ALBUM: The Viscounts, ‘Harlem Nocturne’

The uncanniness of an empty street in a crowded city. The nervy thrill of an unfamiliar neighborhood at night. The muted lights and hushed clamor seeping from a bustling club, as viewed from the sidewalk outside. This is the sound of the Viscounts’ 1959 jazz-rock instrumental “Harlem Nocturne.” The tremolo guitar and echoing drums evoke a smoky, foggy daze, while an unsettling organ adds a slightly sinister bent. The star of the instrumental, however, is the squall of the saxophone, cutting through the haze with a wary, yet somehow defiant, wail.

The New Jersey-based Viscounts (not to be confused with the British vocal pop group of the same name) weren’t the first to record “Harlem Nocturne.” The piece, composed by Earle Hagen and Dick Rogers, dates back to 1939, with an estimated 500 recordings currently floating around. The Viscounts’ version, however, is the most famous, and its guitar part has since been passed down as a standard feature of subsequent remakes.

The Viscounts’ “Harlem Nocturne” was originally released on Madison Records in late 1959, topping out at #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1960. When Amy Records re-released the single six years later, it did even better, peaking at #39. The reissue of the “Harlem Nocturne” single was accompanied by an all-instrumental LP of the same name, reworked from an earlier self-titled release. In honor of the album’s 50th anniversary, Real Gone Music has reissued Harlem Nocturne in a limited edition of 1200 CDs, packaged mini LP-style in a cardboard sleeve replicating the original album art.

The Viscounts are at their best on Harlem Nocturne when they tackle jazz and pop standards with the same respectful, yet slightly seedy, style they brought to their biggest hit. The rock instrumentation on “Summertime,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “September Song,” and “I Cover the Waterfront” revivifies these decades-old songs, adding streetwise atmosphere and just a touch of danger. The pinnacle of the album’s smoky, noirish sound, appropriately enough, is “The Touch (Le Grisbi),” a reworking of the theme to the 1954 French gangster flick Touchez Pas Le Grisbi.

The moody ambiance pervading these tracks really only graces about half of Harlem Nocturne, however. “Along the Navajo Trail,” “Opus #1,” and “When the Saints Go Marching In” find the band branching into cowboy songs, swing, and Dixieland, respectively. Likewise, the band’s three original compositions (“Chug a Lug,” “Dig,” and “Viscount Rock”) are upbeat instrumentals more indebted to rockabilly and surf rock than the spine-tingling jazz that made “Harlem Nocturne” a hit. These tracks demonstrate the Viscounts’ versatility — and probably killed live — but they intrude on the one-of-a-kind ambiance saturating the album’s more compelling tracks.

Harlem Nocturne illustrates the breadth of the Viscounts’ musicianship, but not much about them as a group. Unlike most of Real Gone’s reissues, Harlem Nocturne offers no contemporary liner notes to put the release in context or explain what became of the band. (The back cover of the album does feature the original notes by Cashbox editor Irv Lichtman, who rather bafflingly refers to the record as “pure teenbeat.”) There are no pictures of the band on the packaging, either; instead, the cover image is an out-of-focus photo of a red-lipsticked, bare-shouldered blonde with her eyes lowered, with a somewhat Freudian saxophone hogging the foreground.

Evidently, the Viscounts never released another album after Harlem Nocturne. But while the group’s abbreviated career may be a disappointment, it’s not much of a surprise. Although “Harlem Nocturne” charted higher on its re-release, hit rock instrumentals were an endangered species by 1966. Add to that the fact that “Harlem Nocturne” was already somewhat of a throwback even in 1959, and it’s little wonder that the band was unable to outlast the ’60s. Nevertheless, the Viscounts’ obscurity suits the sense of mystery saturating their best tracks. Listening to their music, it’s easy to imagine that the band just materialized out of a nocturnal fog, and disappeared down some empty, rain-slicked street.

Get your copy of the Viscounts’ Harlem Noctune at the Real Gone Music online shop.

Sally O'Rourke

Sally O’Rourke works in an office and sometimes writes about music. She blogs about every song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100 (in order) at No Hard Chords. She has also contributed to The Singles Jukebox, One Week // One Band, and PopMatters. Special interests include girl groups, soul pop, and over-analyzing chord changes and lyrics as if deciphering a secret code. She was born in Baton Rouge and lives in Manhattan. Her favorite Nugget is “Liar, Liar” by The Castaways.