Ira Wright & Orchestra: The Music Man & My Fair Lady (Rondo-Lette)

Rondo-lette was one of the better labels Eli Oberstien ran in the late 50's. These albums featured stereo releases complete with full color jackets and liner notes, but no inner sleeve for some reason… Many of these releases were cheaply recorded instrumental albums, such as this split album. This album features 4 selections from "The Music Man" and 5 selections of "My Fair Lady", on sides A and B respectfully. My copy came to me without it's original jacket, and like all the Rondo releases I have ran a crossed, it's really beat up. If you see a NM copy of any Rondo or Rondo-lette release you have a real rarity! 

I rushed through the transfer process, basically removing the largest pops, and running it through DeClick and DeNoise to remove a good majority of the artifacts plaguing this copy. It's not a perfect transfer, however it's still very listenable.

Tracks are as follows

Side A

76 Trombones

Goodnight My Someone

Lida Rose

Till There Was You [Not sure if the track on this album is actually this song, sounds more like a Jazzy filler track to me. See my "Till There Was You (Halo Records)" video for the correct recording]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji4cg-M4gAg

Side B

I Could Have Danced All Night

Get Me To The Church On Time

With A Little Bit of Luck

On The Street Where You Live

I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face

Ira Wright Orchestra and Singers: Memories Are Made Of These (Rondo-lette)

An interesting album which features a collection of tracks which either feature a famous musician or composer's music or playing style played by an no name studio group. The mass credit of Ira Wright Orchestra is merely a pseudonym and that was a standard practice for budget labels. Often they made recordings with a bunch of low wage session musicians and pay them a flat fee with no royalties as a condition of employment. This allowed them to reissue material without having to pay anyone other then music copyright companies, but they only had to do this when the used non-public domain music.

Tracks are as follows:

(Artists and composers listed bellow are listed only to demonstrate who they were "tributing", with the expection of the Ken Griffin track, which is actually a recording of that artist)

Side A

Tommy Dorsey- Dark Eyes

Glenn Miller- Anvil Chorus

Dave Rose- Spanish Serenade

Leroy Anderson- Blue Tango

Ken Griffin- After The Ball

Side B

Al Jolson- Swanee

George M. Cohan- Yankee Doodle Dandy

John Philip Sousa- King Cotton

Stephen Foster- O Susanna

VIctor Herbert- Because You're You

Varsity Operetta Singers and Orchestra: Songs from Oklahoma (Varsity Records)

This Varsity record's release from 1952 contains just four songs from the Broadway musical "Oklahoma". These four songs are crammed into three tracks.

The second side contains four filler tracks from a variety of sources. The second side makes for great background background listening.

Tracks

Side A

1.Oklahoma-People Will Say We're In Love
2. People Will Say We're In Love (Piano and Rhythm)
3. I Can't Say No-Out Of My Dreams

Side B

1.Waiting For You
2.Waiting
3.Waiting A Fire
4. My Heart Is Waiting

National Concert Dance Orchestra: Selections from Porgy and Bess and others (Halo Records)

This is one of those Halo Record releases that screams low budget. The cover is the only real reason you want a copy of this record. After all, only five Porgy and Bess tunes are on the record! The cover art is lovely, to say the least. Oberstien, for his Halo record line, got the New York Graphic Society to let him use prints of top-grade paintings for his label's record jackets.

As you can see in the video below, this cover is worthy of framing. It's too bad the content of the enclosed record needs to reach the expectations set by the jacket art. Also, the artist's attribution is generic. The staff at Record Corporation Of America (The company that Eli Oberstein used to release these budget records) got into a heated argument on what generic name they would use for the artist credit on this release. I imagine it must have been a stalemate between "The National Dance Orchestra" and "The National Concert Orchestra," and somebody stepped in and made a compromise with "The National Concert Dance Orchestra" so everyone could move on with their lives.

The music on this record could be better as there are only three Porgy and Bess tracks. The rest of the album is comprised mainly of cheap classical recordings. The last filler track on side A is the only one that breaks the reasonable canned classical music mood. It is a track from the Royale record album "Strictly Instrumental: Broadway Hits, arranged by Russel Bannett" (catalog number 1241). I have the complete album uploaded here on YouTube. The track "Hoops" is not the only recording on this album taken from that album. "Summertime" on this Halo release is also the previously mentioned Royale album.

The copy I had was rather worn, which makes for noisy vinyl rips when combined with a styrene pressing. The A side is boisterous. However, DeNoise, my noise reduction program for cleaning up my transfers, pushed the noise under the desired audio level. The first track on side A had some severe problems with needle jumps throughout the first minute of the track. The track is also worth listening to, as the unknown vocalist has an almost operatic style that makes for exciting listening. The rest of the album suffers from surface noise and related artifacts that are impossible to remove with software. The album is still quite listenable, however you will need to be able to tolerate some noise to enjoy this album. 

