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ADLER, Larry: The Great Larry Adler (1934-1947)

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ADLER, Larry: The Great Larry Adler (1934-1947)

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THE GREAT LARRY ADLER

Vol. 1: Original Recordings 1934-1947

"The only two young musical geniuses in the world are Yehudi Menuhin and Larry Adler" - William Walton, in the late 1940s

"He was one of the youngest old men I've ever met" - Sting, 2001

"He could express himself equally well in pop, jazz or classical music" - Humphrey Lyttleton, 2001

During a career which spanned 70 years, the larger-than-life Larry Adler rubbed shoulders with kings, presidents and prime ministers. An impenitent rebel and indefatigable selfpublicist, he was also a notorious story-teller and name-dropper. He claimed to have had a two-year affair with Ingrid Bergman and numbered among the disparate and seemingly endless list of his "friends" the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Prince Philip, the King of Sweden, Martin Amis, Jack Benny, Jimmy Cagney, Shura Cherkassky, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Wade and Max Wall. Musically, Larry spanned the divide between "classical" and "popular." He elevated the harmonica from mere toy to respected concert instrument by playing it with the most famous musicians of several generations : Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Django Reinhardt and, more recently, Elton John and Sting. Like Benny Goodman before him, he became an inveterate archetype of "cross-over". Albeit jazz-inclined, he inspired the most unlikely "serious" composers to write works for him, most notably Malcolm Arnold, Gordon Jacobs, Milhaud, Rodrigo and Vaughan Williams. An uncompromising left-winger, Larry will also go down in history as being one of very few showbiz personalities who refused to "name names" to McCarthy's Un-American Activities Committee - and survived.

Born Lawrence Cecil Adler in Baltimore, Maryland, on 10th February, 1914, of Yiddishspeaking, orthodox Russian Jewish parents, Larry was an instinctive performer. At the age of two he was already charming grown-ups with his imitations of Al Jolson, at six he played piano "after a fashion" and at ten he was Baltimore's youngest cantor. That same year he became the Peabody Conservatory of Music's shortest-serving student before being expelled as "incorrigible, untalented and entirely lacking in ear" for reputedly substituting "Yes, We Have No Bananas" for the set test piece! Nothing daunted, at 13 the self-taught Larry won the Maryland Harmonica Championship for his performance of a Beethoven minuet and, by the time he was seventeen, despite his virtual lack of formal tuition (he was unable to read music properly until about 1940), he had achieved a certain fame as a stylish virtuoso of the mouth - organ.

At fourteen Larry ran away in search of fame and fortune to New York. Through the good offices of NBC Orchestra violinist Nat Brusiloff, he was introduced there to Borrah Minevitch (of Harmonica Rascals fame) but failed his audition. Soon afterwards he appeared - again without success - at Rudy Vallee's club, before Brusiloff secured him a job playing harmonica in Mickey Mouse film soundtracks. This work, in turn, led to a $100-per-week off-screen touring contract. In 1928 he appeared in Clowns In Clover and by 1930 he was busily engaged as onstage foil (in page-boy attire and sans harmonica) to comedian Eddie Cantor and as session musician to, among others, Ruth Etting. In 1931, at seventeen, he made his first Broadway appearance, in Smiles, a show with music by Vincent Youmans which, although a virtual flop, featured Marilyn Miller and Fred and Adele Astaire.

Larry stayed on Broadway for Flying Colours (a 1932 revue by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz) and in 1934 made an inauspicious film debut (in Operator 13, an "elaborate period romance with action highlights", for MGM-Cosmopolitan).

