Light Music on the Move

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"LIGHT MUSIC ON THE MOVE"

1 Non Stop (John Malcolm, real name Malcolm John Batt, arr. Ivor Slaney)
L’ORCHESTRE DEVEREAUX Conducted by GEORGES DEVEREAUX
2 Main Line (Jack Beaver)
DANISH STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT FARNON
3 "Reach For The Sky" Film Theme (John Addison)
SIDNEY TORCH AND HIS ORCHESTRA
4 Paris Metro (William Hill Bowen)
THE MELACHRINO ORCHESTRA Conducted by GEORGE MELACHRINO
5 Jockey On The Carousel (Robert Farnon & Philip Buchel)
DANISH STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT FARNON
6 Side Car (Herbert Spencer, Earle Hagen)
SPENCER-HAGEN ORCHESTRA
7 Cycling Chimp (Bobby Pagan)
L’ORCHESTRE DEVEREAUX Conducted by GEORGES DEVEREAUX
8 Jogging Along (King Palmer)
LOUIS VOSS AND HIS ORCHESTRA see note below
9 Canyon Canter (Leslie Begueley)
CHARLES WILLIAMS AND HIS CONCERT ORCHESTRA
"Airways" Suite (Len Stevens)
10 The Take-Off
11 Clouds
12 Air Hostess …etc (Len Stevens)
13 Happy Landings
NEW CENTURY ORCHESTRA Conducted by SIDNEY TORCH
14 Travelling Along (Walter Stott)
DANISH STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT FARNON
15 Walking On Ice (K. Leslie & W. Leslie, real names Kermit Levinsky & Walter Levinsky)
KERMIT LESLIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA
16 Drifting On A Cloud (Alfonso D’Artega & Harry Syracuse)
BILLY VAUGHN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
17 Skipping Along (Richard Hayman)
RICHARD HAYMAN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
18 Sleepwalker Of Amsterdam (Johnny Steggerda)
GUY LUYPAERTS AND HIS ORCHESTRA
19 Merry Go Round (La Complainte de la Butte) (Jack Lawrence & Georges Van Parys)
EDDIE BARCLAY AND HIS ORCHESTRA
20 Donkey Doodle (Ivor Slaney)
IVOR SLANEY AND HIS ORCHESTRA
21 Waltzing Bugle Boy (Ray Martin, arr. Wally Stott)
WALLY STOTT AND HIS ORCHESTRA
22 Flanagan’s Mare (Stanton, real name Reginald Armitage, arr. Anthony Fones)
HARRY DAVIDSON AND HIS ORCHESTRA
23 Bicycle Belles (Sidney Torch)
SIDNEY TORCH AND HIS ORCHESTRA
24 Blow The Horn (Dolf van der Linden)
DOLF VAN DER LINDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
25 Holiday Express (Dominico Savino)
ROMA SYMPHO-POP ORCHESTRA Conducted by DOMINICO SAVINO
26 Hiker’s Highway (F.G. Charrosin)
LOUIS VOSS AND HIS ORCHESTRA see note below
27 Horse And Buggy (Roger Roger)
ROGER ROGER AND HIS CHAMPS ELYSEES ORCHESTRA
28 Bob Sleigh (Eric Jupp)
NEW CONCERT ORCHESTRA Conducted by FREDERIC CURZON
29 Night Train (Otto Cesana)
OTTO CESANA AND HIS ORCHESTRA
30 Busy Street (King Palmer)
DOLF VAN DER LINDEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA
31 Air Display (Gilbert Vinter)
STUTTGART RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by KURT REHFELD)
32 Spaceways (Jack Beaver)
DANISH STATE RADIO ORCHESTRA Conducted by ROBERT FARNON

GUILD LIGHT MUSIC GLCD5131GUILD LIGHT MUSIC GLCD5131

The title of this collection of Light Music obviously gives the clue to the inspiration which guided the composers in creating these enjoyable works. But movement is far from being as simple as its name might at first suggest. It can be fast or slow, and can be caused by any number of factors, from humans on their own to the weird and wonderful machines they create. Whether on land or sea, or in the air – and even in outer space – you’ll find it all in this selection of varied orchestral cameos.

