Freddy Martin was a hugely successful bandleader, saxophonist and conductor whose orchestra played the "sweet" style of dance band and easy listening music which appealed to the broad spectrum of middle America during the 1930s through the '40s and into the early '50s during what is sometimes called the golden age of popular music. The great jazz tenor saxophonist Johnny Hodges called him "Mr. Silvertone". He pioneered the "Tenor Band" style that became the norm in the dance band business, with an all-tenor sax section, and enjoyed successful lengthy residencies at prestigious hotels, as well as becoming a fixture on sponsored radio shows. He recorded for Brunswick, before moving to RCA, first coming out on their Bluebird before switching to Victor and RCA-Victor, and during the 1930s, '40s and early '50s enjoyed a constant stream of big sellers, which mostly featured one or other of his vocalists, but with his big hits coming with classically-based orchestral pieces, notably his long-running No. 1 with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. This great-value 75-track 3-CD set consists entirely of his recordings which, before 1940, were credited with a Top 20 chart position in Joel Whitburn's "Pop Memories" or Elston Brooks' "The Weekly Top Ten Tunes For The Last Fifty Years" books, or the Your Hit Parade chart, or appeared in one of the Billboard charts thereafter. It naturally includes his other No. 1s "I Saw Stars", "Symphony", "To Each His Own" and "Managua, Nicaragua". It's a substantial, enjoyable and nostalgic journey through an era when pop music was continually changing, but his distinctive style of music remained a constant.
14 (There's a) Little Picture Playhouse in My Heart
15 Life Is a Song
16 Tell Me That You Love Me
17 Reckless
18 Get Rhythm in Your Feet
19 Paris in the Spring
20 I Couldn't Believe My Eyes
21 A Little Bit Independent (But Easy on the Eyes)
22 One Night in Monte Carlo
23 The Broken Record
24 Goody Goody
25 It's Been So Long
26 You
- Disc 2 -
1 Beside a Moonlit Stream
2 Scatter-Brain
3 One Cigarette for Two
4 Intermezzo
5 The Hut-Sut Song (A Swedish Serenade)
6 Til Reveille
7 Piano Concerto in B Flat
8 Why Don't We Do This More Often'
9 Rose O'Day (The Filla-Ga-Dusha-Song)
10 Tonight We Love
11 Symphonie Moderne
12 When There's a Breeze on Lake Louise
13 Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland
14 Jingle, Jangle, Jingle
15 White Christmas
16 I Met Her on Monday
17 A Touch of Texas
18 I Get the Neck of the Chicken
19 (Theme from the) Warsaw Concerto
20 From Twilight 'Til Dawn
21 Abraham
22 Dream
23 Everytime
24 In the Middle of May
- Disc 3 -
1 Laura
2 Lily Belle
3 Symphony
4 One-Zy, Two-Zy (I Love You-Zy)
5 Bumble Boogie
6 Doin' What Comes Natur'lly
7 To Each His Own
8 Managua, Nicaragua
9 The Lady from 29 Palms
10 Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed
11 Come to the Mardi Gras
12 Treasure of the Sierra Madre
13 The Dickey-Bird Song
14 Sabre Dance Boogie
15 The New Look
16 On a Slow Boat to China
17 I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
18 (Put Another Nickel in) Music! Music! Music!
19 Wilhelmina
20 The Third Man Theme
21 The Aba Daba Honeymoon
22 Never Been Kissed
23 Truly Truly Fair
24 Down Yonder
25 April in Portugal (The Whisp'ring Serenade)
Freddy Martin was a hugely successful bandleader, saxophonist and conductor whose orchestra played the "sweet" style of dance band and easy listening music which appealed to the broad spectrum of middle America during the 1930s through the '40s and into the early '50s during what is sometimes called the golden age of popular music. The great jazz tenor saxophonist Johnny Hodges called him "Mr. Silvertone". He pioneered the "Tenor Band" style that became the norm in the dance band business, with an all-tenor sax section, and enjoyed successful lengthy residencies at prestigious hotels, as well as becoming a fixture on sponsored radio shows. He recorded for Brunswick, before moving to RCA, first coming out on their Bluebird before switching to Victor and RCA-Victor, and during the 1930s, '40s and early '50s enjoyed a constant stream of big sellers, which mostly featured one or other of his vocalists, but with his big hits coming with classically-based orchestral pieces, notably his long-running No. 1 with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. This great-value 75-track 3-CD set consists entirely of his recordings which, before 1940, were credited with a Top 20 chart position in Joel Whitburn's "Pop Memories" or Elston Brooks' "The Weekly Top Ten Tunes For The Last Fifty Years" books, or the Your Hit Parade chart, or appeared in one of the Billboard charts thereafter. It naturally includes his other No. 1s "I Saw Stars", "Symphony", "To Each His Own" and "Managua, Nicaragua". It's a substantial, enjoyable and nostalgic journey through an era when pop music was continually changing, but his distinctive style of music remained a constant.
