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Actually, Jolie sang very well just a month before his death when he entertained our soldiers in Japan and Korea in Sept. 1950. Armed Forces Radio recorded a half hour segment of Al giving an unscripted performance - telling jokes, singing songs and interacting with the audience. It may be his most effective performance ever recorded.

Here's Al as you've never seen him before:

Thanks for posting the picture! My brother is a pipe smoker, and he enjoys seeing pictures of vintage figures smoking pipes. I'll have to show that picture when I see him next.
As much as I like Jolson's commercial recordings and movies, I feel that his best surviving recordings are those where he's performing live in front of an audience. I have to retract what I said earlier about Jolie not being in fine voice at the end. He probably just had his ups/downs like we all have. I think I remember reading once that it was difficult for the recorders to get an acceptable take of Swanee for "Rhapsody in Blue" (probably attributable to recovering from a bout of malaria). I also just remembered that one of my favorite recordings of his is "No Sad Songs For Me" which maybe the last contemporary song he recorded before his death (I can't remember that for sure though).

I think Al's very last commercial recording was "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" that Elvis Presley later recorded and approached the song in exactly the same way. Elvis was a big Jolson fan BTW.

I just checked the Jolson.org discography (which I forgot was online), and they say that "No Sad Songs For Me" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" were recorded on April 28, 1950. The Foster songs were recorded on July 13 and 17.
That doesn't surprise me about Elvis. The first time I saw The Jazz Singer, Jolson's swaying during the "Toot, Toot, Tootsie" song reminded me of Elvis.

I just checked the Jolson.org discography (which I forgot was online), and they say that "No Sad Songs For Me" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" were recorded on April 28, 1950. The Foster songs were recorded on July 13 and 17.
That doesn't surprise me about Elvis. The first time I saw The Jazz Singer, Jolson's swaying during the "Toot, Toot, Tootsie" song reminded me of Elvis.

Can you imagine any pop singer of today recording ten songs for an album in just two days? By 1949, recording technology had developed to the point where several takes could be cherry-picked and blended into one track. I've heard unsuccessful takes of some of Jolie's Decca sessions - he usually just goes blank on the lyrics and then says something like, "Aw, nuts!" Jolie's unedited appearances on Bing Crosby's radio show are likewise revealing when they screw up doing a song. With Jolson, the outtakes are sometimes more entertaining that the released material. I think I have the earliest surviving broadcast of Al calling a race at Belmont in 1933. He could have had a career as a sportscaster!

I'm hoping for Trick For Trick from 1933. I saw it at Cinecon and would love to see it again. Would also like to get Only the Brave wuth Gary Cooper and Mary Brian from Universal.

Is that Jolie has the one that is or was in Gloria Ave, Encino? or so I was told.

Jolson club members have Swanee River in a fine print on DVD. I have seen one. Would be good if they went to Blu Ray with it. Maybe not Fox's style. BIng's Dixie, in color, I have seen but this is also unreleased to home viewers.

I think Al's very last commercial recording was "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" that Elvis Presley later recorded and approached the song in exactly the same way. Elvis was a big Jolson fan BTW.

I read both volumes of Peter Guralnick's excellent Presley biography, and Ernst Jorgensen's "A Life in Music," which details every Presley recording session. Apart from the coincidence of recording the same song, Jolson's name doesn't come up. According to them, Presley probably based his recording on Darby & Tarlton's 1927 version of the song. Col. Tom Parker said that Presley recorded the number as a favor to him.

[Wikipedia says Presley's version was based on a rendition by Blue Barron.]

If Elvis were a big Jolson fan, he would have said so. Both Guralnick and Jorgensen quote him praising any number of singers, from Tony Bennett to Hank Snow.

On the other hand, Jerry Lee Lewis spoke often of his appreciation for Jolson. Both Nick Tosches and Barry Mazor quote Lewis rating Jolson as one of four most important song stylists of the twentieth century, along with Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. (Lewis cited himself as the fourth.)