Over the years the name Claude Thornhill has gotten something of short shrift in the area of acknowledgments of innovation. There was a time he was saddled with the genre of "sweet band" which clearly showed how clueless the mainstream music industry was, even then. The members of the Thornhill band read like a who's who of Jazz in the 1950's. Names like Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans, Red Rodney and countless others came in and came away with a style of expression that anticipated the Bop Movement by several years. Gil Evans' arrangements became the backbone for the likes of Miles Davis, and his milestone album Birth Of the Cool featured many Thornhill alumni on those sessions. Gerry Mulligan often credited Thornhill with his style, saying it was easy to play loud (i.e. Stan Kenton), but playing soft brought out the interesting ideas.

So ClaudeThornhill was not just another big band that played for dancing. It was much more than that.

Over the years reissues have come out featuring the band during those pivotal days, mostly material from his period with Columbia Records as well as much of his work for the Lang-Worth Transcription label. He regularly broadcast, but much of that hasn't resurfaced.

This week's Downbeat features the Thornhill band live from Cafe Rouge at the Hotel Pennsylvania, recorded for ABC Radio on September 22, 1947. At the moment it's only the second half (the first half is in the vault "somewhere"), but it's a good taste of what they were doing at a period of time when popular music was going about changes and Jazz was taking huge strides.

It's a little noisy for the first 30 seconds or so, but it settles down and it's vintage Claude Thornhill from there on out.

Enjoy and explore.

Since the Taft-Hartley bill was big news at the time and since the vote on the bill was bigger news, most radio networks ran the voting procedure live. The amount of interest on the street rivaled the interest in the gallery, as people jammed Capitol Hill to witness the outcome.

So here is the complete broadcast of the vote, as it happened, on June 23, 1947, complete with background and commentary.

History on the fly.

Continuing our look at the Modern Labor Movement in America, William Green who succeeded Samuel Gompers as President of the American Federation of Labor, in a debate with President of the National Association of Manufacturers Earl Bunting over pending Taft-Hartley Legislation in 1947.

William Green (AF of L): “I appreciate this opportunity of debating the pending anti-Labor legislation with the President of the National Association of Manufacturers because that organization, the N.A.M. is the real sponsor of the slave labor provisions in the Taft-Hartley Bill. What is the N.A.M.? It is an organization dominated by the most reactionary, labor hating interests in America. In support of that charge, let me cite a few of the major black spots in the N.A.M.’s record. The N.A.M. opposed the Child Labor Amendment, because in taking children out of school and putting them to work in factories, certain employers could/can cut wage costs. Isn’t that a noble position? The N.A.M. opposed Social Security, bank deposit insurance, the Wage-Hour Act and the whole body of social justice legislation intended to make life a little better and safer for the great masses of the American people. Less than a year ago, the N.A.M. promised that prices would be reduced if only price controls were killed. And then its members proceeded to make a killing at the expense of the American people.”

It's important to realize resistance to the Union Movement has been with us since the 1880's. It doesn't seem likely ever to change. The situations, circumstances and people are different, but the core remains - it's maintaining dignity, fairness and quality of life versus "I got mine, you get yours".

Simple as that.

From a weekly radio program aptly titled Time For Reason, a talk by Senator Joseph C. O'Mahoney (D-Wyoming), former Postmaster General and former Chairman of Indian Affairs, O'Mahoney delivers a talk on the waging of peace, right around the time the Cold War was starting to heat up.

Sen. Joseph O’Mahoney: “It is becoming apparent that it is much more difficult to achieve peace than it is to win unwanted war. Men are already hopelessly talking about a third world war to be conducted with weapons more terrible even than those which were used in the last one. It becomes imperative therefore, if we desire to avoid such a catastrophe, to attempt frankly to face the facts, both with respect to ourselves and to the other nations of the world. Surely we are not deceiving ourselves if we say that the people of the United States have amply demonstrated in the two terrible conflicts of this century, that they have no ambition for conquest or aggrandizement.”

For the time, cooler heads were prevailing, at least as far as June 24, 1947 (the date of this broadcast) were concerned. That would all change soon enough when the war to be waged wound up being a domestic one.

On this day in 1947 the world was still recovering from the affects of World War 2. The austerity plan was in full swing and the argument on Capitol Hill was how much we were going to be giving over for European recovery. Meanwhile, the glacially creeping Cold War got a notch colder with accusations of Imperialism being leveled by the Soviet Union during discussions on the Marshall Plan.

On the domestic front there were still arguments for and against rationing as we geared down from a war footing and tried to gear up for peace. As Thanksgiving loomed (remember, November 26, 1947 was a Wednesday) we were still in a celebratory mood, with a report from Hollywood on the Santa Claus Lane parade and even the Alka-Seltzer commercials of the time were geared up for the occasion.

Here are two newscasts - the first one being the evening news and the second one being a Special Edition of the evening news of the day for November 26th.

Update: I won't bore you. See the post just before this for the full story and the full appeal, and also realize this is one of the posts you won't get to hear if Newstalgia goes away.

I ran a broadcast from Radio Moscow a few weeks back, indicating some networks were monitoring everything the Soviet Union was doing on a daily basis during the Cold War period. This one comes from NBC's shortwave monitoring facility and it's a half hour of Radio Moscow and the news of the Day, as only they could do it, from April 24, 1947.

