Am I Blue?
78 rpm Columbia 5591
The orchestra of Ben Selvin has many pages in Brian Rust’s “American Dance Band Discography.” They had an enormous number of sessions between 1919 and 1934. Rust says “I have had the great good fortune to receive some valuable information by Mr. Selvin himself… And piece by piece, the fascinating jigsaw puzzle of the Ben Selvin story on records has been put together.”
On this record from July 5, 1929, they do a good performance of a stock arrangement (by Joseph Nussbaum). The arrangement is somewhat longer than three minutes, so the ending is a bit abrupt, but on the other hand, we have already heard the melody several times, so a full chorus of the same would become rather tedious.
A studio musician, a trumpet player named Irving Peskin, has told us the usual procedure at sessions like this. There was normally no rehearsal. The music was handed out, and the trumpet players and saxophone players agreed upon who was playing the lead part. Then they might play through the arrangement once, but often one take was enough. On top of the perfect sight-reading, studio musicians of this caliber could also lighten up the proceedings with some solo work the way Tommy Dorsey does here.
There were a few singers who could satisfy the needs of reading music and singing in tune with good diction, and Smith Ballew was one of them.