Jackie Gleason & His Orchestra - Shangri La (Capitol Records 1954)
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Uploaded on Jan 2, 2011
With Bobby Hacket on cornet, Shangri-La" is a popular song written by Carl Sigman (lyricist), bandleader Matty Malneck, and Robert Maxwell in 1946. The term comes from "Shangri-La," the hidden valley of delight in James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon." The term "Shangri-La," especially in the 1930s and 1940s, was slang for heaven or paradise, and the song is about the joy of being in love.
John Herbert “Jackie” Gleason (February 26, 1916–June 24, 1987) was an American comedian, actor, and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, exemplified by his character Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. Among his notable film roles were Minnesota Fats in the 1961 drama The Hustler (starring Paul Newman) and Buford T. Justice in the Smokey and the Bandit series.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Gleason enjoyed a secondary music career, lending his name to a series of best-selling “mood music” albums with jazz overtones for Capitol Records. Gleason felt there was a ready market for romantic instrumentals. His goal was to make “musical wallpaper that should never be intrusive, but conducive.” He recalled seeing Clark Gable play love scenes in movies; the romance was, in his words, “magnified a thousand percent” by background music. Gleason reasoned, “If Gable needs music, a guy in Brooklyn must be desperate!”
Gleason’s first album, Music for Lovers Only, still holds the record for the album longest in the Billboard Top Ten Charts (153 weeks), and his first 10 albums all sold over a million copies. At one point, Gleason held the record for charting the most number-one albums on the Billboard 200 without charting any hits on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Gleason could not read or write music; he was said to have conceived melodies in his head and described them vocally to assistants who transcribed them into musical notes. These included the well-remembered themes of both The Jackie Gleason Show ("Melancholy Serenade") and The Honeymooners (“You’re My Greatest Love”). There has been controversy over the years as to how much credit Gleason should have received for the finished products; biographer William A. Henry III wrote in his 1992 book, The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason, that beyond the possible conceptualizing of many of the song melodies, Gleason had no direct involvement (such as conducting) in the making of these recordings. Red Nichols, a jazz great who had fallen on hard times and led one of the group’s recordings, did not even get session-leader pay from Gleason. Cornetist and trumpeter Bobby Hackett, who soloed on the albums and was leader for seven of them, when asked by musician–journalist Harry Currie in Toronto weeks before Hackett’s death what Gleason really did at the recording sessions, Hackett replied “He brought the cheques.”
However, this alleged statement is at odds with others made by Hackett, who said to writer James Bacon: “Jackie knows a lot more about music than people give him credit for. I have seen him conduct a 60-piece orchestra and detect one discordant note in the brass section. He would immediately stop the music and locate the wrong note. It always amazed the professional musicians how a guy who technically did not know one note from another could do that. And he was never wrong.” Nearly all of Gleason’s albums are still available and have been re-released on compact disc.
He had a lead role in the musical Take Me Along, which ran from 1959 to 1960 and for which he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical.
Your kisses take me to Shangri-La
Each kiss is magic that makes my little world a Shangri-La
A land of bluebirds and fountains and nothing to do
But cling to an angel that looks like you
And when you hold me, how warm you are
Be mine, my darling, and spend your life with me in Shangri-La
For anywhere you are is Shangri-La
Your kisses take me to Shangri-La
Each kiss is magic that makes my little world a Shangri-La
A land of bluebirds and fountains and nothing to do
But cling to an angel that looks like you
And when you hold me, how warm you are
Be mine, my darling, and spend your life with me in Shangri-La
For anywhere you are is Shangri-La
John Herbert “Jackie” Gleason (February 26, 1916–June 24, 1987) was an American comedian, actor, and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, exemplified by his character Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners. Among his notable film roles were Minnesota Fats in the 1961 drama The Hustler (starring Paul Newman) and Buford T. Justice in the Smokey and the Bandit series.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Gleason enjoyed a secondary music career, lending his name to a series of best-selling “mood music” albums with jazz overtones for Capitol Records. Gleason felt there was a ready market for romantic instrumentals. His goal was to make “musical wallpaper that should never be intrusive, but conducive.” He recalled seeing Clark Gable play love scenes in movies; the romance was, in his words, “magnified a thousand percent” by background music. Gleason reasoned, “If Gable needs music, a guy in Brooklyn must be desperate!”
Gleason’s first album, Music for Lovers Only, still holds the record for the album longest in the Billboard Top Ten Charts (153 weeks), and his first 10 albums all sold over a million copies. At one point, Gleason held the record for charting the most number-one albums on the Billboard 200 without charting any hits on the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Gleason could not read or write music; he was said to have conceived melodies in his head and described them vocally to assistants who transcribed them into musical notes. These included the well-remembered themes of both The Jackie Gleason Show ("Melancholy Serenade") and The Honeymooners (“You’re My Greatest Love”). There has been controversy over the years as to how much credit Gleason should have received for the finished products; biographer William A. Henry III wrote in his 1992 book, The Great One: The Life and Legend of Jackie Gleason, that beyond the possible conceptualizing of many of the song melodies, Gleason had no direct involvement (such as conducting) in the making of these recordings. Red Nichols, a jazz great who had fallen on hard times and led one of the group’s recordings, did not even get session-leader pay from Gleason. Cornetist and trumpeter Bobby Hackett, who soloed on the albums and was leader for seven of them, when asked by musician–journalist Harry Currie in Toronto weeks before Hackett’s death what Gleason really did at the recording sessions, Hackett replied “He brought the cheques.”
However, this alleged statement is at odds with others made by Hackett, who said to writer James Bacon: “Jackie knows a lot more about music than people give him credit for. I have seen him conduct a 60-piece orchestra and detect one discordant note in the brass section. He would immediately stop the music and locate the wrong note. It always amazed the professional musicians how a guy who technically did not know one note from another could do that. And he was never wrong.” Nearly all of Gleason’s albums are still available and have been re-released on compact disc.
He had a lead role in the musical Take Me Along, which ran from 1959 to 1960 and for which he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical.
Your kisses take me to Shangri-La
Each kiss is magic that makes my little world a Shangri-La
A land of bluebirds and fountains and nothing to do
But cling to an angel that looks like you
And when you hold me, how warm you are
Be mine, my darling, and spend your life with me in Shangri-La
For anywhere you are is Shangri-La
Your kisses take me to Shangri-La
Each kiss is magic that makes my little world a Shangri-La
A land of bluebirds and fountains and nothing to do
But cling to an angel that looks like you
And when you hold me, how warm you are
Be mine, my darling, and spend your life with me in Shangri-La
For anywhere you are is Shangri-La
Great!
ReplyDeleteAnd away we go.
.... right to the moon, Alice! :o)
ReplyDeleteFantastic. Thanks. Gleason was one of my very favorites. He brought back the memories, moods, and taste of the old time New York that I knew.
ReplyDeleteI still have one or two of his albums. New York used to be a wonderful place to visit and walk around. Haven't been back since 9/11.
Delete