Interesting when you give a listen, how the wheels of propaganda were turning during this early phase of the Cold War. Since they were heaping praise on Henry Wallace during his European visit, it's no wonder he was quick to be labeled a "commie" in some political circles here.

I doubt many people actually heard these, unless they were hobbyists and had shortwave radios tuned to this frequency every day. So if you're curious as to how the "Evil Empire" sounded in 1947 - have at it.

A day full of strikes and strife.

April 9th 1947 began on an optimistic note as far as the striking Telephone Operators was concerned. A settlement was pending, but it still didn't mean a return to work, not for at least another 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Coal Miners were gearing up and Mine owners were blaming John L. Lewis for the trouble, saying he would not allow miners back to work until all mines in the country passed safety checks.

In London, the Big Four Conference was being sped up with regards to settling the border question between Poland and Germany, with the Polish frontier under revision. Also in London was former vice-President Henry Wallace, on his way to a number of conferences. He held a press conference where he called for an American move to the Soviet Union as a way of avoiding World War 3. He also advocated a complete revision in Foreign Policy and a curb on Imperialist intentions on the parts of both the West and the Soviet Union.

In Greece, the Army was preparing a sweep of rebel positions. Some 160,000 troops were involved.

David Lilienthal was confirmed as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, ending an 11 week debate over the appointment.

President Truman was taking a wait-and-see approach with the Republican Majority 80th Congress.

Services for Henry Ford were slated for the following day (April 10th). And Frank Sinatra had a date in Court in Los Angeles over an alleged fist fight between him and an over-zealous reporter.

And that's how this day rolled - that, and a lot more via two broadcasts for this April 9th, 1947. The first from the NBC News Roundup and the second from NBC News Of The World Night Edition.

Unless you spent most hours of the day dialing around your Shortwave Radio, you probably might have missed this. If you never listened to shortwave, even as a kid, you probably never heard this. But Radio Moscow had regular English language broadcasts for several hours a day, beamed at us and whoever else in the English speaking world cared to tune in.

This particular broadcast comes from March 16, 1947 and features news from Radio Moscow and a review of the Soviet Press on news of the day.

If you read yesterday's entry regarding the Cold War, this would probably make a lot of sense to you because it's the Soviet version of what was reported in the American press for that day.

The Big Four Conference. Repatriation of German prisoners in Russian camps. The flap over U.S. foreign aid to Greece and Turkey, charges of Imperialism directed at the Truman Administration and a huge dose of the cultural goings on in Russia.

All fascinating stuff if you have even a passing interest in the Cold War period and were wondering what "the evil Empire" was up to.

Well now you know.

Since it's Shortwave it makes for some frustrating listening as the signal gets a little buried in noise. But it's all there and, for history, you just can't beat it.

News for this March 15th in 1947 was about reconstruction, Foreign Aid, the creeping Cold War and grumblings of discontent.

Starting with news of the upcoming Big Four Conference and Russia's criticism via Pravda and Izvestia (the government Press) of President Truman's plan for assistance to Greece and Turkey, and a general blast of the Marshal Plan on the grounds of "Imperialist meddling". Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marshal and Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov were huddled in Moscow debating the word Democracy. The nits were being picked clean. Discussions were also underway as to what Moscow was planning on doing in the area of repatriation for the hundreds of thousands and German Prisoners of War, still held in Russian camps.

In other International news: Britain was making plans to toss the Palestine question over to the United Nations to sort out in the coming week. The Japanese War Crimes Tribunal was meeting in Tokyo and the latest from the Japanese Defense team was Japan's fear of a Communist takeover from Russia that made it do what it did. Not much of a defense. Fighting was intensifying in China with Communist forces making gains and serious advances against Government forces. And the Civil War in Paraguay was taking a huge turn for the rebels, who were now outnumbering government forces three to one. Following suit, but with not much success, was a revolt brewing in Ecuador meeting with heavy resistance from the government there.

And blizzards were churning around in Wales while East London was underwater from floods.

On Capitol Hill: Debate was going on regarding the Foreign Aid question and, as usual, where was all this money going to come from. On the Good News domestic front - new housing construction was hitting its highest point in history.

And President Truman was in Key West, fishing. It seemed like a good time to take a vacation.

All this and so much more via Roy Porter and The NBC World News Roundup for (Friday) March 15, 1947.

December 13, 1947 and news from Europe on this day had everything to do with the Council of Foreign Ministers Meeting in London. The Soviet Union were busy being less than enthusiastic, particularly with regards to reparations from Germany. There were also reactions to the implementation of the Marshall Plan, which the Soviets weren't too wild about either.

Basically, the meeting of the Big Four former Allies was giving every indication of where the Cold War was heading. And this was prelude for a long and bumpy ride.

Other news, via this NBC Report From Europe, focused on the upcoming Christmas season and the state of British economy during the holiday. Austerity was the watchword and, even though there was a scarcity of just about everything, and of those things prices were soaring, Christmas in 1947 was getting better than it was during the War years and the post-War period.

And that's how it looked in Europe, this December 13th, 1947.