NRR Project: 'Night Life' (1930)

NRR Project: ‘Night Life’

Composed and performed by Mary Lou Williams

1930

2:59

I could hardly do better than the explanatory essay by Linda Dahl, which you can read here. As her biographer, Dahl offers not just a musical evaluation, but an extremely painful personal narrative that underlies the 1930 recording session that gave birth to “Night Life”.

A child prodigy, Williams was not content with merely being an interpreter of others’ music. She was a gifted composer and arranger, and found herself working with Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy. While the band was setting up for a recording session in Chicago, Williams was asked to improvise a couple of solo numbers. Out of this came “Nite Life,” and “Drag ‘Em,” two classic tracks. (Dahl clearly outlines the terrible personal circumstances suffered by Williams right before this session.)

The piece is sprightly and inventive, working on a bluesy foundation. Williams does frills and fills, modulates and gets down and dirty, bringing it all to conclusion with a twinge of whimsy. Few are the times when a young genius makes their mark so clearly and distinctly.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Ten Cents a Dance.

 

NRR Project: Egmont Overture, Modesto High School Band (1930)

NRR Project: Egmont Overture, Op. 84

Modesto High School Band

1930

This is one I don’t have a lot of information on, and only a small excerpt to listen to online. I refer you to the excellent, comprehensive essay by Steven Pecsek. Between 1926 and 1934, there was a National High School Band contest. This recording was made in 1930. There was a small trade in commemorative albums of the high school bands’ performances, used sometimes for fundraising purposes as well. The Modesto High School Band ranked highly in these competitions.

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

NRR Project: 'Sittin' on Top of the World' (1930)

NRR Project: ‘Sitting on Top of the World’

The Mississippi Sheiks

1930

3:12

It’s interesting that a song I thought of as an upbeat bluegrass tune started off as a slowly paced blues song. Once again, the National Recording Registry holds an excellent explanatory essay on it by Edward Komara, which you can read here.

The Mississippi Sheiks were a duo that consisted of Walter Vinson on violin and Lonnie Chatmon on guitar. They played in central Mississippi, and probably would have been forgotten if not for the success of this unique song. It was recorded when Polk Brockman of Okeh Records caught them at a remote recording session in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1930. The song was a hit, and sustained the duo through their career together.

The lyrics are counterintuitive. Instead of lamenting the loss of a lover, the singer declares, “Now she’s gone, and I don’t worry/For I’m sittin’ on top of the world.” This defiant, proud statement overcomes the sorrow that the singer is feeling. (The title may have come from the 1925 pop song, “I’m Sitting on Top of the World,” made popular by Al Jolson.)

Almost immediately, others began to cover the tune, in all kinds of styles. Among those artists were Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, bluegrass creator Bill Monroe, Howlin’ Wolf, Cream, and the Grateful Dead. Each brought their unique perspective to the song, bending it into many shapes, generally with a faster tempo, until the song became a rollicking, happy one.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: the Modesto High School Band plays Beethoven’s Egmont Overture.

NRR Project: 'Lamento Borincano'

‘Lamento Borincano’

Canario y Su Grupo

1930

3:04

I could not do better than Mario C. Cancel-Bigay’s explanatory essay on this selection. To read it at the National Recording Registry, go here.

For the sake of completeness, however, I will do my best to summarize. “Borincano” derives from the native slang for Puerto Rico. The song is a lament from the person of a peasant bringing his wares to town, only to find it deserted. The song becomes larger in scope, as the singer contemplates the sorry state of his homeland, before pledging his loyalty to it.

“The entire morning goes by

Without anyone wanting

To buy his load, oh to buy his load

Everything, everything is deserted

And the town is full of need

Oh, of need

The mourning is heard everywhere

In my unhappy Bonrinquen, yeah

 

And sad, the peasant goes

Thinking, saying

Crying like this on the way:

‘What will happen to Bonriquen, my dear God

What will happen to my children and mt home?’ Oh!

