loading
reading
writing
saving
searching
Paradise
QR Code Link to This Post
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuhAEE12s8eOEVCpAjQA7d8ctSA0I4dva
"Ports Of Paradise"
Alfred Newman And Ken Darby
(contains vocals)
a vividly exotic visit in sound to the splendors of the South Seas...
PORTS OF PARADISE
the instruments and voices of ALFRED NEWMAN and KEN DARBY with MAVIS RIVERS and other guests
...
To you who've never seen them, they are mystic dreams.
To you who've known their spell, they remain precious
memories. They are the Ports of Paradise... faraway
islands in a blue, blue tropical sea ... Tahiti ... New
Zealand ... Fiji ... Samoa ... Hawaii.
Though many miles away in reality, in this album
they are as close as your mind's eye. For the collaboration
of composer-conductor Alfred Newman and arranger-
choral director Ken Darby has made this album no less
than your imaginative ticket to paradise. No strangers,
they have previously joined creative forces for the film
versions of Carousel, South Pacific, and The King and I,
winning an Academy Award for the latter.
In some respects, creating and producing the music
for "Ports of Paradise" was every bit as ambitious as
their film musical work. Certainly, in its own terms, this
album is an equally gigantic achievement. For example,
since as many as seventy musicians perform in several of
these selections, Capitol took over one of Hollywood's
biggest studio sound stages for the recording.
...
This big assemblage is used in a variety of ways. The
singers, for instance, are sometimes divided, with wom-
en's voices heard from one position, men's, from another.
Sometimes they blend into a large mixed chorus. A full
concert-size orchestra is heard throughout, except for
the brief Farewell for Just a While, where only guitar
and percussion accompany the voices.
The percussion section itself consists of five men,
alternately performing on such exotic instruments as tom-toms, boo-bams, Chinese glass, Japanese wind chimes,
Hindu tree bells and anklet bells, jawbone, lava rocks,
and gourds. The more conventional xylophone, vibra-phone, marimbas, timpani, gongs, and cymbals are also
heard, in addition to the original bamboo organ re-created
from Hawaiian antiquity by Ken Darby in 1950.
All of these sounds — from the subtlest individual percussion
effect to the thrilling full ensemble impact — make "Ports of Paradise" an unusual and vivid stereo-phonic display, rewarding for its sheer listening pleasure
as well as for its evocation of exotic lands.
(album notes)
-----
Alfred Newman (March 17, 1900 – February 17, 1970) was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music. From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the extended Newman family being the most Academy Award-nominated family, with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Newman composed the scores for over 200 motion pictures. Some of his most famous scores include Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Mark of Zorro, How Green Was My Valley, The Song of Bernadette, Captain from Castile, All About Eve, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, Anastasia, The Diary of Anne Frank, How the West Was Won, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and his final score, Airport, all of which were nominated for or won Academy Awards. He is perhaps best known for composing the fanfare which accompanies the studio logo at the beginning of 20th Century Fox's productions. Prior to commencing his employment with 20th Century Fox, Newman composed the fanfares which are most often associated with Samuel Goldwyn productions and David O. Selznick productions.
Newman was also highly regarded as a conductor, and arranged and conducted many scores by other composers, including George Gershwin, Charlie Chaplin, and Irving Berlin. He also conducted the music for many film adaptations of Broadway musicals (having worked on Broadway for ten years before coming to Hollywood), as well as many original Hollywood musicals.
He was among the first musicians to compose and conduct original music during Hollywood's Golden Age of movies, later becoming a respected and powerful music director in the history of Hollywood. Newman and two of his fellow composers, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin, were considered the "three godfathers of film music".
Newman was born on March 17, 1900, in New Haven, Connecticut, the eldest of ten children to Russian-Jewish parents who emigrated shortly before his birth.
Kenneth Lorin Darby (May 13, 1909 – January 24, 1992) was an American composer, vocal arranger, lyricist, and conductor. His film scores were recognized by the awarding of three Academy Awards and one Grammy Award. Darby is also notable as the author of The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe (1983), a biography of the home of Rex Stout's fictional detective.
Kenneth Lorin Darby was born in Hebron, Nebraska, on May 13, 1909. ... -- Wikipedia
---/