IN THE year before the birth of the Melody Maker, there were two
significant events. 1925 saw the arrival in Britain from America of a
new dance craze, the Charleston. It was also the year when the first
electrical gramophone recordings were made.
These two factors marked the beginning of an era of revolutionary
change and development in popular music. Through decades of war
and peace, prosperity and depression, music has reflected public
moods, fads, fears and fashions. And since 1926 the Melody Maker
has charted the changes, a reflecting and magnifying mirror of an
artistic and technological phenomenon.
The Charleston, like its predecessor, the Cakewalk, was one of a succession of tidal
waves of black American music that swept across the Atlantic, to be accepted
and absorbed by the masses in Europe and all around the world.
It heightened the interest in dancing which marked the breakdown of social barriers
in the wake of World War One. It coincided with an awareness of "hot music,"
the jazz rapidly emerging from the melting pot of New Orleans in America's Deep
South.
And the growth of the phonograph, the American invention called a gramophone in
Britain, brought hot dance music to the masses long before the development of
radio. The people of the world were hungry for entertainment as they coped with
the adventures and uncertainties of post-war life.
America was the fountainhead, the well-spring of so many innovations and so much
talent that for years Britain could only sink beneath its weight, seduced, charmed
and, at times, outraged.
Dance crazes, dance bands, hot jazz, records, movies, hit
songs, hit musicals, all came in a flood that BBC Television once called in a
memorable documentary,
The Friendly Invasion.
In Britain there was musichall, the remnants of a
Victorian tradition; the
theatre; and good songwriters and musicians,
too.
But above all there were
enthusiasts and fans. It
was this kind of dedication that formed much of
the backbone of the
Melody Maker's success
as the world's first music
weekly newspaper.
The writers and contributors
throughout the decades
have been men and wo-
men who believed in the
intrinsic value of popular
music, and the work of
musicians, in whatever
form it took, from the
hot jazz and syncopated
music of the Twenties,
through the swing era,
modern jazz to. the age
of rock.
And the readers were those
who took an enthusiastic
interest in all aspects of
this deluge of inspiration
and sheer entertainment
that came from an
America brimming with
the new-found confidence
and excitement of the
youngest and richest nation oh earth.
In the Twenties, women's
skirts rose above the
ankle to the knee for the
first time.
Couples could dance together in public embrace,
and the frenzy of black
syncopated music seemed
an open incitement to
fling off the yoke of
social repression.
Unconsciously repressed
whites found it as much a panacea as more consciously suppressed black people.
The jazz boom of the
Twenties was not without its critics and
would - be oppressors.
Fans of rock and roll
who are used to hearing
their music abused would
be amused by the lyrics
of a Noel Coward song
"Teach Me To Dance
Like Grandma" from a C.
B. Cochran revue This
Year of Grace, which said:
I'm getting tired of jazz tunes;
Monotonous, they've got'n us crazy now,
Though they're amusing as tunes,
Music has gone somehow.
Noel Coward's attitude to
jazz was expressed in the refrain:
I refuse to dance blues;
Black Bottoms, Charlestons
What wind blew them in?
Monkeys do them in zoos.
(Words reprinted by kind
permission of Chappell
and Co. Ltd. and the
Noel Coward Estate).
Serious music critics were vitriolic in their condemnation of jazz and
dance crazes which they
branded as decadent, shocking and immoral. Headlines spoke of ' the music of the jungle.'
Nevertheless, palms ballrooms spread across the
country, men and women
danced the Charleston,
Black Bottom and
Shimmy Shake.
British bandleaders copied
and developed American
music, having been given
their initial impetus by
the arrival in London of
the (white) Original
Dixieland Jazz Band in
1919, and later inspired
by the formalised arrangements of the Paul
Whiteman Orchestra.
Whiteman had been a
member of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and later played in
jazz groups.
He decided to write down
the improvisations he
heard and use them in an
orchestra] context, which
staid the foundations of
his hugely successful orchestra.
But although it contained
players like Bix Beiderbecke, the unique cornet
player who died tragically
young, and played symphonic syncopation when
it premiered George
Gershwin's "Rhapsody In
Blue," Whiteman's band
was not an authentic jazz
hand, although perhaps
no less so than the kind
of black military syncopated band led by Jim
Europe during the First
World War.
Joe "King" Oliver, the
trumpet player from New
Orleans, led the first
recorded jazz band of
any power and authenticity, and his protege, the
young Louis Armstrong,
quickly took the New
Orleans small group formula to its apogee in the
legendary Hot Five and
later, the Hot Seven.
The true jazz orchestra was
developed in the mid-
Twenties by another
musician whose career,
like Louis', would run
virtually concurrent with
the history of Melody
Maker: the suave and
urbane pianist from
Washington, Edward Kennedy Ellington - The
Duke.
Ellington and Armstrong
were names championed
by Melody Maker, and by
jazz fans across the
world throughout six
decades of music.
