21/11/2010 7:33 pm  #1


HIGH SOCIETY

After the football game tonight, I have my TV viewing all mapped out. TCM (Turner Classic Movies) has HIGH SOCIETY (1956) on at 6pm eastern time. I never get tired seeing that movie...Bing was in great voice in this flick. Anyone else checking it out for the first time or fourteenth time?

 

22/11/2010 12:40 pm  #2


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

I like the way that Satchmo sings out the individual syllables in the opening theme song:
"High, Hign,
High, High,
High So-Ci-Et-Ty."
It has me smiling before the story even begins.

Tommy


Crosby fans are our favourite people!
 

22/11/2010 7:17 pm  #3


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

Hello all Crosbyphiles (this was, I believe, a joke in one of Bing´s radio shows with Jimmy Durante) on this new board!
Certainly the top number of HIGH SOCIETY is NOW YOU HAS JAZZ. But since I was a young man my secret favourite is LITTLE ONE with some background playing of Louis Armstrong. Although the other number with a trumpet solo of Satchmo and only short lyrics for Bing (I LOVE YOU; SAMANTHA) was high favoured by me. I prefered these three songs even more than Bing´s last highratet hitparade song TRUE LOVE and listened to them countless times, even more than to TRUE LOVE. My old LP will be a little scratchy on these titles, because I haven´t in my youth a record player with automatical lifter. The melody of SAMANTHA flows so wonderful smoothy.  It´s very dreamy! So far I know Bing never sung LITTLE ONE again on radio or TV. SAMANTHA was sung by Bing in a medley with Tiny Tim in 1969. Another Cole Porter top was YOU`RE SENSATIONAL by Frank Sinatra. Bing made a version with Buddy Cole, that is on the 7CD set by MOSAIC. Pete Moore  and Ken Barnes made from this Porter tune a wonderfull full orchestra track on SONGS OF A LIFETIME (on 3CD THENTH ANNYVERSARY COLLECTION and many other collections).- Dieter.

Last edited by Dieter (22/11/2010 7:30 pm)

 

22/11/2010 8:17 pm  #4


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

I  remember an anecdote, which I have read somewhere about I LOVE YOU, SAMANTHA. This song was the title tune of a British radio show. The late Bing was interviewed on telephone by the disc jockey of the show. Bing should have said on the beginning: "Are you the fella, who stops the music, before I begin to sing?" British friends like Richard could tell you this story certainly more truly and detailed than I can.- Dieter.

Last edited by Dieter (22/11/2010 8:20 pm)

 

24/11/2010 12:12 am  #5


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

I have not heard the anecdote, Dieter, but it is quite believable. The tune is used by David Jacobs, a prominent disc jockey in the UK handling "our" sort of music. He does not currently use Bing's version but an orchestral version recorded by the Pete Moore Orchestra - another link.  I think that this version has been used for the last two or three years but before that I think it was Bing's version - but as you say, faded out before Bing's entry.

David has been active for very many years - he is now in his eighties - and his shows have changed their names and timings on radio, but "I Love You Samantha" has certainly been used for a long time. In the course of his shows he does interviews with prominent guests and has done them on the telephone. So your story is certainly credible, and I wish I knew more.


David

 

24/11/2010 6:18 pm  #6


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

Richard, you led me to the source of this anecdote naming David Jacobs. David wrote about that on the liner notes of MCA-LP BING CROSBY IN DEMAND from 1986. Jacobs wrote:

"...but I never, never met the one man who probably meant more to me than all the others put together. I dit sit three tables away from him at the old Caprice restaurant in London some twenty years ago and longed to walk over and say "Hello", but he seemed so engrossed in conversation and was having such a good time, who was I to spoil it? I did, however, speak to him on a radio link for a BBC Christmas Special, as soon as he came on the air he said, "Hey, aren´t you the fellow who uses ´I love you Samantha` as his signature tune and fades the record out just before I start to sing?" I had to admit that I was and also how flattered I was that he´d heard about it...."

This LP compiled by John C. Marshall with a beautiful cover was one of my dearest at that time and I  think one of the best sampler LPs in the late LP era. There were some songs on it, that I had the first time, although I have collected Bing since about 10 years. My new favourites at that days were for long times INDIAN SUMMER, THE STORY OF SORRENTO, OUT OF THIS WORLD, VAYA CON DIOS, and the studio track of GRANADA, which I knew only as radio version from the show with Sinatra.- Dieter.

 

24/11/2010 6:50 pm  #7


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

Dieter

You're right. I've found it. I must read sleeve notes more carefully and try to remember them.

Yes it was one of the best compilations covering some of the less well known songs and with a very stylish blue and gold sleeve.  I wonder what gave them the idea for that?

Issued in 1986 - 24 years ago - and referring to events 20 years before that, and David Jacobs is had been well known much earlier than that and still going strong.

 

20/6/2012 6:04 pm  #8


Re: HIGH SOCIETY

I have just received a notice from Turner Classic Movies and they are selling 'High Society' DVD for $7.99. Looks like it comes under the Frank Sinatra collection.

 

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