The Atlantics - Greensleeves (45 single)

The Atlantics have been one of my favorite surf instrumental bands since I purchased a used jukebox copy of Bombora/Greensleeves back in the late 1960s.

The group had no trouble emulating the sound of Dick Dale & the Del-Tones and other California surf bands despite the fact that they hailed from Australia. Bombora topped the Australian chart in 1963 and was a big hit in Italy, but had almost no impact in North America. The followup, The Crusher, was also a hit in their native land. Despite several first-rate instrumental albums and more singles, that was the extent of their chart action.

On the flip side of Bombora was a version of the standard Greensleeves, an English folk song that dates from the 16th century. It's more recent popularity derives from composer Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on Greensleeves (1934).

Greensleeves



After the success of the Bombora single there was of course a similarly titled LP.

                                          (Photo from the Surafdelic blog)

Many of the Atlantics' recordings are available on CD including a fine "best of" collection from CD Baby. A similar selection of albums is sold as downloads on iTunes and elsewhere.

Here's the group's big hit.

Holiday Break

Guitars & All That Jazz will be taking a holiday break until Dec. 31. Many thanks to all of you who have supported the blog with your comments and +1s on Google Plus.

Best wishes for a happy holiday season and a great 2014.

The Midnight Strings Orchestra - Reminiscing

Reminiscing (Excelsior, 1980) by the Midnight Strings Orchestra is typical of instrumental mood music albums of the 1970s and early '80s -- muted brass and strings accented by a prominent beat provided by an electric bass. The bass sound on many of the easy listening recordings, including this one, was very similar to that heard on numerous disco records of the era.

The Midnight Strings Orchestra was conducted by Syd Dale (1924-1994), a British composer and arranger of easy listening, funk and library music, which consists of tunes designed for use in commercials, films and TV. In fact Reminiscing sounds very much like an album designed to be played as background music in a commercial enterprise of some kind. To put it in less complimentary terms it's elevator music or Muzak, the much maligned and now defunct commercial background music service.

Still I rather like Dale's approach to the familiar pop hits on Reminiscing. It's definitely not foreground listening but is enjoyable nonetheless. You can listen to Too Much, Too Little, Too Late, which was a duet hit for Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams.

Too Much, Too Little, Too Late



None of the half dozen or so LPs by the Midnight Strings Orchestra on Excelsior have been released on CDs or as downloads. But vinyl copies of these albums abound. They didn't sell well and most were dumped into discount bins. These albums are still turning up in thrift stores and the dollar section of record stores.

Plenty of Syd Dale's other recordings, mainly of the library music variety, are available on iTunes and elsewhere.

Here's a track from another Midnight Strings Orchestra LP, On the Radio (1981). Although it might be grammatically correct the title on the video is wrong. The correct title of the song is You Never Done It Like That, a hit by the Captain & Tenille.

Paul Nero Sounds - Golden Western Hits

This is NOT pianist Peter Nero. This Nero plays neither neither piano nor fiddle -- in fact that's not even his real name.

Paul Nero is the name adopted by German jazz saxophonist and composer Klaus Doldinger for a series of instrumental pop albums in the 1960s. Some, like Golden Western Hits (1969), were released on Liberty in North America as well as in his native country. Others, including a few in the non-stop dancing mode popularized by James Last, were confined to a European release.

Since 1971 Doldinger has led a jazz group called Passport whose music has been likened to that of Weather Report. He's also well respected as a composer of music for films and is responsible for the scores of Das Boot (1981), The Never-Ending Story (1984) and Palmetto (1998).

The Paul Nero recordings began in 1965 with The Big Beat, credited to Paul Nero's Blue Sounds, and ended in 1970 with Tops for Dancing. Somewhere along the way the "Blue" was dropped from the group's name.

On Golden Western Hits most of the tracks are familiar themes from western films and TV shows, including of course Bonanza. Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote the theme for the long-running series and it was orchestrated by David Rose and arranged by Billy May for the soundtrack. But it was guitarist Al Caiola who had the hit recording, in 1961.

The Nero version has a Caiola-style guitar, but it's surrounded by a very inventive string and brass arrangement.

Bonanza



None of Klaus Doldinger's Paul Nero recordings have made it onto CD or have been made available as downloads. But Doldinger doesn't appear to want to hide them. They're listed in the discography on his official website.

To close, here's the rather offbeat rendering of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly off the Golden Western Hits LP.

Perry & the Harmonics - Intrigue with Soul

Music from and inspired by the James Bond films is the theme of Intrigue with Soul (Mercury, 1965), the only album released by Perry & the Harmonics, a Chicago-based group.

The recognizable name among the five musicians is Ed Townsend, who had a 1958 vocal hit on Capitol with For Your Love. Townsend, who produced and plays piano on Intrigue with Soul, later co-write the 1970s hit Let's Get It On with Marvin Gaye.

The other members of Perry & the Harmonics are Clarence Perry on tenor sax, Richard McCrea on organ, guitarist Paul Pratt and drummer Maurice Wells. There are also vocals and narration on several tracks, courtesy of Townsend.