From the 'Twenties
onwards, Duke and Louis
set new standards in
terms of performance and
Writing.
Their example and inspiration spurred countless musicians and provided them with their
roots and base for future
development.
Both achieved fame as
international celebrities
and entertainers, overcoming the barriers of
background and poverty;
and both were hailed as
musicians of true genius,
recognised and feted by
laymen and intellectuals.
Louis Armstrong died in
July 1971 and Duke
Ellington died in May
1974.
It could not be said that
Britain developed such
towering talents. But
there was a flourishing
home music industry and
bandleaders became idols.
Many British bandleaders
could produce orchestras
to rival the Americans in
quality if not originality.
Jack Hylton and Jack Payne
became household names.
Hylton's was the first
band to make electrical
recordings for HMV in
1925, and the following
years saw the development of electrically powered gramophones (although the handcranked
variety survived for many
years); electric pick-ups
relayed the record
through a wireless receiver's speaker; and in
1926 came an all-electric
radiogramaphone, and
then an electric record
player.
Sound quality was improved
enormously, even though
the records were still
shellac 78 rpm discs.
Society bands played for
the rich in the big hotels,
but soon the sound of
dance orchestras was to
be brought to the masses
live and into every home
in Britain.
The other major breakthrough in the Twenties
was the birth of broadcasting.
Experiments had been going
on with wireless telegraphy since the beginning of the century and
had received a tremendous boost during the
First World War.
Eventually, the time came
when wireless should be
put to peaceful purposes,
and the British Broadcasting Company was set
up in 1922, taking over
from early broadcasts by
2L0 from Marconi House
aerials in the Strand.
America already had several
hundred commercial radio
stations on the the air,
competing for
wavelengths.
The BBC avoided the evils
of commercialism and
airwave anarchy. But it
brought music "out of the ether," into millions
of homes.
Sheet music sales were hit
by the new wave of
broadcasts. Why play the
piano when you could
hear it on the wireless?
But bands became ever
more popular as they
broadcast every evening
from 6 pm to 7 pm and
there were late night
sessions with the Savoy
Orpheans, Savoy Havana
Band, Jack Howard and
many more.
The Melody Maker pioneered dance
band contests, and while
Carnegie Hall in New
York was to become the
ultimate accolade for jazz
in America, in Britain,
Jack Hylton was already
conducting his 25-piece
orchestra at the Royal
Albert Hall.
During the Twenties, before
Musicians Union practices
on both sides of the
Atlantic became more
severe, American and
British musicians could
work abroad.
In 1926, the Paul Whiteman
Orchestra toured Britain
and their virtuoso pemformers astounded British
ears.
The ocean liners between
New York and Southampton provided both envoyage work for musi-
cians and gave them a
chance to hear what was
happening on the other
side.
American bandleaders were
booked to play at London
clubs like the famous Kit
Kat. The Prince of Wales
gave the seal of royal
approval by having Char-
leston lessons.
Rock fans are used to
scenes of hysteria at
concerts. It is a revelation to know that in the
Twenties police had to be
called to control crowds
waiting to see Jack
Hylton's Band.
And in 1928 he was able to
tour the world for 12
weeks, 40 years before
the Beatles.
Fortunes were to be made
- and lost - by the
name bandleaders, some '
of whom could earn £700
a week.
American star instrumentalists could freelance for
£200 a week, which went
a long way in 1929.
Paul Whiteman was hailed
as the world's highest
paid bandleader, grossing
30,000 dollars a week.
While the Establishment
fought a rearguard action
against night clubs, dance
music, broadcasting and
all things permissive, the
tidal wave could not be
halted, and in typically
cautious, but pioneering,
fashion, the BBC employed possibly the
world's first disc jockey,
Christopher Stone, to
review the latest "rhythmic" records from America.
And there was a lot of
rhythm to hear as jazzmen, and even the
country blues players,
gradually migrated in
search of work and
op-portunities from the Deep
South, further North, to
Chicago, and Kansas City.
It was in Chicago that the
young white high school
kids heard the records
and saw the legendary
black artists land made
their own frenetic development of the class-ic
New Orleans style of
collective improvisation
and "Hot choruses."
New Orleans Jazz was
based around a rhythm
section of a bass (either
string bass, tuba or
sousaphone), banjo and
drummer.
The front line consisted of
a cornet, clarinet and
trombone. And the music
they played was a kind
of collective shout.
I was the prowess of men
like King Oliver, Louis
Armstrong, Johnny Dodds
and Sidney Bechet that
resulted in the concept of
the individual soloist improvising over the syn-
copated beat.
The Chicago jazz of the
Twenties increased the
urgency and wound up
the tempos. Its excitement was typified in
the recordings of the
Mound City Blue Blowers,
which combined key
figures in the future of
jazz like Coleman Hawkins and Gene Krupa.
