Category: big band

1952 begins with a new Queen for England and ends with a war hero for U.S. President. In-between are military coups for Cuba and Egypt. Although, we did beat the Russkis in the Helsinki Olympics (barely). George Jorgensen lost to Christine Jorgenson this year as well (if ya know whut ah mean).

The top o’ the charts also tells a battlesome tale. Consider this playlist as a searing love lorn plot: “You Belong to Me” “Here in My Heart;” “Why Don’t You Believe,” “Blue Tango,” “Cry,” “I Went to Your Wedding,” “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart.” Those darn kids and their over-emotional tunes!

In Adult Town, where the real wars are made, we denially lounge to sweet, brisk, bouncy bands.

Spike Jones is still filling ballrooms. Here he is with his band and ‘Winter‘ (check out the cool Frisky Frolics cartoon with it!).

Okay, sometimes we had a couple too many and we get a little maudlin and we start singing too loudly about the past, like Don Cornell and orchestra with “Let’s Have an Old Fashioned Christmas.” Hic, hoo boy.

No no no, no more negativity. This is the Year of Norman Vincent Peale and Positive Thinking.  We have to Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye! Chins up! Toes pointed! Marching music, please, maestro! “All Around the Christmas Tree.”

As we enter our decade of prosperity and white picket fences, we still cling to our golden past of victory and nationalism. The big band dance music continues, but feels a little more jazzy. Louis Jordan and his Orchestra bless us with “May Every Day be Christmas.” It’s a thick coating of brass with a cheap organ flourish.

The Four Aces, about to become teen idols, record “There’s a Christmas Tree in Heaven” an Eddy Howard and his orchestra number. It’s a criminal move by their manager.

We continue fighting with the future by sounding like the past with thoughts of our boys on the front lines in Korea. PFC Eddie Fisher sings from there “Christmas Eve in My Home Town” complete with radio show introduction by the crooner.

Cool Tommy (‘It’s All in the Game’) Edwards is keeping it white with “Christmas is for Children,” although i would not play this dreamy, greasy night club nostalgia for children.

The worst of the running-in-place problems is the nepotism of Bing Crosby’s son, Lindsay (no, it only sounds like a daughter), warbling at thirteen years old here with “Dear Mister Santa Claus.” He later went on to form The Crosby Boys with his brothers and play night clubs and drink heavily. These boys mostly committed suicide.

Okay, my novelty search still loves to find the kooky and comedic and childish. 1950 is AFTER most of the Spike Jones holiday hoo-ha, and the sensation of Yogi Yorgesson and his Scandihoovian shenanigans. But it still sought out gleeful oddities.

Funnyman Jimmy Durante begins Act III of his career with his first TV show in 1950. But his “Christmas Wish” featured in a meh movie called The Great Rupert and run on his new show reminded us that vaudeville died kicking and screaming for the Ol’ Schnozzola.

The most popular girl group of the first half of the XXth Century were beloved but not taken too seriously. Laverne, Maxene, and Patty gave us ‘jump blues’ and iconic songs like ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’ While The Andrews Sisters’ ‘I’d Like to Hitch a Ride with Santa Claus‘ is not a ha-ha novelty song, it’s a cute kiddie tune–okay maybe a bit melancholy.

Let’s arm twist the year to find something truly irreverent and comic! Oh–i know, Ella Fitzgerald! The First Lady of Song was one of those talent show winners who elbowed her way into the Apollo in the ’30s with her own vocal gifts. By the ’40s she was dropping her regular band with Chick Webb, going jazz, and even sang a song in an Abbott and Costello movie. Her 1950 song “Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney” made little waves in her burgeoning career, but according to a fellow Xmas music blogger on hip christmas, it became a naughty anthem and re-releases may have been blocked by Lady Ella who didn’t see its sexuality when she first recorded it. (Although i find it more Clarence Carter anal, than Ertha Kitt missionary.) Explicate the imagery at your own prudish peril!

It’s May Day, which i prefer to mean you leave pulled up flowers on the neighbor’s doorstep, but actually is Codependence Day for Communists.

Speaking of which, i’m so bummed from the last two months of poop and corpses i gotta change it up here and find some Actual Music that’s not rude, crude, and dripping with irony. What better start than our own Happy Days Decade, the 1950s? Sure it’s The Cold War (from Korea to Cuba to space racing), but it’s also the slice of the century that gave us TV, rock ‘n’ roll, and me (man, i’m old!).

So let’s us try a few days of the month per year of the ’50s and dig out holiday tunes you may not have heard (tons of standards come from this decade from Bing, Dean, and Elvis; i may mention those overplayed muthas in order to put the years in perspective… but we are not playing that crap).

And, yesiknow, the ’50s actually begin with 1951 and end with 1960–but that’s not the high school text book approach. We’re going to start with 1950, whose Christmas playlist was largely run by kingpin Bing Crosby. ‘White Christmas’ was first released in ’41 and rerecorded in ’47  and played non-stop every Dec. since. 1950 features his continued money-makers ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ and family sing-a-longs and this juggernaut keeps chugging. But, forget that stuff.

So, Christmas ‘Fifty is just another year for crooners to get some sooner, like Pierino Como. Second stringer behind Bing and Frank, Mr. C left the club action and the Ted Weems orchestra in the early ’40s to settle in with family and become a radio and TV guy.  He had hit singles through the ’40s and ’50s (‘Some Enchanted Evening,’ ‘Hot Diggity (Zog Diggity Boom),’ ‘Catch a Falling Star’). And he won countless awards including THREE stars on the Walk of Fame. But do you even hear his ‘Silver Bells’ or ‘The Christmas Song’ in the Broken Record Rotation 500 radio-played every year? Then try his “There’s No Christmas Like a Home Christmas” and it’s flipside “Christmas Symphony.” Please get comfortable first. Aahhh.

The ‘Fifties see the rise of the crooner, the star attraction, hand-in-hand with the demise of the big band ensemble. like Tommy Tucker’s orchestra. Schlepping the country playing clubs through the ’20s and ’30s, Tommy had hits like ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.’ He did appearances on radio shows and even played his own musical show briefly. Here’s his talent playing a lively December dance number recorded in 1950: “Jing A Ling, Jing A Ling.”