New Pop Records

Between the birth of the blues and their popular acceptance, there existed a classification called "race records." These contained music by and for Negroes, and for a quarter-century they were the only record outlets for such blues singers as the late Bessie Smith. Ma Rainey, et al. After the war, the offensive tag was changed to "rhythm and blues," but the contents remained the same, some of it root-primitive, most of it strongly rhythmical in the jazz vein.

Now the pop-music business, having scraped the hillbilly barrel and blown the froth off the mambo craze, has taken over r. and b., known to the teen-age public as "cat music" or "rock 'n' roll.''* The commercial product, whether by Negroes or whites, only superficially resembles its prototype. It has a clanking, socked-out beat, a braying, honking saxophone, a belted vocal, and, too often, suggestive lyrics (spelled "leer-ics" by trade-sheet Variety, which has launched a campaign to clean them up). Result: a welter of hits in the r.-and-b. idiom (including five of the first eight top tunes). Sample hits: Sincerely (McGuire Sisters; Coral), Tweedlee Dee (Georgia Gibbs; Mercury), Earth Angel (CrewCuts, Mercury). Even such stars as Jo Stafford (I Got a Sweetie; Columbia) and Eddie Fisher (Just One More Time; Victor) are showing some rock-'n'-roll influence.

Other new pop records: Brubeck Time (Columbia LP). The Dave Brubeck Quartet in a rare, formal studio recording. Saxophonist Paul Desmond is in top form in the tender Audrey, and Pianist Brubeck delivers an angry, driving solo in Stomping for Mili,* while that fine rhythm section sizzles in the background.

Herbie Mann (Bethlehem LP). A good cool flute is rare, but Flutist Mann plays one with a light, swinging accompaniment (drums, bass, guitar).

Moans & Blues (Lizzie Miles; Cook LP). Some authentic rhythm-and-blues singing fresh from a New Orleans nightspot. Chanter Miles, sixtyish, sounds like a little girl in Lazy River, and at least half her age in Ain't Gonna Give You None of My Jelly Roll (". . . Pas un petit morceau de mon gateau" she chortles in the second chorus). Best item: Plain Ole Blues, a cumulative band number to which the irrepressible Lizzie adds a polytonal obbligato.

The Octet (Lennie Niehaus; Contemporary LP). Some entrancing counterpoint, arranged by West Coast Alto Saxophonist Niehaus.

Silk Stockings (original Broadway cast; Victor LP). The new Cole Porter musical (TIME, March 7). Its sophisticated rhymes bring Ninotchka's old joshing about Bolshevism up to date, and a couple of songs (All of You, Without Love) are pleasant enough. Don Ameche sings passably, if emphatically. Hildegarde Neff and Gretchen Wyler sing emphatically.

This Song Is for the Bird's (Spike Jones; Victor). "There are songs for people, and songs for dogs, and songs for monkeys and even for frogs," sings the Jones quartet irreverently, but T.S.I.-F.T.B.

Yma Sumac Mambo! (Capitol LP).

The famed Peruvian singer combines her trick voice with the driving, big-band rhythms of Billy May. She growls like a bush-league Carmen, coloratours through the upper register like the Queen of the Night, and whoops like a jungle bird, but is it mambo?

*So stimulating that Bridgeport, Conn, police last week banned teen-age rock-'n'-roll dance parties because the dancers "got out of hand." *Named, respectively, in honor of Cinemac tress Audrey Hepburn, af whose mere mention Saxophonist Desmond swoons, and Photogra pher Gjon Mili, who made a movie about the Brubeck Quartet. The title "Brubeck Time" commemorates TIME'S cove story of Nov. 8.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.