Records

New Orleans around the shank of the last century was a bumptious, bawdy port city that catered to nearly every human whim imaginable. It was a city rocking with good-time vice, and no one really seemed to mind. Lulu White's rococo mansion, at the corner of Basin and Bienville, did a whopping big business, contained a bevy of beauteous (though erring) sisters, and a collection of some of the costliest oil paintings in the entire South (in addition to a parlor lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors). Lulu's house, unlike Josie Arlington's, nearby, could also boast at least ten entertainers who actually got paid to do nothing more than sing and dance. This was revolutionary.

In 1897, civic reformers and dogooders tried to limit the bustling bordello district to a disappointing 38 blocks in the Vieux Carre, and one sputtering alderman actually pushed the ordinance through the city council. His name was Sidney Story and the district was promptly tagged Storyville, much to Sid's awful chagrin.

New Orleans Jazz Festival (Columbia CL 793) -- a wildly exciting Turk Murphy bash taped during a three-night orgy in N. O.'s Municipal Auditorium, the Delago Museum of Art, and on board a real riverboat parked in the Mississippi -- stomps out a whole carpetbag full of original Storyville "jass" tunes (Storyville Blues, High Society, Canal Street Blues) and even one that came wailing out of Chicago's South Side (Mecca Flat Blues). Turk's biting, gutsy trombone leads the howling pack, is chased by Doc Evans' properly Armstrongesque cornet, while Dick Lammi, Floatin' Down to Cotton Town, whales the daylights out of a banjo.

Billie Holiday is all aquiver with the juices and joys of sensuous living on The Lady Sings (Decca DL 8215), a torchy get-together of some offbeat oldies recorded in 1946. She's silk-tongued and slyly winking on Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do ("I swear I won't call no coppa, if I'm beat up by my poppa"); magnificently saucy on Them There Eyes.

My Name Is Ruth Price ... I Sing! (Kapp KL-1006): the introductions completed, Miss Price proceeds to do just that, playing an oh-so-rare, unembellished voice that comes across gentle as candle-light, simple as pie. When she does get tricky, it's on the right tune (Calypso Blues), which comes on like a tornado: "Her eyelash false, her face is faint; what you think she got, she really ain't."

The Divine Sarah, we're sorry to say, is less than Divine on Sarah Vaughan in the Land of Hi-Fi (EmArcy MG 36058), slips and slides on the brink of melody like a drunken canary. Exceptions: How High the Moon (her first recorded version) and Sometimes I'm Happy but, generally, it's nothing more than a collection of tonsilar calisthenics.

The moment the French m.c. introduces the "Gerr-ee Mool-ee-gan Quartet," Gallic bobby-soxers go ga-ga with whistles, whoops and frenzied cries of "crazee." Gerry's Paris Concert (Pacific Jazz 1210) was certainly not greeted with indifference. The reasons: Bob Brook-meyer's weaving, jabbing valve trombone, Red Mitchell's and Frank Isola's simmering rhythm and, of course, Gerry's barking, bleeping baritone sax.

Ballads of the Day (Capitol T680) probes the boy-girl, June-spoon situation via the calm, cool, collected pipes of Nat Cole: a clear plea for sanity in a slushy market. Nat comes through like Nashua on some wet-eyed lullabies, including A Blossom Fell, It Happens to be Me and the boulevardiers' dirge, Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup.

Equal portions of tuba, belly laughs and pandemonium are dished up on Firehouse Five Plus Two Plays for Lovers (Good Time Jazz L-12014), a grand spoof of the current crop of love discs. "If Romeo and Juliet had heard this album," grins Firechief Ward Kimball (trombone), "I feel sure their story would have had a different ending." The smoke-eaters are all full-time creative men (artists, writers, etc.) out at the Walt Disney studios, invest gobs of imagination and wit (plus some good, tourist-type Dixieland) into such zany mating calls as My Cutie's Due at Two to Two and The Love Nest.

One of the great Britons, George Shearing, tip-toes (with light-footed quintet) through some tender tulips on Touch of Genius (M-G-M E3265). The untouchable Shearing touch: vibes, guitar and piano in smooth unison on My Silent Love and If You Were the Only Girl.

Bouncing along as if they were all aboard the same pogo stick, Shelly Manne and His Men, Vol. 4 (Contemporary 3516) wail joyously through some waggishly titled originals: Un Poco Loco, Bea's Flat, A Gem from Tiffany. The moods are varied (oriental, Afro-Los Angeles, bedlam) but the taste is invariably clean and needle sharp.

Late last year, a short, bulgy, near-50 Soviet citizen invaded the U. S. wearing a rumpled suit and a pugnacious scowl and carrying a small black case. His almost legendary name was David Oistrakh, and inside the case was a fiddle. His concerts and recitals were total sell-outs: a legion of music-lovers was turned away. That disappointed legion can hear the fabulous Oistrakh in the first recording of the Shostakovich Violin Concerto, Opus 99 (Columbia ML 5077). This work, written specifically for Oistrakh's supernal fingers, is lyrical and acrid by turns, has a translucency attributable to the absence of trumpets and trombones and the presence of more tinkly items such as xylophone, celeste and harp. Oistrakh considers it one of Shostakovich's "deepest conceptions," and he plays it with fervor, under the vigorous Mitropoulos baton.

Another fresh slice of Oistrakh, joined by fellow fiddler Isaac Stern and the Philadelphia Orchestra, can be sampled on three bubbling showpieces by J. S. Bach and Antonio Vivaldi (Columbia ML 5087). Stern fiddles solo while Oistrakh burns on the Bach Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor; the situation is reversed on the No. 2 in E Major; and both gentlemen join deft-fingered forces on the Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor.

Additional Bach is available in Suites 1 and 2 (Epic LC 3194): capering, clean-cut tones that skip and scamper through the courante, gavotte, forlane, minuet, bourée, passepied, sarabande and polonaise forms -- dances that were to the nimble-toed sophisticates of a couple of centuries ago what the mambo and fox trot are to the playboys of today. These hunks of antique hoofery are scored for two oboes, bassoon, strings, harpsichord and the chirping solo flute of Hubert Barwahser. Eduard Van Beinum conducts a combo of Amsterdam sidemen.

Here's Morgan! (Riverside RLP 8003) reheats a pipkin of Henry's mad monologues, most of which you probably recall from radio days: Googie Morgan on Baseball (it's last of the eighth at Tinkeyboo Stadium), Dr. Heinrich von Morgan on Child Care, the Invention of Time, and several other cleverly minced wordings. Henry proudly admits that "This record is made in the non-tricky, no-dials-to-adjust lo-fi!" but you still might get bounced off the seat guffawing.