Time: 6pm GMT, Sunday 23rd January 2022 Place: Cambridge 105 Radio
Another trip back in time, with original sounds from the year 1932, curated by James Errington. Aside from jazz we have foundational blues and roots recordings, highlights from Hollywood and Broadway, and an interview with White Town’s Jyoti Mishra about Al Bowlly, who he sampled on his 1997 number one hit Your Woman.
You can listen to the show on 105fm in Cambridge, on DAB digital across South Cambridgeshire, on the Cambridge 105 website here, or on any good radio apps, or (as the show has already gone out and it is too late to do any of these things) you can play the whole extended version (and this is a particularly extended one) on this handy mixcloud player.
Tracks played
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Conducted By Leopold Stokowski – Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder (Excerpt) Lew Stone with Al Bowlly – My Woman Ray Noble And His New Mayfair Orchestra, Vocal Al Bowlly – Love Is The Sweetest Thing White Town – Your Woman Dua Lipa – Love Again The Three Keys – Jig Time Fred Astaire with The Leo Reisman Orchestra – Night And Day Cab Calloway And His Orchestra – Reefer Man Duke Ellington And His Famous Orchestra – It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) Louis Armstrong And His Orchestra – Hobo, You Can’t Ride This Train Silvio Caldas – E Ela Não Jurou Josephine Baker – Ram Pam Pam Cheikha Tetma – Ach Hal Men Ijarra B.S. Krishnamurthi Sastrigal – Gottuvadyam Instrumental Kouta Katsutaro – Shima No Musume Roger Wolfe Kahn – Fit As A Fiddle Don Redman & His Orchestra – I Got Rhythm Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra – Take Me Away From The River Sidney Bechet And His New Orleans Feetwarmers – Maple Leaf Rag The Boswell Sisters – Everybody Loves My Baby Big Bill Broonzy – How You Want It Done? Pinetop And Lindberg – I Believe I’ll Make A Change Noel Coward – The Party’s Over Now / Let’s Say Goodbye
A two-hour immersive mix of classical / orchestral music recorded in the years 1930 to 1933, featuring solos from Yehudi Menuhin, Fritz Kreisler and Arthur Schnabel and orchestras conducted by Edward Elgar, Maurice Ravel and Leopold Stokowski.
0:00:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra, Conducted By Leopold Stokowski – Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder, 1st Section 0:15:13 Arthur Schnabel – Beethoven Sonata No 31 In A Flat Major, Op 110 Moderato Cantabile Molto Espressivo 0:21:33 London Symphony Orchestra With Yehudi Menuhin, Conducted By Edward Elgar – Elgar Violin Concerto 1:11:13 Yehudi Menuhin – Paganini Kreisler Caprice No. 24 1:17:57 Georg Kulenkampff – Tambourin Chinois (Kreisler) 1:21:30 Fritz Kreisler – Liebesleid (Kreisler) 1:25:02 Joseph Szigeti – Bach Solo Violin Sonata No.1- 2nd Mvt 1:30:11 Grigoras Dinicu – Ca Pe Lunca 1:33:04 Lamoureux Orchestra, Conducted by Maurice Ravel – Ravel’s Bolero 1:48:45 Alexander Mossolov – Zavod, Symphony Of Machines 1:51:36 Wanda Landowska, Harpsichord – Variations 16-20 1:58:27 The Philadelphia Orchestra, Conducted By Leopold Stokowski – 1812 Overture Op. 49
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Half a decade ago the United States was in the midst of an explosion in recorded music on a scale not heard before or since. The inception of that revolution – a change in recording technology allowing studios and record labels to spring up everywhere and anywhere – took a couple of years to filter through. In the same way, the death of that same revolution, the collapse of the recording industry at the start of the great depression and the closure of those studios and labels, also took a couple of years to fully filter through. Now we have arrived at 1932 and it’s all over. The wide variety of roots music, whether labelled country, blues or folk, is no longer being recorded, with the exception of a few of the biggest stars. Likewise, recorded jazz is now the preserve of the biggest bandleaders, or as backing groups for the resurgent movie business.
So why then is this mix one of the longest so far? The answer comes down more to the process of putting the thing together than the qualities of the year itself. With less to choose from in the USA, my attentions shifted to the rest of the world, and it turned out that there was plenty out there. We start out on our trip in the Caribbean, where Calypso and other forms of music are now being recorded professionally and regularly for the first time, thanks to people like record-shop owner and entrepreneur Eduardo Sa Gomes in Trinidad.
Then we have a few tangos, first of course from South America, but then also from Eastern Europe, where artists like Jean Moscopol were blending this new music with traditional local flavours like klezmer and rembetika.
The UK has a greater representation in this mix than in any since 1907 (or maybe even 1888) – while the economic situation was nearly as bad here as in the USA, a couple of powerful record companies as well as the BBC ensured that music recording was actually experiencing something of a boom. The UK records here – including the marvelously sinister version of “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and Noel Coward’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” – are easily a match for anything made in the 20s.
All of this also seems to be the case for France, for whom 1932 seems to be a key year on compilations. Next we explore Arabic music, from Tunisia to Iraq, and India, where truly otherworldly traditional musics are being properly recorded for the first time.
It’s always been my intention to show the whole world in these mixes, but this last half-decade the music from the USA has understandably overwhelmed in its quality and variety. Let’s take this brief lull to appreciate that there was a whole world out there, much of it telling stories about the 1930s which are lost in the great narratives of the depression and the buildup to the next war.