Later that year he was spotted at the New York Palace Theatre by the English impresario C. B. Cochran who brought him to London to appear in the Vivian Ellis musical comedy Streamline. In December, billed "The Mouth Organ Virtuoso from Streamline", he made the first of a series of recordings for Columbia (some of which were later reissued on the subsidiary Regal-Zonophone label). The earliest of these, with instrumental backing from members of the studio house band under the direction of the pianist Carroll Gibbons (1903-1954), illustrate Larry's skilfully improvised arrangements and cover a wide variety of music, ranging from such film-music items as Con Conrad's "The Continental", Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and Cole Porter's "Night And Day" to Ravel's "Bolero", Fritz Kreisler's "Caprice Viennois" and the "Ritual Fire Dance" from Manuel de Falla's ballet E l amor brujo. They also graph the start of Larry's lifelong love-affair with the music of George Gershwin (when the composer first heard Larry play "Rhapsody In Blue", he reportedly exclaimed "It sounds as if the goddamned thing was written for you.").

By the mid-1930s Larry was fast becoming a transatlantic celebrity. Having appeared in the 1934 film Many Happy Returns, he returned to Hollywood's Paramount Studios in 1936 for Big Broadcast of 1937 (a musical melange featuring Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Martha Raye, Shirley Ross, Benny Goodman and Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra) and in 1937, for Warner Brothers, he made a cameo appearance in the Busby Berkeley choreographed B-rater The Singing Marine. Meanwhile, his European tours involved various return trips to England. In London, he played the top night-clubs and the 1937 revue Tune Inn was tailored to suit him. For Columbia and also for the British Decca subsidiary Rex label he recorded a varied repertoire. With backing by Jay Wilbur's dance orchestra, he recorded both light classics and film material, including Harry Revel's "You Hit The Spot", Ray Noble's "The Touch Of Your Lips" and Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin".

During 1938 and 1939 Larry toured South Africa and Australia (here he made his first solo appearance in a classical concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra) before returning to the USA. During the 1940s he toured the States with the dancer Paul Draper and with him entertained American troops in Africa and the Middle East. He also appeared in the South Pacific, notably with Jack Benny, and in 1951 entertained troops based in Korea. After 1947, however, his overtly anti-Fascist stance had made him a prime target for investigation by the Un-American Activities Committee. From 1949 he was domiciled in Britain where, in 1953, he wrote - albeit at that time and for the next 31 years "anonymously" - the filmscore for the Oscar-nominated film Genevieve (the "red spectre" of Communism meant that he was compelled by the Rank Organization to relinquish his US rights on the film). He also scored The Hellions (Columbia, 1961), The Hook (MGM, 1962), King And Country (BHE, 1964) and A High Wind In Jamaica (20th Century Fox, 1965).

By 1952, when he premiered Vaughan Williams' Romance at the Royal Albert Hall, London had become his adopted home (he was still on the McCarthy blacklist), although throughout the 1950s he continued to appear in the USA and at various other international venues. In 1963 and 1965 he was a soloist at the Edinburgh Festival and in 1967 and 1973 he lent his services to Israel in aid, respectively, of the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars. In 1988 he was the guest of the New York Ballroom Club and in 1989 his 75th birthday was marked by a Royal Albert Hall concert with pianist John Ogden and the Wren Orchestra under Stanley Black. During the early 1990s Larry appeared regularly at London's Pizza On The Park. In 1993 he guested on Sting's album Ten Summoner's Tales and the following year was joined by the rock star for his 80th birthday celebration, The Glory Of Gershwin (this also featured Meat Loaf, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor) and later went on to sell-out appearances at the Jazz Cafe and Cafe Royal. In 1994 he embarked on A Living Legend - The Final Tour, a show which in 1996 he took to Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In 1998 he presented the BBC Radio 2 series Larry Adler's Century and as late as 2001, although already in poor health, commissioned John Tavener to write him a new work. Larry left two volumes of autobiography, both every bit as colourful and forthright as the man himself: It Ain't Necessarily So (1985) and Me And My Big Mouth (1994). To the very last a high-profile liberal spokesman for many causes, he was a regular correspondent to Private Eye, The Spectator and the New Statesman and a recidivistically outspoken media manipulator and "pain in the a s s" on all manner of subjects, political and apolitical, in addition to being a noted gourmet writer for Harper's & Queen.

Larry Adler died in St. Thomas Hospital, London on 6th August 2001, aged 87 years.