Side A

1. I Got Plenty O' Nottin' & Bess You Is My Women (0:11)
2. It Ain't Necessary So & Woman Is A Sometime Thing (3:47)
3. Summertime (6:37)
4. Intermezzo
5. Traumerei
6. Minute In G
7. Hoops (18:04)

Side B*

1. None But The Lonely Heart
2. Minute In G
3. Serenade
4. To A Wild Rose
5. Souvenir
6. Traumerei
7. Andante Cantabile
8. Intermezzo

*The label on side B lists "American In Paris," "Rhapsody In Blue," and a bunch of Show tunes that would have made this record worth every penny. However, the label completely misrepresented the actual content, as it is all cheap canned classical music, which I fall asleep to almost every night. 

A Tribute To Glenn Miller: Johnny Gregory and his London Orchestra (Halo Records)

This Halo release is very special. You see, this was an album composed of Jerry Grey, pause of dramatic effect, and The Glenn Miller Orchestra recordings! In 1952 Jerry Grey was the leader of the Glenn Miller Orchestra when these recordings were cut for radio transcription disks. Oberstien used some of these recordings as filler on some of his albums prior to this Halo Release. This time Oberstien got cocky, and took these recordings and released an entire album of this ill gotten material. He was sued by Jerry Grey shortly after the album was released for the grand sum of 500,000 dollars according to the Billboard in 1958. Oberstien probably realized he was in very hot legal water, and settled out of court for a lesser sum. He never released the Glenn Miller material again (except for reissue of a couple of albums that used "Shine On Harvest Moon" by the Glenn Miller Orchestra as filler on previous releases). This is some pretty great material, Mood Indigo, Blue Champagne, Holiday For Strings, what more could you ask from an budget release?

Besides the fascinating history and content found on this record, there are some technical details I wish to bring up. My copy has some scratches, which resulted in some jumps and other artifacts. There is even a few moments of hiss, but forgive that, this is still a very great auditory experience!

Tracks are listed as the appeared in the video:

Side 1

My Isle Of Golden Dreams (0:00)
Blue Champagne (2:00)
Holiday For Strings (3:58)- Certainly an amazing track, well worth the 6 minute investment one would make in listening to this track.
Flow Gently (10:02)
Long Ago (11:30)
Don't Be That Way (13:10)
Anvil Chorus (14:45)
Shine On Harvest Moon (17:35)
Valse Triste (19:52)
Loch Lomond (22:26)
Mood Indigo (24:29)

The Broadway Orchestra & Singer Present: It's A Grand Old Flag, A Collection of George M. Cohan Hits and others…

George M. Cohan, a man who's music is the very personification of the American spirit. This albums first side gives us 10 tracks of Cohan greatness, of which two songs are featured twice (So Long Mary and Over There). My copy has been played one times to many, and so there are jumps and noise that are commonplace with a worn styrene record. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Halo records were pressed out of styrene... I will get to the boring technical stuff that explains that later. Anyways, the first selection starts you off with a smooth Female vocalist (unknown because of the generic label credit), then the stylus takes us through very 40's style recordings, and then precedes with a fantastic Instrumental of "So Long Mary". The A side closes with a  stirring marching band rendition of "Over There". The B side's contents relate in no way to the previous side. It was typical for Oberstien (Owner of a slew of budget labels in the 1950's) for his late budget reissue labels. Most of the B sides of these release were just simply sides from previous albums Oberstien has issued before, and this album is certainly no acceptation to that practice. The B side is a collection of, for the lack of better term "Elevator Music" or background music. It's swell music still, I enjoy this as much as the previous side's offering make no mistake about that.

The engineering on this album was pretty decent from a sonic perspective. The problem with this copy is due to the fact that it is worn and slightly scratched (Halo records almost never play through without at lease a jump or skip). The first selection is rather damaged, yet the artistic value merits its inclusion in this video. First tracks on this label's release are not often free from sonic flaws in my experience. I own quite a few Halo releases, so I can say this with some level of confidence. Regardless of the sonic flaws of this copy being presented here, I think people that are used to dealing with such flaws as the price to pay in order to hear rare and or obscure music will find this well worth their time.