 

Bonriquen, the land of Eden

The one that when sung by the great Gautier

He called out the pearl of the Seas

‘Now that you lay dying from your sorrows

Let me sing to you also

Bonriquen of my love’, and no one will take that away

I’m a child of Bonriquen and no one will change that

I’m a child of Bonriquen and no one will change that

And on the day that I die, I want to rest in you

I love you, Puerto Rico, and no one will take that away,

Yeah!”

The song was an immense hit, and made the careers of its writer, Rafael Hernandez; of its original bandleader, “Canario”, and its singer “Davilita.” It has since been recorded innumerable times, serving as an informal anthem.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Sitting on Top of the World.

NRR Project: 'Gregorio Cortez'

 

‘Gregorio Cortez’

Performed by Trovadores Regionales – Pedro Rocha, Lupe Martinez

October 1929

2:31

The corrido is a Mexican ballad, often in three-quarter time, that relates a narrative or describes an historical event. It is a genre that inflates mundane realities into legends, and makes heroes of common men. So it is with Gregorio Cortez.

He was born in 1875 in Mexico. When he was 14, his family moved to Texas, and Cortez began working as a cowboy and a farmhand. On June 14, 1901, Sheriff W.T. Morris and his deputy, who served as interpreter, came to interview Cortez and his brother regarding the theft of a horse. Due to mistranslation, the sheriff determined that the Cortezes were lying and declared his intent to arrest them.

Cortez’s brother ran at the sheriff and was shot several times. Cortez responded by shooting the sheriff dead. After taking his brother for medical attention, Cortez began his escape. For ten days, he traveled hundreds of miles by horse and on foot, evading over 300 lawmen deputized to bring him in. Finally captured, he was tried and sentenced for murder, but his sentence was commuted after a relatively short period of time.

This exploit made him a hero among Mexican-Americans, who saw him as a symbol of the fight against prejudice and malfeasance against them by the Anglo community. No fewer than eleven versions of “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” developed, each of them giving a slightly different perspective on his story. One common thread in these songs is the bemoaning of the unequal justice meted out to Mexican Americans.

The version preserved here is performed by a duo with guitar, singing simple harmonies. “Gregorio Cortez said, with his gun in his hand, ’I’m not sorry I killed him,’” they sing. “’I was only thinking of my brother.’”

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

 

 

The NRR Project: 'Pony Blues'

 

‘Pony Blues’

Written and performed by Charley Patton

June 1929

2:58

Charley Patton is “the father of Mississippi Delta blues”. What does this mean?

Blues issued forth initially from two regions – the city and the country. Country blues are finger-picked, acoustic performances. Mississippi delta blues are those that originated in the region of east Arkansas and Louisiana, and western Mississippi, adjacent to the Mississippi River. Primary proponents of this style were Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Lead Belly.

Patton, born perhaps in 1891, quickly proved himself adept at the guitar and began performing throughout the region. He started performing around 1908. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he played higher-class locations consistently. He also served as a mentor to many bluesmen, including Robert Johnson.

“Pony Blues” is a typical blues tune – revolving around sexual metaphors and the idea of hooking up with someone. Patton’s growly intonation, syncopated rhythms, and percussive intensity make him a distinct voice in the blues pantheon.

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

 

 

The NRR Project: Rachmaninoff and Stokowski

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor

Composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff

Performed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, piano

Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, conductor

April 1929

31:47

The first complete recording of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 took place 28 years after its composition. The piece, written after a four-year creative drought (he dedicated it to his therapist), is one of the composer’s best-loved numbers. This recording features Rachmaninoff himself on piano, with the venerable Leopold Stokowski on the podium leading the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.

Rachmaninoff was born to relatively well-off parents in Czarist Russia in 1873, and received an excellent schooling in music. His compositional efforts were at first rebuffed; later, they would be seen as a culmination of Romanticism in the vein of Tchaikovsky. An incredible pianist, Rachmaninoff would turn to a life of primarily performing after his and his family’s escape from the newly formed Soviet Union in 1918.

Stokowski was already earning a reputation as an impressive conductor who specialized in 19^th and 20^th century music. He was known for conducting without a bat0on, one of the first to do so. He led the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1912 to 1941.

