Phantom Dancer :: 12:00pm 17th May 2022
Leith Stevens is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist. Leith Stevens was a composer and music director. He worked on 1930s radio series like ‘Saturday Night Swing Club’, film scores like the 1953 Brando classic, ‘The Wild Ones’, and 1960s TV including ‘Mission Impossible’.
The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.
LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 10 May) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/
PRODIGY
Leith Stevens was a child prodigy pianist who accompanied early opera recording artist Madame Schumann-Heink.
During World War II Stevens worked as radio director for the Southwest Pacific Area for the U.S. Office of War Information. He was musical director of the War Production Board (WPB) series Three Thirds of a Nation presented on Wednesdays on the NBC Blue Network.
RADIO
Leith Stevens was active in radio broadcasting from 1934. Radio highlights in an April 28, 1934, newspaper listed “Romantic songs have been chosen by Charles Carlile, tenor, for his broadcast with Leith Stevens’ orchestra over WBBM at 5:45.”
Stevens worked as an arranger for CBS radio, and his numerous radio credits over several decades include The Abbott and Costello Show, Academy Award Theater, Action Eighty, American School for the Air, Arch Oboler’s Plays, Big Town, The Black Book, CBS Radio Workshop (later called Columbia Workshop), The Doctor Fights, Encore Theater, Escape, The Free Company Rogue’s Gallery, The Burns and Allen Show, The Judge, Lights Out, Men Against Death, The Miracle of America, No Help Wanted, Request Performance, Saturday Night Swing Club, Suspense and radio crime melodrama Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.
MOVIES
Stevens’ piano concerto in C minor was his first work to be used in cinema, for the 1947 Hollywood film Night Song. In the film’s plot, the concerto was the work of a fictional composer played by Dana Andrews. Arthur Rubinstein played the concerto on the piano, accompanied by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The music is tonal, with a horizontal (as distinct from vertical) compositional approach, with sophisticated harmonies and challenging virtuoso passages for the piano. The work is influenced by Delius, Rachmaninov, and Gershwin, and is both impressionist and romantic.
He co-wrote the Oscar-nominated title song from the 1956 movie Julie starring Doris Day. His other film scores include:
Syncopation (1942)
Night Song (1948)
All My Sons (1948)
Feudin’, Fussin’ and A-Fightin’ (1948)
Larceny (1948)
Not Wanted (1949)
The Great Rupert (1950)
Destination Moon (1950)
The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950)
No Questions Asked (1951)
When Worlds Collide (1951)
The Atomic City (1952)
Storm Over Tibet (1952)
Beware, My Lovely (1952)
Eight Iron Men (1952)
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
The Glass Wall (1953)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
The Bigamist (1953)
The Wild One (1953)
Private Hell 36 (1954)
Crashout (1955)
The Treasure of Pancho Villa (1955)
World Without End (1956)
Julie (1956)
The Garment Jungle (1957)
Lizzie (1957)
Ride Out for Revenge (1957)
Eighteen and Anxious (1957)
The Green-Eyed Blonde (1957)
Violent Road (1958)
The Gun Runners (1958)
But Not for Me (1959)
The Gene Krupa Story (1959)
Hell to Eternity (1960)
The Interns (1962)
A New Kind of Love (1963)
The Night of the Grizzly (1966)
Chuka (1967)
Assault on the Wayne (1971)
He also provided uncredited contributions to the Frank Capra film classic It’s a Wonderful Life.
Stevens composed and conducted the music accompanying the film The James Dean Story. In 1957, Capitol Records released the eponymous album containing this music.
Its anonymous sleeve notes state describe the music as “…unusual and exciting as the motion picture itself. Leith Stevens, the composer, captures a haunting reflection of the violent yet strangely understandable uncertainties of modern youth. Stevens, whose musical scores have distinguished such films as The Wild One, Private Hell 36, Destination Moon and Julie, describes the loneliness and frustrations, the fury and tenderness of James Dean’s life and the world in which he moved. With his use of such instruments as the recorder, harmonica and bongo drums, and in his unique utilization of the jazz idiom, Leith Stevens produces music with dynamic personal identification, not only for James Dean, but for every boy who’s ever worn a leather jacket and for every girl who’s ever danced without her shoes. Stevens traces the development of Dean throughout his boyhood, his early rebellion against conventions, the discovery of his artistic abilities, and his failure to resolve his personal problems. “Who Am I?” depicts the young Dean groping for self-identification; “Lost Love” is a painful portrayal of a romance without a happy ending; and “Testing The Limits of Time” is a brilliant montage of the moods and actions which Dean experienced in his last few months. Tommy Sands, the nation’s newest singing sensation, sings the theme song “Let Me Be Loved” by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.”
TELEVISION
Stevens’ television work was extensive, including composing, arranging and conducting music for 36 television series, nearly two dozen from the 1950s through the late 1960s, including the haunting theme song for the CBS television show Climax!.
