Marty Napoleon - Marty Napoleon & His Music

Here's an early (1958) stereo disc from jazz pianist Marty Napoleon, best known for his work with Louis Armstrong. Napoleon apparently was the leader on only four dates: this one, for a label called Stere-o-craft, one three years earlier for Bethlehem and two late 1950s sessions for Everest.

Stere-o-craft, one of a bevy of labels owned by New York-based orchestra leader Morty Craft, lasted for only a couple of years and issued less than two dozen albums. Almost all of the LPs were jazz, including the debut album of vocalist Shirley Horn, Embers and Ashes, in 1960.

The stereo and musical quality of the several Stere-o-craft albums I've heard have been excellent, including this one, Marty Napoleon & His Music. There's a kind of funky feel to this LP, thanks to Napoleon's use of organ on some tracks, the guitar work of Joe Puma and the tenor sax of Carmen Leggio. Also along on the date were bassist Chubby Jackson and drummer Mickey Sheen.

Below you can listen to and download the Napoleon group's version of the Harry James hit You Made Me Love You.

You Made Me Love You

As shown in this YouTube video, the album was also released as a 45 EP, in stereo. This probably was designed mainly for use in jukeboxes. There likely also was a reel-to-reel tape version as most Stere-o-craft releases were available in this format.

Marty Napoleon's two sessions for Everest are available as downloads from iTunes, Amazon and eMusic, among others. The Stere-o-craft session, unfortunately, is not.

Mariano & the Unbelievables - The 25th Hour

Here's a truly bizarre piece of instrumental pop from 1968 courtesy of Mariano and the Unbelievables. The 25th Hour was the second of their two LPs for Capitol in their (very) brief career of playing pop hits in a pseudo-baroque style.

The liner notes tell us that leader Mariano Moreno, who plays harpsichord, was from Argentina. The group was put together in southern California and at least one member, violist Jerry Epstein, later joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

This stuff is probably best taken in small doses, so here's the title song 25th Hour for you to listen to and download.

25th Hour



Judging by the listings at eBay, Amazon and other sites, some people are prepared to pay big bucks for this group's LPs. My advice is that if Mariano and his cohorts don't surface at the local thrift store for a dollar (or less), you're paying too much.

Needless to say, neither of their albums has made the shift to digital formats.

Bill Justis - Bill Justis Plays 12 Big Instrumental Hits

Although Bill Justis worked mainly behind the scenes as a producer, musical director and A&R man for labels like Sun and Mercury, he had one superb moment of chart glory under his own name.

In 1957, Justis composed Raunchy and recorded it for Sam Phillips's Sun label. Featuring Justis's alto sax and the guitar of Sid Manker, it was Sun's all-time biggest selling instrumental, hitting No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping the magazine's R&B chart.

While at Sun, Justis also was the arranger for sessions with Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Charlie Rich.

After his time at Sun, he moved on to several other labels, including Mercury, where he recorded half a dozen albums under his own name for the company's Smash subsidiary. Almost all of them contained covers of the big instrumental hits of the period, beginning with Bill Justis Plays 12 Big Instrumental Hits, released in 1962. You can listen to and download Justis's take on pianist Bent Fabric's Alley Cat from the link below.

Alley Cat

Justis, who also scored the Burt Reynolds movies Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper, died in Nashville in 1982.

If watching a spinning 45 is your thing, here's Bill Justis's Alley Cat from YouTube.

Jean-Claude Borelly - Les 16 Oscars de la Musique de Films

French trumpeter Jean-Claude Borelly gained widespread fame with his 1975 hit Dolannes Melodie, written by Paul de Senneville and Olivier Toussaint, who also produced his recording of the song.

The song was a success all over Europe as well as in Japan and South America. Everywhere, it seems, but North America, with the exception of French-speaking Quebec where his recordings received wide exposure.

Borelly churned out dozens of albums of romantic melodies, including Les 16 Oscars de la Musique de Films in 1981. From it, you can listen to and download Angel of Mine. The MP3 is taken from a cassette copy of the album.

Angel of Mine

Many of Borelly's recordings were released on CD, but none of them appear to be still in print. His page on the website of his former label, Delphine, hasn't been updated since 2002 and the links to buy his albums don't seem to lead anywhere useful.

Borelly does have his own website and it appears to be up to date, but it's entirely in French so it's a bit of a guessing game if you don't speak the language. His site also appears to indicate he has a resonably recent album on the Sony label in France, but I couldn't find a link to buy it.

The site does, however, have a couple of interesting videos, including one of a recent performance. Click on "entrer ici" on the homepage to access them.

In the meantime, here's a video of Borelly's big hit, Dolannes Melodie.




There don't appear to be any legal sites to download Borelly's music, but there are plenty of opportunities to do so from more questionable places.

Wes Montgomery - Fusion! Wes Montgomery with Strings

Fusion! Wes Montgomery with Strings (Riverside, 1963) is a significant album in the guitarist's career as it marked his movement into the pop genre from jazz. This shift would culminate in albums like Tequila and California Dreamin' for the Verve and A&M labels.

