Tag: jazz

Recommended music:

For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we are still listening to music related to Goldfinger!

Harold (Hal) Serra was born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1928. When Hal was in his teens, he went to New York City to study becoming a jazz pianist. Hal not only became a pianist, but also an arranger and a composer. He eventually formed his own trio, which was featured on NBC’s ‘The Today Show’ for more than two years, until the show changed its format. Besides ‘The Today Show’ performances, Serra wrote and recorded television commercials for multiple well-known products.

Serra played and conducted in the New York club scene for performers such as Woody Allen and Ella Fitzgerald. He even worked and traveled with singer Julie London. One interesting project that Serra oversaw was transcribing the music recordings from the album ‘Charlie Parker with Strings’ for a jazz concert at Carnegie Hall. Another unique jazz project would be recording albums in the 1960s and 1970s for Statler Records.

Formed in the 1940s by a professional dancer and dance instructor, the Statler Records label was known for recording popular music for use as dance instruction and gymnastics. While the early decades saw this music on vinyl records, it evolved into instructional CDs and DVDs before shutting down sometime around 2008. Fortunately, I was able to find this 1967 recording of Jazz “Hot and Cool” which features big-band jazz, ragtime, and swing covers for “dancing and physical fitness needs.” Now, I may not be dancing to this album, but it kicks off with a swing version of ‘King of the Road’ and also features yet another cool jazzy cover of ‘Goldfinger’ on it. I cannot find a recording of this album online, so you will have to seek out a physical copy if you want it for your own James Bond-themed physical fitness needs. 😛

133. Hal Serra And His Orchestra – Jazz “Hot and Cool”

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Recommended music: [skip to 21:15 for Goldfinger]

For tonight’s Bond on Vinyl post, we are still listening to music related to Goldfinger!

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1920, Alexander Emil Caiola showed an interest in music in his youth. Rather than follow in his father’s footsteps as a barber, Caiola desired to be a singer but was soon convinced by his father to also seek career opportunities by playing an instrument. Soon enough, Caiola learned to play the banjo and, by the age of eleven, he was already a child prodigy on the guitar.

Al formally trained with guitarists in both Jersey City and New York City. When he was sixteen, he sang and played guitar on the children’s radio program ‘Sally and Sam’ along with jazz guitarist Tony Mottola.       

Caiola’s music career took a different turn when he joined United States Marine Corps. Throughout World War II, Caiola played trumpet in the Marine Band, and toured much of the Pacific Theater, until the bandmembers were assigned to active combat. Eventually, Caiola was also included and served as a stretcher bearer during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Following the war, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to study music composition and theory at New Jersey College of Music.

That’s enough Al Caiola talk for tonight as his covers of James Bond music appear on a few albums in my collection. This 1965 compilation ‘Sounds For Spies And Private Eyes’ includes themes from many films and television shows in the spy genre, including Goldfinger. The record is full of jazzy surf rock with Caiola nailing the guitar, and even though I am not familiar with all the themes, the whole album is a fun listen.

132. Al Caiola – Sounds for Spies and Private Eyes

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Recommended music: [skip to 13:45 for Goldfinger]

Tonight, we’re still listening to music featured in Goldfinger!

Born in 1925 as Hans Joachim Etzel in Breslau, Poland, Roy Etzel grew up during World War II. He received his musical training at the Army Music School in Frankfurt, Germany. Following World War II, Etzel played trumpet in multiple well-known big bands from the 1940s until 1966, eventually earning the nickname “Mr. Trumpet” in Germany. That same year, Etzel appeared as a trumpet player in the film ‘Come to the Blue Adriatic’ and played the song ‘Golden Midnight Sun.’

At this point, he had put a handful of albums under his own name and decided to go into business for himself. He became the band leader of his own band, the Roy Etzel Sound Orchestra, which released albums throughout the 1970s, with Etzel composing and writing lyrics along the way. Etzel’s music career continued with more records released all the way until 1985.

Etzel published an autobiography, This is My Life, in 2004 and lived in Munich until his passing in 2015 at age 90. Fortunately, before Etzel transitioned to being a bandleader, he did release this 1965 compilation album, ‘The Silence (Il Silenzio).’ The Italian song ‘Il Silenzio’ is an instrumental piece notable for its trumpet theme and normally contains some spoken Italian lyrics. Written earlier in 1965, the song uses the same Italian Cavalry bugle call that Russian composer Tchaikovsky used in 1880. Etzel’s version, which leads off the album, does not have any lyrics and sounds remarkably like the U.S. military bugle call ‘Taps.’ This album reached the US Billboard 200 on Christmas 1965 and stayed on the charts for five weeks.

Anyways, the track that closes out the first half of the album is a cover of John Barry’s ‘Goldfinger.’ Just a year after the film’s debut, it was still immensely popular to cover. This is an incredibly unique version with the only lyric retained being the word “Goldfinger,” while Etzel’s trumpet takes center stage.

131. Roy Etzel – The Silence (Il Silenzio)

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