Some critics have called this performance perfunctory, but it is still as close as we will get to hearing a Rachmaninoff composition as he intended it to be heard. With its lyric, flowing style, it is one of the last compositions in the Romantic manner.

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

 

 

NRR Project: “Light’s Golden Jubilee Celebration”

 

“Light’s Golden Jubilee Celebration”

NBC Radio

Oct. 21, 1929

In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in Menlo Park, New Jersey, changing human history and cementing his legendary status as the ingenious American inventor par excellence.

Fifty years later, the General Electric Company and Westinghouse, always on the look-out for good publicity, decided to observe the anniversary of the discovery by honoring the still-living Edison to an extraordinary degree. The lengthy broadcast from NBC that captured the events of the celebration was preserved, and documents the immense, worshipful attention paid to the event and the character at its center.

The 82-year-old was feted in an elaborate production hosted by his long-time admirer and friend, fellow inventor Henry Ford. Ford eventually wrested control of the event from General Electric, and soon whipped up a spectacle at his newly established Edison Institute of Technology (later to be the Henry Ford Museum) in Dearborn, Michigan, Ford’s headquarters. Ford hired Edward L. Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, to orchestrate a commemorative campaign that would extend throughout the year of 1929 and climax at the ceremony.

The evening began with a celebratory banquet, attended by 500 prominent guests, among them President Herbert Hoover, Walter Chrysler, Marie Curie, Will Rogers, and Orville Wright. Afterwards came the painstaking recreation of the moment of Edison’s invention.

Listeners across the country were urged to turn out all their lights and leave them off until the reenactment was complete. Edison was transported to a reconstruction of his Menlo Park lab, along with Ford, Hoover, and his long-time assistant Francis Jehl (the only other surviving participant in the lightbulb’s invention), where he then connected the wires that caused the electric bulb to light up, live on air, “a moment broadcast over the airwaves on as many as 140 stations.” (Extensive movie footage of the events has survived as well.)

The attention then shifted to adulatory speeches. Speakers included a live message over the wireless from Germany – Albert Einstein chiming in with praise. A national event of this kind had never been broadcast before, and it presaged the ability of the media to unite and influence vast numbers of people.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Rachmaninoff plays his Piano Concerto #2.

 

 

The NRR Project: Cajun-Creole Columbia recordings (1929)

 

    

NRR Project: Creole-Cajun Columbia recordings

 Creole-Cajun recordings

Performed by Amede Ardoin and Dennis McGee

Recorded 1929

First of all, what is the difference between Creole and Cajun? These two words are bandied about indiscriminately. Creole refers to a person of mixed white and Black ancestry. Cajun refers to the not-necessarily Creole descendants of of the French-Canadian settlers who were displaced to southern Louisiana in the early 19^th century.

Both cultures intersected with and influenced each other. This is most easy to distinguish by indulging in their musics. This selection epitomizes the fusion of styles in this collaboration between a Black accordionist and vocalist, Amede Ardoin, and Cajun violinist and singer Dennis McGee.

The music is vital, throbbing with energy and feeling. The words are sung in the Cajun patois, that evolution of French that took place when its speakers moved south. Their music was meant to be danced to, and they played at farms, houses, bars, and festivals.

Sadly, Amede Ardoion’s life was cut short by an act of racist violence. He asked anyone for a rag to wipe his face during a performance, and a white woman gave him her handkerchief. Two white men then vowed that he would never perform again. They followed him outside after the gig and beat him severely, leaving him brain-damaged and causing his death a few months later. He was only 44 years old.

I could not do better than the explanatory essay penned by Ann Savoy at the National Recording Registry website, which you should read here. I can only add that it is remarkable that, considering the state of race relations at the time, these two men were able to collaborate so freely and beautifully.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: Light’s Golden Jubilee Celebration.

The NRR Project: 'Puttin' on the Ritz'

 

‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’

Composed by Irving Berlin

Performed by Harry Richman with Earl Burtnett and his Los Angeles Hotel Biltmore Orchestra

Recorded 1930

2:25

Irving Berlin was expanding his horizons. The preeminent American songwriter had already conquered Tin Pan Alley, churning out hits such as “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1911), “I Love a Piano” (1915), “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody” (1919), and “What’ll I Do” (1924). Berlin’s music publishing business was making money hand over fist. His Music Box Theater, still in operation at 239 West 45^th Street in New York’s theater district, opened in 1921. It served primarily as an outlet for his continuing, prodigious output. Now Berlin wanted to conquer the movies as well.