On the Riverside album, however, Montgomery sticks to the standards rather than covering the chart hits of the day. Backed by the arrangments of Jimmy Jones, he tackles songs like All the Way, a 1957 hit for Frank Sinatra. You can listen to and download the track via the link below. The MP3 is taken from vinyl. I believe it was a promo 45 single, but it was done a number of years ago and I don't really recall.

All the Way

Fusion! is readily available as a CD or digital download from all the major online sellers.

Here's a YouTube take on All the Way, set to a montage of Wes Montgomery album covers.

Jose Melis - Jose Melis Plays His TV Favorites

Cuban pianist and arranger Jose Melis gained fame as the bandleader on The Tonight Show when Jack Paar took over as host from Steve Allen in 1957. Melis and Paar continued on the show until 1962.

Melis also carved out a recording career for himself, first on the Seeco label, which issued mainly Latin recordings, and then on Mercury.

Jose Melis Plays His TV Favorites was issued towards the end of his tenure on The Tonight Show. From it comes You Stepped Out of a Dream.

You Stepped Out of a Dream

Melis's star faded rapidly once his time on The Tonight Show was over. He suffered from vision and hearing problems in later years and died of a respiratory infection -- at age 85 -- in 2005.

Some of Melis's Seeco recordings are available from iTunes and other download sites. Although I haven't sampled them, I suspect they may be dubbed from vinyl. Listen before you buy.

None of Melis's recordings are available on CD.

The Stingers (Jerry Cole) - Guitars a Go Go

The Stingers was just one of the pseudonyms by Los Angeles session guitarist Jerry Cole, who churned out numerous low-budget albums for Crown Records in the 1960s. He also recorded some LPs under his own name, including several surf albums for Capitol.

Cole played on countless records during the '60s, including such hits as the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man, Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walking and the Pet Sounds album by the Beach Boys.

Guitars a Go Go came out in 1964, passing largely unnoticed except by those of us who pawed the discount racks in supermarkets, drug stores and other places where one wouldn't normally shop for music.

007 Rides Again is typical of the tracks on the album (there was a Volume 2 of Guitars a Go Go in 1966) and despite the title it doesn't bear much resemblance to the James Bond soundtracks. It's closer to the popular surf guitar sound of the day than anything else.

Listen to, and download, 007 Rides Again from the link below. The MP3 is taken from a copy of the original Crown LP.

007 Rides Again

Fortunately much of Cole's '60s output is available on CD, including both volumes of Guitars a Go Go on a single CD from the Ace label in the U.K.

Cole, who died in 2008, is also well represented in the digital downloads sections of the major online merchants.

Arthur Lyman - Ilikai

Along with Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman helped craft the exotica music genre that gained popularity in the the late 1950s. In fact, Lyman played vibes in Denny's group but left in 1957 to start his own ensemble.

Lyman's debut album Taboo was a Top 10 hit in 1958. Denny and Lyman had similar lush sounds and their recordings often featured bird calls and other exotic sound effects.

Denny and Lyman also had the only major hit singles of the relatively short-lived exotica fad -- Denny with Quiet Village and Lyman with Yellow Bird in 1961.

Exotica music was past its due date by the time Lyman released Ilikai in 1967. It's a pretty straightforward effort, with a mixture of cover versions of recent pop hits and songs by Hawaiian musicians, such as Ain't no Big Thing by Kui Lee. This tune was used in several epidodes of Hawaii 5-0 (not Lyman's version).

Listen to and download Ain't No Big Thing by Arthur Lyman from the link below.

Ain't No Big Thing

Kui Lee, who also wrote Don Ho's signature tune Tiny Bubbles, died in 1966, the year before Lyman's version of Ain't No Big Thing surfaced as the lead track of his Ilikai LP.

Many of Arthur Lyman's albums, including Ilikai, are available on 2on1 CDs from the Collector's Choice label at a bargain price of $5.98. Visit Oldies.com for details.

Ilikai is also widely available as a digital download. 

Andre Previn - Give My Regards to Broadway

When pianist Andre Previn left the Contemporary label at the end of the 1950s, he moved to Columbia where one of his first projects was Give My Regards to Broadway. It's a trio effort with bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Frank Capp and they run through 10 standards from Broadway musicals, including Almost Like Being in Love from Brigadoon (1947). The MP3 is taken from a cassette copy of the album.

Almost Like Being in Love

Give My Regards to Broadway is widely available on CD on the Collectables label (recommended) and via digital downloads on the Hallmark label. Beware of possible quality issues with the downloads if you're a stickler for pristine sound: Hallmark albums are often dubbed from vinyl.

And here's the title song from Give My Regards to Broadway, with a nice retro touch of a spinning turntable, from YouTube.

Eddy Senay - Hot Thang

Detroit funk guitarist Eddy Senay cut two hot albums in 1972 -- Hot Thang and Step by Step -- for the Sussex label, the same label that hosted Dennis Coffey of Scorpio fame.

