Noirish, Pulpish Standards and Substandards

[Teasing the Korean]

Thanks all for the replies, but a lot of the suggestions, respectfully, are not in the category I'm seeking. 

I have been exploring some of June Christy's early non-LP tracks, and I think there are some great examples there.  I will post examples when I spend more time with them.  

[felser]

[Teasing the Korean]

On 5/17/2020 at 3:56 PM, sgcim said:

"Rules of the Road" was a song that had those desperate noir-type lyrics that only transients could relate to.

Since we discussed this last year, I realized that I have this by Tony Bennett on IIRC his San Francisco album. 

[Teasing the Korean]

Finally putting together a playlist based on this thread.

[Teasing the Korean]

So here is my initial playlist, in no order.  (I hit the "shuffle" button.) I was limited to things I had on CD, so there were some tracks I would have included, but have only on LP. 

  

 

[mikeweil]

Saw this only now. Nice compilation.

My late suggestion: "Love Is Like A Cigarette", sung by Carmen Lundy on a Kip Hanrahan album. https://www.discogs.com/release/1269210-Kip-Hanrahan-Days-And-Nights-Of-Blue-Luck-Inverted

 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, mikeweil said:

Saw this only now. Nice compilation.

My late suggestion: "Love Is Like A Cigarette", sung by Carmen Lundy on a Kip Hanrahan album. https://www.discogs.com/release/1269210-Kip-Hanrahan-Days-And-Nights-Of-Blue-Luck-Inverted

 

Thank you!

For those who have not heard it, here is "Lonelyville" by Combustible Edison.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

"Night Bird" on that same Anita O'Day album fits in with this vibe also.  

Maybe even "You Came a Long Way from St. Louis" also, with its tough lingo.

[Teasing the Korean]

A few more additions:

"Lilac Wine" - Eartha Kitt

"Lazy Afternoon" - Eartha Kitt

"Midnight Indigo" - LHR

"Deep in a Dream" - Frank

"The Night We Called it a Day - Chet Baker

Also, I'm replacing Julie London's version of "Midnight Sun" with Nancy Wilson's version.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

A few more:

Pete Kelly's Blues - Not sure whose version yet.

Intrigue - June Christy

 

[Milestones]

If you're looking for some instrumental music, I would recommend Night Town by Don Grolnick and Black Dahlia by Bob Belden.   

 

 

[Teasing the Korean]

On 12/1/2022 at 1:07 PM, Milestones said:

If you're looking for some instrumental music, I would recommend Night Town by Don Grolnick and Black Dahlia by Bob Belden.   

Thanks!  I have the Belden but am unfamiliar with the other.  The bass clarinet credit is indeed a very good sign!

[Teasing the Korean]

This page features digital rips of obscure 45s in this micro-genre. It is a fantastic resource.

The Lonely Beat captures a period–specific set of images, motifs and themes associated with the modern, post–War American city. It is a world in sound that was based in reality as well as reconstructed within the media and pop culture.

American cities reflected a changing socioeconomic and cultural reality in the post–War decades. The pursuit of home ownership following World War II meant an acceleration of a white demographic's relocation from the city to its mushrooming suburbs, a shift that would exacerbate economic disparities and urban segregation, especially for black populations. Even as their economic fortunes began to founder, however, cities remained a center of media, publishing and advertising as well as fashion, design, architecture and entertainment. Moreover, the American city – in this case most clearly identified with, though not necessarily limited to, New York City – would attract a new cohort of artists, becoming in the process a crucible for new visual and performance art, dance, the literary arts, music, theater and film.

Many aspects of mid–century city life and culture were remade and romanticized in pop culture, a hard–boiled, bohemian version of the city in particular developing in novels, short stories and television and film dramas. This was the version of the city that became seated in the popular imagination, the city that was a sort of labyrinthine nexus of underworld forces, exotic lifestyles and minority populations. The potency of this confabulation would only increase as white populations retreated further into the suburbs.

Popular music became a major vector for this image of the city. Music sustained an idea of the city as sexy and stylish, dangerous and decaying. It was the foreboding Metropolis, gangland Gotham, the Naked City, the Asphalt Jungle, bohemia, the mean streets. It was a place of after-hours intrigue and rendezvous - it was a place of crime, juvenile delinquency, corruption, lurking evil - and men who sought to stop these forces. As portrayed in music, the city was at its most mysterious and atmospheric; there was a romance in its solitude. It was skyscrapers, streets, wharfs, fogs, smoky nightclubs. Crucially, too, the city was where black communities lived, along with ethnic populations of every stripe. In this sense there was, like exotica, an element of the Other about the city, some world that aroused Middle American anxieties and fantasies. 

All of these images, motifs and clichés are evident in post–War popular music.

https://exoticaproject.com/2/

https://exoticaproject.com/2/about.php

[randyhersom]

Way late to the party, but would Harlem Nocturne have worked?

 

[JSngry]