At Centuries of Sound I am making mixes for every year of recorded sound. The download here is only for the first half-hour of the mix. For the full 3-hour version either see below for the Mixcloud player, or come to patreon.com/centuriesofsound for the podcast version and a host of other bonus materials for just $5 per month. This show would not be possible without my supporters on there, so please consider signing up or sharing this with someone who may be interested.
Mixcloud player with full mix – or listen on the Mixcloud website.
1947 Part Two – Boptamism
A baby boom – a notable increase in babies born – may indicate many socio-economic factors at play, but most of these factors are refractions of hope. Hope that there will be a good world for your children to become adults in, hope that you will be able to provide everything they need, hope that the path of your new family will not be littered with traps and nasty surprises. As I write this in 2024, birth rates in western countries have been in decline for decades, but in 1947 we were just on the spike of the “baby boom” which was so notable it gave its name to a generation. Is this then a time of hope? Will this mix sound optimistic and hopeful?
There was an idea at one point that these mixes would provide some sort of historical narrative into the years in question. Was it an idea that I had, or was it thrust on me by the war? It’s truthfully hard to say, I was already arranging things (not music) month by month back in 1939, maybe it’s a habit I’ve slipped into. In any case the arrangement has now become fairly meaningless (with a couple of exceptions I’ll come to in a moment), just a way to break up years into more manageable chunks or chapters, for example October is fairly bop-heavy and December is winding down for the Christmas section.
That’s the second exception in this mix, the first is the independence of India and Pakistan, a large public event with newsreels and speeches to sample, but whose ramifications wouldn’t be as easy to capture. In China the civil war turned a corner, with the Nationalists increasingly looking doomed. Communists also officially took power in Poland. The spread of communism triggered The Truman Doctrine, as good a date as any for the start of The Cold War. Is any of this evident from this mix? Well no, not at all. This of course does not mean that these things are unimportant, it just means that they haven’t yet impacted the cultural record, or at least my cultural record.
The people – the musicians – here were interested in exploring their art, they were interested in entertaining, they were interested in making people dance, they were interested in making something new. All art is in some sense political, and their stretching out in this freedom to create and share tells you something about their mood. The prospect of nuclear war, even of the Korean War, were not yet in the air. So to answer my own question, yes, we are still in the brief window of hope, but we can grasp this from the absence. There are other things to write about than existential dread.
If you want to chat as listen, you can join the conversation on discord here – https://discord.gg/5a7f6wqjcJ
Tracklist
0:00:00 George Melachrino Strings – Serenade (Drigo)
(Clip from Inner Sanctum – Death Bound)
(Clip from ITMA – Royal Command Performance)
0:01:20 Dizzy Gillespie – Cubana Bop
July
0:04:24 Danny Kaye – Manic Depressive Presents
0:05:15 Forrest Sykes – Tonky Boogie
(Clip from ITMA – Royal Command Performance)
0:08:33 Jo Stafford & Red Ingle – Temptation
(Clip from Danny Kaye – Manic Depressive Presents)
0:11:40 Spike Jones – I’m Getting Sentimental Over You
(Clip from High-Diving Hare)
0:14:19 Jack Mcvea’s All Stars – Open The Door Richard
(Clip from Home Record of a Birthday Party)
0:17:14 Hank Williams – I’m A Long Gone Daddy
(Clip from The Lady From Shanghai)
0:20:01 Utah Smith – I Got Two Wings
0:23:09 Bama – How I Got In The Penitentiary (Interview)
0:23:52 Bama – Stackerlee
0:26:02 Vladimir Horowitz – Variations On A Theme From Bizet’s Carmen
(Clip from Dark Passage)
0:28:25 Kenneth Anger – Spoken introduction from ‘Fireworks’
0:29:21 Barry Ulanov’s All Star Metronome Jazzmen – 52nd Street Theme
(Clip from Easy To Get)
0:31:02 Amos Milburn – Down The Road A Piece
(Clip from The Walgreen Show with Bob Hope)
August
(Clip from India Breaks Free – British Pathe)