Songs and times they appear in the video:

Side A

Give My Regards To Broadway (0:00)
Your A Grand Old Flag (2:24)
So Long Mary
Over There
Yankee Doddle Dandy
Mary's A Grand Old Name
Harrigan
45 Minutes From Broadway
So Long Mary (Instrumental)
Over There

Side B

I'm Following My Secret Heart
La Petite
Falling In Love Again
Apache Waltz
Oh, What A Pal Was Mary
The One Rose
Oh How I Miss You Tonight

Somerset Records Presents: A Minstrel Show- Perhaps The Least Offensive On You May Possibly Hear (But Only Maybe)

This is about as politically correct as a minstrel show can get. This album was released in 1959, a few years before the Civil Rights Movement, so these kinds of albums were still somewhat marketable. This album reminds me of an album released by Crown Records released around the same time, "Songs Al Jolson Made Famous," which featured a man in black face. I have that posted on YouTube, just in case you wanted to see or hear it. This album's political incorrectness is obvious. The artist credits the illustration of a man in black face to the negative stereotypes of African Americans used in the comedic interludes. When I was younger, I did not find this record particularly offensive, but now I understand why these sorts of albums fell by the wayside into the dustbin of history; for excellent reasons, popular opinion shifted for the better as racial equality became more commonly accepted among the general public. This is merely an artifact of a time when a large segment of the white/caucasian population harbored in organized openness the erroneous belief that one phenotype was inherently superior to all others in every way. The "us versus them" mentality continues with our society today, but at least we actively try to subvert it overall as a society these days. In short, this album shows us how far we have come as a society, from a time this was something one could sell at a supermarket without public outrage, to where no commercial record label would dare put anything even close to something like this out on a large scale to the general public.

With all this in mind, in my opinion, the audio engineering is flawless. The numbers featured on this record are nothing short of awe-inspiring. This is truly an album that you must hear in its entirety. So I hope you have some time to spare for this amazing budget record release!

From the back cover: "A complete. Old-time minstrel show in your living room tonight! Through brilliant performances and sparkling stereophonic recordings, you can sit down in your armchair and avoid the hard seats and the drafty old town hall where grandpa got the "Boot" out of the opening march and all the acts that followed, None of the great color or hilarity is missing! It's all here, the band, chorus, and banjo and bones, all the great solos and the comedy between Mr. Interlocutor and his end men. This is American entertainment at its best- Circa 1890......." There are more liner notes; however, the rest of it explains the boring technical details of this album's production.

I hope you will enjoy "A Complete Minstrel Show!" But, remember, this is a historical artifact, a product of an age long gone by. 

The Royale Concert Orchestra performs "Broadway Hits"

Yet another fine Royale record album. This album is a collection of Broadway hits arranged by Russell Bennett. Robert Russell Bennett, was an arranger that worked with Richard Rogers, Jerome Kerns and George Gershwin. Russell was well known for his relationship with these composers, as he often worked side by side with them when making his arrangements. His greatest arranging work was for "Victory At Sea", where he took the twelve themes contributed by Richard Rogers and arranged eleven and a half hours of music for the show. Bennett described his own philosophy: "The perfect arrangement is one that manages to be most 'becoming' to the melody at all points." Through this, he kept his commercial arrangements simple and straightforward, with a careful ear for balance and color. 

The recordings were made under the direction of Russell Bennett…. However they were made in mid-1940's. That explains the less then stellar sound quality, as the tracks on this LP came from 78 rpm records. The album sound quality as a result is not that great even for an early 50's release when combined with the noisy vinyl and shellac mixture this record was press on.

Side 1

Rose Marie Overture

Soft Lights and Sweet Music

With A Song In My Heart

What Is This Thing Called Love

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

Surrey With The Fringe On The Top

The Song Is You

Softly As In The Morning Sunrise

Side 2

You Are Love

Thou Swell

Summertime

Why Do I love You

Speak Low

Hoops

Of Thee I Sing

A Pickwick Beethoven And Schubert Symphony

The Hampshire Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra plays Beethoven's 5th and Schubert's 8th Symphony on Design Records!

Design records were Pickwick's first LP record line. The initial releases were had liner notes, jackets with the album title printed on the spine, and inner sleeves. 1957-1958 was the golden age for budget record labels. In an era where the Tops/Mayfair record label was king, every budget label had to match the high production standards, high-quality pressings, and quality jackets and sleeves to complete. 

That being the case, Design Records was trying to release the best possible products for the exceptionally competitive budget record market. The stereo recordings were true stereo, and the quality of the recording was excellent.

This album is an example of how the budget labels made their albums in the 1957-1958 era. This album features extensive liner notes, blurb after blurb about how high quality the album was. In short, this album is one of the better budget Classical releases. After this time period, all across the board, budget labels issued albums in shoddy jackets and noisy vinyl because collectively, every label began cutting corners, especially after Tops was sold to Precision Radiation Instruments around this time, wherever they could to increase their tiny profit margins by lowering production costs as far as they could get away with. 

The album features two timeless classical compositions;  Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Schubert's 8th "Unfinished Symphony." The first side has almost the entire Beethoven's 5th symphony. They decide to trim the 2nd movement with no explanation provided in the liner notes, likely due to space limitations imposed by the stereo record mastering processes used at the time.

Side 1

Beethoven's 5th part one (0:04) -The complete 1st movement
Beethoven's 5th part two (6:31) -Portion of the movement 2 and the complete movements of 3 and 4.

Side 2

Schubert's Unfinished 8th Symphony (18:19)