Customer Reviews

1939-47 Performances

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This CD made of New Friends of Rhythm 78 r.p.m. recordings and radio broadcasts from 1939-1947 could be classified as a jazz recording, but the arrangements by Alan Shulman, the group's cellist, use orchestration techniques he gleaned from a lifetime of experience as a classical musician, composer, and arranger, thereby making this just as easy to think of as a recording of contemporary classical chamber music. The members of the New Friends of Rhythm were members of Toscanini's NBC Symphony who, through the work of Shulman, were able to combine the charm and rhythmic levity of jazz with the tonal beauty and disciplined technical mastery associated with performances of classical chamber music. There is nothing at all stuffy or mannered about the way these musicians approach jazz-influenced adaptations of melodies by Schubert, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Bach, and several other classical composers. It definitely swings.

The group combines a string quartet (the Stuyvesant Quartet) with harp and clarinet (allowing the ensemble to draw from instrumental combinations and colors found in Ravel's "Introduction and Allegro"), and a rhythm section consisting of guitar and bass. The clarinet often plays the lead voice, especially in Shulman's own composition "Mood in Question," which we get to hear played twice: once by Buster Bailey and once by Hank D'Amico; but the harp is really the centerpiece of the ensemble. I imagine that every harp player who hears these magnificent performances by Laura Newell would want to get hold of these arrangements and learn them.

There's something about the spirit of these arrangements and the way that they are played that reminds me of Marx Brothers movies. Like the Marx Brothers, the Shulman brothers (the leader of the ensemble is Alan Shulman's brother Sylvan) combine opulence, precision, and zany humor in a way that is distinctive, and enduring. Throw a fiddle player named Zelly (Zelly Smirnoff) into the mix, put a glowing harp in the center of it all, and it is hard not to make the comparison. And couldn't you just imagine Groucho saying a line like "Shoot the Schubert to me Hubert?"

There is much to be enjoyed and appreciated in the 1939-47 work of "The New Friends of Rhythm" and the work of ASCAP composer Alan Shulman whose considerable body of work includes the often programmed 1940 Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano, 1948 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, and 1952 A Laurentian Overture, He continues to attract wider renown as tastes return to music of greater substance while the sensationalism of stilted serialism and artistic obfuscation of "happenings" fades.

Alan Shulman, a skilled cellist, composer, arranger plied his trade in the studios supplying his considerable playing and arranging skills on innumerable albums in sessions with jazz, popular and classical artists.

An important point can be missed here. Rather than creating and artificially labelling orchestral works completely devoid of jazz characteristics as "jazz" suites or some-such like jazz admirers Copland, Stravinsky, Milhaud, and even Shostakovich, Alan Shulman has made genuine attempts to encapsulate important elements of the jazz age in his music.

Just as Charlie "Bird" Parker in the late forties and early fifties took chord sequences of popular material and created bebop collages with his own musings usurping the original melodies, composer Shulman has used his extensive knowledge of orchestral literature and jazz experience to create a witty compendium typical of the studio jazz current during this early 20th Century period, but laced with colorful strands of his own adventurous harmonic explorations.

This is not ragtime, swing, be-bop, post bop, or fusion but it is more worthy of being associated with the art of jazz than so-called Third Stream music. This latter is a jumbled attempt by some "jazz" composers to fashion a new music that ends up sounding pretty much like poorly fashioned orchestral music or groove deprived jazz.

Rather than pretentiously eschewing swing altogether the "New Friends" offer rhythmically intense pastiches of classical themes, capricious Paganiniana, a Mozartful entree to an Italian wedding, folksy homeward bound marches, Johannical blues, Tchaikovskian gems, stitched together into remarkable interwoven puzzles of crossing themes which challenge the listener to identify the sources. Laced with syncopated flourishes and even a dash of salsa clave which Jelly Roll Morton previously labelled the "Latin tinge", it comprises a healthy offering.

Cameo appearances by admirable jazz clarinetists, Buster Bailey and Hank D'Amico, coupled with the driving rhythm section of Tony Colucci, guitar, and Harry Patent, bass. interspersed with skillful sounds from harpist Laura Newell add a jazzy, improvisational zest to the music in combination with the brilliant Shulman brothers on violin and cello in a fine string quartet and occasional quintet culled from Toscanini's famous NBC Symphony.

On the basis of the individuality of musical approach, the very high standard of performance, the unusual combination of instruments and musical styles, the often quite idiosyncratic writing, wit and unexpected musical twists and tuns, it is easy to appreciate how popular this group was at the time and how enjoyably it rewards repeated listening.

The deft transference of analog recording to modern digital medium and the technical quality of the result is also notable.

I like it - more and more, but regrettably there will not be more. This is an historic archive.

Get it while, and if, you can.

Drawn from Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra this band of six boys and a goil tried to cash in on the swingin'-the-classics trend that payed such generous dividends to the likes of Larry Clinton, Tommy Dorsey, Claude Thornhill and a host of others. The classic string quartet plus rhythm guitar, bass and harp, play leader Sylvan Shulman's formulaic and not very inventive arrangements of mostly classical melodies with a light swinging touch. Many of the tunes' titles resemble those of Raymond Scott: long, clever and humorous (such as "Heavy Traffic on Canal Street" or "Shoot the Shubert to Me, Hubert"), but, like Scott's musical offspring, they cannot conceal the emptiness of the musical material. It's only by looking at the stereo set's display that you can tell you're listening to another number than the one before. The jazz content is non existent, despite the presence of clarinet virtuosos Buster Bailey (of Fletcher Henderson and John Kirby Sextette fame) and Hank d'Amico (Bob Crosby, Dick Himber etc.), they do not play any improvised solos to speak of (Bailey was not a noted improviser anyhow). So while the music may serve a purpose as a hybrid curiosity or unobtrusive background music, it is totally devoid of any historical importance or even interest, either as swing or indeed jazz music (which it is definitely not), no matter how lyrical the liner notes may wax about it. HEP might better have chosen different, more interesting artists (e.g. Jerry Wald, Shep Fields' All Saxophone Orchestra, Seger Ellis' Choir of Brass or George Paxton are just a few names that come to mind) still waiting to be reissued than these Friends of Rhythm, however friendly they may be.