"Marriage Type Love," Ted Straeter and His Orchestra, with Sue Bennett

The link below is to a 1953 recording of the song "Marriage Type Love," by Ted Straeter and His Orchestra.  

The song was from the 1953 Broadway musical Me and Juliet. The play's songs were by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Ted Straeter was a noted pianist, orchestra leader, and vocalist. He was also a director of vocal groups; in the late 1930s and early 1940s, his Ted Straeter Choir had been part of the cast of Kate Smith's radio show.

"Marriage Type Love" appeared on an MGM album featuring Mr. Straeter and his orchestra.  The album included songs not only from Me and Juliet, but from the 1953 musical Can-Can; the songs for the latter show were by Cole Porter.  Ted Straeter and my mother sang on the album, separately and together. They both sang on "Marriage Type Love."

Here is the song, which I like very much:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN6Y4GuT__8

The album was recorded in June of 1953, in New York; both Me and Juliet and Can-Can had had their Broadway debuts the month before.  

My mother, who had moved with my father to the Boston area at the start of 1953, was well into her first pregnancy at the time the recording was made; the following month she would give birth to my brother. 

Ted Straeter's singing style was idiosyncratic--low-key, easygoing, somewhat intimate.  It is, I think, a pleasing style, one which has its own particular elegance. (I am guessing some listeners might need to get acclimated to his vocal manner. I was one such listener; his singing, indeed, grew on me.) His piano playing, too, is distinctive, and impressive. One notes, in particular, his interlude--it has a lush sound--on "Marriage Type Love."  He doesn't stay, precisely, with the timing of his orchestra, accompanying him.  His playing in the interlude diverges, in a handful of instances; he alternately comes in a little early, or comes in a bit late.  The style is appealing.

Mr. Straeter's best-known record was "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World." The song was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, for the 1935 Broadway show Jumbo.  Mr. Straeter's version of the song was recorded in 1947 and released in 1948, and it became his theme song.  He recorded the song again in 1951.

The link below is to the 1947/1948 version.  Mr. Straeter plays the piano and sings; he is accompanied by the "Straeter Singers."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXOdX4kubvQ

Mr. Straeter died in 1963, following surgery.  He was 49.

Novels

I read a lot of fiction--and am currently making my way through a novel by a very good writer.  I confess, though, that I'm rather disappointed by the book. 

Yet I plan to continue with it.  I want to see where the book goes, want to know if my view of the novel will have changed, by the end of it.  

I think about a particular insight from college, many years ago (the 1970s).

In a literature course, I was reading Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.  I remember that I was bored by the book. 

Then, fairly suddenly--it might have been one hundred pages into the novel, perhaps one hundred and fifty pages--I was taken aback.  The book had (for whatever reason, or reasons) come together for me; I felt (it was a somewhat out-of-the-blue sensation) that I was in fact not reading something boring, but remarkable. 

This was a long time ago--I was a very young man when I read the novel--and I have no idea what I'd feel about the book today. (One's responses to works of literature can, of course, be altered, dramatically, with time. A book one felt to be astonishing at age twenty can feel, decades later, dreary.  A book believed to be dreary in one's youth can, many years after the fact, appear beautiful, revelatory. Or, a work regarded as brilliant can, decades hence, still feel brilliant--though one may, perhaps, now apprehend its power and beauty in different ways.  In none of these instances has the text of the book changed. But--I am indeed not alone in making this observation--one's life has no doubt changed, in varied and often meaningful ways...and so too, in many instances, will one's responses change to the nature, meaning, and feeling of a particular work.)

Today, I attempt to be as patient as possible with the books I read (particularly if I have faith in the writer, from previous encounters with the writer's work).  Sometimes, I do give up; pressing on, with certain books, feels like too much of a burden, a waste of time. 

Yet I do think, periodically, about the experience of reading Thomas Hardy's novel, in college.  I believe a useful lesson--about possibilities--was provided:  that what can appear at first, to you, to be unsatisfying, unappealing, dull, might, ultimately, turn out to be valuable, important, and (sometimes) electrifying.

(Since its posting, yesterday, the preceding has been somewhat edited.)