Shep Fields Orchestra and Paul Lavalle and Orchestra (Tiara)

I once knew someone who described the latest Radiohead album at the time as "milquetoast". Actually I think he typed "milktoast" but that's another matter. Regardless, as much as I hate such words, I can't justify using them to describe something like a Radiohead album when records exist that are clearly more deserving of the term.

Yes, this record is bland. Two sides of mostly string and reed instrumental songs, with an uncredited baritone singer on the first side. Yet another "capitalizing on an already famous person's existing recordings" release, by a formulaic, low budget record label. I have very little to say about the music itself; the singer has an obnoxiously consistent vibrato (actually sortof worth listening to at 45 speed for the amusement factor), the orchestral arrangements never stray from consistent strings with occasional woodwind accompaniment and extremely basic percussion, the selections are boring and predictable, and the lyrics make lots of romantic references to Gypsies and vaguely Spanish sounding people and places - all extremely typical of the period.

But wait, what is this I see on the cover? That wonderful word "and" appears not once, but twice in the title of the record - "and Paul Lavalle and Orchestra" is the issue at hand. See, although this record is billed with Shep Fields' name, the entire second side is actually the work of another somewhat lesser known ensemble director. Ultimately, the two are very similar popular 30's bandleaders who went on to do movie scoring and DJ work later on. Fields died in the 80's, Lavalle in the 90's.

This record wouldn't even really register on my radar in either a positive or negative light if the back cover hadn't made such a hubub about the sound being "engineered to perfection" (rather than, as I often complain, using the space to credit players, songwriters, engineers). They actually go so far as to list model numbers of the tape machines and record lathes used to record and master the record, name-dropping Ampex, Neumann and Telefunken.

Sadly, the "mastering" job leaves much to be desired. While Shep's side is passable, the difference in level between sides one and two is drastic, and poor Paul's music really suffers. Cranked (and possibly compressed?) to clipping, this record is perhaps an early victim of the volume wars that have consumed so many modern pop songs, driven as high as they can go - or in this case even higher, as the distortion is bad enough to obscure a number of fast moving string lines. In fact, the sound is so bad that it's hard to conceive of this as anything but a serious mistake somewhere along the way, for which I hope someone got fired.

If speculation isn't enough and you need real proof of a sloppy mastering job, I can provide. I was surprised to uncover this record and find that it has apparently been in my collection for awhile, as evidenced by a bright pink sticker already present on the side two label, reading "Watch out for FAULTY RUN-OUT GROOVE" in m own handwriting. As I loosely recall, letting this record play out resulted in a needle dancing merrily on the center label. On the plus side: if you like noise music, it's probably better than what's in the actual grooves.