Stardust Memory

From the CD Vault Dept.: Back in what we didn’t realize were the waning days of compact discs, the major labels actually did us some favors by allowing quality talent to supervise the re-relase of recordings by quality talent of very bygone days. Dick Sudhalter was the right man to tap for the Hoagy Carmichael set I reviewed some twenty years ago.

                                                                                        

HOAGY CARMICHAEL WAS HIP ENOUGH to record with Bix Beiderbecke in 1927 and with Art Pepper in 1956. His song “Star Dust” is a cornerstone of American popular music. He had an easygoing presence in movies, with notable roles in “To Have and Have Not” and “The Best Years of Our Lives.” And his songs have been covered by anyone who dips at all into the standards canon.

The cuts on Bluebird’s “Stardust Melody” were chosen by Richard Sudhalter, whose Carmichael biography recently was published. Although Carmichael was a compelling performer of his own material, others put more definitive stamps on the songs. But Carmichael’s roots were very much in the early years of jazz, and this collection mines the strengths of the RCA Victor catalogue to present versions that are more jazz- than vocal-driven, all recorded between 1925 and 1947. And the 1947 cut, a “Rockin’ Chair” by Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars, is a throwback to the pre-war style.

“Rockin’ Chair” makes two other appearances: in a small-group session with Mildred Bailey, who made a trademark out of the song, and in Hoagy’s own 1929 version. Although the latter, and its session-mate “March of the Hoodlums” are billed as previously unreleased, they in fact appeared with all the other Carmichael-featured cuts on a 1989 Bluebird CD (“Stardust and Much More”).

Sudhalter’s notes put the collection in just the perspective it needs, tracing the evolution both of Carmichael as a songwriter and many of the songs themselves. “The very idea of composing terrified, yet fascinated Carmichael. Self-taught, barely able to read or notate music, he found himself groping, as he’d have put it, beyond his limitations.” But he produced “Riverboat Shuffle,” which Beiderbecke recorded in 1924 (for the Gennett label, so we get the Chicago-based Benson Orchestra’s uncharacteristically hot 1925 Victor waxing), and “Star Dust” soon after that.

Carmichael’s debut recording of his best-loved song also was for Gennett and featured a small band, but he gave it a more thoughtful treatment as a piano solo for Victor in 1933, and that’s the cut that leads off this CD. No vocal version is included, but that’s not what this collection is about.

Not that there’s any lack of vocalists. Carmichael himself sings “Washboard Blues,” in a mushy Paul Whiteman arrangement from 1927; he’s also the crooner for “Lazy River,” “Come Easy, Go Easy Love,” “Sing It Way Down Low,” “Moon Country” and “Lazy Bones.” Ethel Waters gets two spots: “Old Man Harlem” and “Bread and Gravy.” Also included are vocals from trumpet players Louis Armstrong (a “Rockin’ Chair” duet with Jack Teagarden) and Hot Lips Page (“Small Fry”) among others.

The jazz quotient is very high and the remasterings are as good as you can expect from material this old, but certainly better than some earlier CD releases. And what with the attention George Gershwin keeps grabbing as the quintessential American songwriter, it’s about time Carmichael got some deserved attention.

Stardust Melody
Hoagy Carmichael and Friends
Bluebird

– Metroland Magazine, 13 June 2002