New Acquisitions in the Music Resource Center

Fall 2023

Spring/Summer 2023

Fall 2022

Summer 2022

Archived Acquisitions

Use the links above to view a list of recent acquisitions in the Music Resource Center. These lists are organized primarily by subject or genre and secondarily by library call number, name or title. They include both Vertical File items and PRIMO cataloged items.

Gerry Recommends:

Spring 2021
Bebop Before and After – From the collection of 78 rpm recordings housed in the Music Annex Band/Jazz Band Ensemble Library.

Click on the highlighted links below to hear the recordings as they’ve been posted online. To hear them in a real acoustic space with a real record player that can play at 78 revolutions per minute see Gerry Heroux in the Music Resource Center to schedule a listening session. Click here for the complete list of 78s – plus an illustrated brief history of records and recording media!

Chris Connor, with Jim Bright Orchestra, arr. Sy Oliver
(Bethlehem B 1291)

Blue Silhouette
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (The Miser’s Serenade)

Big band vocal ballad from the early 1950s backed with a novelty number from this unjustly neglected jazz/pop singer.  There are two more recent recordings from Chris Connor available in the Music Resource Center CD collection – Lover Come Back to Me (1995) CDJ CONNO 2 ; Haunted Heart (2001) CDJ CONNO 1, both well worth your attention.

Jo Stafford with Dave Lambert and his Vocal Choir, with Paul Weston and his Orchestra
(Capitol 4131)

M + H + R x 3ee – 00 / 4/4 aa³ X 32 = Bop  (aka “Jolly Jo”)
Smiles

Another lesser known singer from the late 40s early 50s, Jo Stafford,  while a fine ballad singer, also enjoyed scat singing in uptempo numbers. Here she sings complex bebop lines in duet with the composer and vocalist Dave Lambert.  The mathematical title’s goofy but the reason for the alternate title is evident at the very end. The B side has Stafford singing a pop tune in a medium swing with bebop vocal lines in the background.  After Lambert takes a wild scatting solo to which Stafford joins in on a repeated riff, the record ends with a return of the final lyrics of the song.

Lambert later gained fame as part of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks and Ross which can be heard on two CDs in the Resource Center CDJ LAMBE 1 and CDJ LAMBE 2 (this last one being  a live performance at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival with Annie Ross’s replacement Yolande Bavan in the group).

Jon Hendricks developed his technique of setting words to jazz instrumentals (referred to as “vocalese”) with this influential and popular group, giving jazz vocalists another way to sing besides scatting when improvising.

Howard McGhee Orchestra
(Dial 1027) “12-3-47 Contemporary American Music”

Night Mist
Dorothy

Considered one of the first bepop trumpeters along with Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro, here he is leading a combo in two contrasting sides – an impressionistic ballad on the A side and a mid tempo bounce on the B side.

Alec Templeton: An Album of Piano Solos
(Decca 314)
https://archive.org/details/78_

Light and breezy and just what we need today!  Alec Templeton was a blind Welsh pianist and composer who made a career in the US on radio and later TV during the 1940s and 50s performing a mix of classical and jazz styles.  As a composer his music was recorded by Benny Goodman and others. His biggest hit was “Mr. Bach Goes to Town.”  This album of 78s is full of surprises.

Hazel Scott: Her Second Album of Piano Solos with Drums Acc.
(Decca Album no. 321 – 18 M Series)

Hazel’s Boogie Woogie
Blues in B flat
Embraceable you
Three Little Words
Dark Eyes
Hallelujah!

Hazel Scott was an African-American pianist, singer, actor, and social activist.  She was the first black American entertainer to host her own TV show in 1950.  Like Alec Templeton she played a mix of jazz, pop and classical piano,  plus a good deal of boogie woogie.  In addition to this album of 78s we have two of her piano books in the Music Resource Center:  Hazel Scott Boogie-Woogie Piano Transcriptions M38.5 S36 B6 1943 thin shelf,  and Five Piano Solos from Boogie-Woogie to the Classics M32.8 S368 1943 thin shelf.

Here’s a Smithsonian article on this fascinating woman

And for fun…

Ethel Smith and the Bando Carioca
(Decca Personality Series 23462)

The Parrot (On the Fortune Teller’s Hat) (Os Pintinhos No Terreiro) – samba
Featured in the R.K.O. picture “George White’s Scandals”
1. Paran Pan Pin  2. Cachita – rhumba

Ethel Smith was a virtuoso Hammond organist, featured in movies during the 1940s.