He was the Music Supervisor for six popular television series: Mannix, Mission Impossible, Mr. Novak, The Odd Couple, The Brady Bunch, The Immortal, and Love, American Style. Stevens scored episodes for:
Stevens died at the age of 60 years due to a heart attack after learning that his wife had died in a car accident.
17 MAY PLAY LIST
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Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney
LISTEN ONLINECommunity Radio Network Show CRN #545 |
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107.3 2SER Tuesday 17 May 2022 |
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Set 1
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1930s Variety Radio | |
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Theme + A Shine on Your Shoes
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Fred Astaire (voc) Johnny Green Orchestra
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‘The Packard Hour’
KFI NBC Red Los Angeles 3 Nov 1936 |
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Woodbury Ad + Boots and Saddles
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Paul Whiteman Orchestra (voc) Bob Lawrence and Chorus |
‘Paul Whiteman’s Musical Varieties’
WJZ NBC Blue NYC 2 Feb 1936 |
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The Continental + Close
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Fred Astaire (tap dancing) Johnny Green Orchestra
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‘The Packard Hour’
KFI NBC Red Los Angeles 3 Nov 1936 |
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Set 2
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Great Women Jazz Singers | |
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Baby Get Lost
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Dinah Washington
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‘Symphony Sid Show’
Birdland WJZ ABC NYC 21 Jul 1951 |
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You’re Mine You
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Sarah Vaughan
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‘Stars in Jazz’
Birdland
WNBC NBC NYC 1 Apr 1953 |
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Oh Johnny, Oh!
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Ella Fitzgerald
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Savoy Ballroom
WEAF NBC Red NYC 25 Jan 1940 |
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Set 3
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1930s Selling Toothpaste | |
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Serenade in the Night
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Peter van Steeden Orchestra + Fred Allan
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‘Town Hall Tonight’
WEAF NBC Red NYC 17 Mar 1937 |
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Thanks for the Memory + Change Partners
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Skinnay Ennis Orchestra (coc) Skinnay Ennis + Bob Hope
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‘Pepsodent Show’
KFI NBC Red LA 27 Sep 1938 |
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Set 4
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Leith Stevens | |
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Theme + Panamania
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Leith Stevens Orchestra
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‘Saturday Night Swing Club’
WABC CBS NYC 12 Jun 1937 |
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Caravan
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Leith Stevens Orchestra
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‘Saturday Night Swing Club’
WABC CBS NYC 12 Jun 1937 |
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The Swing Session is Called to Order
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Leith Stevens Orchestra
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‘Saturday Night Swing Club’
WABC CBS NYC 12 Jun 1937 |
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Swing Club Theme
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Leith Stevens Orchestra
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‘Saturday Night Swing Club’
WABC CBS NYC 12 Jun 1937 |
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Set 5
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1950s Swing | |
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Your Daddy’s Got the Gleeks
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Dorsey Brothers Orchestra (voc) Charlie Shavers
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Meadowbrook Ballroom
Cedar Grove NJ WCBS CBS NY 1 Jan 1956 |
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Don’t Take Your Love From Me
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Claude Thornhill Orchestra (voc) Audrey Morris
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‘One Night Stand’
Steel Pier Atlantic City NJ AFRS Re-broadcast 24 Aug 1955 |
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Open + Stealin’ Apples
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Harry James Orchestra
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Aragon Ballroom
WMAQ NBC Chicago 18 Jun 1954 |
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Soemtimes I’m Happy
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Woody Herman Octet (voc) Dorothy Houston
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Blue Room
Hotel Roosevelt WWL CBS New Orleans 20 Oct 1951 |
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Set 6
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Jazz Kings | |
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Body and Soul (theme) + Chant of the Groove
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Coleman Hawkins Orchestra
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Savoy Ballroom
WJZ NBC Blue NYC 4 Aug 1940 |
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Christopher Columbus (theme) + Royal Garden Blues
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Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
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Cafe Society
WNBC NBC NYC 20 Dec 1950 |
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I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me
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Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
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Savoy Ballroom
WJZ NBC Blue NYC 4 Aug 1940 |
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Perdido + Close
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Johnny Messner Orchestra
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Cafe Society
WNBC NBC NYC 21 Dec 1950 |
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Set 7
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Chuck Foster | |
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Blue Melody Blues
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Music in the Foster Fashion (voc) Lee Sherrin and Millie Corey
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‘Treasury Bandstand’
WREC CBS Memphis Tenn. 18 Sep 1950 |
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Set 8
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1950s-60s Jazz radio | |
| High Falutin’ |
Gene Krupa Trio
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London House
WBBM CBS Chicago 13 Mar 1959 |
| Seventh Heaven |
Oscar Pettiford
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Birdland
WABC ABC NYC 26 May 1957 |
| I Want a Little Girl + Bernie’s Tune |
Charlie Shavers
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London House
WBBM CBS Chicago May 1962 |
