Capitol 101 – Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra – 1942

June 5, 2017 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the recording of the first disc ever issued by Capitol Records (though not the earliest session).

Early in the 1940s, songwriter and singer Johnny Mercer joined forces with fellow songwriter Buddy DeSylva and record store owner Glenn E. Wallichs to form a new record company.  On March 27, 1942 they incorporated as Liberty Records, which was soon changed to Capitol Records.  On April 6, they held their first session, wherein Martha Tilton recorded “Moondreams” (issued as Capitol 138).  On July 1, Capitol’s first record was released, featuring the legendary Paul Whiteman’s orchestra swinging on “I Found a New Baby” and “The General Jumped at Dawn”.  The fledgling label had its first hit with its second release, Freddy Slack’s orchestra playing “Cow Cow Boogie”, with a vocal by Ella Mae Morse.  All was not rosy however, as only one month later, the American Federation of Musicians started their 1942-44 strike, instigating a recording ban for all union musicians.  Capitol settled with the AFM on October 11, 1943, after Decca.  The ban didn’t seem to hurt Capitol too much, and they went on to become one of the major record labels from the 1940s onward, all the way into the present day.

Capitol 101 was recorded on June 5, 1942 in Los Angeles, California, and issued the next month.  It was released less than a month later on July 1, 1942.  Some sources offer different dates of recording: Rust gives May 1942, and others say April, but Capitol’s ledgers provide the June 5 date, and they should be definitive.  The personnel, according to Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in American Music, 1930-1967 (which differs slightly from Rust’s identification), is Billy Butterfield, Monty Kelly, Larry Neill, and Don Waddilove on trumpets, Phil “Skip” Layton and Murray McEachern on trombone, Alvy West and Danny d’Andrea onalto sax, Lennie Hartman and King Guion on tenor sax, Tommy Mace on baritone sax, Dave Newman, Harry Azen, and Saul Blumenthal on violins, Buddy Weed on piano, Mike Pingitore on guitar, Artie Shapiro on string bass, and Lou Paino on drums.

First, a frenetic and modern arrangement of the jazz standard “I Found a New Baby” highlights the talents of Buddy Weed at the piano.

I Found a New Baby, recorded June 5, 1942 by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra.

“The General Jumped at Dawn” is a swell swing instrumental, one of my favorite swing sides, in fact, composed and arranged by Jimmy Mundy.  The Golden Gate Quartet sang a memorable version of this tune in the classic World War II film Hollywood Canteen in 1944: “Said the captain to the general, ‘Pops, we’re gonna cause a commotion.'”  Oddly, this side gets more and more worn and muffled as it plays through, then cleans up completely in the last five seconds or so.

The General Jumped at Dawn, recorded June 5, 1942 by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra.

Victor 36205 – Benny Goodman and his Orchestra – 1937

Besides Prohibition, another momentous event that occurred on January 16 was Benny Goodman’s legendary concert at Carnegie Hall, which happened in 1938.  It was the first jazz concert ever held at Carnegie Hall, and has been credited as the event that brought swing jazz into the mainstream.  Though Goodman was initially hesitant to take the gig, he did following the success of Hollywood Hotel, in which he appeared.  At first, the audience’s reception was lukewarm, but soon Benny won them over, and it became one of the greatest landmarks in music history.  Particularly popular with the audience were Martha Tilton’s swinging of the Scottish folk song “Loch Lomond” (how’d you like for me to post the record of one sometime?), and the band’s legendary performance of Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing”. The entire concert at Carnegie Hall was recorded and released by Columbia Records on the new LP format in 1950.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t post two records in the same day, but the date of Goodman’s concert came to me long after I had already planned the other one, so all you lucky readers get a two-fer today.

Victor 36205 was recorded July 6, 1937 in New York City by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra.  This one was not recorded at the Carnegie Hall concert, but rather a few months earlier, around the time he was filming Hollywood Hotel.  According to the label, the band includes Benny Goodman on clarinet, Hymie Schertzer, Arthur Rollini, George Koenig, and Vido Musso on saxophones, Harry James, Chris Griffin, and Ziggy Elman on trumpets, Murray McEachern and Sterling “Red” Ballard on trombones, Harry Goodman on string bass, Jess Stacy on piano, Allan Ruess on guitar, and Gene Krupa (whose birthday was just yesterday, the 15th) on drums.

Here it is, the legendary “Sing, Sing, Sing”, played with a bit of “Christopher Columbus” interpolated within.  Both sides of a longer playing twelve inch 78 played end-to-end for your listening pleasure.

Sing Sing Sing

Sing Sing Sing (Parts 1 & 2), recorded July 6, 1937 by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra.