Jack Haskell - Let's Fall in Love (1957)

"Have You Met Miss Jones" by Jack Haskell

When announcer Hugh Downs took time off from Tonight, Jack Haskell was his replacement. A veteran of radio since his college days, Haskell built his career after World War II announcing for television shows. But he was also a singer and first made his name singing for Les Brown and His Orchestra alongside Doris Day. He released his debut album Let's Fall in Love in 1957 on Jubilee Records.

Of the crooners we've covered lately, Haskell proves himself to be most in tune with what jazz vocals really sound like—rather than pop interpretations of standards with light Big Band arrangements. But although Haskell knows how to sing jazz, he's not good at it. It is a daring choice to lay ones voice bare with only guitar and bass for accompaniment, but on these selections of standard love songs, there ends up being no place to hide his faults or highlight his strengths. His blue notes can turn sour. He has limited range and limited dynamics. Alongside the singular tones of the accompaniment, the album makes for a set of songs that do not differentiate themselves. Only on a couple of them does he break out with a belting finale or a faster tempo, while the rest of the songs are left to sit in a boring limbo meant to be romantic but are mostly sleepy. To top it off, Haskell has no feel for the structure of a song. He might be able to phrase but the phrases never build. They might follow a logical musical path, but in performance, the lines blend together and no song seems to find a hook or a climax or a satisfying ending—like listening to a series of run-on sentences.

Here is the discography surrounding Jack Haskell's debut album:

Over the Hillside (1949 single)

Too-Whit! Too-Whoo! (Bring My Loved One to Me) (1949 single)

Ashes of Roses (1950 single with Connie Russell)

Be Anything (But Be Mine) (1952 single)

Goodbye Sweetheart (1952 single with The Heathertones)

Tell It to My Heart (1955 single)

I Remember Mambo (1955 single)

Today's Hits (1955 EP with the José Melis Trio)

Today's Hits (1955 EP with Johnny Guarnieri and His Orchestra)

Today's Hits (1955 EP with Johnny Guarnieri and His Orchestra)

I-M-4-U (I Am for You) (1955 single with Jack Paar)

Theme Songs from Michael Todd's "Around the World in 80 Days" (1957 EP)

I'm Playing Solitaire (1957 single)

Let's Fall in Love

Be Sure, Make No Mistake (1958 single)

The Love Theme from "The Vikings" (My Heart Has Gone to Wander) (1958 single)

Wedding Invitations (1961 single)

"I'm Thru with Love" by Jack Haskell

"I Wish I Were in Love Again" by Jack Haskell

Pass the Headphones!!

Hugh Downs - An Evening with Hugh Downs (1959)

"Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes" by Hugh Downs

With a new Tonight show host, came a new Tonight show announcer: so with Jack Paar, came Hugh Downs. Hugh Downs was not Tonight's first announcer, but he was the first announcer who released an LP: An Evening with Hugh Downs in 1959 on Epic Records.

Hugh Downs, every six months on Tonight, broke out his guitar to show off his hidden talent as a folksinger. Actual folksinger Burl Ives witnessed one of these performances and was impressed enough to quip that Downs "deserved to wear a beard" like a proper folkie. Hugh Downs wouldn't go that far for folk music, but such praise meant that he could not not cut a record as a result.

But it's one thing to play a song or two every six months and another to string twelve into a sequence. Downs, thus, expands his catalogue of genres from folk to add a spiritual, hymn, cowboy ballad, work and war songs and a sea shanty (a favorite: the short and funny "The Delaware Light.") Due to Downs's limited range and serious style, the tracks all would have sounded like one meandering 30 minute song without the arrangements of Mundell Lowe. Lowe's touches are spare, almost medieval, and focuses Hugh's singing (Hugh Sings!) and the guitar (though I doubt he's the one playing on the record as he is on the cover.) The record is a pleasant surprise: the kind of surprise a hobbyist enjoys enticing when they play for friends at a party or...on a television show to fill time. Surprising, that is, but not memorable enough for the audience to give it much thought in the sixth months between performances.

Note: This is another album that hasn't been digitized but for a couple songs crate diggers have put on the internet.

Here is the discography surrounding Hugh Downs's debut album:

An Evening with Hugh Downs

"The Ride Back from Boot Hill" by Hugh Downs

Jack Paar Walks Off Tonight

Pass the Headphones!!

José Melis and His Latin-American Ensemble - Piano Classics – The South American Way (1947)

"Moonlight Sonata" by José Melis and His Latin-American Ensemble

When Jack Paar took over Tonight, he brought on his good friend from USO days José Melis to be the show's musical director. They had worked together, with the same job dynamic, previously on both radio and television. Alongside his career beginnings as a musical director after World War II, Melis recorded instrumental singles with Mercury Records, first packaged together as an album and released in 1947 as Piano Classics – The South American Way. (The album and other contemporary singles were re-released in 1952 as a proper LP rather than just a set of 7"s.)

On the heels of the Good Neighbor Policy and a boom in popular Latin Orchestras in the United States, José Melis mixes his classical training with Latin rhythms (as the album's title implies.) On the six songs that make up the first album's release, the "South American Way" is driven just as much by the continual conga rhythm and bass as by Melis on the piano. It feels like the conga drums often force Melis away from his classical comforts into syncopation and staccato touches. Still, the piano arrangements do their part to make the genre mix work while also showing off Melis's virtuosity.

It's on the later singles (that appear on the re-release) where the piano arrangements take Melis's virtuosity to vaudevillian levels. The piano also takes over for the drums as the crucible for genre mixing, this time adding a sprinkle of jazz to the blend. The jazz, though, is mostly found on the aftertaste of the arrangement, the spare saxophone or guitar, and not from the piano itself—unless you mistake tasteful flourishes for jazz. The recordings as a whole are a fine dish of skill mixed in such a bland way as to not be any flavor in particular. Though, with all those runs, you'd expect there to have been a little more heat.

Here is the discography surrounding José Melis's debut album:

Hungarian Dance No. 6 (1946 single with His Latin-American Ensemble)

Hungarian Rhapsody (1946 single with His Latin-American Ensemble)

Prelude in G Minor (1946 single with His Latin-American Ensemble)

Stardust (1947 single with His Latin-American Ensemble)

Piano Classics – The South American Way

Eli Eli (1947 single)

Cumana (1947 single with His Orchestra)

Don't Call It Love (1947 single with His Orchestra)

Pasion Oriental (1947 single with His Orchestra)

Tamanaco (1951 single)

The Hour of Parting (1952 single)

Piano Classics - The South American Way (1952 album re-release)

Run Away (1954 single)

José Melis Interprets the Classics the South American Way (compilation album with His Latin-American Ensemble)

"Anitra's Dance" by José Melis and His Latin-American Ensemble

"Pasion Oriental" by José Melis and His Orchestra

"Keyboard Kapers" by José Melis and His Latin-American Ensemble

Pass the Headphones!!