REVIEW POTPOURRI: Perry Como & Pablo de Sarasate

by Peter Cates

Perry Como

Perry Como

Perry Como – That Christmas Feeling; Winter Wonderland. Recorded August 8, 1946. RCA Victor 20-1968, ten-inch 78 disc.

I might be jumping the gun here seasonally speaking but I found the key words of That Christmas Feeling most apt in the 78 years and 10 days since this record was released in 1946 – “What a blessed place this world would be/If we had that Christmas feeling all year.” – especially with the constant cycles of anger, selfishness and greed roaring throughout the country these days.

And Perry Como was the kind of vocal artist who could convey such words and notes so persuasively not only with this song but such ones as May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You, Bless this House, When Someone Cares, etc. that were recorded during the ‘50s – the kinds of seemingly sentimental fluff that other lesser talents botched. He made singing seem so easy with his casual relaxed style.

That casual relaxed style disguised the sometimes two to three hours he would spend laboring over a song, trying out different keys and blendings with the best arrangers in the profession – Russ Case on this session and others of the mid-’40s (Case recorded some classy mood music instrumentals for MGM records during the same decade into the ‘50s); RCA’s head pop arranger Hugo Winterhalter; Como’s longtime conductor for his recordings and TV shows, Mitchell Ayres, until he resigned to become music director for the 1960s variety show, The Hollywood Palace; and finally Nick Perito, who would arrange and conduct for Como until his last Christmas special in Dublin in 1994.

Side 2’s Winter Wonderland has a swinging Big Band style with the saxophones and brass and a backup vocal group.

Wikipedia mentions that Sinatra would ask Como to fill in for him at the sold out Paramount theater concerts with the swooning bobby soxers.

Pablo de Sarasate

Pablo de Sarasate

Sarasate: Zapateado – Jan Kubelik, violinist; Victor Red Seal 74255, recorded 1911, a twelve-inch one-sided acoustically recorded shellac disc.

Pablo de Sarasate was a Spanish violinist and composer of show pieces for his chosen instrument. Violinists who have recorded his pieces range from Jascha Heifetz to Itzhak Perlman; Czech violinist Jan Kubelik (1880-1940) gave a performance of the composer’s Zapateado that combined the required lightning speed bowing and plucking with a breathtaking range of dynamics other fiddlers didn’t always match and an expressive beauty and depth that made this disc one splendid listening experience for its four minute duration, despite the limited fidelity of 113 years ago.

Kubelik’s son Rafael (1914-1996) was a superb conductor who served as music director of the Czech Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra.

The Como and Kubelik recordings can be heard via YouTube and other sources.