The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Just picked up a group of V-Discs. Not much terribly interesting about that per se, but they arrived in original shipping boxes and I thought some of you might find that interesting. I've included 3 pictures:

1. A scan of a V-mail form (printed on very thin paper) sent in the box with the records giving some information on how to get discs and how they were distributed and a place to report back about various things to the shipping agency.

2. A Christmas greeting label pasted on top of the HH series box.

3, The end labels of a couple of the boxes.

Haven't found a date on any of this paper, but the 650 series discs listed on the HH label are July 1946 issues and the discs listed on the series GG label are June 1946 issues.

ETO=European Theater of Operations
AFPAC=Armed Forces Pacific

Clay

The Christmas set has some selections from La Boheme in there. That opera is set at Christmas time, of course, but I haven't seen it's melodies used as part of a catch-as-catch-can Christmas set in our modern world.

I would imagine that the majority of GI's of the time would be most interested in the latest big band and other pop releases and have wondered how the classical releases were used. Perhaps for Armed Forces Radio broadcasts?

Clay

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing!

FloridaClay wrote:I would imagine that the majority of GI's of the time would be most interested in the latest big band and other pop releases and have wondered how the classical releases were used. Perhaps for Armed Forces Radio broadcasts?

Clay

On the other hand, the gulf between classical and popular music wasn't nearly as great in those days as it is now. Look at all the classical adaptations the top bandleaders churned out- and they were top hits, too. Freddy Martin's "Tonight We Love". Glenn Miller's "Anvil Chorus". Tommy Dorsey's "Song of India". Artie Shaw was VERY well versed in the classical idiom; he added strings and a harpsichord to a top swing band and wrote the "Concerto For Clarinet" which was a big hit for him.

Freddy Martin did an entire set of "The Nutcracker Suite" in swing idiom that was just fabulous.

Gershwin's "serious" compositions were introduced by Paul Whiteman, as was Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite". And the admiration went both ways- Igor Stravinsky wrote the Ebony Concerto for Woody Herman, and Bela Bartok worked with Benny Goodman. Incidentally, the same year as he played Carnegie Hall, Goodman recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A Major with the Budapest Quartet.

While today there is a sharp delineation between classical and pop genres, back in the WW2 era it just wasn't so.

They called that genre "Swinging the Classics"