14/10/2021 12:03 pm  #1


Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

So last night after the kids were in bed, I put on my album of Bing & Satchmo and even though I have at least two copies on CD, it was great to here the LP of it. It is the MGM pressing and it does not have "Lazy River" on it, but it was still great to end the night with.

My favorite song from the album was Dardenella and Muskrat Ramble. I think I love these two recordings the most because I had them on a 45rpm when I was 7 years old. All the numbers are great but probably my least favorite is "Little Ol Tune". I don't feel like it fit in with the Dixieland sound. However, this whole album was an A+, and listen to Bing closely - you could tell he was having a ball with the recording sessions. He really had a smile in his voice.

Anyone else have any memories or opinions on this album?

 

15/10/2021 12:02 am  #2


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

Archiefit wrote:

I've had an exhausting day today, my car died and had to wait to be towed while I had groceries in the car....  I could go on but I'm wore to a frazzle (to quote Lum & Abner).   This is to explain why I don't have the energy to go look for my album version of Bing & Satch.   But I believe speaking off the top of me head (which is always chancy) that my album version didn't contain the "Little Ol Tune" song and maybe there was another one missing, I'm not sure.  But who cares I only listen to my computer version of that album now that came from a CD download, so I'm happy as a clam and I hear cuts from that album on a regular basis now when listening to my music playlist with all other artists (beside Bing) and songs from that lp pop up more now than I ever had a chance to listen to them when all I had was the album.   I rarely played my albums, I recorded the albums I liked best on cassette and I'd listen to those regularly.   But the computer has been a godsend when it comes to hearing all my music as opposed to rarely hearing it when it was just albums in a bin.

The song that my album didn't have was "Lazy River" which is one of my favorites. My CD copy has it restored. I like CDs and MP3 for the easy storage, but there is just something about a vinyl record sometimes. I have a bunch of vinyl I still need to transfer, but I have some "sentimental" vinyl - mostly Bing that I could never part with.
 

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15/10/2021 8:23 am  #3


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

I've always loved this album. It was one of my earliest Crosby LP purchases in the very early 70s, as "The Special Magic of Bing & Satchmo", but it was a re-release in the UK MGM/Polydor "The Special Magic of..." series with no sleeve notes apart from a track listing (no "Lazy River"...) so it was a while in those far-off, pre-internet days before I learned of the original 1960 release. In the same series, "The Special Magic of Bing Crosby" turned out to be "Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings"! 

 

15/10/2021 11:29 am  #4


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

jeremyrose wrote:

I've always loved this album. It was one of my earliest Crosby LP purchases in the very early 70s, as "The Special Magic of Bing & Satchmo", but it was a re-release in the UK MGM/Polydor "The Special Magic of..." series with no sleeve notes apart from a track listing (no "Lazy River"...) so it was a while in those far-off, pre-internet days before I learned of the original 1960 release. In the same series, "The Special Magic of Bing Crosby" turned out to be "Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings"! 

Interesting about how those records were reissued. 

It is nice on the Bing & Satchmo album to hear Louis playing the trumpet too. In the last decade of his life, he became more of a pop star and didn't play much on recordings. 

I remember having the 45rpm of "Dardenella" and listening to the line "She looks so dreamy in her maiden form bra", and at 7 years old I thought it was so dirty! If I only knew what music would become!
 

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16/10/2021 3:29 am  #5


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

I like this album a lot, but it is second to last place when ranking Bing's duets albums for me. I simply adore the Bing and Fred duet album from 1975, along with the Fancy Meeting You Here, then this album, and last the That Travelin' Two Beat album. All of them I enjoy though.


Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.
 

16/10/2021 1:14 pm  #6


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

ModernBingFan0377 wrote:

I like this album a lot, but it is second to last place when ranking Bing's duets albums for me. I simply adore the Bing and Fred duet album from 1975, along with the Fancy Meeting You Here, then this album, and last the That Travelin' Two Beat album. All of them I enjoy though.

Interesting how everyone has different tastes when it comes to Bing. I would put this at the top of my duets list - although the Bing and Fred Astaire album was outstanding. I have never been a huge fan of Rosemary Clooney so I never ranked Bing and Clooney's album very high up - even though they were pretty good. 
 

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18/10/2021 1:35 pm  #7


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

Good points Archiefit! I'll have to relisten to his albums with Rosemary Clooney. I don't dislike Rosemary Clooney, there is just a ton of other female singers that I like more.

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19/10/2021 1:03 am  #8


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

Rosemary became one of my favorite female singers, so that definitely helps those records for me as well.


Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.
 

19/10/2021 1:06 pm  #9


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

Regarding Rosemary Clooney, I don't know if it was years of smoking, but her voice didn't age well. I can't really listen to anything she did in the 1970s or later. I need to relisten some of her other work thought.

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07/10/2022 4:59 am  #10


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

The BING And SATCHMO LP,released in 1960,found me reviewing it again,with the more recent posts about the previous 1956  HIGH SOCIETY soundtrack LP.When compared to the fab NOW YOU HAS JAZZ recording with Bing & Louis Armstrong,it's easy to note that the sheer excitement of the soundtrack  recording is missing.The expectations ,for the  full  1960 album,were huge.What results is a controlled recorded effort by Bing,as if it was a radio show- a dull one.Both of these great artists seemingly showed up for a job,with no sparks flying./ The comparision with the Bing And Rosemary Clooney FANCY  MEETING YOU HERE,finds both recording artists prepared,as both Bing & Rosemary interested in every track.While Rosemary does take to the singing honors a bit better,Bing's interchanges with her found him up to the challange.An excellent album!No so with Louis..