Youngsters like Krupa,
Frank Teschemacher and
Benny Goodman were
busy learning their craft
in Chicago; while in New
York, at the Cotton Club,
Duke Eilington was bringing new sophistication to
jazz, performing "jungle
music" for the society
patrons of Harlem's
steamy nightlife.
This was an exotic novelty
for nightclubgoers, but
the music was orchestral
jazz in the white beat of
creation, with players like
Bubber Miley and Arthur
Whetsol giving the band
its flavour of harsh
beauty, on performances
like "Creole Love Call,"
and "East St Louis
Toodle-Oo."
The public was enraptured
With jazz, not always,
with its most ethnic form,
perhaps preferring the prettier sounds of Red
Nichols and his Five
Pennies.
But they were listening,
and eager for more.
1926
JANUARY: Melody Maker's first issuecontains stories on Jose Collins, the Houston Sisters
Dick Henderson, Bert Firman,
Dorothy Ward and Jack Hylton
At Starita, former saxist
with Savoy Orpheans, is leading
Jack Hylton's Kit Cat Club
band at Piccadilly Hotel
Bert Firman, who left the Savoy
Hotel in 1923, returns from a
tour of Australia and New
Zealand and goes into the
Carlton Hotel.
FEBRUARY: Lawrence Wright
signs top US arranger
Arthur Lange at £6,000 a year
Paul Specht's Canadian
Club Orchestra, a 10-piece featuring 35 different instruments
and three vocalists, is paying
at Kit Cat Savoy Havana
Band original Billy Mayerl
leaves to open syncopated piano
school Don Parker, saxistleader at Piccadilly Hotel, insurer his lips for f10,000
Melody Maker adverts are £10 a page and
classifieds are introduced at is
a line. Gramophone records are
reviewed for the first time.
MARCH: Paul Whiteman will
tour Britain with his 27-
piece symphonic syncopated orchestra in April Al Starita
starts answering saxophone
queries for Melody Maker readers.
Lawrence Wright celebrates 20
years In music publishing.
Jack Hylton conducts 25-piece
orchestra comprising his No. 1,
Kit Cat and Kettner bands
before 7,000 at Albert Hall,
presenting new fantasy by Eric
Coates, "The Selfish Giant."
APRIL: Paul Whiteman starts
15-concert tour and short
season at Kit Cat at reputed
salary of £2,000 a week.
Heavyweight xylophonist Teddy
Brown is bandleading at Cafe
de Paris. Newly-formed
London Radio Dance Band,
directed by Sydney Firman, is
augmented from six to nine.
Dance bands now broadcast every evening from 6 to 7 p.m.
and late-night sessions are done
by Savoy Orpheans, Savoy
Havana Band, Jack Howard,
Jean Larsen and Bert Firman.
Jack Hylton adds string
quartet to his Kit Cat Band
led by Al Starita Sheffield
choir trainer Dr Henry Coward
and light orchestra leaders J°
H. Squire and W. de Groot
make "a contemptible attack on
syncopated bands", which is
contested by Eric Coates, Jack
Hylton, Ambrose, etc.
MAY: Debroy Somers quits
leadership of Savoy Orpheans to launch an arranging
business and take his band on
tour. He Is succeeded by Ramon
Newton, who is replaced as
leader of the Savoy Havana
Band by Reg Batten
Records cost between is and 2s
6d and instrument price ex-
amples are saxophones £25-£45,
1%0 N
trumpets and trombones £18-£20
and drum kits £17-£25. Melody Maker
criticises vastness, lack of intimacy and equipment of Albert
Hall, where "even the brightest
concert suffers a blight".
JUNE: Bandleader at Hotel
Majestic, St Annes on
Sea, is pianist Gerald Bright,
who became famous as Geraldo.
London pianist 29-year-old
Ronnie Munro wins first Melody Maker
arranging contest and becomes
top arranger-bandleader.
Jack Hylton and his Band are
chosen for Royal Variety Performance at London Alhambra.
British musicians can earn
£5 a week on ocean liners with
free voyages to America to see
and hear the star musicians
and bands Musical profession carries on serenely during
General Strike which puts many
bands out of work.
JULY: American bandleader
Ben Bernie is booked for
eight weeks at London's Kit Cat
starting September 13. Sax
virtuoso Rudy Weidoeft opens
as soloist at New Princes
Restaurant. Jazz versus
straight music radio battle
between orchestras of Jack
Hylton and Sir London Roland
. Composer-arranger Senor
Luigi Fortoni produces 'handmade musical typewriter with
7,000 different signs, capable of
producing complete score, including lyrics, but dies before
it can be marketed, after working for 12 years Streatham
semi-pro pianist leader 22-year-old Ray Noble wins Melody Maker arranging contest and becomes world-
famous composer-arranger-MD
indestructible gramophone
records which can be rolled into a tube are produced for is
by Duophone Syndicate
MU clamps down on pricecutting military musicians grabbing civil engagements.
