March 2004
March 25, 2004
This week's Hit of the Week is brought
to you by
CLYDE-MALLORY LINES
(from 1933 ad)
Hurricane
Harry
Harry Roy and His Orchestra
1933
(Decca 1037-B mx CE 6094)
Tiger
Rag
Harry Roy and His Orchestra
1933
(Decca 1037-A mx CE 6037)
Canadian
Capers
Harry Roy and His Orchestra
1933
(Parlophone R 1505 mx E 6036)
Harry Roy led a popular British
dance band from the late 1920s until the early 1950s.
I have this week's recording of
"Tiger Rag" on both the original release on the British Parlophone label
as well as the American release which came out on the Decca label about
3 years later. On the flip side of the American release is
this week's recording of "Hurricane Harry." On the flip side of the
British release is this week's recording of "Canadian Capers."
The American release of Harry Roy's "Canadian Capers" was on Decca 845
and paired with "Somebody Stole My Gal" - a recording I do not yet have.
"Tiger Rag" dates back to 1917 and
composer credit is shared between Harry DeCosta and the Original Dixieland
Jazz Band. "Canadian Capers" was composed in 1915 by Gus Chandler,
Bert White and Henry Cohen. "Hurricane Harry" was Harry Roy's
own composition.
EXTRA
This section will present
78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop
and jazz fare that I usually present. Here I will feature
recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities
as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
Gems
From "Sometime"
Victor Light Opera Company
1920
(Victor 35694-A)
The Victor Light Opera Company was
an in-house performing ensemble for Victor records which recorded a number
of "Gems From" releases featuring medleys from operettas and popular Broadway
musicals. I have a number of records from Victor's "Gems From" series
and will include them in future "extra" updates.
Sometime was a Broadway production
which opened at the Shubert Theatre in October 1918 and ran for 283 performances.
The music was composed by Rida Johnson Young and Rudolf Friml. The
most famous members of the show's cast were Mae West and Ed Wynn.
March 18, 2004
This week's Hit of the Week is brought
to you by
CHURCH SANI-WHITE TOILET SEAT
(from 1927 ad)
The
Girl Friend
George Olsen and His Music
1926
(Victor 20029-A)
Could
I, I Certainly Could
Sid Sydney's Orchestra
1926
(Victor 20029-B)
This week's selections come from
a record I recently acquired. I have
had a copy of George Olsen's recording
of "The Girl Friend" on an LP reissue for some while and it is featured
in the playlist of my Internet radio station. However, since
I think it is one of the Olsen band's better recordings, now that I have
a 78 rpm copy, I decided to feature it here as well.
The Sid Sydney Orchestra featured
on the flip side is a band that I had never heard of until I acquired the
record. This is the only recording of the band that I can find
mention of in any of the online discographies or in any of my reference
books. I did find a newspaperarticle
published in the St. Paul Pioneer Express just a few days ago (March 13)
in which someone recalls a 1930s riverboat trip:
"On board was a dance band, led
by one Sid Sydney; I forget the catchy name of the orchestra, but I remember
his. Many of the adult passengers danced to Dixieland jazz and other music
on the spacious, polished-wood dance floor as we kids watched and listened
for a while. The band consisted of all black men in natty white outfits."
Presumably this was the same band
featured in the recording. If anyone has further information
about the Sydney Orchestra, I would be interested in hearing about it.
NOTE: I want to thank the visitors
who wrote in and informed me that the "Sid Sydney Orchestra"
was, in fact, a recording pseudonym for the International Novelty Orchestra,
a Victor in-house band led by Nat Shilkret. As the newspaper article
implies, there apparently was an actual band that went by that name.
One visitor points out that there was a musician called Sid Sidney (as
opposed to "Sydney") who recorded with Joe Sudy and His Orchestra as well
as the Mills Cavalcade Orchestra - and perhaps this individual also led
the band mentioned in the newspaper article.
EXTRA
This section will present
78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop
and jazz fare that I usually present. Here I will feature
recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities
as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
Stornelli
Cattivi
Cav. G De Vita
1928
(Okeh 9445 mx 401793)
Stornelli
Dei Colombi
Cav. G DeVita
1928
(Okeh 9445 mx 401792 )
Here are two Italian songs that
I acquired recently and found enjoyable. Because the matrix numbers
on the record are of the standard series used at that time by Columbia
and Okeh, my assumption is that it was recorded in the USA.
Unfortunately, I have no information about the artist other than his name.
The words "stornelli" and "cattivi" do not turn up any results with an
online translator. "Dei Colombi" translates into "of the doves."
