Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney:
HEY' LOOK US OVER!

Bing Crosby and Rosemary Cloone singing in duet accompanied by the Buddy Cole Trio, with linking dialogue spoken by Bing, Rosemary, Buddy, and radio announcer, George Fenneman.

This album brings together some of the greatest talents of popular music, from singers to accompanying musicians, it is an all star line-up, which got together for radio and recording work from 1953 to 1962. Bing Crosby was, and remains, the most influential popular singer of the 20th century, because it was the style which Bing developed which laid the foundations for all who followed. The question is often asked, "who was it who influenced the early career of Bing Crosby", and the answer is, Al Jolson, because Bing's Dad had a lot of Jolson's early recordings, which Bing naturally listened to a lot, and then when Bing was working as a stage hand in his local theatre in his teens, Al Jolson came for a week, with the touring version of his show, "Bombo", and while Bing had made a stab at being an entertainer by playing drums in a high school dance band, it was Al Jalson who was the influence for him to take up.

Rosemary Clooney, who sings duets with Bing throughout this album, started their professional career as a radio singer in Cincinnati, with her sister Betty, and an early influence on Rosemary, was the legendary, Marlene Dietrich, who Rosemary actually recorded some duets with quite in her career as a solo singer. Buddy Cole worked with Marlene and with Rosemary, and he had a lof of influence in bringing Rosemary and Bing together for radio work in 1953. Rosemary has gone on through the years to become one of the handful of top singers of popular music, and had worked with Bing in radio, films, stage and TV, from 1953 until his death in 1977.

Buddy Cole was a professional musician, writer and arranger who worked with most of the top singing stars of his day, Doris Day, Marlene Dietrich, Phil Harris, Al Jolson, Johnny Ray, Gene Autry, and many more, but it was on that day in 1953, when Bing phoned him and asked if he would go on radio with him with a small group, which really led to the incomparable teaming of Buddy and his Trio, with Bing and Rosemary. Buddy Cole began his career as a pianist in a cinema accompanying silent films, this experienie allowed him to work his way up to becoming a Cinema Organist, he used to go in and watch Marshall Grant playing the 3 manual 13 rank Wurlitzer, with piano, at the Fox Figaro Theatre in Los Angeles, this was about 1929, and one day, Marshall invited Buddy to try the organ, and from that moment on, Buddy was crazy about cinema pipe organs. Many years later, he installed a 3 manual 27 pipe rank organ in his specially built home studio, and recorded some albums on it in the early 1960s, which are still held up today as some of the greatest arrangements of popular music ever recorded, and that includes the playing. Buddy engineered his own recording on this massive pipe organ, and would not tolerate anything less than perfection, as he sought it. In Buddy's early days, he worked as a pianist with a band led by Gil Evans, and then with Frankie Trumbauer, and with Alvino Rey, with whom Buddy played piano, and made arrangements for the band. Buddy joined John Scott Trotter' studio band in 1947, which was of course Bing's own backing band for radio and recording work, and that is where Buddy and Bing first met.

The other musicians who made up the Buddy Cole Trio, namely, Vince Terri (guitar), Dick Whitaker (string bass), ond Nick Fatool (drums), were all top Hollywood session players who did much work in films and on radio as backing musicians.

Drummer Nick Fatool, is extremely well known in jazz circles, because he played in various well known bands, Matty Matlock's Jazz Band; The Rampart Street Paraders, who had Eddie Miller on tenor sax; The Jess Stacy Jazz Group; Bob Crosby's Orchestra and Bob-Cats; etc., Nick Fatool always provided the type of drum backing which Buddy required, whether gentle, or a driving swing tempo, without trying to turn the spotlight on himself, which some well known drummers have been known to do!

Buddy Cole once explained to me how these recordings were made, he said, "I go into the studio to record a basic track with Bing, or with Rosemary, or when they are doing duets, now what I mean by that is just the rhythm, bass, guitar and drums and I'll play piano, or celeste, just as little as I have to put in to give them some background, we do maybe 4, 6, 8, 10, I've done as many as 20 songs in a day with Bing, a lot of these were head arrangements, not written, most of them I like to write, you have to for things that are conserted. We then come in at our leisure, the next day, or two or three days later, we play these things back, and we then add all of the sounds that are wanted, we can multiple all the electric guitar, organ, kettle drums, shot guns, bells, chimes, whatever is needed, sometimes we even sing'.

That is the way we do the show, and at this point (1959) I would say we have between 250 and 300 tunes in the can with Bing, and about 200 odd with Rosemary, plus about 40 duets. These can be drawn upon at any time, and Murdo McKenzie puts the shows together, he records the dialogue, and every word that Bing and Rosemary have ever uttered into the tape recorder microphones, is filed away, so that if he wants a 'yes' or a 'no' or a 'go to hell', he's got it catalogued. Then we'll take the lunes and we'll edit them, make them just one chorus, or change the introduction, or fill in with a different background, or run underneath the dialogue, there's a lot of tricks we can do, and thank God I know about them because a lot of just plain musicians don't know what a microphone does, or a piece of tape, or what you can do. It's always been a hobby of mine, I've had a disc recorder ever since I can remember, one of the old acetate things, and I had one of the first Ampex tape machines which came out, which Bing got for me"

The selection of songs on this album is from the recording sessions, about which Buddy talked, and which were done at the CBS radio sludios in Los Angeles. Sometimes, Buddy would take the tapes to his own studio at home, if some of the sounds to be added to the basic tracks, needed some more complicated work doing on them.

The choice of songs is very much based upon the standard repertoire, and in this respect, it is interesting to note that, "Any Town Is Paris when You're Young", is partly the work of, John Stall Trotter, who ran Bing's backing orchestra from 1937 to 1954, and returned again in the 1960s for some TV work with Bing. Buddy Cole features one of his own tunes, "Everytime I See You I'm In Love Again", plus some multi-recorded piano work in the Trio version of "Lover"

Vocally, both Rosemary and Bing were very relaxed on these sessions, and it shows through in these pleasant performances of mostly well known songs, which have been much sought after by admirers of, Bing, Rosemary, and Buddy, for many years. Credits: Thanks to, Leslie Gaylor and Ernest Sutkowski, for their interest.

-- STAN WHITE

Bing Crosby Enthusiasts might like to join:
The International Crosby Circle,
19 Carrholm Crescent,
Chapel Allerton,
Leeds LS7 2NL

The Buddy Cole Trio (including multi-instrumental and added effects, engineered by Buddy Cole in nis home sludio).
Buddy Cole - Piano and Hammond Organ
Vince Terri - Guitar
Dick Whitaker - String Base
Nick Fatool - Drums

Originally recorded for radio, at the CBS Studios in Hollywood, and prodused by Murdo McKenzie.

Radio Announcer: George Fenneman

Time: 41.18 minutes

Sourse: "The Navy Swings" (transcriptions)

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