Among the soul-jazz offerings from the group is a version of From Russia with Love.

From Russia with Love



Do the Monkey with James was pulled from Intrigue with Soul as a single, but neither it nor the LP had any impact. Both are now collector's items. The one LP is the entire recorded output of Perry & the Harmonics. It has not been released in a digital format.

Here's another track from the album.

Ray Anthony - House Party Hop

Trumpeter Ray Anthony was considered among the most modern of big band leaders, although his arrangements could not by any stretch be considered progressive or experimental. Still, he managed to continue into the rock 'n' roll era (his version of Peter Gunn was a sizeable hit) and he was a Las Vegas regular for many years.

In earlier years, Anthony had hits with the theme from Dragnet and Bunny Hop, a novelty dance that is thankfully not heard much anymore.

Ray Anthony's House Party Hop was the bandleader's first LP, issued first as a 10-inch album in 1951 and in 1956 as a 12-inch with four additional tunes, one of which unfortunately was Bunny Hop. However, the others tracks are mainly big band and pop standards that swing along quite nicely. Among them is a version of the Duke Ellington hit Perdido.

Perdido



The House Party Hop album isn't available on CD or as a download but some of the tracks from it are available on the many CD and download compilations of Ray Anthony's recordings. Some of the downloads are of questionable quality so always audition before buying.

Here's the title tune from House Party Hop accompanied by several nice shots of the Anthony band in action.

Houston Person - Goodness!

Houston Person was very much in a funk/soul jazz vein for Goodness! (1969), his sixth album for the Prestige label. The tenor saxophonist was still relatively unknown at the time he recorded it.

Guitarist Billy Butler and organist Sonny Phillips were the prominent sidemen on the session, which also included Bob Bushnell on bass, Frankie Jones on drums and Buddy Caldwell, congas.

To promote the LP Prestige issued a single with severely shortened versions of Jamilah and the title song.

As you can see Goodness clocked in at just 3:50 on the 45. On the LP it was over nine minutes. The single version is below.

Goodness



The Goodness! album was released on CD by Original Jazz Classics in 1995 and cheap copies of it abound on Amazon and elsewhere. It isn't available as a download.

Here's the full length version of Jamilah from the LP.

The Manhattan Pops Orchestra - Topkapi (track)

Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis (1925-1994) gained worldwide fame after his theme for director Jules Dassin's lighthearted film Never on Sunday (1960) won an Academy Award.

Never on Sunday starred Melina Mercouri, so when Dassin and Mercouri were teamed again on the caper flick Topkapi (1964) the director called on Hadjidakis once more to provide the score. Although the Topkapi music didn't prove to be as popular as that in Never on Sunday the soundtrack did provide several delightful tunes, including the title theme.

There were many recordings of the Topkapi theme and it provided the title for an LP by jazz organist Jimmy McGriff. Among those to wax Topkapi was the Manhattan Pops Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Joe Cain.

A number of easy listening and light classical albums were recorded under the Manhattan Pops name for the Time Records label in the 1960s. Various conductors were employed, including Cain and Richard Hayman.

Cain (real name, Joseph Caiani) was born in Philadelphia in 1929. His real love was Latin music and he became an influential producer and arranger in that genre, working with vocalist Vicentino Valdes and many others. At the same time he recorded numerous LPs under his own name and as the man in charge of ad hoc aggregations like the Manhattan Pops Orchestra. Topkapi was on the orchestra's 1965 LP Motion Picture Themes.

Topkapi



Some of the Manhattan Pops' recordings for Time are available as downloads, but not Motion Picture Themes.

This YouTube selection features Richard Hayman conducting the orchestra on David Rose's Holiday (not Holidays as in the video caption) for Strings. It's from the 1965 Time LP Fiddlers on the Roof.

Woody Herman - Sound of Jazz

Sound of Jazz is a cheap, but surprisingly good quality, European CD reissue (1996) of a Woody Herman small group session recorded for Lionel Hampton's Who's Who in Jazz label in the late 1970s.

Herman, who's heard on clarinet and alto and soprano saxophone, is accompanied by Hampton on vibes, guitarist Al Caiola (check the bizarre misspelling of his name on the CD insert), drummer Richie Pratt, bassist George Mraz, pianist Roland Hanna (his name is also misspelled, even on the original LP) and Candido on conga.

All five tracks are standards, including Body and Soul.

Body and Soul



Ridiculously cheap used copies of this CD abound, including on Amazon. It's well worth a listen and you shouldn't have to pay more than a couple of bucks for it. The contents of this CD may be available as downloads, but not under the Sound of Jazz name.

Vinyl copies of the original LP, Lionel Hampton Presents Woody Herman (1977), also seem to be fairly common.

You shouldn't be paying more than $5 or $6 if vinyl is your medium of choice.

The one Woody Herman tune everybody seems to remember is Woodchopper's Ball, his orchestra's biggest hit.