June 2004

June 17, 2004
 
 

Baby
Roger Wolfe Kahn And His Orchestra
Billy Jones, vocal                                     1926
(Victor 19942-B)
 

Sometimes I'm Happy
Roger Wolfe Kahn And His Orchestra
Franklyn Baur, vocal                                1927
(Victor 20599-A)
 

Roger Wolfe Kahn became a bandleader at age 16 when his father Otto Kahn, a famous and very wealthy financier, purchased the Arthur Lange Orchestra so that his son could pursue his interest in popular music. Kahn began playing the violin when he was 7 years old and by the time he took over the Lange orchestra he had learned how to play over a dozen musical instruments.   Having no real need to generate a profit, Kahn was able to hire top musicians such as Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Artie Shaw, Red Nichols and Tommy Dorsey.   While he may have been in a position to regard music as merely a hobby, Kahn  pursued it as a serious career.  His band had regular recording sessions for Victor and appeared in nightclubs and theaters.  Kahn also owned a nightclub for a while and operated his own music booking agency.  He composed several successful popular songs as well as the scores to the Broadway musicals Here's Howe and Americana.  In 1931, Kahn made headlines by marrying Broadway actress Hannah Williams in a ceremony at his family's palatial Long Island estate.  The marriage was kept secret for two weeks until the show Williams was appearing in ended.  The couple divorced two years later and, soon afterwards, the former Mrs. Kahn married boxer Jack Dempsey.   In the early 1930s, Kahn became increasingly interested in aviation.  By 1934 he had given up the music business.  He spent much of his subsequent career working for Grumman Aircraft. 
 
 

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. 
 
 

Mit  meiner Braut von fünfzehn
Marek Weber And His Orchestra                     1926
(Victor 80353-B)
 

Dawn
Marek Weber And His Orchestra                    1926
(Victor 80353-A)

In the 1920s Marek Weber led one of the more popular bands in Germany.  The band played a variety of musical genres and styles.  Judging by the number of American releases of his recordings from this period, Weber must have had a following in the United States.  Weber was Jewish and, when the Nazis came to power in 1933, he fled to England.  In 1937 he came to America and found success on network radio where he was billed as "Radio's Waltz King."  For a while he was the bandleader on the Carnation Condensed Milk Program over the NBC Red network.

"Mit meiner Braut von fuffzehn" (which, according to the record label, translates to "My Bride of Fifteen") was composed by Hugo Hirsh for the Berlin review Wieder Metropol which opened in September 1926. The Metropol is a famous Berlin theatre. 

"Dawn" was composed by Robert Stolz who was very well known in Germany as a composer of operettas.  According to the record label, the German title of the song is "Komm in den Park von Sanssouci."

I was unable to find any discographical information to indicate the date of either recording.  However, Wider Metropol opened in September 1926 and my American pressing on Victor has a label design which was phased out in 1927 - so that narrows it down to about late 1926 to early 1927.

Note:  A visitor was kind enough to write with the exact recording dates.  "Mit Meiner Braut von fünfzehn" was recorded September 13, 1926.  "Dawn" was recorded August 20, 1926.  Both recordings were made in Berlin at the studios of Electrola Records. 

June 10, 2004
 
 

The Lady Who Swings The Band
Andy Kirk And His Clouds Of Joy
Harry Mills, vocal                                    1936
(Decca 1085-B mx 61464)
 

Wednesday Night Hop
Andy Kirk And His Clouds Of Joy            1937
(Decca 1303-B mx 61598)
 

Breeze
Andy Kirk And His Clouds Of Joy
Pha Terrell, vocal                                    1938
(Decca 2261-A mx 64695)
 

Sittin' Around And Dreamin'
Andy Kirk And His Clouds Of Joy
Pha Terrell, vocal                                    1938
(Decca 2261-B mx 64698)
 

Andy Kirk led an all-black jazz band which was primarily headquartered out of Kansas City but was successful enough to land engagements in Chicago and New York City. 

Kirk was born in Denver, Colorado where his high school music teacher was Wilberforce Whiteman, Music Supervisor of the Denver Public Schools and father of bandleader Paul Whiteman. (Bandleader Jimmie Lunceford also studied under Wilberforce Whiteman.)   In 1925, Kirk moved to Dallas, Texas where he became a member of a jazz band called Terrence Holder's Dark Clouds of Joy.   In 1929 Kirk assumed leadership of the band and moved it to Kansas City under the name Andy Kirk And His Twelve Clouds of Joy.   The band's biggest hit was its 1936 recording of "Until The Real Thing Comes Along" with vocalist Pha Terrell.   Kirk gave up the band in 1948 and, for a while, ran a hotel and served as an officer for a musicians' union.  He made occasional returns to bandleading in the 1950s and early 1960s for reunion recordings and private engagements. 
 
 

EXTRA

As part of my ongoing effort to replace the older audio files on this site with updated ones taking advantage of my new audio restoration equipment,  I have finally completed the upgrade of all the audio files in this website's 1920's & 1930s Popular Music section.   Below are the recordings that I added this week.  My next project for the website is to upgrade all of the files in the Turn of the Century Music section. 
 
 

Recordings Originally Posted  April 1998

What Can I Say After I Say I'm  Sorry?
Frank Harris, vocal                                                   1926
(Columbia 607-D mx 141787)
 
 

Recordings Originally Posted  March 1998

Charlestonette
Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra                              1925
(Victor 19785)

The New Yorkers
Red Nichols and His Five Pennies                              1929
(Brunswick 4500)

Sing
Ted Weems and His Orchestra                                   1930
(Victor 22515-A)

Wandering In Dreamland
Ted Lewis & His Band                                               1927
(Colombia 895-D mx 143442)

Let's Break The Good News
"Fats" Waller, His Rhythm and Orchestra                    1938
(Victor 25830-B)

I'll Always Be In Love With You
Benny Goodman and His Orchestra                            1939
(Victor 26187)

Singing In The Rain
Gus Arnheim and His Orchestra                                  1929
(Victor 22012)

Any Old Time
The Detroiters                                                             1929
(Cameo 9309 mx 4081)

Don't Wake Me Up Let Me Dream
Howard Lanin's Ben Franklin Dance Orchestra            1925
(Victor 19797-B) 

I've Never Seen A Straight Banana
Harry Reser's Jazz Pilots                                              1927
(OKeh 40771-A )

Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)
Vernon Dalhart, vocal                                                  1927
(Victor 20674-A)

I Can't Afford To Dream
Artie Shaw and His Orchestra 
Tony Pastor, vocal                                                       1939
(Bluebird B-10324-A)