Both of Senay's albums were all instrumental, with mostly originals but also including a cover of Bill Withers's Ain't No Sunshine, which comes from Hot Thang. You can listen to and download the track from the link below. The MP3 is taken from a 45 single.

Ain't No Sunshine

Here's the YouTube version of Ain't No Sunshine.

Both Eddy Senay albums are available on a combo CD entitled Soul Preachin'. You can buy it here. The tracks are also available as digital downloads from various sources.

Longines Symphonette - Gift of Love

If you like the classic easy listening sound, you could do far worse than search out LPs and box sets from Reader's Digest and Longines Symphonette. Fortunately, these albums turn up frequently in thrift and second-hand stores and also are in plentiful supply from online sellers. You shouldn't be paying more than a few dollars for them.

Unlike Reader's Digest, Longines Symphonette rarely credited the musicians on their orchestral recordings, so there's no indication of who plays on this album, Gift of Love, which came out in 1974.

As was usual with Longines, Gift of Love is a meticulously recorded instrumental set of standards, including The Very Thought of You, I'll Walk Alone and You'll Never Know, the last of which you can listen to and download from the link below.

You'll Never Know

As far as I know, none of the Longines Symphonette recordings have turned up on CD but some of them are available on legal download sites under the name Longines Symphonette Society or in some cases just The Symphonette Society.

Duane Eddy - Guitar Man

In 1975, Arista Records released the LP Guitar Man after Duane Eddy's surprise hit on the U.K. charts, Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar. Of course the album included the hit single, but there was also a cover of the Fifth Dimension's 1972 hit (Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All. Not much surprise there either as the same gentleman, Tony Macaulay, wrote both songs and was the producer of both Guitar Man and the Fifth Dimension hit.

Guitar Man featured both straight instrumentals and songs with a vocal group, much in the vein of Eddy's 1963 hit for RCA Victor, (Dance with the) Guitar Man. Below is the MP3 of Eddy's cover of (Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All, taken from the original vinyl.

(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All

And for those of you who like to watch, here's Duane doing Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar on the BBC's Top of the Pops program.

Guitar Man was released on CD in 2009 by the British company Beat Goes On. It contained two bonus tracks, vocals that Duane Eddy had recorded and that were released as a single by CBS in the U.K. The CD is now out of print, but apparently is still available from the record company.

Eddy is enjoying a resurgence of late. In 2011, he released a new album, Road Trip, on both CD and vinyl in the U.K. It is available in the U.S. as an import. Or you can opt for the much cheaper digital download. Click here for details.

Les Adams & His Fabulous Hawaiians - Adventures in Paradise

How about some Hawaiian music recorded in Australia? A bit strange perhaps, but Les Adams and His Fabulous Hawaiians recorded a couple of albums in the 1960s, including the simply-titled Hawaii, which came out in 1965. Adams was the lead steel guitar player of the nine-member group, whose take on Hawaiian music is pretty authentic, as you'll hear on Adventures in Paradise.

Adventures in Paradise

None of the recordings of Les Adams and His Fabulous Hawaiians appear to have made the transition to digital formats, although you can often find copies of the Hawaii LP for sale online.

Teresa Brewer & Mercer Ellington - The Cotton Connection

Those of you who remember Teresa Brewer for her high-pitched pop hits (like Music! Music! Music!) in the 1950s may be surprised (pleasantly, I hope) by her later jazz recordings.

Some may be put off by her slightly nasal tone, but she does a more than creditable job on The Cotton Connection, a 1985 album for the Doctor Jazz label where the band is led by Mercer Ellington.

Her re-emergence as a jazz singer came after her 1972 marriage to record producer Bob Thiele and she had a string of albums for Doctor Jazz, as well as Thiele's other labels, Red Baron and Signature.

From The Cotton Connection comes All of Me. The MP3 is taken from a cassette copy of the album.

All of Me

Here's the YouTube take on All of Me.

The Cotton Connection is readily available, paired with The Songs of Bessie Smith (backing by Count Basie), on a 2-for-1 CD from the Collectables label at a bargain price.

Paul & Rick - After Hours

Here's a really obscure R&B instrumental from 1969 by a duo billed as Paul & Rick. Don't know a thing about these guys and I can't find any reference to them on the web or in books.

This appears to have had mainly a European release, although I know it did come out in the U.S. as I used to have a promo copy. Unfortunately, it has long since disappeared.

Paul & Rick sound like they could be from Detroit, but who knows. Anyone with any information is welcome to leave a comment.

The "A" side, Hen House, is a good funk instrumental ruined by hollering and vocal interjections that reach a truly annoying level. If this sounds like your sort of thing, you can listen to it on this blog.

The flip side, After Hours, is more to my liking. There are still a few vocal grunts and so forth, but generally it's a pretty enjoyable slow blues. It's here for your listening and downloading pleasure, dubbed from the 45.

After Hours

If you're anxious to add this to your collection be prepared to pay -- a lot. Copies are currently listed anywhere from €20 to €85 on French websites. That's from $26 to $112. You'd have to be a fanatic, very rich or both.