No excuse is necessary for beginning with a piece which will be immediately familiar to everyone in Britain who watched television from the mid-1950s onwards. When Independent Television (ITV) arrived in Britain in the London area on 22 September 1955 there was an understandable desire to make their programmes different from the BBC, which had held the monopoly for TV broadcasting in Britain since the world’s first high definition public television service was launched on 2 November 1936, although experimental transmissions under the auspices of the BBC had started as early as July 1926.

Geoffrey Cox was the first Editor of Independent Television News (ITN), and right from the start their bulletins were regarded as more viewer-friendly than the formal style favoured by the BBC. The word ‘newscaster’ entered the language, and the theme chosen by Cox to introduce his broadcasts was destined to become instantly recognisable. Its title was Non Stop composed by ‘John Malcolm’. It was recorded by L’Orchestre Devereaux conducted by Georges Devereaux in Basel, Switzerland, in 1950 and released on the Francis, Day & Hunter Mood Music 78 number FDH072. Despite its popularity, it was never made available commercially during the 25 years that it was used by ITN. In fact the composer’s real name is John Malcolm Batt, and he was a 17-year old schoolboy in Taunton, Somerset, when he wrote Non Stop in 1946 as one of a set of six pieces for piano, designed to illustrate to his music teacher the merits of lighter works versus classical.

If John Batt was not one of the ‘usual’ composers of mood music for publishers’ libraries, Jack Beaver most certainly was. He is represented here with two outstanding numbers – Main Line and Spaceways, both for Chappell which, for many years in the 1940s and 1950s, operated arguably the finest recorded music library in the world, thanks to its founder Teddy Holmes who put such talented writers as Charles Williams, Robert Farnon, Sidney Torch and Walter Stott (now known as Angela Morley) under contract. Beaver was born in Clapham, London in 1900, and died on 10 September 1963, aged 63. His work in the cinema extended over 30 years including Alfred Hitchcock's first huge international hit The Thirty-Nine Steps (for which Beaver received no credit) and Vincent Sherman's 1949 success The Hasty Heart. Beaver worked at the music department at Gaumont-British Studios under Louis Levy during the 1930s, and was hired by Warner Bros. to run the music department at their British studio at Teddington in the early '40s. Apart from The Hasty Heart, none of his British Warner Bros. work involved movies that had a high profile outside of the UK, although Beaver did write the scores for a pair of interesting historical dramas, The Prime Minister (1941) and Showtime (1948).

Beaver's music for the 1939 thriller The Case of the Frightened Lady is regarded by some scholars as the first notable piano-based score for film – a style which was to prove so profitable for later composers such as Richard Addinsell and Hubert Bath. It was a natural progression from writing for films that would make Beaver’s talents so attractive to the London music publishers that were busily developing their background music libraries during the 1940s. Beaver was also much in demand for scoring theatrical productions and undertook a punishing workload which eventually contributed towards his early death. His ability to create music to cover almost any mood was second to none, and his most famous composition was probably Picture Parade, which used to introduce the early BBC Television series of the same name.

Still on the subject of ‘backroom boys’ rather than the composer/conductors who enjoyed a high public profile, due credit must certainly go to the prolific King Palmer (1913-1999), represented in this collection with Jogging Along and Busy Street. He possessed the rare gift of being able to capture in a few bars of music a particular mood or feeling, and over 30 years more than 600 pieces of his music were recorded by various production music libraries to depict almost every imaginable occasion. In the late 1930s he conducted the West End show "Miss Hook of Holland" and wrote film music for "The Dark Eyes of London" and "Secrets of the Stars". He also arranged many works for piano and much of his music was broadcast by his own King Palmer Light Orchestra on the BBC’s Light Programme with Palmer conducting in shows such as "Music Hour" and "Music While You Work".

