Sinatra! Tommy Dorsey! Irving Berlin! “Marie” (Part 3): More Variations

Spoken As It Came From Me: The strange but swinging afterlife of Irving Berlin’s first movie song.

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EDDIE SOUTH AND HIS ORCHESTRA
prob. Hilversum, The Netherlands, March, 1938
Vocal by Mabel Mercer and Band

Yes, this is Mabel Mercer, who would go on to become a major influence on Sinatra, Bennett, and practically everyone else who ever sang the Great American Songbook, working with one of the great jazz violinists there ever was; a Black British singer and an African American musician together in Holland before the war. Of all the “Marie” variations we’ve been sampling, this one is, remarkably, the most direct “cover” of the Tommy Dorsey hit arrangement. The major difference is that South, who was frequently billed as “The Dark Angel of the Violin” takes the major solo after the vocal, rather than the familiar triptych of trumpet, tenor, and trombone. Thanks to the indefatigable Anthony Barnett, the world’s premiere scholar of jazz violin, for finding this broadcast transcription, which was issued in the CD era on the Dutch label Timeless, Americans in Holland ~ The Great Thirties Vol. 1.

FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM (plus orchestra)
New York, March 11, 1938

The song was so enormously popular that Fats Waller soon got into the act, and was playing it on the road and the radio at least as early as fall 1937. In March of 1938, he recorded a hard-swinging but highly curious performance of his arrangement of “Marie,” in which his six- or seven-piece combination, billed as “His Rhythm,” was augmented by a full-sized big band. No one knows who they were or why they were there - the track was marked “test for (RCA executive) Eli Oberstein” - and it wasn’t released until many years after Waller’s tragically early death at 39 in 1943. However, it is exciting, and we do know that Fats also performed the song on a broadcast from London in October 1938.

TENDERLEAF TEA PRESENTS THE TOMMY DORSEY SHOW
August 26, 1946
Mashup: “Solitude / Marie”
Trombone Solo: Tommy Dorsey
Piano Solo: Duke Ellington

This will probably be the topic of a future SubStack: in May 1945, Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey executed a famous switch hit deal, in which they each soloed with the other’s orchestra - this being at a time when both were under exclusive contract to RCA Victor. What’s less known is that more than a year later, Ellington made a guest appearance on Dorsey’s radio show. I’m going to post the whole thing here at some point, but the “mash-up” as the kids say, of Ellington’s classic “Solitude” and Dorsey’s classic “Marie” is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence - and that’s probably a good thing! You will hear Dorsey’s orchestra playing the melody to “Solitude,” with Dorsey in the lead role, serving both as himself and the Jack Leonard/Sinatra stand in, with the band chanting the “Marie” response chorus; soon Ellington himself steps in and plays a more serious chorus backed by the Dorsey Orchestra.

PHILLIP MORRIS PRESENTS RUDY VALLÉE
September 17, 1946
Special guests: Tommy Dorsey, “The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing” and Bert Gordon, “The Madman from Minsk”

While there are no accurate hit record sales charts prior to 1940 - and the first #1 tune on the first actual Billboard chart was, in fact, “I’ll Never Smile Again” by Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra - it’s generally agreed that the most successful recording of “Marie” during its original run in 1928-1929 was by Rudy Vallée and his Connecticut Yankees. One can only wonder what Vallée, who was known for his fondness for a buck, was thinking when Tommy Dorsey and his crew struck gold with the selfsame Irving Berlin ballad seven years later. This is actually a fun little duo; both TD and Vallée are nothing if not game. If you listen longer, you’ll hear Vallée - playing his alto saxophone, yet - and Dorsey dueting on the vaudeville standard, “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Sheen.” If you go back to the beginning, you’ll hear Vallée matching wits with the popular radio comic Bert “The Mad Russian” Gordon.

