I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— a career retrospective of the works of Lloyd Foltz— part of the art collective (active through much of the 20th century) known as the Prairie Print Makers— will be at the Wichita, Kansas Art Museum to April 10th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay by Robert Kuttner in The American Prospect where circumstances have changed so much in Germany … that on national parliamentary election day this coming September 26th, left-of-center parties finally have a chance to regain power.
DISAPPOINTMENT #1— that Netroots Nation will not be in-person this year — was looking forward to viewing some D.C. museums and, of course, meeting old and new chums — but understandable. Hoping that next year is the third charm.
BOOK NOTES— Harper Collins has just released The Nature of Middle-earth— the mythical continent in which J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” unfolds — containing essays written by Tolkien (but not published during his lifetime).
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Sigrid the Cat — an English kitteh who rides in the mounted basket of a man’s bicycle, touring around the city of London.
CHEERS to learning that the world’s last stockpile of leaded gasoline (in Algeria) has been depleted, capping a nineteen-year UN drive to eliminate its use (as BiPM noted in last week’s winner’s poll).
DISAPPOINTMENT #2— that the annual Paul Winter Solstice concert at New York’s St. John the Divine Cathedral will also (for the second year in a row) not be in-person, it was just announced. This year, it is not due to the pandemic, but instead construction. Wait ‘til next year, redux — want to attend at least once.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Stanley the Cat— whom a US service member met while on his final tour of duty (in Kuwait), credited him with saving his sanity … and persevered in being able to bring Stanley back home to Kentucky.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the English harpist Sheila Bromberg— who played on the classic Beatles tune She’s Leaving Home— who has died at the age of ninety-two.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
SEPARATED at BIRTH— a quote trending on Twitter: “Joel Osteen looks like Martin Short pretending to be Tim Allen”.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… he is a largely forgotten figure today, in part because, as the All-Music Guide’s Scott Yanow, noted, Ray Noble had “an odd career”. An important bandleader and composer in the 1930’s, he found other musicians having more success with his songs, and became more of a radio show bandleader (and comic sidekick) in his later years.
Born in 1903 in Brighton, England, he was classically trained as a pianist and arranger and at age nineteen won a big band arranging contest by the music paper Melody Maker. This led him to a career as a staff arranger for the BBC (at only age twenty-one) and then a year later became the conductor of the noted HMV record label’s in-house band, the New Mayfair Orchestra. He once observed that many of its musicians from wealthy families arrived at the studio wearing horse-riding britches. One of his more successful tunes was Goodnight Sweetheart, that was released in the US.
Eventually enough college students of the early 30’s started buying his 78’s that Ray Noble came to the US (along with his featured vocalist Al Bowily, a South Africa native) in 1934. He quickly found success organizing an orchestra with many future bandleaders (including Claude Thornhill) and soloists (including guitarist George Van Eps). He was assisted in his efforts by a trombonist you may have heard of, Glenn Miller: who during his time in the Noble orchestra was influenced by him enough to pattern his Moonlight Serenade in a manner Ray Noble might have done. Noble’s orchestra was a big hit at featured venues, notably the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in NYC.
Yet his orchestra never quite topped his success in England, with the aforementioned Goodnight Sweetheart being a much bigger hit later on for Guy Lombardo (and which was used on the original Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever). In addition, I Hadn’t Anyone till You became a featured song for Tommy Dorsey. So while in 1937 Al Bowily returned to the UK, Ray Noble went to Hollywood where he could still be a bandleader, yet be able to play other roles.
This included being both an MC and sidekick (as well as bandleader) on radio shows such as George Burns & Gracie Allen, plus the Chase & SanbornHour as well as work with Fred Astaire — most notably portraying a pompous Englishman in the film A Damsel in Distress.
His most enduring role was spending nearly fifteen years with the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen: leading the orchestra, also playing the foil for Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd on Bergen’s radio program, and also appearing in Bergen’s films.
The show ended in the mid-1950’s, and Noble retired to Santa Barbara for about ten years before returning to the UK island of Jersey. He died in 1978 of cancer in a London hospital.
Besides the aforementioned songs: his tune Midnight, the Stars and You was on the soundtrack of the Stanley Kubrick film The Shining and You’re so Desirable was recorded by both Billie Holiday in 1938 … and in 1990 by Robert Palmer (yes, of “Addicted to Love” fame).
In 2005, his The Very Thought of You received a Grammy Hall of Fame award, and Ray Noble was inducted into the (now defunct) Big Band & Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1987) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (in 1996).
The most popular song Ray Noble ever wrote was Cherokee— which has been recorded as an instrumental (his original 1938 recording) and with lyrics he wrote (here by Sarah Vaughn). Those performing it include Vic Damone, Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Henry Mancini, Chet Atkins … and many, many, many others.
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