Customer Reviews

Bewitched

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This chintzily-packaged but highly entertaining CD features, among other attractions, a young Merv Griffin singing five numbers with the Freddy Martin Orchestra in the early 1950s. The sound quality is decent, the source being for-radio-only recordings (I think that's the term), the kind of recordings the Hindsight label specializes in. In fact, I found a few of these very tracks on a Seeburg label 45-rpm record (extended play) which appears to have been designed as muzak-style background music! This means that in the 1950s at least some people shopped (or worked) to the sounds of Merv Griffin with Freddy Martin. Believe it or not.

Anyway, these tracks are exemplary middle-of-the-road big band music, all of them arranged by Bob Ballard, who is better known for his superb, if less than progressive, charts for Lawrence Welk. Ace pianists Barclay Allen and Murray Arnold tear up the keyboard in such semi-classical showstoppers as "Bumble Boogie," "Cumana," and "Slaughter on Tenth Aveue," all brilliantly performed and with nary a note out of place. Featured on six numbers, vocalist Merv Griffin is all mellowness, especially on "Hello Young Lovers," which he ends with a long, strongly sustained "own" ("a love of my ...") on the keynote as the band draws out the final cadence in a properly dramatic fashion. This is undoubtedly the CD's most sublime moment of Mervana.

The collection is rounded out by some charming novelty numbers and one of the most unswinging versions of "Ballin' the Jack" ever put on wax. It is worth keeping in mind that Martin's brand of big band music was every much a part of his day as the swingier music of Miller, Ellington, Dorsey, and Basie. And it was every bit as good. There's not much of Martin on CD, so buy this while it's still there.

To borrow from the distributor's name, in hindsight producer Bob Edmondson should have been more selective when putting this package together.

I know this isn't offered up as a "best of" or "greatest hits" package but still, if you are going to cover mainly those of Freddy Martin's selections featuring Merv Griffin as his lead vocalist would it not have been prudent to at least include a couple of the hits they had together? Like, for example, I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts (# 8 in late 1949 with Merv gamely trying to sound like a Cockney), (Put Another Nickel In) Music! Music! Music! (# 5 in 1950), Never Been Kissed (# 19 in 1951), and Truly Truly Fair (# 18 in 1951).

Indeed, the only bona fide hit for the Freddy Martin orchestra in this compilation (he had 41 from 1941 to 1953) is Bumble Boogie which had nothing to do with Merv Griffin but, instead, features Jack Fina on piano adapting Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble Bee. This made the Top 10 in early 1946.

The best features of this album are the three pages of liner notes by David Dexter, Jr., and the vintage photo of the band on the cover and on the CD itself. Not a bad collection of titles, but it could have been a lot better.

If you enjoy big band bouncy tunes then this CD will be sure to please. Most of the tracks are foot-stomping and bouncy. Get out your dancing shoes. Wonderfully nostalgic of the period.