THE KATE SMITH HOUR
November 7, 1951
Vocal: Bob London
Tenor Saxophone Solo: Sam Donohue
Also visible in the trumpet section: Charlie Shavers

This is a particularly zesty version of “Marie” that shows TD and company never stopped paying homage to that great gal over the entire life of the band, even 15 years after 1936 when they first started playing it. At this point, it was considered daring to show Black and white musicians performing together on television, and yet Dorsey and the show’s producers (and presumably also Kate Smith herself) have no reservations about giving plenty of close-ups to Dorsey’s star trumpeter, Charlie Shavers. He can be seen clearly playing with the section, though ironically he doesn’t actually solo since all four trumpets are playing the transcribed / expanded version of Bunny Berigan’s original 1937 chorus. (Thanks to Burton Kittay and Mark Cantor for this clip.)

THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW (“THE HONEYMOONERS”)
December 26, 1952
Vocal (and trumpet): Johnny Amoroso
Alto saxophone solo: Jimmy Dorsey

There are two extant television performances of Dorsey playing “Marie,” both of which occur on the programs of a pair of literal larger-than-life TV stars, Kate Smith and Jackie Gleason. This extended sketch, later marketed as one of the Honeymooners so called “Lost Episodes” represents the beginning of Gleason’s fortuitous relationship with the Dorsey Brothers, culminating in several seasons of Stage Show, a Gleason-produced variety series that starred the two Dorsey brothers. That series would, in 1956, provide the vehicle for Elvis Presley’s television debut; that’s right - the man who did more than anyone else to make Frank Sinatra a star in 1940-’42 would, 15 years later, do the same for Elvis.

Featured singer Johnny Amoroso was a particularly inspired trumpeter who doubled on vocals over roughly five years with Dorsey starting in 1950, and continuing through the period in which Tommy’s older brother, Jimmy Dorsey, was absorbed back into the band. He sings wonderfully, almost more reminiscent of Dean Martin than Sinatra, on a number of commercial 78s by the band and also numerous radio transcriptions. I prize this performance all the more fondly because at one point around 2010, a very young-looking but probably 75-year-old Johnny Amoroso walked into Sofia’s, in the basement of the Edison Hotel, and sat in with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks - singing and playing “Marie,” of course. He both looked and sounded great!

The 1954 Bell Records Recording
New York, January 1954
Vocal by Gordon Polk
Alto Saxophone solo: Jimmy Dorsey

Music business entrepreneur Arthur Shimkin founded Bell Records in 1952, and his business model was to offer cheaper “cover” versions of famous hits. He must have lured Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey to the label by offering a larger percentage for a royalty than RCA Victor or Decca were willing to give them - but then again, in 1954, the Dorseys had far fewer options than they’d had just a few years earlier. As it happened, Bell Records wouldn’t remain a minor league player for all of its existence; the infamous Clive Davis would later re-fashion the remnants of Bell into a new label now called Arista Records.

Arthur told me the story roughly 50 years later: In 1954, Shimkin asked Dorsey to record a new version of the band’s classic arrangement of “Marie,” this time with Gordon Polk singing the lead vocal. As a courtesy to the composer, Shimkin sent a copy of the disc to Irving Berlin’s office. He was then surprised to receive an irate phone call from none other than the Great Man himself, of which the gist was, and I quote, “You tell that Irish bastard not to mess with my song!” (And no, “mess” was not the actual word that he used.) When Arthur called TD and perhaps made the mistake of informing him of the songwriter’s reaction, his own response was, “You tell that Jew bastard that if I hadn’t messed with it, there wouldn’t be any song!” (And he didn’t use that word “mess” either.) Meaning that if Dorsey hadn’t used the Doc Wheeler Sunset Royals arrangement, then “Marie” would have been completely forgotten.

What can we say to end this series, other than, “Livin’ in a great big way - Mama!”

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SLOUCHING TOWARDS BIRDLAND is a subStack newsletter by Will Friedwald. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, for which I am asking either $5 a month or $50 per year. Thank you for considering. (Thanks as always to Beth Naji & Arlen Schumer for special graphics.) Word up, peace out, go forth and sin no more! (And always remember: “A man is born, but he’s no good no how, without a song.”)

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