Esquire Shoe Polish and Kabelevsky

You'll have to hang in there with this stream of associations.

I was listening to the Internet radio stream from WKAR out of Michigan State University.  It has been on solid since February.  They played a suite of music by the Russian composer Dimitri Kabelevsky incidental to a play called The Inventor and the Comedians, by the Soviet Jewish writer Mark Daniel.  It was written and produced during the end stages of WWII and was about Gutenburg (printing press) and a band of yokels. From small acorns grow mighty oaks and I guess you have to have been there.

From that little suite (collection), comes the second movement "The Comedian's Gallop" which was the recognizeable theme from a 50's TV show called Masquarade Party brought to you by 'Esquire Boot Polish", a little mouse of a company that roared to be the best selling shoe polish ever.

I read all about Esquire Polish as it is interesting...a good synopsis is here.  I remember the TV show as it was just one of a zillion "panel" shows (What's My Line is another) that were 50s prime time. 

It struck me that some music that is strongly associated with TV shows brings back pretty vivid recollections; William Tell Overture and the Lone Ranger - the 12 inch screen with Sylvania's "halo-vision", wood floors the hurt to sit on, kitchen smells, my sister practicing piano in the next room and me curled up trying to figure out who was in the costume...pretty much my current life as I know it.


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