A handful of old albums were discarded on the table, left behind by the auction-goer who had earlier won a box full of them. That happens pretty often at auction: a buyer wins a box lot, gathers what he or she wants and leaves the throwaways.
The rest of us glean the leftovers – sometimes finding good stuff, sometimes not. We all try to be careful about going through items sitting around on tables, because idle merchandise does not necessarily mean abandoned. Auctioneers are forever warning buyers not to take other people’s stuff without permission.
Another auction-regular assured me that the record albums were there for the taking and that the bidder had offered them to anyone who wanted them. So, the two of us surveyed them, and I zeroed in on two names that caught my eye: Mahalia Jackson and Pearl Bailey. I also spotted a quasi-holiday album by Dean Martin and a non-holiday album by Frank Sinatra. What the heck, I thought, I’ll take those, too.
I don’t own a Mahalia Jackson or Pearl Bailey album, and I thought it would be nice to have them. There were no release dates on either of the albums, but they looked to be from the mid-20th century.
Jackson’s was titled “Christmas with Mahalia,” arranged and conducted by Marty Paich, who worked with some of the country’s greatest performers. It contained some holiday classics and more, what the liner notes call the “basics:”
“The images here are not of a white-bearded gentleman with a sack full of gifts. … There is no red-nosed reindeer. And there is no amplified holly-and-mistletoe, tree-trimming, plastic pseudo-hymn anywhere in sight. We are fortunate indeed in that there could never be such an item in a Mahalia Jackson Christmas concert.”
Bailey’s album was titled “Around the World With Me,” and included the staple “Bill Bailey.” She was recording for Guest Star Records, along wiht Count Basie, Frankie Lymon, Errol Garner and Tito Puente. The liner notes stated:
“Pearl is rather tall and willowy, with long, tapering expressive hands that fluently translate her ideas. Her sing-talk lazy style and constant ad-libbing blend a salty humor into her delivery via subtle gestures and intimate phrasing.”
Jackson was one of the world’s greatest gospel singers, performing (and playing a small role) in films (“St. Louis Blues” in 1958 and “Imitation of Life” in 1959), at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, the March on Washington in 1963 and Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral in 1968. She hosted her own radio show for CBS, and performed at Carnegie Hall and on the Ed Sullivan show in the 1950s. She also participated in the civil rights movement with King and others.
The album at auction was released by Columbia in 1968 after Jackson moved from the Apollo label where she had been since 1946 and before that, Decca in 1937. Her year at Columbia established her as a renowned gospel singer. She also had toured with the great gospel musician and composer Thomas A. Dorsey. Considered the father of gospel music, his most famous and stirring song is “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”
Jackson recorded her first Christmas album with Columbia called “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” in 1956, and her second holiday album, “Silent Night (Songs for Christmas),” in 1962. The album at auction was re-released in 1990.
My memories of Pearl Bailey are in her later years, and I’m always surprised when I see her as a young woman. I always get a whiff of her sassiness when I watch her in early movies, especially in my favorite “Carmen Jones,” featuring Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier. Interestingly, she also appeared with Jackson, Eartha Kitt and Nat King Cole in “St. Louis Blues.”
Pearlie Mae, as she was called, was born in Virginia and raised in Philadelphia, where began her dancing and singing career in the 1930s. She performed with Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington, among others. She made her acting debut in “St. Louis Woman” in 1946 on Broadway, and later in Porgy and Bess.
She apparently recorded the album in 1954 while at Guest Star Records, a budget record label out of Newark, NJ, owned by the Synthetic Plastics Co. The company apparently made children’s records that were sold through its Peter Pan Records label and albums, according to Wikipedia, and owned other labels.
Bailey performed at least one album with Sinatra at Columbia Records: “A Little Learnin’ Is a Dang’rous Thing,” released in 1947.
The Sinatra album at the auction was titled “September of My Years (1965),” and included such staples as “It Was A Very Good Year” and “September Song,” and the Martin album was “Holiday Cheer (1967).” That album was similar to Martin’s 1959 album “A Winter Romance.”