 

07/10/2022 3:59 pm  #11


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

This one always confused me due to the varying accounts that Crosby and Armstrong recorded their tracks separately and then were dubbed together. Also I had read at some point the vocal chorus recorded their part  with Armstrong and then it was all dubbed together. Not sure. I did find a quote on why Lazy River was not on the original album.

"Eleven tracks were issued on the LP, excluding "(Up A) Lazy River" because Armstrong had recorded it for another company. Permission was granted for it to be included in the All Star Festival LP issued in 1963 on behalf of the United Nations to help refugees around the world. Johnny Mercer sings a few lines with the chorus on this track."Dardanella" and "Muskrat Ramble" were released as singles in October 1960. Billboard magazine commented that the tracks would be popular with "jocks".

Last edited by Benclink (07/10/2022 4:00 pm)

 

08/10/2022 12:47 pm  #12


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

Archiefit wrote:

I read that also that Bing & Satch supposedly recorded their tracks separately, but I find it hard to believe.  You hear them interacting with each other, reacting to the other, unless their reactions were all scripted into the song (which I doubt, these 2 reacted naturally when singing, no script needed) I just don't believe they were recorded separately at different places and times.   If not, they did a masterful job of sounding like they were talking with each other.  A bit too natural sounding to sound pre-planned.

No I believe they were in the studio together. Back in 1960 there is no way they would have been able to make it sound that good if they weren't in the same room. I've been wrong before though!
 

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10/10/2022 2:50 pm  #13


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

Lobosco wrote:

Archiefit wrote:

I read that also that Bing & Satch supposedly recorded their tracks separately, but I find it hard to believe.  You hear them interacting with each other, reacting to the other, unless their reactions were all scripted into the song (which I doubt, these 2 reacted naturally when singing, no script needed) I just don't believe they were recorded separately at different places and times.   If not, they did a masterful job of sounding like they were talking with each other.  A bit too natural sounding to sound pre-planned.

No I believe they were in the studio together. Back in 1960 there is no way they would have been able to make it sound that good if they weren't in the same room. I've been wrong before though!
 

The use and history of multitracking is interesting....AMPEX....Les Paul...by the 1960's the Beach Boys were utilizing it.

Patti Page was the first vocalist to record her own voice, sound on sound, with a song called "Confess" in 1947 for Mercury records. This was months before Les Paul  and Mary Ford had their first multi-voiced release.  Four-track recording was the studio standard through the mid 1960s Les Paul had utilized 3-track recording.

https://theaudiophileman.com/bing-crosby-tape-revolution/  (Concise article)

Crosby did do a multitrack recording with his own voice for Decca in the thinking mid to late 1950's...I cannot think of the name but of the song... it was a multitrack with only his voice...can anyone recall that one?


 

 

11/10/2022 7:40 pm  #14


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

https://jazzjournal.co.uk/2021/11/07/louis-armstrong-and-bing-crosby-bing-satchmo/


However you need an account to read all of it.

First the band and singers recorded their parts in Los Angeles. Next Crosby and Armstrong did thier tracks in NY a week later. Then Armstrong did the trumpet tracks a few days after that.

Not sure if it is true or not.

 

18/10/2022 8:38 am  #15


Re: Bing & Satchmo (1960 album)

I hadn't played this album for years and so this lovely conversation propelled me towards my vinyl cupboard and the same MGM LP version David mentions at the top of the page. I found it a complete pleasure and I so agree with you, David with your choices of "Dardenella" and "Muskrat Ramble". I'd also like to add "Rocky Mountain Moon" which I thought a beautifully lilting track with the the lead vocals, Louis' trumpet and the band and chorus all as one.

From a later LP reissue I have, I think I'd also give a nod to the afore mentioned "Up a Lazy River", a song which just seems such a natural for both of them. My mind may be playing tricks - but might I have also heard Bing and Louis perform a radio version of this?. I wonder why this and "Bye-Bye Blues" were missing from the MGM edition? I'm also always surprised to learn that even sixty years ago and beyond, different parts of recordings even then were pulled together from different sessions. Naive little me always  thought "our kind of music" began only doing this with Sinatra's digital fibre telephone lines used to conjure the illusion of same time studio duets  from his as titled brace of charted albums in the early 1990's! 

The album does seem to have some similarities with Bing and Rosie's, "That Traveling' Two Beat" and I must confess an initial disappointment thirty-odd years ago on first listening - along the same lines of Colin's comment, that I was expecting a lot more of the jazzier drive from Bing and Louis' "High Society" duet of "Now You Has Jazz". This thread has now made me think how wonderful it would have been to have had (straight off the back of that film), an album of Bing and Louis and his " …All Stars" group as present in the movie. 

However, over the years and due to repeated plays - I've become very fond of "Bing and Satchmo" and appreciated its more mainstream, easy listening sensibilities with the chorus, arrangements and of the course the shining vocals of its two fabulous leads.

Duets wise (and also favourite-album-of-all-time-wise), it's always going to be Bing and Rosie's, "Fancy Meeting You Here" for me, due to a combination of it being (outside a compilation), the first album of Bing's I ever heard and just such an incredibly joyful, rip-roaring musical meeting of the minds of Messrs Crosby, May and Ms Clooney.

Thank you David and everyone for helping me re-visit a long neglected album. It's now made me think of purchasing a CD or indeed original LP with all the tracks present on one!  

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (18/10/2022 8:47 am)

 

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