Category: Uncategorized

Ok – an ambitious and uncharacteristically unjazzy choice today – a little Christmas music from my man Tschaikowsky, who I first heard about after hearing Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Nutcracker Suite 😉.

While there were earlier recordings of selected passages from the Nutcracker ballet, this 1926 recording spanning three 12″ discs includes about 20 minutes of the score. It is one of the first multi-record album sets of the ballet to be issued to my knowledge.

Also, it appears to have been recorded electrically – so also is a very early – perhaps the first – electrical recording of the music of the Nutcracker.

A few jazzier holiday tunes to come this week – right up until Xmas.

Recorded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 10, 1926.
Released as a three disc album, Victrola M-3 (individual catalog numbers 6615, 6616, and 6617).

Credits:
Conductor: Leopold Stokowski
Orchestra: Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra

And now a word from our sponsors…

But seriously – it’s kind of amazing that at one time, the ball point pen – considered nothing short of “miraculous” when it first came out – was one of the hottest new technologies you could buy. Invented by Hungarian László Bíró in 1944, it was very quickly reverse-engineered by Chicago businessman Milton Reynolds and offered for sale in the U.S. within months.

According to the Reynolds website:
“The first Reynolds pen debuted in New York on the morning of October 29, 1945. The day the pen went on sale, an estimated 5,000 shoppers stormed the shop, and approximately 50 NYPD officers had to be dispatched for crowd control.”

Time magazine reported that Gimbels in NYC sold 30,000 of the pens (which went for $12.50 each) in the first week.

While most Americans will be hard pressed to find a Reynolds pen to buy, the company is still in existence and is prospering in India.

On this record you hear the voice of Franklin Lamb, President of Reynolds Pen Company. Before he joined Reynolds, Lamb worked as the Advertising Director of Gimbel’s department store. He left Reynolds in 1949, so that helps to date this record to some Christmas between 1946 and 1948.

In this promotional disc, Lamb excitedly tells Reynolds’ retailers about a new promotional initiative that he has cooked up to promote Reynolds Pens – a radio show featuring singer Georgie Price, who by that point had been retired from the entertainment industry and working at a brokerage firm.

In tribute to Caitlyn Clark, Hannah Stuelke, Kate Martin, Gabbie Marshall, Sydney Affolter, and the entire 2023-24 Iowa Hawkeyes Women’s Basketball team as they play the national championship game against South Carolina today. Best of luck!

Go Hawks!

Recorded by the Hav-Ray Orchestra.
Conductor: Jack Shaindlin.
Released as Hav-Ray 1151.

Here’s a fun 78 rpm 6″ record that was custom-made for children. Each record included the name of the child in the recording.

At the 1:00 mark, Santa asks “Whose chimney is this, my little elf?” and a guy with a Long Island accent chimes in over a cheap microphone: “It’s TIM’S chimney, Santa Claus.”

My guess is this poor guy had to manually dub each record, chiming in at the appropriate point in the pre-recorded soundtrack.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Thanks for all the comments and support this past year on the channel. I’ve got lots of great jazz records to post in 2023 so stay tuned.

“I Don’t Want To Be Drunk”

Cancioneros Tapatíos accompanied by Orquesta Edgardo Acosta.

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, circa January 1929.
Released as Columbia 3482-X.