Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra

Artist: Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra

LP: Carnival Tropicana

Song: "No Taboleiro de Bahiana"
[ listen ]

This past Sunday I was playing the organ for a church (long story) up in the Seattle suburb of Shoreline, and on my way home my car automatically turned into the parking lot of a large GoodWill Thrift Store a few blocks from the church. Their records were just .99¢, and one of the things I found was this Columbia LP by Russian conductor Andre Kostelanetz, one of the pioneers of easy listening music. I'm not a huge fan of Kostelanetz's music, since the listening is a bit too easy for me (how can you record Latin-American songs without any percussion?) but I still picked this one up, mainly for the great cover art. "No Taboleiro de Bahiana" is one of two songs on the LP that does actually have a bit of percussion and isn't just strings and woodwinds. The record's inner sleeve features helpful tips (with drawings!) from Columbia Records on how to take good care of your LPs, so that alone was worth the 99¢. I'll have to include Columbia's tips later, as I'm putting this up during my lunch break at work, and I've run out of time. You can read about Andre Kostelanetz here, where you'll also see his long discography, but for some reason they left this one out.

[ Andre Kostelanetz: December 22, 1901 — January 13, 1980 ]