AUGUST: American Saxist AI
Payne and his 10-piece
Kittens open at Kit Cat and
Piccadilly Hotel. Ben Bernie
refused work permit for projected resident season at Kit Cat.
Melody Maker accuses rope-spinning
comedian Tex McLeod of bad
taste jokes about Royal Family
. Prince of Wales is taught
the Charleston at the Hellianthe
Hotel in Biarritz.
SEPTEMBER: Lew Leslie's all-black show, Blackbirds of
1926, starring Florence Mills
and the Plantation Orchestra,
opens in London after a big
success In Paris. Bert Ralton
and his Band leave for a three-
month tour of South Africa
which ends with his death.
Ray Noble wins Melody Maker arranging
contest for second time with his
score of "Coming Thro' The Cornfield".
Keith Prowse produce jazz drum kit costing
only four guineas.
OCTOBER: Musicians meeting
to conduct business in
London's Archer Street on
M o n d a y afternoons are
threatened with prosecution for
loitering and obstruction.
Savoy Hotel Director of Music W.
J. de Mornys visits the States
and brings back five ace
musicians, including trumpet-player Charles Rocco and
pianist Carroll Gibbons.
Howard Jacobs, saxist-leader at
the Berkeley Hotel, returns
home to America and is succeeded by Carroll Gibbons.
Fan worship for dance bands
reaches theatre besiegement,
with police called to control
crowds waiting for Jack Hylton
and his Orchestra at Birmingham Grand.
NOVEMBER: American bandleader Irving Aaronson,
currently playing four-week
season at Haymarket's Plaza
Cinema, was granted a work
permit only on the under-
standing that he presented a
vaudeville act and did not play
for dancing. Debroy Somers
makes his variety debut at
Birmingham Grand and one of
his two pianists is Melody Maker arranging contest double winner
Ronnie Munro. Ambrose is
resident at the Embassy Club
with a 10-piece band, including
alto star Joe Crossman.
Dallas produce "the perfect
doubling instrument", the
Jedson musical saw, price 25s
complete with bow. Trumpet
ace Max Goldberg gives up band
leading at the Criterion Restaurant to join the Savoy Havana
Band. Singling out a song as
a potential hit while broadcasting from the Hotel Cecil,
Jack Payne is accused by daily
papers of "oblique advertising" , "prostitution of the
microphone" and "graft."
DECEMBER: BBC imposes
standard form of announcing for dance band broadcasts after rumpus over alleged
indiscretions of Jack Payne.
Smith and Son market a
portable gramophone with
record-carrying pocket at 42s.
Melody Maker arranging contest
double winner Ray Noble joins
Debroy Somers . Melody Maker will
promote its first official dance
band contest at Hammersmith
Palais on January 21, covering
Greater London Area.
1927
JANUARY
First bands to broadcast under the regime of
the new BBC as the clock struck
midnight on December 31 were
Jack Hylton and his Orchestra,
alternating with AI Leslie and
his New Dixieland Orchestra
at Marine Gardens Pavilion,
Edinburgh, Billy Cotton and
his Band start their second
year at Southport Palais
Glasgow's Locarno Ballroom,
which holds 1,000 and 600-700
dancers, is opened by Leslie D.
Jefferies and his Band Melody Maker
stresses danger of price-cutting
and reveals that some semi-pros are working for 8s. a man.
FEBRUARY: Debroy Somers
takes his band into Ciro's
Club but still doubles variety.
Savoy Hotel impresario W. F.
de Mornys reorganises bands
under his control, increasing
strings, retaining saxes but
eliminating brass, because it is
"satisfactory solo but too noisy
en bloc" Ambrose is leaving Embassy Club to open at
Mayfair Hotel on March 28 at
reputed salary of £10,000
p.a. Charing Cross Road
Astoria Ballroom opens with
nine-piece band led by W. L.
Trytel, MD of Astoria
Cinema Syd Roy's Lyricals,
playing variety after a season
at Cafe de Paris, include his
clarinettist brother, future bigtime bandleader Harry Roy.
Savoy Orpheans now led by
Carroll Gibbons, Sylvians by
Ramon Newton and Havana
Band by Reg Batten.
MARCH: Jack Hylton puts his
Piccadilly Revels Band,
now recording for Columbia,
into Piccadilly, Hotel, led by
tenor-saxist Ray Starita, with
brother Rudy as drummer-xylophonist Day-and-night
musical instrument repair service launched by Keech and Co
in London's Archer Street.
"Shepherd Of The Hills" is
written by Horatio Nichols (alias
Lawrence Wright), while visiting America with Jack Hylton's
wife Ennis, who sings it on
transatlantic phone at cost of
£350 to London, where it is taken
down and scored by arranger
Leighton Lucas for band's show
that evening at Alhambra
Theatre As result of police
raid, Kit Cat Club becomes a
restaurant, but band remains
under Al Starita. leading for
Jack Hylton.
