Customer Reviews

Big Band Sounds of

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This release contains Flanagan's top hits in terrific sound (I have the original 78s so I KNOW). But there's another treat -- and it's not mentioned in the liner notes -- the track of THE BLUES from AN AMERICAN IN PARIS is a rare alternate take to the original single release, previously out only on an RCA Victor 45 extended play record in the mid-1950s! No Ralph Flanagan collection is truly complete without this CD.

Ralph Flanagan had one of the best -- and most popular -- big bands in the post World War II era. Although influenced -- as many big bands were -- by the Glenn Miller sound, Flanagan's band did not blatantly copy the Miller sound but had a clearly recognizable style of its own. Many of us who were around at that time were big Flanagan fans and the Flanagan band was a top band for a while. Unfortunately, Flanagan's band came along toward the end of the big band era and did not stay around very many years. Worse still, it has largely been forgotten while lesser bands are still remembered. If you like big band music and want to hear a top notch big band from the 1950s get this CD. I think you'll be impressed and wonder how a band this good has been overlooked so long.

Born Ralph Elias Flenniken on April 7, 1914 in Lorain, Ohio, but assuming the stage name Ralph Flanagan, he was just 23 years old when he joined Sammy Kaye's orchestra as a pianist at the height of the Big Band Era and, to 1941, did many of Kaye's arrangements. He would later go on to do the same for the Hal McIntyre, Tony Pastor, Blue Barron, Boyd Raeburn, Charlie Barnet and Alvino Rey orchestras, all around a stint in the Merchant Marine from 1942 to 1946. Upon leaving that service he joined Perry Como's Chesterfield Supper Club on NBC radio.

That same year he and Herb Hendler, then a Rainbow Records producer, decided to collaborate on an album to commemorate the late, great Glenn Miller, who had died in a plane crash somewhere over the English Channel on December 15, 1944. Using a favourite of Miller at his concerts whereby he would play a series of songs based on the concept of "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue," and with a number of ex-Miller band members among the aggregation to play under Flanagan's direction, they cut four discs: Make Believe/Always (Rainbow 30401) - both dating back to the 1920s as something old; Flanagan compositions Low Gear/Come On In (Rainbow 30402) as something new; I'm Getting Sentimental Over You - a Tommy Dorsey hit/Goodbye - a Benny Goodman Hit (Rainbow 30403) as something borrowed; and St. Louis Blues/Basin Street Blue (Rainbow 30404) as something blue. Released with a cover title of A Tribute To Glenn Miller the 78-rpm discs would later appear as a London 33 1/3 album and perhaps even re-issued on 45 rpm discs. You can get them on the Jasmine CD A Tribute To Glenn Miller.

Another Miller alumnus, Tex Beneke, had also revived the Miller Sound in 1946/47 with a series of RCA Victor hits billed as Tex Beneke & The Glenn Miller Orchestra although, by 1948, he was being billed as Tex Beneke & His Orchestra. In 1949 Hendler, now with RCA, decided there was room for one more to perpetuate that famous Big Band sound and once again contacted Flanagan who had since put together his own band. Thus began an association that, to 1954, would produce 22 hit singles at a time when the best-selling single was still a driving force behind the industry. And in this great volume from Collectors' Choice, with quite decent sound reproduction and liner notes by Joseph F. Laredo, you get 12 of them, along with a discography of the contents.

In fact, five of his first six hits are here, all with featured vocalist Harry Prime, starting with You`re Breaking My Heart which, released on the old Bluebird label which RCA was attempting to revive, wound up at # 14 in October 1949 on Bluebird 30-0001. A couple of months later they were back with Don`t Cry Joe (Let Her Go, Let Her Go, Let Her Go), a # 9 in Nov/Dec on Bluebird 30-0007. Prime and the band then took Dear Hearts And Gentle People to # 24 in January 1950 on Bluebird 30-0016, followed by the # 3 Rag Mop in February which was the first of a long string released on the main RCA Victor label (RCA Victor 3688).

They skip over his next four hits, all in 1950, before picking up again with the instrumental La Vie En Rose, a # 27 in October 1950 on RCA Victor 3889, Nevertheless (I'm In Love With You), again with Prime, a # 10 also in October on RCA Victor 3904, followed by another instrumental, the much-recorded Harbor Lights, a # 5 - again in October - on RCA Victor 3911. One hit is omitted before they resume with the instrumental The Blues, from George Gershwin's An American In Paris, a # 15 in September 1951 on RCA Victor 4247, and then his version of Slow Poke, with vocal by The Singing Winds, a # 6 on Dec 1951/Jan 1952 on RCA Victor 4373. And the group is back doing the vocals on I Should Care (also with Harry Prime), a # 4 in the fall of 1952 on RCA Victor 4885, and Hot Toddy, co-written by Hendler, which ended up at # 7 in Jan/Feb 1953 on RCA Victor 5095.

Ralph Flanagan passed away age age 81 on December 30, 1995 in Miami.

This album takes me back to a time when music was more civilized, when music was music and not noise. Ralph Flanagan basically plays the Glenn Miller sound. Although I am a BeBop Jazz fan, this band reminds me of dances I used to go to as a young man. It may sound corny to the younger generation, but it's pure nostalgia to me. When the young dudes become old social security dudes, they'll have their "I can't Get No Satisfaction" to remember. I got mine.

There are no words to explain the music of Ralph Flanagan and his orchestra. Brought me back to the "good old days" when music was music.