Robert Maxwell, His Harp & Orchestra, "Song Of The Nairobi Trio (Solfeggio)" c/w "Accidental Slip On An Oriental Rug," M-G-M K13410 (rel. 1/1957)

 

Like many of television's more playful figures, Ernie Kovacs used music to further his comedic ideas. The right piece of music might inspire a skit, or a series of skits, as happened with the topside of today's single. "Solfeggio" was recorded by the mercurial multi-talent Robert Maxwell in late 1953 with The Ray Charles Singers (no connection to the Black r&b genius) and is a tropical fantasia based on the do-re-mi method of teaching music by ear. Solfeggio assigned syllables to each note in the scale with the hope that the student would recognize a C note as do, E as mi, etc. 

Rodgers and Hammerstein came up with the ultimate teaching aid for this method via a popular song from their Broadway smash The Sound of Music. Maxwell recognized some ethnographic bent in this method and the piece, which attracted little attention when issued in January 1954, was a typical atypical choice for the creative, curious Kovacs.

He envisioned a trio of jungle musicians who performed as mechanical figures, like a music box, and timed their actions to the rhythm and notes of the song. The sketch became a fan favorite and the three simians, named The Nairobi Trio, adopted Maxwell's novelty as their own. Public demand for the song led M-G-M to reissue the three-year-old side at the start of 1957. It is a tough-to-find release, so it's likely the buying public decided they had Pat Boone records to purchase and left it on the shelf.

Maxwell was a master of overdubbing, and was  to the orchestral harp what Les Paul was to the guitar. A bed of tropical percussion and the precise voices of the Charles Singers collide with Maxwell's many harps. Fond of dissonant passages and dense harmonic clusters, Maxwell made a simple piece of music complex and foreboding in a few moments. The contrast of the melody's light, formal air and the brooding vibe of the massed harps achieves the effect of one storm cloud in an otherwise-idyllic blue sky. That sense of unease doesn't have to be here, but the recording is the better for it.

Cash Box sells the intriguing B-side short.

"Accidental Slip on an Oriental Rug" is a track from Maxwell's 1956 LP Hi-Fi Harp. It appears to be a reaction to "Powerhouse," the 1937 novelty by The Raymond Scott Quintette. There is a stylistic connection to the two composers. Both worked outside and inside the boundaries of mainstream music; both flirted with classical and avant-garde music under the guise of being just another popular entertainer. 

After a moody introduction, various mallet-played instruments repeat a syncopated minor-key figure, with a tom-tom beat that straddles tribal music and classic swing. The accidental slip appears at 0:33, as the theoretical homeowner underestimates the slickness of a waxed hardwood floor and takes a spill in a hallway. The second theme, after the fall, has a regal Middle Eastern flavor. A guitar plays a series of diminished chords that move the piece to its clipped ending.

Despite its obvious debt to "Powerhouse," "Accidental Slip" became a favorite of space-age bachelor pad music enthusiasts in the giddy 1990s and remains a  highlight in Maxwell's many-storied career.

"Song of the Nairobi Trio" became a pop hit in 1961 when Maxwell re-recorded it as a studio-only group called The Fortune Tellers. Not a huge hit, but it was sufficient for an album of the same name. Maxwell is otherwise best-known for his moody, complex pop ballad "Ebb Tide," which is still performed by jazz trios and is a song you have heard several times in your life. He's a fascinating and under-appreciated figure in 20th-century music whom I hope will have a reappraisal. His best material is challenging, unpredictable, serious and droll. And he was one hell of a fine musician.

Tomorrow: pop r&b hitmaker Jimmy Jones gets serious on a seldom-seen 1962 Cub Records release produced by Bert Berns, who co-wrote one side. Jones plays it straight to memorable results.