Berlin, born Israel Beilin in Russia, immigrated to America with his family at the age of 5, in 1893. He grew up in poverty on the Lower East Side, and went to work at age 13 after the death of his father. Self-taught though musically illiterate, he composed obsessively (creating some 1,500 songs over a 60-year career), relying on transcriptionists and orchestrators to get his notes on paper. Through discipline, effort, and sheer force of will, he hammered out hit after hit — cheery comic songs, stirring patriotic songs, sincere ballads — simple, heartfelt, catchy melodies all.

He was there at the very beginning of sound film. Al Jolson sings Berlin’s “Blue Skies” during the groundbreaking The Jazz Singer (1927). Three Berlin songs could be seen and heard in the Marx Brothers’ debut film The Cocoanuts (1929). Now the composer, normally loathe to leave Manhattan, went West to Hollywood to oversee a movie vehicle featuring his music — 1929’s Puttin’ on the Ritz.

The title song was one Berlin wrote three years previously. Long before the digital era’s multiple-platform release strategies sprouted, the music industry was already hip. “Puttin’ on the Ritz” would in rapid succession be featured in a film, released on recordings, and published in sheet music form. The movie was panned and quickly faded; the song endured.

Harry Richman was the first singer to be identified with the song, although he was not the first to commit it to record (that distinction goes to Lew Conrad, who recorded it with Leo Reisman and his Orchestra a few months prior to Richman’s version).

Like Berlin, Richman was another assimilated Jewish American and musical autodidact. Born Henry Reichman Jr. in Cincinnati in 1895, he started working at age 10, playing piano in a saloon with a screen around him to hide how young he was. Heading to New York, he got his big break as an accompanist for established stars such as Mae West and Nora Bayes. He became a valued singer on radio, and served as prominent master of ceremonies at New York stages and nightclubs. The apogee of his career was introducing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” to the public.

“Puttin’ on the Ritz” is a snappy, upbeat number, with a propulsive stutter-step beat. The title phrase, a synonym for dressing up and going out on the town, is taken from the reputation of the hotel chain of the same name, founded in Paris in 1898, noted for its rich décor and its service to high-end customers in Europe and America.

It’s possible to watch faded copies of the film, and in the “Ritz” number Richman embodies the perfect style for the song. He’s in black tie, top hat, and tails, with brilliantined hair, sporting a nasal, fruity baritone topped by a slight lisp. His delivery is corny – broad, jaunty but stiff, almost italicized. He’s Mr. Monopoly’s rakehell nephew. Richman was one of the last generation of pre-amplification popular singers like Jolson and Eddie Cantor, someone who was used to making themselves heard and understood all the way to the back row. All would have to learn how to resize their performances to fit the more intimate dynamics of radio and electric recording.

The moviemakers were proud to let it be known that the title sequence in Puttin’ on the Ritz was the first in film to feature both blacks and whites onstage; sadly, a close examination of the sequence shows that while there is a white chorus and a black chorus, the two never share the stage at the same time — on-set segregation.

Likewise, the original lyrics for the song are highly problematic, as they are those of what was termed a “coon song.” These tunes cast African Americans as stereotyped and denigrated sources of amusement, and were popular in white American culture from the 1880s through the 1930s. The song’s lyrics imagine impoverished, pretentious African Americans literally “aping” their supposed betters:

“Have you seen the well-to-do

Up on Lenox Avenue

On that famous thoroughfare

With their noses in the air

High hats and arrowed collars

White spats and fifteen dollars

Spending every dime

On a wonderful time

If you're blue and you don't know where to go to

Why don't you go where Harlem flits

Puttin' on the Ritz

Spangled gowns upon a bevy of high browns

From down the levee, all misfits

Puttin' on the Ritz

That's where each and every Lulu Bell goes

Every Thursday evening with her swell beaus

Rubbing elbows

Come with me and we'll attend their jubilee

And see them spend their last two bits

Puttin' on the Ritz”

This set of lyrics stayed with the song until 1946 (Clark Gable delivers a brave but awful performance of it, complete with straw boater, cane, and chorus girls, in the 1939 film Idiot’s Delight). By then, the cultural climate no longer tolerated such words, and Berlin rewrote them for Fred Astaire, who delivered the new version in the film Blue Skies.