Both recordings sound similar to others I have heard classified as "Neapolitan"
music - but I am not sure if these properly fit that category or not.
Note: Several people were
kind enough to send me translations of the titles of these recordings.
"Stornelli Cattivi" translates into "naughty ditties" or "naughty ridicule
songs" while "Stornelli dei Columbi" translates into "pigeon ditties" or
"ridicule songs about pigeons." Some, like I, thought that "Columbi"
translated into "doves," However, one visitor informs me that because
it is masculine, the word translates to "pigeon" and to be "dove" it would
have to be the feminine "Columbe."
March 11, 2004
This week's Hit of the Week is brought
to you by
The Westbrook Fire Proof Hotel
- Fort Worth, Texas
(from 1911 postcard)
Maurice
Mattchiche
Victor Military Band
1914
(Victor 35366-B)
The
Horse Trot
Victor Military Band
1914
(Victor 35362-B)
Peg
o' My Heart
Victor Military Band
1914
(Victor 35362-A)
During the 1910s, the United States
was swept by an unprecedented dance craze which continued unabated well
into the 1920s. As a result, dancing became a major force in American
popular culture for decades and ballroom and dance hall operators did a
brisk business through the 1940s when they lost popularity due to the decline
of the big bands and the advent of television.
While dancing had been a part of
American culture since colonial times, the new dances of the 1910s were
significantly different and, in some circles, extremely shocking when compared
to the polite waltzes, quadrilles and schottisches of Victorian times.
The new style of dancing was very sensuous and the steps were often of
Afro-American origin. They were also performed to highly rhythmic
and syncopated ragtime music which was also of Afro-American origin.
The fact that such dances were no longer confined to low class saloons
and honkey tonks but were rapidly becoming popular with middle and upper
class whites was especially disturbing for the more Puritanical types.
Some of the so-called "animal dances" such as the Turkey
Trot were denounced as immoral and degenerate and were even outlawed
in some cities.
One of the most famous couples in
American pop culture during the 1910s was the dance team of Irene
and Vernon Castle. The Castles were former Broadway dancers
who became internationally famous as exhibition dancers at fashionable
restaurants and roof gardens. They also became extremely wealthy
satisfying the public's curiosity to see and learn the latest dance steps
by operating their own New York City nightclub as well as a cabaret and
their fashionable dancing school, The Castle House. The cultural
influence of the Castles was such that, when Irene became ill and had her
long hair shortened, thousands of women across America followed her
example and made "bobbed" hair an overnight fashion.
Part of the Castles' success was
due the fact that they were favorably received in even some of the more
conservative circles. The fact that the Castles denounced some
of the popular "animal dances" as being ungraceful and attempted to popularize
dance steps which they considered to be more refined and dignified helped
make ballroom dancing more socially respectable.
During World War I, at the height
of the couple's popularity, Vernon Castle, who was a British citizen,
joined the Royal Flying Corps and flew several combat missions. He
later served as a flight instructor and was killed in a training accident
in February, 1918 at Benbrook Field, a Royal Canadian Air Force training
base just outside of Fort Worth, Texas. At the time of Vernon's death,
he and Irene were residing at Fort Worth's Westbrook Hotel (see image above).
All of this week's selections come
from 12 inch discs recorded by the Victor Military Band and carry a note
on the label indicating that they are "For Dancing." Most people
associate military bands with certain types of marches - but during the
early 1900s military bands such as Victor's in-house group as well as those
belonging to bandleaders such as John Phillip Sousa, Arthur Pryor and Charles
Prince were very versatile and played everything from the classics to ragtime.
A 1914 advertisement on a Victor
record envelope lists this week's recording of "Maurice Mattchiche" as
one of several used for instructional purposes at Irene and Vernon
Castle's Castle House dancing studio. The label describes the
selection as a "Brazilian Maxixe." The maxixe,
which was also known as the "mattchiche," was a type of Brazilian tango
dating back to the 1870s. The dance was popularized in the United
States during the early 1910s by dance instructor Maurice Mouvet who was
a rival to the Castles and for whom this week's song is presumably named.
The recordings of "The Horse Trot"
and "Peg o' My Heart" have label notes indicating that they are suitable
for both the One
Step and the Turkey Trot. There was also a popular dance
at the time known as the Horse
Trot though I don't know if there was any connection with this particular
song. "Peg o' My Heart" was from the Ziegfeld Follies of 1913
and is occasinally performed to this day.
