by Peter Cates

Christmas Eve with Burl Ives

Decca, DL 8391, mono LP, released 1957.

Burl Ives

One very endearing album of the many Burl Ives (1909-1995) left in his discography was this astutely balanced program of 11 Xmas titles, familiar and not so familiar. The six familiars – Silent Night, There Were Three Ships, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, What Child is This?, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and – what else!- The Twelve Days of Christmas – are the Yuletide cornerstones.

The other five rarely heard songs – Friendly Beasts, Jesous Ahatonia, Seven Joys of Mary, Down in Yon Forest and King Herod – have special qualities of their own, regardless of any rarely heard status.

In addition to himself on this mid-’50s session, Ives brought along colleagues that included guitarist Tony Mottola, singer/arranger Jimmy Carroll, and the other well-known, but never as famous Ray Charles with His Singers. And, the main reason for its desirability, the arrangements are vibrantly alive, not the cliched, boring once over lightlys that still often infest the seasonal music experiences.

An unattributed quote on the back of the cover summed up the man who was Burl Ives: “He’s a big guy and has a punch like a mule kicking. His smile fills a room and his laugh shakes the chandeliers. But he’s quiet, too, and he can listen. He listened to his mother and his father, who were both singers. He listened to people singing all over the country. And his song-bag is full. He can sing all night and never sing the same song twice. And every song is better than the last one.”

G.K Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton

One of the best qualities of G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was his gift at writing a few sentences and leaving readers, such as myself, wanting more. A quote from his 1922 essay, What I Saw in America: “Americans make fun of their own institutions; and their own journalism is full of such fanciful conjectures. The tall building is itself artistically akin to the tall story. The very word sky-scraper is an admirable example of an American lie.”

P.S.: Two unintended, but, for me, very intriguing coincidences between Chesterton and the above Burl Ives that I discovered while writing this column today, November 21, 2018.

Chesterton and Ives shared a very similar height and girth.

Ives was born on June 14, 1909; Chesterton died on June 14, 1936. Of course, neither here nor there!

by Peter Cates

Jim Thompson

Pop. 1280, 1964 crime novel, roughly 217 pages.

Jim Thompson

Vastly underrated during his lifetime, Jim Thompson (1906-1977) wrote over 30 novels mainly set in the “golden triangle” of Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma during the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. Most of his characters were clueless misfits, self-serving blowhards and nihilistic villains.

Pop. 1280 features a sheriff of one small town in the 1950’s Deep South, being used as the first person narrator of the entire novel. He conveys his questionable integrity best himself via the story’s opening paragraph. “Well, sir, I should have been sitting pretty, just about as pretty as a man could sit. Here I was, the high sheriff of Potts County, and I was drawing almost two thousand dollars a year – not to mention what I could pick up on the side. On top of that, I had free living quarters on the second floor of the courthouse, just as nice a place as a man could ask for; and it even had a bathroom so that I didn’t have to bathe in a washtub or tramp outside to a privy, like most folks in town did. I guess you could say that Kingdom Come was really here as far as I was concerned. I had it made, and it looked like I could go on having it made – being high sheriff of Potts County – as long as I minded my own business and didn’t arrest no one unless I just couldn’t get out of it and they didn’t amount to nothin’.”

This excerpt is one example of how Thompson’s characters were extremely funny yet quite creepy.

An admirer, Stephen King wrote the following accolade:

“The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn’t know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the foregoing – he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it.”

by Peter Cates

Bartok

Divertimento; 5 Chants for Children’s Chorus and Orchestra; 12 Miniatures for Orchestra
Vassil Kazandjiev conducting the Sofia Chamber Orchestra, with the Bodra Smyana Children’s Chorus directed by Liliana Bocheva singing the five chants – Balkanton/Harmonia Mundi HMB 103, stereo LP, released early 1980s.

Vassil Kazandjiev

Also a noted Bulgarian composer and now 84, Vassil Kazandjiev conducts these very fine performances and recording of three Bela Bartok compositions, the haunting, eloquent 1939 Divertimento for strings; the earlier Five Songs for Children’s Chorus and Orchestra and the Twelve Miniatures for Orchestra. All of these add up to a solid program of three works of the great Hungarian composer (1881-1945).

I have CDs of Kazandjiev conducting the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and Beatrice and Benedict Overture and the Brahms 1st Piano Concerto with Ivan Drenikov, soloist, all three very well-conducted.

