Word: binges
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...Best? Harry Lillis Crosby (his nickname came from a newspaper comic, "The Bingville Bugle") took a while to go solo. He was half, then a third, of a Whiteman vocal group called The Rhythm Boys; the other two were Bing's Spokane, Wash., buddy Al Rinker and singer-songwriter Harry Barris ("Mississippi Mud," "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams"). A novelty act, mixing smooth and hot vocals, jaunty and racy lyrics (the chipper miscegenation song "When the Bluebirds and the Blackbirds Get Together"), the Boys leavened the stately syncopation of Whiteman's repertoire. When Pops went to Hollywood...
...Within a year, Bing was on his own and a star, perhaps the first star in a new galaxy. He broke the tradition of stentorian tenors, whose big voices and melodramatic high notes were needed to fill the concert halls and vaudeville houses. Crosby recognized the intimacy of the plug-in media: radio, records and the new talking pictures. His voice - music critic Henry Pleasants described it as "microgenic" - was made for the studio mike. With a mellow baritone that got richer as it aged, he gave an FM sonority to AM radio. It was a modern, all- American sound...
...Giddins works overtime to give Bing his props and chops. He sees the Crosby style as an extension and domestication of Armstrong's pioneering, growling scatmanship. He notes that in 1927 Bing haunted the Chicago boîtes where Satch was wowing the hip world with his innovations as a trumpeter and vocalist; and that the Rhythm Boys often interpolated scat, as comic relief, in their tunes...
...true. But Crosby's early delivery has even more insistent echoes of Al Jolson's, with its declamatory style and its tendency to end on an orgasmic high note (though Bing tended to moo his glissandi, where Jolson went "mwaaa"). Apparently skeptical of the appeal of his natural baritone, he forced it up into the familiar tenor range. It took a while for him to realize that the bu-bu-bu- boos were original, natural and, to his widening audience, deeply satisfying. It was also wonderfully adaptable to the musical genres he would investigate for the rest of his career...
...Giddins is an engaging, even seductive writer - a terrific synthesizer who makes passionate arguments sensible. His take on Crosby's movies is knowledgeable, always erring (if this can be called an error) on the positive side. Bing may not be a true jazz singer, but Giddins makes a jazz symphony of his early life and career. "A Pocketful of Dreams" is an inspired improv on the familiar materials of that life; a righteous riff, with footnotes. The book makes Crosby hip by association, not with Armstrong, but with Giddins...