Peter Dempsey, 2001

Transfers and Production by David Lennick

Digital Noise Reduction by Graham Newton

Tracks 1 to 12 recorded in London, others as stated

1. THE CONTINENTAL (Con Conrad-Herbert Magidson)

with Carroll Gibbons & His Orchestra

(Regal Zonophone MR 1844, mx CA 14818-l) Recorded 12th December, 1934 2:37

2. SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES (Jerome Kern-Otto Harbach)

with Carroll Gibbons & His Orchestra

(Regal Zonophone MR 1843, mx CA 14816-l) Recorded 12th December, 1934 3:01

3. RHAPSODY IN BLUE (George Gershwin)

with Carroll Gibbons & The Savoy Hotel Orpheans

(Regal Zonophone MR 1820, mx CA 15069-l, 15070-3)

Recorded 28th May and 6th July, 1935 6:13

4. CAPRICE VIENNOIS (Fritz Kreisler)

with Carroll Gibbons & Harry Jacobson, pianos

(Regal Zonophone MR 2038, mx CA 14937-2) Recorded 12th February, 1935 3:18

5. RITUAL FIRE DANCE (Manuel de Falla)

with Carroll Gibbons & His Orchestra

(Regal Zonophone MR 2035, mx CA 14931-1) Recorded 11th February, 1935 3:17

6. BOLÃ‰RO (Maurice Ravel, arr. Branga)

with Carroll Gibbons & His Orchestra

(Columbia DB 1516, Regal Zonophone MR 1939, mx CA 14817-3)

Recorded 11th February, 1935 3:26

7. NIGHT AND DAY (Cole Porter); TIGER RAG (Nick La Rocca)

with orchestra

(Columbia FB 1776, mx CA 16574-1) Recorded 24th September, 1937 2:58

8. CARAVAN (Duke Ellington-Irving Mills-Juan Tizol)

with orchestra

(Columbia FB 1776, mx CA 16492-4) Recorded 24th September, 1937 2:54

9. SOPHISTICATED LADY (Duke Ellington-Irving Mills)

with orchestra

(Regal Zonophone MR 1842, mx CA 15218-1) Recorded 6th September, 1935 3:01

10. SOLITUDE (Duke Ellington-Irving Mills)

with orchestra

(Regal Zonophone MR 1844, mx CA 15217-1) Recorded 6th September, 1935 3:18

11. YOU HIT THE SPOT (Mack Gordon-Harry Revel); THE TOUCH OF YOUR LIPS (Ray Noble)

with Jay Wilbur's Orchestra

(Rex 8805) Recorded c. June 1936 2:53

12. I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN (Cole Porter)

with orchestra

(Columbia FB 1703, mx CA 16402-1) Recorded 2nd June, 1937 3:26

13. BEGUINE (Larry Adler)

with orchestra

(Decca 24419, mx W 74499-A) Recorded 31st December, 1947, New York 2:58

14. MALAGUEÃ‘A (Ernesto Lecuona)

unaccompanied

(Decca 24137, mx W 72932-A) Recorded 13th June, 1945, New York 2:29

15. LONDONDERRY AIR (Traditional)

with trio

(Decca 24419, mx W 74500-A) Recorded 31st December, 1947, New York 3:04

16. HORA STACCATO (Grigoras Dinicu-Jascha Heifetz)

with Georgie Stoll's Orchestra

(Decca 23467, mx L 3948-AA) Recorded 4th September, 1945, Los Angeles 3:11

17. CLAIR DE LUNE (Claude Debussy, arr. Larry Adler)

with Georgie Stoll's Orchestra

(Decca 23467, mx L 3947-A) Recorded 4th September, 1945, Los Angeles 3:02

18. ROMANIAN RHAPSODY No. 1 IN A MAJOR, OP. 11/1 (Georges Enesco)

with Georgie Stoll's Orchestra

(Decca 23880, mx L 4312-A, 4313-A) Recorded 25th September, 1946, Los Angeles 6:25

Disc 1

The Continental

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ADLER, Larry: The Great Larry Adler (1934-1947)

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