[78-L] Farnon, was Re: Your Mother's Son-In-Law - BG and Billie Holiday on Columbia Blue Shellac

[Jeff Sultanof]

I have CDs of the Canadian band as broadcast on the BBC; by then his trumpet
playing days were over. Farnon told me those broadcasts should have stayed
buried, and I think I know why. He used to monitor the short wave broadcasts
to take down the new songs to arrange for the band, and in some cases, he
wasn't 100% accurate. At least one that I heard had the wrong melody and
lyrics at one point. Still, I can't think of another arranger who would have
gone to those lengths to play the new songs from the U.S.

Jeff Sultanof

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 11:05 AM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:

> Google "Bob Farnon" and you'll find a lot of early pix and links. There are
> commercial 78s and airchecks of The Happy Gang during Farnon's period but
> he
> was pretty much playing muted trumpet. The Overseas AEF Band performances
> (on a
> couple of CDs) might yield up interesting stuff. During an interview, I
> showed
> him one of the Happy Gang's early Bluebird 78s and he said "I hope you
> won't
> hurt your equipment."
>
> dl
>
> On 5/7/2011 6:29 AM, Jeff Sultanof wrote:
> > David,
> >
> > Is there any way you could scan them? I'd love to see them. Are you aware
> of
> > any airchecks from that program. I've never heard Farnon play trumpet,
> and
> > according to Dizzy Gillespie, Farnon was better than he was. And he
> wasn't
> > kidding. And since I'm asking, is there anything still existing from the
> > Percy Faith era with Farnon in the trumpet section of the orchestra?
> >
> > Farnon did the Zadora albums for two basic reasons: as a favor to the
> > producer Tino Barzie (a long-time friend of Farnon's manager who managed
> The
> > Dorsey Bros in the fifties) and the money was too good to turn down.
> Farnon
> > was very gracious about her talent and left a lot unsaid; he was that
> way.
> > He was like Duke, although I got to know him very well and he could be
> very
> > blunt at times. I frankly would have loved to have heard her in Vegas,
> with
> > Vincent Falcone playing piano and conducting. I heard she was
> surprisingly
> > good; by that time she was thoroughly rehearsed and knew the material
> well.
> >
> > I don't know if you know this, but there was to be a third Zadora album,
> but
> > since there had been a major flight disaster involving terrorists (I
> don't
> > remember the exact circumstances now), Pia's husband didn't want her
> flying
> > overseas, so he told Farnon that he could use the orchestra and the
> studio
> > time to record anything he wanted. The results are wonderful; they were
> > issued on a CD called Farnon at the Movies.
> >
> > Jeff Sultanof
> >
> > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 10:55 PM, David Lennick<dlennick at sympatico.ca
> >wrote:
> >
> >> I wonder what Farnon had to say about having to accompany Pia Zadora?
> >> (Farnon's
> >> been in my sight lines recently..I found a batch of photographs in a CBC
> >> waste
> >> basket last month, obviously things nobody there was old enough to
> >> recognize,
> >> but they were of the original members of radio's Happy Gang.)
> >>
> >> dl
> >>
> >> On 5/6/2011 10:50 PM, Jeff Sultanof wrote:
> >>> He was hardly a racist, but he turned out to be opinionated. He just
> >> didn't
> >>> like Billie Holiday's singing apparently. Or maybe he just didn't like
> >> her
> >>> as a person. As I said, he didn't like being interviewed, and you
> didn't
> >> put
> >>> words in his mouth.
> >>>
> >>> Both Ellington and Bob Farnon are two examples of people who would
> never
> >> say
> >>> a bad word about anybody in public, but privately..... that was another
> >>> story. There is an incredible interview with Ellington ca. 1964 with an
> >>> interviewer from Columbia University, and Duke was shockingly open
> about
> >>> many things. The Institute of Jazz Studies has it, and I've heard parts
> >> of
> >>> it.
> >>>
> >>> Jeff Sultanof
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