Java Jive - The King Sisters (1941)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
- In this Soundie from 1941, the four King Sisters (Luise, Alyce, Donna, and Vonnie), accompanied by Alvino Rey and his Orchestra, with Skeets Herfurt and Dick Morgan, perform the song "Java Jive". "Java jive" was written by Milton Drake and Ben Oakland.
Copyrighted July 21, 1941, A Minoco Production.
Library of Congress #: VAC 9106, dated September 6, 1943.
I remember hearing this on the radio in the 50's. Thanks for the memories.
I'm looking for this song with Al Donahue. My dad is the sax player, still around at age 90
Thank you for posing this "soundie" sort of takes the air out of the first music video in 1981 as being a break through.
ha ha.
Wow!! This is really good!!
@AdamTheLang We'll have to agree to disagree. Taking the line "whoops, Mr. Moto I'm a coffee pot" and linking it to Arsenic & Old Lace because A) Peter Lorre was in it and B) Lorre played Mr. Moto and C) Another character says "I'm a coffee pot" at the end is an incredible stretch, especially considering that the Ink Spots recorded Java Jive in 1940, four years before A&OL was filmed.
SOUNDIES were the original music videos long before MTV ... or even TV!
Beautiful !!!
@mp3man47
Well, coffee was served in diners back then, and I imagine it was quite popular. Also, there were coffeehouses in Europe during the Renaissance, as well as well as in various places ---upstate New York, for example--- in the 1960s & 1970s.
Love it!!!
love this song
@ericinwisconsin
Mr. Moto is indeed a reference to the fictional detective by that name, played by Peter Lorre. The 'I'm a coffee pot.' is a reference to another (non-Moto) Peter Lorre movie, Arsenic and Old Lace. In the last part of the film, the main character says "Oh, no, I'm not a Brewster, I'm the son of a sea cook!" His taxi driver replies, "I'm not a taxi driver, I'm a coffee pot."
Look for 'arsenic and old lace ending' on youtube to see.
WhoooOOOPS Mr. Moto :p
@BardCoennius I thought the lyrics were, "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy too, wouldn't you?"
they're so adorable >.
im american. i heard this song for the first time in korea. woo coffee prince!
@ericinwisconsin Indeed it was the Peter Lorre Mr Motto for no other reason because it rhymed.
@purplehairponcho ME TOO!!! COFFEE PRINCE FOREVER!! I liked the coffee prince version better though, they really spiced it up!!
I have never found anyone who can definitely answer this question for me: Who is the Mr. Moto referenced in the song? Surely not the fictional detective played by Peter Lorre before WWII? Why would it be?
Hubba hubba dreary dreary! The man at the counter was born in 1901 and remembers the real jazz of the 1920's. Hubba boredom.
Do you have videos/films of Alvino Rey
using the "Sonovox" (modulator) effect?
I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have original sheet music from the King Sisters for a song called "My Sugar Plum". Does anyone know where I can hear a recording of it?
Are you related to the King Sisters and Alvino Rey
@mamacuagama Exactly right. Just run the lyrics altogether like in the title.
@kdd1985 That seems the more logical answer. Thanks, kdd!
Mr. Moto, gotta be the movie character. Why? Because it was absurd and funny, like the deep voice guy in the Ink Spots, its musical and is humorous. A play on the kids rhyme about being a tea pot - switched to coffee.
@ericinwisconsin ...allegorical? This was popular culture at the time, and indeed Arsenic & Old Lace played in an era when popular culture was much more monolithic than it is now. It could be pretty well guaranteed that the majority of the people who heard someone singing this song would have heard both of 'Mr. Moto' and the line from Arsenic & Old Lace. Calling it 'allegory' is like calling a reference to Star Wars in a sit-com 'allegory'.
THE COMMENTS BELOW surprise me. This version of "The Java Jive" was performed in 1941 by the King Sisters. BUT, remember, The Java Jive was originally recorded by THE INK SPOTS in 1940. You see, you must understand the music business at that time. Black musicians recorded songs with co's to make the "crossover" to white listening audiences, where the money was. Black musicians recorded & white musicians became rich playing the song that "crossed over." It's ok. It's roots of Amer Music. :)
I believe this was an example of a "dummy lyric" that a composer used to give the lyricist an idea of the rhyme and meter scheme - and the publisher or recording artists thought, "Hey - this is funny - let's just leave it alone!"
Other examples of nonsense "dummy lyrics" that survived - "Mairsy Doats and Dozey Doats," and "Cement Mixer (Pu-Ti, Pu-Ti)." People seriously needed some nonsense back then to take their minds off of all the s**t that was coming down around them...
This would actually be 40s..and yea things were innocent in Hollywood spotlights lol I love this song:):)
@mamacuagama -- That is what the lyrics meant ... Just like Inna Gadda Da Vida meant In The Garden Of Eden (and I thought it was a Hindu chant).
is it just me, or does the dark haired one at the look a lot like Ann Miller? (in this anyway - i've not seen any other picture of these gals)
I read the Wikipedia article before. Nothing there to back up its own claim. I don't doubt that it COULD be the same Mr. Moto, but I've never seen anything stating specifically that it was. It would be like referencing Charlie Chan in a song about, say, tuna fish. Just very odd.
4 of these sisters lived in my house in the 40s or 50s and one of the women haunts my house i'm sure. I hear a womens voice along with other things that happen in my house and im positive it was one of these ladies that lived here.
Alvino Rey was married to Luise King (extreme left).
@gypsylurve Still, the USA wasn't getting the crap bombed out of it (except for a couple of incidents - one in which a Japanese sub shelled an oil refinery near Los Angeles and another when a German U-boat slipped into New York Harbor and blew up a freighter).
Interestingly, Thom Hartmann thinks this is why European countries are more socially progressive today - but that doesn't explain Canada (the territory and infrastructure of which also escaped the war relatively unscathed).
they are so goddamn cute!
Two words: Pat. Boone. :-)
Is this the same women who did their own show on t.v. in the sixties? The King Family
It's cuz Canada knows better :)
Although don't mistake our kindness for weakness... We have sharp chainsaws and sturdy hockey sticks...
it certainly is the japanase character... which is also why this song was almost never played during WW2
The lennon sisters are pretty new though not as good they can still replace teh andrew sisters and the kings
Interesting, but both the Ink Spots and Manhattan Transfer are both superior.
Marilyn is still alive!
The King Sisters singing a song about loving coffee??? Weren't they Mormans? LOL
Ironically, the King Sisters did not drink coffee--Mormons, to my knowledge do not consume methylated xanthine----caffeine to you.
@AdamTheLang I suppose that's possible, Adam, but I think that's over-analyzing the lyrics. The lyrics are good, but not rife with allegorical images.