“Have you seen the well-to-do

Up and down Park Avenue?

On that famous thoroughfare

With their noses in the air

High hats and arrow collars,

White spats and lots of dollars,

Spending every dime

For a wonderful time.

If you're blue and you don't where to go to

Why don't you go where fashion sits?

Puttin' on the Ritz.

Different types who wear a day coat

Pants with stripes and cut-a-way coats,

Perfect fits . . .

Puttin' on the Ritz.

Dressed up like a million-dollar trouper

Tryin’ hard to look like Gary Cooper

Super duper!

Come let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks or um-ber-ellas

In their mitts . . .

Puttin' on the Ritz”

With the new lyrics, the song enjoyed a revival, dozens of new cover versions, and a niche in the culture it still occupies. Whether as a memorable punch line in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974) or as an unlikely synth-pop hit for Taco in 1982, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: the Cajun-Creole Columbia releases.

 

 

 

The NRR Project: 'Ain't Misbehavin''

‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’

Music: Fats Waller Lyrics: Andy Razaf

Fats Waller, piano

Recorded Aug. 2, 1929

3:15

If Ellington is our Beethoven, then Waller is our Mozart.

His was a spirit of life and joy. Anyone who listens to even part of his prolific output can really feel uplifted by his gregarious spirit and musical inventiveness. His constant joking and muttered asides on his recordings mark him as a clown prince of jazz, but they conceal his very real musicianship.

Thomas Waller was born in 1904 in New York City. He started playing the piano at age 6. At the age of 10, he added playing the organ to his talents, performing first in his father’s church, and later as a theater organist. He began composing, and studied under the great stride pianist James P. Johnson – and managed to study composition at Juilliard as well. Soon he was performing and recording without let or hinder.

This recording of one of his most famous compositions is instrumental only – Waller made a much more familiar recording with him singing and playing the song years later. It’s upbeat, inventive, and full of energy, a perfect expression of its composer.

It was written for the show Hot Chocolates, which moved to Broadway in June of 1929. There, Louis Armstrong, director of the orchestra, gained immediate fame by playing the tune on his trumpet onstage. Since then, it’s been recorded countless times by all sorts of artists.

Despite his impressive musical chops, some say Waller wasted his talent by recordings reams of inferior songs for quick cash. But even the corniest of tunes, given the Waller treatment, comes off as a playful tour de force. Those who have examined his entire catalog find much comfort in his giddy presence.

Any time you feel low, put on a little Fats.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: ‘Puttin on the Ritz.’

The NRR Project: 'Wildwood Flower'

 ‘Wildwood Flower’

Music: Joseph Philbrick Webster; Lyrics: Maud Irving

The Carter Family

Recorded 1928

3:15

This lover’s lament is an integral part of the history of American music. The Carter Family, previously discussed here, were the pioneering and popular purveyors of what was then termed “hillbilly music,” which we now recognize as country.

Although it now sounds like indigenous folk music, “Wildwood Flower” is not a folk song. It is what was termed a “parlor song,” or sentimental ballad produced as sheet music for use in the home for singing and playing. It was written in 1860 by Maud Irving (in actuality J. William Van Amee), and set to music by Joseph Philbrick Webster. As such, it is a typical lament of the time, with a rueful singer realizing that “My visions of love have all faded away.”

The song is also notable for its demonstration of the guitar-playing innovation known as the “Carter scratch.” It consists of the guitarist playing the tune’s melody on the guitar’s bass strings, while strumming chords in rhythm with the treble strings. This was said to have been crafted when Mother Maybelle Carter had no one to accompany her – so she accompanied herself.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next up: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin.’