APRIL: Ambrose has five
American musicians in his
new band at the Mayfair Hotel: George Posneck (piano), Harry
Rederman (drums), Lew Cooper
(banjo), Harry Levine (trumpet)
and Louis Martin (sax)
Following the death on safari of
Bert Ralton, his band is carrying on its South African tour
under tenor-saxist Bill Barton. Saxophone virtuoso Howard
Jacobs, who returned to the
States after a long association
with the Savoy bands, is back
as joint leader of the Sylvians
with Ramon Newton at the
Berkeley Hotel Cabaret
Dance Band wins Melody Maker contest
and gets resident job at Forest
Gate Palais.
MAY
Pianist Fred Elizalde who sprang into prominence
with his own small band at Cambridge University and went to America to study their top bands is to orchestrate for Ambrose Melody Maker attacks
snarx music publishers who
make amateur songwriters
unfulfilled promises of publication and exploitation for a fee
of £2-3, plus 10% commission New Sylvans, led by
Howard Jacobs at Savoy Hotel,
includes violinist Sydney Kyte,
who became a top society bandleader Concern is expressed
because some managements consider musicians too old at 40.
JUNE: Savoy Havana Band,
which first played the London
Coliseum under Bert Ralton on
13/March/1922, is to appear
there again, under the direction
of Reg Batten, with a star line-up including Tony Thorpe
(tmb), Dave Thomas (bjo),
Laurie Huntington (drs), Max
Colberg (tpf) and Val Phillips
(sax), who became a famous
arranger-M.D. Ambrose
and his orchestra, resident at
Mayfair Hotel, play variety at
London Palladium.
JULY: First notable discovery
in an Melody Maker dance band contest
is banjoist-guitarist Ivor
Mairants, who wins the individual prize with third-placed
Cabaret Dance Band at
Alexandra Palace and becomes
a leading player, teacher and
dealer. Lieut. Bilton, of
the Royal Horse Guards, who
judged the military band section
at the Brighton Festival, deplores "the infection of English
music by a microbe called
jazz " Epiphone make a
recording banjo fitted with a
special tone chamber "giving
complete clarity and balanced
sound".
AUGUST: Needing a "hot"
trumpet player, Jack Hylton
signs the late Bert Ralton's
young protege Jack Jackson, for
whom it means the start of a
colourful career as showman,
trumpeter, bandleader and zany
disc jockey. American bandleader Ben Blue is playing at
the Tricity Restaurant in the
strand and doubling at the
Alhambra Theatre, proving a
big success with his clever
clowning. Xylophonist Teddy
Brown, bandleading at the Cafe
de Paris, does variety at the
London Palladium.
SEPTEMBER: Joe Brannelly,
who played banjo with Bert
Ralton, leaves for America to
seek some star musicians for a
famous bandleader in the West
End of London, but won't say
who it is, although it proves in
the end ta be Ambrose at the
Mayfair Hotel. Death of
songwriter Herbert Rule, who
wrote "Abe My Boy", "There
You Are Then", "My Girl's Got
Long Hair" and other comedy
hits of the Twenties. William. Delesaire, lecture in musi-
cal appreciation, lambasts
dance music as worthless.
OCTOBER: Ambrose re-organises his band at the Mayfair Hotel with Jack Miranda
(sax, clt), Joe Crossman (alto,
tnr), Joe Brannelly (bjo, gtr),
Fred Escott (bass) and Max
Bacon (drs), plus Americans
Perley Breed (lst alto) and Leo
Kahn (pno, arr). Jack
Hylton stages first big popular
music publicity stunt by chartering a plane and flying his band
over Blackpool playing Joe Gilbert's song "Me And Jane
in. A Plane", published by
Lawrence Wright, who sold over
5,000 copies in an hour at his
seafront booth. Vocalion and
Aco records replaced by Broadcast at Is 6d. American
leader Jean Goldkette is disbanding and his ace trumpeter
Bix Biederbeckee will join Paul
Whiteman. Don Voorhees,
ex-leader for Earl Carroll's
Vanities, forms band's which
includes Miff Mole (tmb), Vic
Burton (drs) and Red Nichols
(tpt).
NOVEMBER: Jack Howard,
audacious bandleader who
plays what he likes without regard to his audience, and comes
on the stand when he feels like
iL disappears after a summer
season at Villa Marina, Douglas, Isle of Man ... New world
non-stop playing record of 30
hour, claimed by the Berger
Band, resident at the Father
Rhine Restaurant in Berlin .
Savoy Hotel director of music
W. F. de Mornys threatens to
withdraw his bands because the
management have prohibited
outside engagements . Melody Maker
gives grave warning on price
cutting and urges MU to act
against musicians working for
5s a night.
