Christmas Eve, Eve and Song

Christmas is nearly upon us, which means it must be time for another medley of festive classics from the Big Band period of the 1930s-1950s.  I seriously thought 2012 would be the final time I'd be able to do one of these posts, seeing as Yuletide tunes from that time were thin on the ground anyway and I had all but exhausted both my knowledge and YouTube's.  I've dug deep this year, though, and consequently am able to bring you another selection of seasonal songs from our favourite eras. 





Little information seems to be available about Jimmy Ray & his Orchestra, which is a shame as these two Christmassy numbers - both recorded at the same session on the 19th November 1937 - are a couple of topping tunes.  I Want You For Christmas also appeared in my festive post from 2011 when I featured the Dick Robertson version; it must have been a popular standard of the late Thirties as it was also recorded around the same time by Russ Morgan and Mae Questal - but I think I'll keep those in reserve for next year if you don't mind!



Recorded nearly a year later on the 11th November 1938 (Don't Wait 'Til) The Night Before Christmas is another rare Christmas-titled tune by Sammy Kaye and his orchestra (styled "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye"), the vocals taken by The Three Barons - a singing trio from Cleveland, Ohio (Howard Greene, Edward Parton and Joe McGhee) who also performed as The Three Riffs.



Christmas just isn't Christmas without a Crosby song or three but although Bing has rightly endured and remains popular to this day, his bandleader brother Bob is less well-known now.  It's only fair, then, to include his orchestra's recording of Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow from early in 1946 when the song was riding a crest following Vaughn Monroe's chart-topping version.



Although not expressly mentioned on this YouTube video, Bob Eberly was most closely associated in the 1930s, 1940s and early '50s with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra so it's a fair bet that's who's playing here.  Bob Eberly was in fact a brother of Ray Eberle, the singer with Glenn Miller and his Orchestra (it was Bob who actually recommended the young Ray to Glenn when the latter was looking for a new lead vocalist in 1938).  You can certainly hear the similarity!



I was somewhat surprised that Artie Shaw didn't get in to the Christmas music act until the early 1950s, but this version of Jingle Bells from August(!) 1950 is the only example I can find from that otherwise popular bandleader (although there may be others that I've yet to discover).  Leaning more towards the really big band sound of the Fifties it nevertheless retains enough of Shaw's trademark sounds to make it worthy of inclusion here.

It only remains, then, for me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  I hope you all have a ripping time and, for those of you in the UK, batten down the hatches and stay safe from that awful winter weather we're all due to get later today (and that goes for anyone else in the world experiencing the worst of the hiemal conditions).  I may return briefly on Christmas Day itself but in the meantime I hope Father Christmas visits you all and leaves you lots of presents (I can't wait to see what we all get, myself)!  Enjoy the music!

All aboard the song train

The starting of a new job seems to have coincided with a bit of a downturn in vintage news (not to mention my third cold in as many months!) - hence I have been absent from the blogging circuit for nearly two weeks, for which I must continue to crave forgiveness!  I still haven't forgotten about you all though (I read all your posts of an evening, or at the weekend, as something very much to look forward to) nor this blog of mine.

Sitting on the train during the commute into work I often find myself thinking of potential subjects for this site and, while listening to my portable i-gramophone last week, it occurred to me that the very mode of transportation I was using - and the music I had playing - would make an excellent topic.



The railway train has always had an instantly recognisable rhythm and one that naturally lends itself to a musical beat.  There have been countless songs over the years featuring trains and rail travel to some extent or another but it is the half-a-dozen or so favourites in my music collection that I intend to focus on here.

The first song, Choo-Choo, neatly sums up the steam train in typical Thirties onomatopoeic style and is wonderfully redolent of period rail travel.  Written and recorded by American bandleader Frankie Trumbauer in 1930, it was almost immediately cut by a multitude of other bands on both sides of the Atlantic.  While the original Trumbauer recording is excellent, my favourite from the U.S. is Paul Whiteman's version, above, made in the same year.



In the U.K. the two Jacks - Jack Payne and Jack Hylton - both recorded versions of Choo-Choo a year later in 1931 and again, while Jack Payne's version is wonderful, Hylton's arrangement just shades it for me.



Arguably a more famous "Choo-Choo" is Glenn Miller's brilliant 1941 record - Chattanooga Choo-Choo, a song that instantly conjures up images of transcontinental railway journeys in the 1940s and '50s.



A year or two earlier Glenn Miller had had similar success, reaching number 1 on the U.S. Billboard chart with another train-themed number - Tuxedo Junction.  The song had actually been written in 1939 by American bandleader Erskine Hawkins and while his original version made it to number 7 in the charts it remains less well-known today than the classic Miller arrangement.



Another railway tune that has become inextricably linked to its [co-]composer - so much so that it is invariably called his "signature song" and found in every compilation of his music - is Duke Ellington's Take The 'A' Train.  It is a reputation that it thoroughly deserves, being one of the defining examples of 1940s big band music never mind rail-based songs.



One of my very favourite "songs of the track", though, is this one - Honky-Tonk Train Blues.  Although written and first recorded as long ago as 1927 by the noted early boogie-woogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis, this 1938 arrangement by Bob Crosby (Bing's brother) with Bob Zurke on the piano really rolls along splendidly.

For me all of these help rekindle some of the fun and romance that seems to have been lost from modern train travel, as I commute to and from work in a characterless and brightly-coloured plastic tube.  Sometimes I can even imagine seeing something steaming past the station platform, or pulling the far more luxurious carriage I picture myself travelling in... porter! My case please!