Claude Thornhill to end the weekend. One of those bands, very often misunderstood by collectors, completely understood by other musicians and mystifyingly overlooked by the audience in general. Every time I post something on Thornhill, I always make mention of the fact that within the framework of this organization resided some of the most influential and esteemed musicians of the Bop, Post-Pop and Cool School Jazz genres. Some say it was a simple case of bad timing and rotten luck. Thornhill was just getting his band off the ground when World War 2 hit, thus draining his supply of musicians. When the war was over and he was gearing back up, the infamous Musicians Strike and Recording Ban hit in 1946, further slowing progress. When the Strike and the recording ban were over, the audience was slowly drifting away from Big Bands in favor of small groups and personalities and Big Bands were no long economically feasible.
Still, the music of Claude Thornhill is unique; cut from a different cloth than the average Big Band of the day, and even though he had a healthy output of recordings (despite strikes and bans), he also did a number of recording sessions for transcription companies, whose sole stock and trade was offering radio stations alternatives to commercially recorded discs, which were for a time banned as well (no, you couldn’t do a disc-jockey program unless it featured records “cleared for broadcast”).
So this session, or series of sessions covers a timespan from 1941 to 1946 and were made for the Lang-Worth Company, a radio packaging service that featured a wide range of music as well as some of the more interesting bands of the day.
This one has: 1. Lullaby Of The Rain (1942) 2. Hodge Podge (1946) 3. Adios (1946) 4. Portrait Of A Guinea Farm (1941) 5.Snowfall (1941) 6. Let’s Go (1946).
Get comfy and relax. This is a no-stresser.