But while he excelled in churning out so-called "light music" on demand, Cedric King Palmer had a serious, knowledgeable and erudite side to his musical personality. At the age of 26 he completed a study of the music of the composer Granville Bantock (1868-1946) and after the Second World War he continued as a popular writer about music. Among his most successful books was Teach Yourself Music (1944), part of the Hodder and Stoughton Home University series, which ran to several editions. He also lectured in music at the City Literary Institute.

For the Ford Motor Company’s 1946 exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall, Palmer formed the Ford V8 Shadow Symphony Orchestra which, under his baton, performed, recorded and filmed Rhythm of the Road, a number which for many years continued to turn up regularly on promotional materials and advertisements for the company. Among the most popular songs he wrote was one that became a hit in America when it was adopted in 1954 as the theme tune for the television programme "Eleventh Hour". It was recorded as the Eleventh Hour Melody by, among others, Al Hibbler, Lou Busch and Roger Williams. However this tune first appeared as The Film Opens, one of many pieces of mood music King Palmer wrote for the Paxton Library. Palmer’s immense stock of recorded library music remains accessible to producers and, despite his not having composed for the past 30 years of his life, the royalty cheques continued to grow, demonstrating the frequency with which television and radio producers availed themselves of his output.

Gilbert Vinter (1909-1969) composed Air Display; although his light music composing output was not prolific compared with many of his peers, his name is highly respected in Britain through his work as a conductor of the BBC Midland Light Orchestra from 1946 until his death at the young age of 60. He also served for a while as conductor of the newly-formed BBC Concert Orchestra in 1952. Vinter conducted a landmark HMV LP "The World of Light Music" in 1965, and his own Portuguese Party has become a light music ‘classic’. He is also highly regarded in the brass band world, where he contributed several test pieces for national championships.

One enjoyable aspect for the compilers of a collection such as this is the opportunity to discover the real identities of some of the composers and arrangers. Tracing arrangers is not easy, because so few were ever credited on record labels, and sometimes it is necessary to make an ‘educated guess’ if there are sufficient clues in the style of the piece. Composers often used pseudonyms, for various reasons, but it is always satisfying when a little detective work can uncover who was really responsible for a particular melody.

"Flanagan’s Mare" is a case in point; the record label simply credits the work to ‘Stanton, arr. Foues’. The arranger’s name certainly rang alarm bells; it didn’t sound right, and could have been a misprint in the information being conveyed by the provider of this particular track, Ken Wilkins. But no, Ken had faithfully reported that it was indeed ‘Foues’ on the label.

‘Stanton’ also required some further investigation, and a check of the ASCAP listing of composers revealed many writers with this name. By selecting only those who were members of PRS (the British equivalent of ASCAP) it was eventually discovered that a cross-reference identified ‘Noel Gay’ as the composer of "Flanagan’s Mare". Noel Gay wrote numerous catchy songs that were particularly popular during the 1930s and 1940s and he established his own publishing firm; it is an open secret that ‘Noel Gay’ was also a pseudonym – his real name was Reginald Armitage.

So, via a circuitous route, it was eventually established that Reginald Armitage had composed "Flanagan’s Mare", but what about the arranger ‘Foues’ – was this another pseudonym?

David Ades remembered that an Anthony Fones had been a respected arranger and composer of light music around the time that Harry Davidson recorded the tune. Indeed Tony Fones (as he was better known) was the archetypal ‘backroom boy’ of the music business, whose services were always in demand at a time when there were numerous broadcasting orchestras still around. Alan Bunting offered the suggestion that printers in those days used to typeset with metal parts and – if Fones was indeed the right name – an ‘n’ could have been placed upside down by mistake.

Then David finally recalled that Anthony Fones had died several years ago, and Journal Into Melody had printed an obituary to him. Checking through back issues the obit was discovered on page 75 of JIM 134, and among the wealth of information about his career was the fact that he was at one time the ‘official arranger’ at Noel Gay’s publishing house.

So the mystery was finally solved, and "Flanagan’s Mare" is now rightly credited to the real composer and also the talented arranger who created such a charming version of this catchy tune!

David Ades

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