DECEMBER: Savoy Hotel is
expected to have two bands
on January 1, led by Reg Batten
and Fred Elizalde. Pianist-composer Dave Comer, whose
"Hors D'Ouvres" written in
1915, was the first English foxtrot, retires to make way for
younger blood, after a long run
at the Savoy Hotel, plus records
for Columbia and EMI. Melody Maker
record reviewer Needle Point
tries out the first electrically
operated gramophone produced
by HMV for £170. Melody Maker arranging contest won for second
time by saxist Sid Phillips, who
becomes famous bandleader-arranger.
1928
JANUARY: Pianist-leader Fred
Elizalde opens with his all-star Anglo-American Savoy
Music at the Savoy Hotel, supported by violinist Reg Batten
leading the New Savoy
Orpheans Freddie Rich
and his Band, who have been
resident at New York's Hotel
Astor for the past five years,
start a British variety tour.
First big tuition school with
top' musicians as teachers is
set up in London by Alvin D.
Keech Professor Leo Theremin demonstrates his new
scientific apparatus for producing music from ether at London's Savoy Hotel.
FEBRUARY; London saxist
leader Sid Philips, discovered
by his victories in Melody Maker arranging and dance band contests, is
given a recording contract by
Edison Bell and fixed for a
variety tour Teddy Brown
is featuring a keyless saxophone, the five guinea Mellosax,
produced by Keith Prowse, who
claim that it "has a compass
of 21 octaves, can be learned
in an hour or two, and with
its sliding carriage, gives the
same results as an ordinary
saxophone without the complicated network of keys so difficult to master." Hit songs
include I Never Knew," I
Ain't Got Nobody " and " My
Blue Heaven."
MARCH; Original Savoy
Orpheans a big success on
tour, directed by pianist
Carroll Gibbons and managed
by Teddy Sinclair Jack
Hylton is awarded slander
damages of £5O against Piccadilly Hotel chairman Edward Harris and is chosen for his second
Royal Variety Performance
Ambrose renews his five-figure
contract at the Mayfair Hotel
Hal Swain opens at the
rebuilt Cafe Royal, Sid Phillips
will go into Cafe de Paris after
his current variety tour
Rector's Club becomes the New
Carlton Ballroom with bands
led by Max Chappell and Percival Mackey, who was the first
MD to use a modern dance band
as a theatre pit orchestra for
No, No Nanette in 1926.
APRIL: Lloyd Shakespeare and
Band win Melody Maker dance contests at Chelsea and Alexandra
Palace and get a recording contract with Parlophone
Pianist - vocalist - leader Jack
Payne, who is playing at the
Hotel Cecil is chosen as first
BBC resident bandleader and
forms 10-piece outfit to take
over from Sydney Firman and
his London Radio Dance Band
on March 12. HMV exhibit
gramophone with an automatic
record-changer at the Ideal
Home Exhibition American
sax star Adrian Rollini explains
the goofus and how to play it.
MAY: Billy Cotton one-time
drummer-boy destined to
become a national favourite, is
appointed MD of General
Theatres Corporation and is
appearing with his own band
at London's Astoria Dance Hall
Broadcasting graft is rampant "inflicting many melodies
on listening public for the
golden harvest they have
brought to the performer, regardless of their merit."
Jack Hylton sets off with his
band on world tour on August 5th. His racehorse Rathmore,
whose colours are white with a
"jazz" band, runs in Grand
National, Lady bandleader
Hitch Ward contends that
women can successfully tackle
syncopation.
JUNE: John Birmingham, one of
the pioneers of syncopated
music in Britain, dies aged 39
in a fall from the balcony of
his flat at Earls Court. Marius B. Winter, who replaces
Jack Payne at the Hotel Cecil,
says his hand was the first to
broadcast on 2L0, from Marconi House on 27th February 1923. Blind pianist 17-year-old
Alec Templeton, reviewed by
Melody Maker at London Palladium, is
hailed as a brilliant discovery
and becomes a featured attraction with Jack Hylton. Production of an all-metal clarinet,
claimed to be less affected by
the vagaries of temperature
than the normal "gobstick."
JULY: Sophie Tucker is a riot
at Whitechapel Tivoli, where
even six years ago her salary
was £500 a week, probably the
biggest fee paid to any variety
artist in Britain. French
professor M. Maurice Martenot
demonstrates his scientific device for producing music from
ether, development of a similar
invention by Professor Theremin. Metropole records
come on the market at 3s.
AUGUST: Fred Elizalde leaves
Savoy Hotel and opens with
a 19-piece band, including
handsome singing guitarist discovery Al Bowlly, at Les Ambassadeurs Restaurant in Paris.
Brunswick hit vocalist Harry
Shalson, touring in a revue called The Spice Of life, features a
panatrope on which his records
can be played as he sings
them, possibly the first example
of stage synchronisation
First signings on new Metropole
label are George Fisher and his
Kit Cat Band and Jay Whidden
and his Band.Unit organs
are big attraction in cinemas,
notably Wurlitzer, Christie and
Compton J. Russell Pickering, general manager of
Olympia for Bertram Mills,
gets a shock when he goes to
Paris to book Waring's
Pennsylvanians and finds they
want £700 a week Zonophone label is introduced by
EMI.
