New Jersey

New Jersey does not have an official state waltz. In fact, New Jersey does not even have an official state song making them the only state without an official state song.  To be fair, the state legislature passed a bill to make I'm from New Jersey the state song but the governor never signed the bill (if you listen to the song you may conclude that the governor has better judgement than the legislature). And, anyway, I'm from New Jersey is not a waltz.

In the "not a waltz" category, New Jersey is a champion being the home state of many, many famous musicians from Paul Simon to Bruce Springsteen and being the topic of many songs. In a song-chasers tour de force, Jay Lustig, founder of NJArts.net, celebrated the 350 birthday of the state of New Jersey in 2014 by writing about a different New Jersey song each day for 350 days.  You can see the full list here. None of the songs which contained the words "Jersey" in the title were waltzes. But fortunately for this blog, Lustig added a few bonus songs at the end of the 350 days and one of those, Here's to the State of New Jersey, is a waltz! There is no video to view but you can listen to the song here.

There are some early New Jersey waltzes. Henry Eikmeier wrote a comic waltz titled Maidens of Jersey which was published by C.H. Ditson, New York in 1871.  At the time Ditson was the oldest and largest publisher of music in the country.  Eikmeier was a prolific composer of popular songs during the period, there are more than twenty preserved in the Notated Music collection of the U.S. Library of Congress, but little is apparently known of his life.

Anthony Buonocore added When I Get to New Jersey to the set of New Jersey waltzes in the early 20th century.  Buonocore composed both words and music.  A piano arrangement by John Russo was published in 1921 by Frank Harding, New York City.

Cameo-Parkway was a major record label based in Philadelphia which began in the 1950's. In the mid-60's they started a remarkably sleazy budget label subsidiary called Wyncote. Wyncote issued such records as Bach's Biggest Hits by the Single Swingers (not to be confused with Bach's Greatest Hits by the Swingle Singers) and Beatlemania by the Liverpools (not to be confused with the real thing). They also produced some decent recordings such as W/SW-9103, Cast Your Fate to the Wind (1964) by the Jimmy Wisner Orchestra which contained New Jersey Waltz written by Wisner. It is, by far, the best jazz waltz thus far encountered in this blog.  Curiously, Wyncote managed to stay in touch with their sleaze by co-opting the title and cover photo from the parent company's catalog - AP-7046, Cast Your Fate to the Wind by Sounds Orchestral for Wisner's album. The two records evidently share different version of Vince Guaraldi's Cast Your Fate to the Winds but nothing else. While Jimmy Wisner's "orchestra" is not identified, it is almost certainly Chick Kinney on drums and Ace Tesone on bass - they were together as a trio for more than five years during that period.  Before New Jersey Waltz, Wisner had a big hit, Asia Minor, a rock version of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor (which he recorded under the pseudonym of Kokomo). Wisner went on to be an arranger and major producer for Columbia Records working with most of their major artists including Barbara Streisland and Tony Bennett (the full, impressive list is in his Wikipedia entry). Wisner died quite recently, March 13th of this year, at the age of 86. The original version of his New Jersey Waltz is in the video below. A second version - identical except for the addition of just a touch of synthesizer in a couple of spots - was included in a 2012, reissue album titled Time and Space (ABKCO - 8890).

A country/blues/bluegrass band in New Jersey may seem like an anatopism but that is only because most people think that all of New Jersey looks like Newark. South Jersey has cows, farms and even rodeos (this blogger has been there).  This country element of New Jersey was captured by John Langston of The Snake Brothers in an autobiographical song he wrote called South Jersey Walz. Langston offers that he wrote it as a result of a challenge from Eric Waltman (Snake Brothers' bass player) after hearing West Texas Waltz. The waltz is in the classic country mode of many state waltzes and would fit just fine in any dance hall west of the Mississippi (although references to Cape May county might confuse the dancers). The Snake Brothers have been together for a while - you can tell by their tight harmonies and tight rhythms - and rarely leave the South Jersey festival scene.  Judging from the videos on their Facebook page, there are four regulars in the band - John Langston (guitar, dobro, banjo and lead vocals), Ernie Trionfo (guitar), Mark Ternosky (harmonica) and Eric Waltman (bass). Rob Ward (mandolin, guitar, fiddle, vocals) used to be a regular and still joins them occasionally but has decamped to New Orleans. They have released three records, Hissing in the Wind (1992, now out of print), South Jersey Waltz (2001) and The Snake Brothers at Union Hall (2008) which are available at CDBaby. There are references to a third album recorded live in Delaware, but it remains hidden at the moment. South Jersey Waltz had its moment of fame, even before this blog, when it was used as the theme song for a PBS special, "Sense of Place: Artists of South Jersey."  With that introduction, take a listen below:

There are two other known videos which feature New Jersey waltzes but they don't seem worth full coverage here.  The first is a a 34 second snippet from the sound track of the movie Don Jon.  Music for the movie was composed by Nathan Johnson and is available for purchase as a download. You can also hear it on YouTube here. The second is a duet between a man and his dog, Rocky, singing Waltz Across New Jersey to the tune of Waltz Across Texas.  If you like that sort of thing, you can view it here.

The website bandcamp attracts a few good musicians and others that are giving it a good try. It also attracts mostly rappers and rockers but a few waltzers do sneak in.  A somewhat painful search found only one New Jersey related waltz - New Jersey Drone which was posted by Austin Swearengin.  You can hear it here.

A review of copyrights available digitally through the Internet Archive reveals several more waltzes celebrating New Jersey.  These were probably never published nor recorded:

• My Old New Jersey Waltz, copyright words to James Wallace Eskridge and music to Alice Lucey Reed, 1951
• New Jersey Waltz, words and music copyright to Mildred Reed McKee, 1951
• Jersey Waltz, words and music copyright to Arthur Stemson Dundas, 1952
• The New Jersey Waltz, words and music copyright to Addison C. Amor, 1960
• Beautiful New Jersey Waltz, copyright to Ocean-Spray Music, composer Dominick R. Corbo, 1960
• New Jersey Waltz, copyright music to Paul J. Gandolfo, 1961

And finally, for those who prefer to make their own music, here is a simplified score and lyrics for South Jersey Waltz posted here with permission from the composer, John Langston.

Lyrics

From the meadows of Cape May county,
I think back where my life has led.
From the mouth of the Chesapeake in Portsmouth, Virginia
To the California farms of Merced.
In that time, I've sung all the songs of the road
All the songs of the mountains and sea.
But the South Jersey waltz is the song that I love
And the song that keeps calling to me.

Won't you dance with me darling to the South Jersey waltz
'Til the world's just a dim memory.
If you'll offer your hand
Then I'll ask the band
To play the South Jersey waltz endlessly.

So I asked her please dance with me darling.
She offered up her slender hand.
And we danced from the cobblestone streets of Cape May
To the salt creek above Rio Grand.
And the melody brought us together
And the song that we sang was our own
And the South Jersey waltz
was the song that we shared
And the song that keeps calling us home.

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