The Best of Sidney Bechet

18 sides for Alfred Lion’s Blue Note label, 1939-1953.

Sidney Bechet

The brilliant clarinet and soprano saxophone player Sidney Bechet, 1897-1959, recorded such classic standards as Summer­time, St. Louis Blues, Muskrat Ramble, All of Me, etc., included on this Blue Note CD transfer reissue with guitarist Teddy Bunn, pianists Meade Lux Lewis and Art Hodes, drummer Sid Catlett and trumpeter Jonah Jones among the sidemen working with Bechet.

Jonathan Winters and Dean Martin

At the Bar: 12-minute comedy YouTube from the 1970s Dean Martin Show.

Dean Martin

Jonathan Winters

The late comedians, Dean Martin as the bartender of his own nightclub, and Jonathan Winters as four characters with different personalities and voices, one of them an 86-year-old lady. Dino works with a script while Winters is totally unpredictable, with nobody ever knowing what he is going to say and do. As the old lady, she comments on her figure as an “uprooted rubber plant.” In the sketch of the grieving relative driving 2,500 miles that day to attend the burial service of a step-cousin dropped in an open grave wearing only poker dot trunks, he laments the inconsiderate behavior of his only heir, a 15-pound tomcat receiving $4,000, as not even bothering to attend the funeral.

by Peter Cates

Classical Journey

Volume 4:France;
Laserlight 79 669, cassette, released 1991.

France

Some of the best of France’s shorter classical works are to be found here – Offenbach La Vie Parissienne, the always riveting Auber Fra Diavolo Overture, Herold Zampa Overture, Boieldieu The Lady in White Overture – quite engaging and new to me, Meyerbeer Coronation March, Delibes Coppelia excerpts, Massenet Meditation, Berlioz Dance of the Sylphs, Chabrier Joyeuse Marche, and the Saint-Saens Danse Macabre.

Conductors Pinchas Steinberg, Tamas Pal, Caspar Richter, Heinz Fricke, Andras Korodi, Adam Fischer, and Rouslan Raychev are not exactly household names, but they are very good. Orchestras are Berlin Radio Symphony, Hungarian State Orchestra, Cologne Radio, Budapest Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, and Plovdiv Philharmonic. The lineup of talent and repertoire are very well-matched and the cassette and cd should be very inexpensive. I like this a lot and will keep my copy!

James Coburn

The Loved One

Starring Jonathan Winters, Rod Steiger, James Coburn, Tab Hunter, Dana Andrews, Paul Williams, etc.

Jonathan Winters

Rod Steiger

The 1965 film, The Loved One, is a very funny satire on the funeral industry. Jonathan Winters plays a dual role as the Divinely Rev. Wilbur Glenworthy and his hapless endearing brother Harry; Rod Steiger as the mortician, Mr. Joyboy; and such seasoned stars as Milton Berle, Robert Morse, Robert Morley, Liberache as the casket salesman, Tab Hunter, James Coburn, Lionel Stander, Dana Andrews, Paul Williams etc., are in peak form. There is a five-minute sketch of Liberache’s salesmanship that conveys maximum humor in a minimum of time.

by Peter Cates

Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro

Smile, Columbia AL 33912 LP ,1975.

The late Laura Nyro was one very gifted singer, songwriter and pianist. A number of songs, Stoney End, Stoned Soul Picnic, Wedding Bell Blues, etc. have been covered by such artists as Barbra Streisand and the Fifth Dimension.

The 1975 Smile is a sterling example of the searing beauty and power of her on-going themes – life in the Bronx. Sexy Mama, Children of the Junks, Money, I am the Blues, Stormy Love, The Cat-song, Midnite Blues, and the title song mirror the drug addictions, needs to survive, and the moments of joy and love that preoccupy and sustain us. An album highly recommended.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin

Yannick Nezet-Seguin

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra Collection
Deutsche Grammophon 4835345, 6 CDs, live concerts 2008-2018.

Presently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and other orchestras, Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts the Rotterdam Philhar­monic in works by Beethoven, Shosta­kovich, Mahler, Tchaikov­sky, Bruckner etc. The performances are good, especially the Bruckner 8th Symphony, and would fit the needs of anyone wanting a set of choice basic repertoire.