The 1916 Victor Talking Machine
Company catalog listed over 500 dance recordings - this at a time when
phonographs and records were still considered luxuries affordable only
to the more affluent. The 12 inch double-sided 78 rpm discs featured this
week had a list price of $1.25. When one factors in currency inflation,
that is roughly equal to $23.15 in today's money. The more standard
10 inch discs had a list price of 75 cents - or $13.89 in today's money.
Because of the high price of records, few people had large collections
and records were most likely to be played only on special occasions
or when there was company. However, thanks to the phonograph and
mail order dance instruction available through teachers such as Arthur
Murray, those who could afford it could keep up with the latest tunes and
dance steps from New York's top nightclubs - even if they lived in a distant
rural community not yet served by electricity.
EXTRA
This section will present
78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop
and jazz fare that I usually present. Here I will feature
recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities
as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
Sleigh
Ride In St. Petersburg
Marek Weber and His Orchestra
circa early 1930s
(Victor 24552-B)
The
Nightingale And The Frog
Darius Lyons, picccolo solo with orchestra
1908
(Victor 16194-A)
March
Of The Sharpshooters
Prince's Orchestra
1910
(Columbia A5189 mx 30499)
All of this week's "extra" selections
were written by Vieneese composer Richard Eilenberg. I have only
recently become familiar with Eilenberg. Unfortunately, the
only biographical information I was able to find on him was that he was
born in Vienna in 1848 and died in that same city in 1927.
March 4, 2004
This week's Hit of the Week is brought
to you by
Hotel New Yorker, New York City
(from circa 1930s postcard)
The
Lambeth Walk
Mel Rose and His Band
1938
(Regal Zonophone MR 2765 mx CAR5009)
Cry,
Baby, Cry
Mel Rose and His Band
1938
(Regal Zonophone MR 2765 mx CAR5008)
Here is a rather enjoyable British
record I came across about a week or so ago. "Mel Rose" was a recording
pseudonym used by popular British bandleader Harry Leader for records issued
on the low price Regal Zonophone label.
(NOTE - A visitor has informed
me that, in addition to the Harry Leader band, the "Mel Rose" pseudonym
was also used by Joe Loss and His Band. This week's recordings are,
in fact, by the Joe Loss band with vocals by Sam Costa)
Lambeth Walk is the name of a famous
street in the North Lambeth section of London which was, for many years,
the site of a busy street market before it was heavily damaged during World
War II. The song was composed by Arthur Rose and Douglas
Furber with lyrics by Noel Gay and first appeared in the British musical
comedy "For Me And My Gal" (which was not, in any way, related to the 1942
American musical film by the same name). The Lambeth Walk was also
the name of a popular ballroom dance that originated in the Limehouse section
of London and was based on an old English folk step. Dance
instructor Arthur Murray is credited for introducing the dance to America.
"Cry, Baby, Cry" was also popular
in the USA where it was a hit recording for the Larry Clinton Orchestra.
EXTRA
This section will present
78 rpm recordings that do not fall within the range of the vintage pop
and jazz fare that I usually present. Here I will feature
recordings from a wide variety of eras, musical genres and nationalities
as well as occasional spoken word recordings.
In
Deinen Augen
Liegt
Das Herz Von Wien
Marek Weber und sein Orhester
circa 1930
(Victor V-6078-B)
Zwei
Herzen Im 3/4 Takt
Marek Weber und sein Orchester
Leo Moll, vocal
circa 1930
(Victor V-6078-A)
Auch
Du Wirst Mich Einmal Betrügen
Irene Eisinger - Erik Wirl, vocal
Orchester das Metropol Theaters
circa 1930
(Victor V-6082-A)
In
Wien, Wo Der Wein
Und
Der Walzer Blüht
Irene Eisinger, vocal
Orchester das Metropol Theaters
circa 1930
(Parlophone R191 mx 34749)
One of the musical genres that I
have discovered in recent years and have become quite fond of is Viennese
operetta. This week's "Extra" selections feature songs by operetta
composer Robert Stolz from the 1929 German film Zwei Herzen im 3/4 Takt
(Two
Hearts In 3/4 Tempo) which starred Irene Eisinger who is featured in two
of this week's selections. All of the recordings were made in Berlin
- though my copies are from American pressings issued at the time on Victor.
To read an interesting biography of Stolz and his lengthy career, click
here.
For a photograph and a brief biography of Irene Eisinger, click here.
I am unable to locate any biographical information about Erik Wirl.
Marek Weber was an extremely popular bandleader in Germany in the 1920s
and early 1930s whose orchestra performed a wide variety of music ranging
from classical to tangos to jazz. Stolz, Eisinger and Weber
all had to flee Germany in order to avoid persecution by the National Socialists.
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