SEPTEMBER: Jack Hylton is
offered £40,000 for one year
with his band at the Leicester
Square Theatre, but declines
because he would have to provide some film accompaniment
and could not accept other engagements Celtic Five,
resident band at Cardiff's Celtic Palais owned by ex-world
boxing champion Jimmy Wilde,
include saxist-vocalist Dan
Donovan, who becomes a featured singer with Henry Hall
and his BBC Dance Orchestra
in Thirties Melody Maker radio
critic Detector maintains BBC
should pay for the services of
broadcasting bands Violinist-leader At Tabor Is appointed
MD at Hammersmith Palais and
replaces Alan Green with a
band which includes future
showman drummer and band
leader Joe Daniels Melody Maker
explores the slump in dance
band bookings at variety
theatres Banjos cost £12,
saxophones £27-32, trombones
£32, accordions £17 and a drum
kit £20.
OCTOBER: Melody Maker says there are
rumours that the Savoy
Orpheans under Reg Batten
were dispensed with for being
old-fashioned, indicating that
other bands in the West End
will have to modernise to keep
their jobs Carroll Gibbons
has become MD for HMV,
inspiring other recording companies to consider similar appointments for dance-band
leaders O'Malley's Romany
Band, at Hendon's Brent Bridge.
Hotel, Includes college boy
saxist H, F. (Buddy) Featherstonehaugh, who becomes great
jazz terrorist and motor racing
fanatic Billy Cotton makes
recording debut on Metropole
with his London Savannah
Band.
NOVEMBER: Reg Batten takes
his Orpheans into Topsy
and Eve at the Gaiety Theatre,
but the MU refuses to allow his
American musicians to do the
show American jazz trumpeter Sylvester Ahola joins Am-
brose, obtaining his labour permit on condition that he doesn't
record with any other band.
First talking film, Al Jolson's
The Jazz Singer, is reviewed by
Melody Maker. Reviewer is not impressed.
doesn't anticipate a boom in
talkies and hopes not because
it would threaten the employment of musicians Mario
Lorenzi, who has joined Fred
Elizalde at the Savoy Hotel, was
first to use the harp in a dance
band with the Dix Band at
Olympia in 1923.
DECEMBER: Introduction of
recordings on wire, using
just enough to go round a cotton reel, giving a 15-minute
performance which can be
erased and re-recorded as
desired Rebuilt Leicester
Square Theatre reopens with
tine variety featuring 35-piece
band led by organists Sandy
McPherson and Reginald Foort
Reg Batten and his
Orpheans are out of Topsy and
Eva, because they prove too
expensive, and the new band
soon falls foul of US star Rosetta Duncan who suffers a nervous breakdown, closing the
show and starting an MU enquiry into discipline.
1929
JANUARY: Horatio Nichols
(Lawrence Wright) composition " You're In My Heart " is
first song to be sent across
Atlantic by Marconi photo-radio. Melody Maker Liverpool dance band
contest won by Jack White's
Collegians, who were subsequently resident for many
years at Charing Cross 'Road
Astoria and enjoyed record run
in 'BBC's Music While You
Work. BBC is shortly in moving from Savoy Hill to Broad-
casting 'House, which has nine
studios, including one with
three storeys, capable of
holding 1,000 people End a big
orchestra'. Melody Maker says night
clubs should be cleaned up as
there are dozens of " rotten
holes " where underpaid musicians work in disgraceful conditions.
FEBRUARY: Bandleader Paul
Whiteman 's paying expenses of his trumpet genius Bix
Beiderbecke, who is seriously
ill in a sanatorium. Music
publishing pact to stop song
plugging breaks down, leaving
companies to [adopt their own
methods, a tricky situation for
BBC. Heyworth's, of Blackpool, market an adjustable
octave tuning key for the saxophone. Saxist deader Charles
Spinelli opens the new Ritz
Ballroom in Manchester.
MARCH: Bass-saxist Adrian
Rollini goes to the States
for a talent-seeking trip and
returns with his saxist brother
Arthur, tenorist Fud Livingston
and multi-reedist Max Farley
for Fred Elizalde, who signs
guitarist Jack Hill to replace
Len Fillis and his band at the
Savoy Hotel, where all broadcasts have suddenly ceased
with no explanation from the
management or the BBC. Piccadilly records are introduced at 1s 6d, featuring Lloyd
Shakespeare and his Band, the
Ever-Bright Boys and the
Bohemian Band. Attempts
to book Paul Whiteman's
Rhythm Boys and saxist Jimmy
Dorsey for the Savoy Hotel have
broken down. Melody Maker complains of disparaging remarks
about jazz musicians in the
daily papers and asks for more
visits by US instrumentalists to
stimulate our own players.
