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Happened to play "Bing Crosby's Christmas Gems" the other day and realized the opening of the 1946 "Let It Snow" arrangement sounded familiar. I went back and checked later - it's the exact same start as his 1952 Decca recording of "Little Jack Frost, Get Lost" with Peggy Lee!
Funny to hear a different lyric after that familiar opening. I assume Trotter decided to repurpose it six years later since Bing had never recorded "Let It Snow" in the studio for Decca?
Last edited by tedn (16/12/2024 5:05 am)
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Very interesting observation, I am a fan of John Scott Trotter while I agree that Bing shouldn’t relied so much on the same arranger. But Trotter had an immense versality.
There is some true to the accusation that he had a tendency to be repetitive, Lionel Pairpoint mentioned a lot of similarities between Trotter’s arrangement but this one was not included. But still his work was so important, he was one of the most prolific arrangers of his time and able to deal with an immense workload without producing cheap unimaginative arrangements, all his work had a basic quality though not always maintaining the same level.
Bing Crosby would be the best judge of that and according to Lionel Pairpoints book that is available on our club’s website Bing said that Trotter was “very good with a mervellous taste….(and his arrangements were) never obtrusive.. always in good taste’.”
I never had noticed it before you posted It and you are right it is the same intro. Trotter did the arrangement on both and it is a Christmas themed intro that suits well both songs. He was often reusing some parts of his arrangements on radio tracks. I guess it was not easy to detect them then cause radio show weren’t easily available and it would be rare to hear both together and almost impossible to remember it. After all he was doing hundreds of arrangements each year for Bing’s radio show.
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Isn't it said that Trotter subcontracted a number of the arrangements credited to him? I'm curious how common that was.
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I do not now anything about subconstracting arrangments but I guess that is is almost human imposible for one single musician to arrange so many songs per week for the radio shows that Bing was doing plus the Decca recordings. Bing always spoke highly of him and he was indeed a talented man even if his legacy is not the one he deserved.
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It seems unusual for an orchestra leader to work for only one singer exclusively as John Scott Trotter did for Bing like Mitchell Ayres did for Perry Como during the 1950s.Both Nat 'King' Cole and Frank Sinatra used a variety of different orchestra leaders on their recordings.