0:34:07 Harmonicats – Peg O’ My Heart
(Clip from India Breaks Free – British Pathe)
0:36:45 Surashri Kesarbai Kerkar – Gaud Malhar
(Clip from India Breaks Free – British Pathe)
(Clip from Nehru Speech)
(Clip from India Breaks Free – British Pathe)
0:40:51 Sonny Thompson W. The Sharps & Flats – Long Gone
(Clip from Shy Guy)
0:43:57 Tampa Red – Let’s Try It Again
(Clip from British Movietone Review of The Year)
0:47:01 Dodo Marmarosa – Dodo’s Dance
(Clip from British Movietone Review of The Year)
0:50:37 Roy Acuff – Freight Train Blues
(Clip from British Movietone Review of The Year)
0:53:16 Signe Flatin – Skuldalsbruri
0:54:45 Kiko Kids – Tom Tom
(Clip from Slick Hare)
0:57:43 The Big Three Trio – Signifying Monkey
(Clip from Slick Hare)
1:00:47 Louis Jordan – Barnyard Boogie
(Clip from The Walgreen Show with Bob Hope)
1:03:40 Tex Williams – Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)
(Clip from Shy Guy)
September
(Clip from Fibber McGee & Molly)
1:06:41 The Bopland Boys – Cherokee (Jeronimo)
(Clip from The Lady From Shanghai)
1:12:04 Julia Lee – Snatch And Grab It
(Clip from Easy To Get)
1:14:03 Bull Moose Jackson – I Want A Bowlegged Woman
(Clip from Dark Passage)
1:17:16 Todd Rhodes Orchestra – Blues For The Red Boy
(Clip from Inner Sanctum – Death Bound)
1:19:57 Les Baxter – Mist O´the Moon
(Clip from Black Narcissus)
1:22:51 Spade Cooley – Oklahoma Stomp
(Clip from Monsieur Verdoux)
1:25:38 Wynonie Harris – Good Rockin’ Tonight
(Clip from How To Discipline Children)
1:28:09 Bill Harris All Stars – A Knight In The Village
(Clip from Out Of The Past)
1:32:34 Xavier Cugat – Miami Beach Rhumba
1:34:26 Chano Pozo Y Su Ritmo De Tambores – Tambombarana
(Clip from Speech to the Berlin Philharmonic)
1:36:55 Astor Piazzolla – Se Armó
October
(Clip from It’s That Man Again)
1:38:46 Wayne Raney – Lost John Boogie
1:41:22 Dizzy Gillespie – Emanon / Things To Come
(Clip from Shy Guy)
1:44:51 Dexter Gordon – The Duel
(Clip from Out Of The Past)
1:47:16 Lionel Hampton – Mingus Fingers
(Clip from The Lady From Shanghai)
1:50:33 Dodo Marmarosa Trio – Bopmatism
(Clip from Easy To Get)
1:53:49 Charlie Parker All Stars – Chasin’ The Bird
(Clip from The Jazz Singer – Radio Play)
1:56:37 Thelonious Monk – ‘Round Midnight
1:59:14 Billie Holiday – Solitude
2:02:16 Frank Sinatra – Try A Little Tenderness
(Clip from Dark Passage)
2:05:25 The Trenier Twins – Hey Sister Lucy
November
(Clip from British Movietone Review of the Year)
2:07:56 Stella Haskil – Bir Allah
(Clip from British Movietone Review of the Year)
2:09:52 Kasagi Shizuko – Airei Kawaii Ya
(Clip from Danny Kaye – Manic Depressive Presents)
2:12:24 Sarah Vaughan – I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself a Letter
(Clip from You Bet Your Life)
2:14:53 Maddox Brothers & Rose – Milk Cow Blues
(Clip from Crowing Pains)
2:18:09 Bill Monroe And The Bluegrass Boys – Blue Grass Breakdown
(Clip from Shy Guy)
2:20:50 Roy Brown – Lolly Pop Mama
(Clip from Easy To Get)
2:23:08 Jimmy Liggins – Cadillac Boogie
(Clip from Easy To Get)
2:25:45 Walter Brown & Jay Mcshann Quartet – W. B. Blues
2:28:11 Albert Ammons & His Rhythm Kings – Swanee River Boogie
2:30:40 T-Bone Walker – Bobby Sox Blues
(Clip from Home Record of a Birthday Party)
2:33:27 Leadbelly – Laura
December
(Clip from Odd Man Out)
2:35:30 Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup – That’s All Right
(Clip from It’s That Man Again)
2:36:36 Tiny Bradshaw – Take The Hands Off The Clock
(Clip from Tweety Pie)
2:39:13 Spike Jones & His City Slickers – I Kiss Your Hand Madame
(Clip from It’s That Man Again)
2:41:14 Watanabe Hamako – Tokyo No Yoru
(Clip from Shanghai)
2:43:13 The Barton Brothers – Cockeyed Jenny
2:44:40 Abbott & Costello – Christmas Tree
2:47:31 Frankie Laine – That’s My Desire
(Clip from The Bishop’s Wife)
2:50:49 Sarah Vaughan – The Lord’s Prayer
(Clip from Miracle on 34th Street)
2:53:39 Sister Rosetta Tharpe And Marie Knight – Beams Of Heaven
(Clip from Miracle on 34th Street)
2:56:19 Nat King Cole Trio – For Sentimental Reasons
(Clip from Life of Riley)
2:58:25 Jacob Do Bandolim – Flamengo
(Clip from Truth or Concequences)
Ending
3:00:21 Miles Davis – Out Of Nowhere
(Clip from The Lady From Shanghai)
3:04:35 Nat King Cole Trio – There I’ve Said It Again
(Clip from Monsieur Verdoux)
3:07:45 Cecil Gant – Special Delivery
(Clip from Inner Sanctum – Death Bound)
(Clip from Danny Kaye – Manic Depressive Presents)