Thanks to the Living Era reissue label, interested parties may place themselves at the mercy of Danny Kaye's funniest recordings, made between January 1941 and December 1947, by which time he was already being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. (This was during an era when even harmless Burl Ives came under government scrutiny.) Kaye, who actually spoke Russian, was apparently unable to resist cooking up a "Slavic" rendition of "Dinah" (here pronounced "Dee-nah") and a campy tribute to various ...
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Thanks to the Living Era reissue label, interested parties may place themselves at the mercy of Danny Kaye's funniest recordings, made between January 1941 and December 1947, by which time he was already being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. (This was during an era when even harmless Burl Ives came under government scrutiny.) Kaye, who actually spoke Russian, was apparently unable to resist cooking up a "Slavic" rendition of "Dinah" (here pronounced "Dee-nah") and a campy tribute to various Russian classical composers. While cheerfully manhandling popular jazz tunes, Kaye could enunciate as rapidly as Cab Calloway and carried on crazily like Beatrice Lillie or Doodles Weaver. "Minnie the Moocher" mutates into a makeshift French lesson, then erupts with snatches of Russian, goofy ersatz Chinese, and bursts of Swiss yodeling before Kaye demonstrates a dazzling ability to scat like a fiend in human form, completely confounding the background vocalists, who have been dutifully following the formula of "call and response." Kaye was also a natural for children's material, as demonstrated here by his masterful handling of "Tubby the Tuba." When providing entertainment for adults, anything and everything was considered fair game. He was capable of impersonating a misogynistic designer of women's hats ("Anatole of Paris"), or depicting an individual slowly driven insane by a dripping faucet ("Bloop Bleep"). In retrospect, unfortunately, the famous "Civilization" song (with snappy vocal accompaniment by the Andrews Sisters) reflects an unsavory post-colonial ignorance of what real inhabitants of the Congo were like midway through the 20th century. This, of course, was the fault of the songwriters. It took a comedian like Danny Kaye to pull it off. ~ arwulf arwulf, Rovi
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Add this copy of Entertainer Extraordinary 1941-47 to cart. $3.47, good condition, Sold by Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brooklyn Park, MN, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by ASV/Living Era.
Add this copy of Entertainer Extraordinary 1941-1947 to cart. $39.98, new condition, Sold by Entertainment by Post - UK rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from BRISTOL, SOUTH GLOS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1998 by ASV/Living Era.
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