To start with, I’m not really into all things “retro.” This includes most objects described as art deco, like shiny round toasters shaped like bugs, actual VW Bugs and Beetles, and Ruby’s Diner, with its red faux leather booths, chrome tables, Coke glasses and 1940s posters.
What I did like about the decades ’40 through ’60 was the music. The era of great songs and real singers who poured their hearts out to us on radio and records. Yes, records. Platters. Wax discs that spun at 78 on Victrolas and jukeboxes. Ballads, torch songs and jazz. Songs with real lyrics. Witty, urbane, romantic. Not just “yeah, yeah, yeah, oh baby, baby, baby.”
Out of sheer sentimentality, I have kept some of these dinosaurs, lugged them around from Beverly Hills, to Lebec, to Hidden Hills, to Malibu and back to Lebec again. Meanwhile, the machines required to play them died an undistinguished death. My last Girrard changer, the one that held four records on a tall spindle and automatically dropped them down one by one at the end of each disc, finally expired. And though I couldn’t find a new one that could play 78s, I still hung onto those tunes of my youth. How could I part with Nat King Cole’s “Too Young” when it was “our” song, the song of my first love?
So, when I was Christmas shopping at Restoration Hardware, that bastion of all things retro, I came upon a portable player just like the one I had in high school. How could I resist?
I couldn’t wait to hear what remained of my collection. Would they be hopelessly warped, scratched or even broken? For the last six years, they have rested undisturbed in the bottom of my old oak library cabinet, stacked upright in their original cardboard jackets, and protected somewhat by thick doors and shelves.
Carefully, I slid them out, dusting them with a soft chamois cloth before giving them a spin. Some had visible scratches, some were so warped they waved precariously as they revolved, still they had less distortion than tapes left too long in a hot car or played on an old cassette recorder with fading batteries.
Among the 78s were dozens of early LPs, less than 10 inches across with only three or four cuts on each side. The King Cole Trio (Volumes 1, 2 and 3) with guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Johnny Miller; the George Shearing Quintet with Chuck Wayne on guitar and Margie Hyams on vibraharp, John Levy on bass and Denzil Best on drums.
Sandwiched between Shearing and Cole was a lone RCA Victor recording of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, part of Victor’s New Directions in Music series, circa 1952. Eddie Sauter had been playing trumpet and arranging for Red Norvo, then Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman and Ray McKinley. Bill Finegan was Glen Miller’s chief arranger, then worked for Tommy Dorsey. When the two got together in the early ’50s, they produced an astonishingly original sound. I remember seeing them at a gig in Hollywood and thinking it was the most exciting band I’d ever heard-three percussionists, great brass and woodwinds, complex harmonies and rhythms. They didn’t make many records, but the one I have has two of their hit singles: “Doodletown Fifers” and “Moonlight on the Ganges.” Wow! It still sounds fresh.
Oddest of the lot, also on Victor, is “Andr Previn Piano Program” (Yes, that Andr Previn) recorded in 1951. Andr went to Beverly High a couple classes ahead of my sister, and he used to play at assemblies and spring concerts, mostly classical, and hang out when they were recording on the 20th Century Fox sound stages next door. Of course, he was already playing with the junior symphony, composing and arranging, and went to work for MGM the day after graduation. I also remember that some of the jazz guys thought his playing was too sophisticated, that it “didn’t swing.” But he did have great taste in tunes. This record has “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year,” “You Took Advantage of Me,” “Love Is Just Around the Corner,” “Skylark,” “Dearly Beloved” and “I’ve Got My Eye on You,” recorded with guitar, bass and drums and a small string section.
This is as good as nostalgia gets. Okay, so it’s not Oscar Peterson (his records were hopelessly scratched) and maybe it doesn’t really swing, but it still sounds pretty cool.
After all, Andr was just a kid. This was just a little blip on the arc of his huge conducting career.
I think I’ll be playing oldies for the rest of the winter, thanks to Restoration Hardware’s little retro machine. Mmmm. Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year.