APRIL: Jack Hylton and his
Band return from 12-week
tour of Europe to play London
Palladium, with talented young
reedist Billy Ternent who became a noted multi-instrumentallist , arranger and bandleader
New band supplied by Jan
Ralfini at Hammersmith Palais
is fronted by sax-violinist
Maurice Winnick, starting his
career as a world-famous bandleader and impresario
US musicians are quitting
bands to freelance at £200 a
week. Keith Prowse markets
a gramophone needle capable
of playing 50 to 150 records.
MAY: Bern Evers, who was
arranger with the original
Savoy Orpheans, revives the
band, backing the ventures
with a limited company in
which some of the musicians
hold shares, possibly the first-ever co-operative dance-band. Billy Merrin and his Band,
placed second in Melody Maker Nottingham dance band contest becomes renowned ballroom favourites all over the country. Jack Hylton is first British
bandleader invited to play in
America, but his £1,300 a' week
offer to appear with his band at
New York's Roxy and Paramount is cancelled because the
theatre musicians object.
Hit crooner Rudy Vallee receives £600 a week for 10-week
season at New York Paramount.
JUNE: Jack Payne adds another sax, two violins and
a viola to his BBC Dance Orchestra to provide a choice of
40 instruments for the elaborate
orchestrations of Ray Noble.
According to Frankie Trumbauer, Paul Whiteman is highest paid bandleader in world,
grossing around 30,000 dollars
a week. but spending 1,800 dollars on arrangements and 8,000
dollars on salaries, with his
corner men earning 400 dollars.
JULY: American musicians in
Fred Elizalde's band unaccountably leave for home a
few hours before Melody Maker special
concert at Shepherd's Bush
Pavilion, which attracts over
3,000 people from all over
Europe. Decca records are
launched with capture of
Ambrose and Billy Cotton.
Jack Hylton and his Orchestra
play in Trafalgar Square on
Election Night. 500 professional musicians in London sign
petition asking for restrictions
on entry of American musicians
to ensure only the best are admitted. Far-seeing bandleader Al Davison introduces system of adjustable mikes for
each instrument to ensure correct balance of his band.
AUGUST: Ray Noble gives up
BBC staff arranging post to become MD for HMV, who
celebrate 25 years of record
manufacture, which started with
700 a week and has now
reached a million. Columbia
release first Regal records at
2s 6d featuring Rudy Vallee
and Hal Swain. Keith
Prowse market a 75 guinea
home talkie machine combining
a radio set, an electric gramophone and a kinematograph
projector, capable of synchronising music and vision.
Concern is felt over introduction of a new amplifying device
which can make a band of five
sound like a dozen and is
bound to affect the employment
of musicians.
SEPTEMBER: American bandleader Ben Bernie starts 8 week season at Kit Cat. Rival
leader Ted Lewis is offered 9800
a week for an appearance with
his band at Piccadilly Hotel. Pianist-leader Noble Sissle
brings his all-black band over
from Paris for a British variety
tour. Brixton's F250,000
Astoria is opened with cine-variety featuring a 20-piece
band led by Fred Kitchen.
Melody Maker reveals that rising young
provincial musicians are finding
it hard- to break into the
" magic circle " in the West
End of London. Paul Whiteman
declines an acting role in the
King of jazz for which he will
receive £40,000.
OCTOBER: Piccadilly Hotel re-opens after £8,000 redecoration with new-style band show
featuring AI Starita and his Piccadilly Players dressed in
white commodore uniforms
and playing white enamelled instruments. Ambrose takes
his band off the air and refuses to give reason. but it is
doubtless due to BBC veto on
announcement of song titles. Paul Whiteman returns to
New York because the King of
Jazz film has been postponed to
find a better story. Music
publisher Lawrence Wright
takes Daily Mail front page at
£1,400 to publicise " Excuse Me
Lady ".
NOVEMBER: BBC removes its
embargo on vocal choruses
and announcement of song
titles. Christopher Stone
broadcasts a commentated recital of advance US rhythmic
records, becoming radio's first
DJ. Marius B. Winter loses
resident job at Hotel Cecil,
which is bought as office block
by Shell Mex. Trumpeter
Jimmy McPartland and altolst
Benny Goodman quit the Ben
Pollack Band. Parlophone
introduce new blue label
Rhythm Style series with Eddie
Lang, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy
and Tommy Dorsey.
DECEMBER: Top saxist-teacher
Ben Davis becomes sole
British rep for Selmer and
opens historic shop in London's
Charing Cross Road. Red
Nichols has a 14-piece band at
Broadway's new restaurant, the
Hollywood. Bandleader Guy
Lombardo opens at New York's
Roosevelt Hotel. Hot trumpeter and comedian Jack Jackson leaves Jack Hylton, who is
to do a 10-week season at Kit
Cat for biggest fee ever paid to
a dance band, with minimum of
£450 a week which could rise
to £1,000. Jazz is included
for the first time in the Encylopedia Brittanica.
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