter Miles Davis, trumpeter and pianist Dizzy Gillespie, bassist Curley Russell, and drummer Max Roach gathered in New York for a recording session. The tune we know as “Ko Ko” was derived from the chord changes in Ray Noble’s 1938 composition “Cherokee.” Parker took these basic building blocks and squeezed out something new and unique, involved, complex, and challenging. “KoKo” is also performed at breakneck speed.

The overall effect is bracing – Parker is making it up as he goes, turning the contents of his head into notes in the air. The traditional jazz musicians and listeners were initially off-put by the new music’s strangeness, but soon “bebop” would become the dominant expressive mode of jazz. And it all started here.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics.

NRR Project: 'Caldonia' (Jan. 19, 1945)

 

NRR Project: ‘Caldonia’

Written by Louis Jordan

Performed by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five

Recorded Jan. 19, 1945

2:40

He’s the grandfather of rock and roll. It’s the birth of rhythm and blues. It’s proto-rap. It’s infectious. It’s an inspiration for a whole generation of music-makers.

Louis Jordan (1908-1975) played the alto sax, sang, wrote songs, and led a band. He got his start in the Swing Era of the 1930s, with drummer Chick Webb’s band. He set out on his own and really connected with the mood of the times. The war was almost over; people wanted something upbeat, something propulsive. “Caldonia” is all that.

Jordan starts things off with a straight-ahead boogie woogie riff on the piano. The horns join in slyly. Jordan begins to sing.

“Walkin' with my baby she's got great big feet

She's long, lean, and lanky and ain't had nothing to eat

She's my baby and I love her just the same

Crazy 'bout that woman cause Caldonia is her name

 

Caldonia, Caldonia

What makes your big head so hard?

I love you. I love you just the same

I’ll always love you baby cause Caldonia is her name”

 A nifty sax break follows, then an interplay. Then there’s spoken engagement, reminiscent of the approach of the late Fats Waller, and destined to be passed on to Chuck Berry, Bill Hailey, and even unto James Brown, Our Godfather of Soul.

 “You know what mama told me? She told me to leave Caldonia alone, that’s what she told me. No kidding. That’s what she told me. That’s what she said, she said, ‘Son, leave that Caldonia alone. She ain’t no good. Don’t bother her.’ But Mama didn’t know what Caldonia was puttin’ down. So I’m going to Caldonia’s house and going to ask one more time:”

 “Caldonia, Caldonia

What makes your big head so hard?

I love her. I love her just the same

Crazy 'bout that woman cause Caldonia is her name”

“MOP!” yells Jordan, and it sounds appropriate. Jordan would continue to entertain for decades. His record is unmatched. He spent almost twice as many weeks on the R & B charts than any other performer. He had 54 Top 10 hits, including “Saturday Night Fish Fry,” “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens,” “Five Guys Named Moe,” “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby,” and “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”. He made Decca Records.

In 1945, they made a two-reel movie of “Caldonia,” in which Jordan and company do the title song, “Honey Child,” “Tillie,” and “Buzz Me.” You can dial him up and watch him at work.

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