Salon, Light and Novelty Orchestras

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GUILD LIGHT MUSIC GLCD5204

Salon, Light and Novelty Orchestras

1 Fairy On The Clock (Sherman Myers, real name Montague Ewing)
NEW MAYFAIR DANCE ORCHESTRA Conducted by RAY NOBLE
HMV B 5737 1929
2 La Petite Tonkinoise (My Chin Chin Lou) (Vincent Baptiste Scotto; Henry Marius Christine)
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS SALON ORCHESTRA with Whistling by RONALD GOURLAY
Decca F 5450 1935
3 Parade Of The Pirates (John W. Bratton)
INTERNATIONAL NOVELTY ORCHESTRA
Regal Zonophone MR 2689 1938
4 Neapolitan Serenade (Gerhard Winkler)
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS SALON ORCHESTRA
HMV BD 733 1939
5 Magic Notes (Fritz Steininger)
RUDY STARITA, xylophone with un-named orchestra
Columbia DB 742 1932
6 Tango Habanera (Jose F. Payan, arr. Fred Hartley)
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS SALON ORCHESTRA
HMV BD 331 1936
7 Intermezzo (Souvenir de Vienne) (from the film "Escape To Happiness") (Heinz Provost)
JAY WILBUR’S SERENADERS
Rex 10060-A 1941
8 Secrets Of The Adige – Waltz (Felice Carena)
ORCHESTRA MASCOTTE
Parlophone R 2200 1936
9 Grasshoppers’ Holiday (Herman Bick)
LOUIS VOSS GRAND ORCHESTRA
Bosworth BC 1168 1944
10 Finesse (Bernard Maltin; Anthony Raymond Doll)
NEW MAYFAIR DANCE ORCHESTRA Conducted by RAY NOBLE
HMV B 5737 1929
11 A Birthday Serenade (Paul Lincke)
LONDON PALLADIUM ORCHESTRA Conducted by RICHARD CREAN
HMV B 3566 1930
12 Rose Mousse (Fabrice Gabriel Lemon)
INTERNATIONAL NOVELTY ORCHESTRA
Regal Zonophone MR 3212 1940
13 If You But Knew (Reginald King)
REGINALD KING AND HIS ORCHESTRA
HMV B 3408 1930
14 Hiawatha – Cake Walk (Neil Moret)
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS NOVELTY ORCHESTRA
Decca F 3854 1934
15 The Wedding Of The Rose (Leon Jessel, arr. Willoughby)
J.H. SQUIRE CELESTE OCTET
Columbia DB 690 1931
16 Fairy Whispers (Rhode)
VICTOR RICARDO AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Decca F 2870 1932
17 The Cuckoo In The Clock (Walter R. Collins)
INTERNATIONAL NOVELTY QUARTET
Regal Zonophone T 5619 1929
18 The Excuse Me Waltz (Nicholas Brodszky)
REGINALD PURSGLOVE AND HIS MUSIC MAKERS
Regal Zonophone MR 3777 1946
19 Fiddle Dance (Percy Fletcher)
ALBERT SANDLER AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Columbia 4854 1928
20 The Dancing Doll (Poupee Valsante) (Eduard Poldini)
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS SALON ORCHESTRA
Decca F 3325 1932
21 The Butterfly – Morceau Characteristique (Theo Bendix)
ALFREDO CAMPOLI AND HIS SALON ORCHESTRA
HMV BD 733 1939
22 Dolls’ Games (Lederer)
VICTOR RICARDO AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Decca F 2870 1932
23 Sphinx Waltz (Francis Popy)
ORCHESTRA MASCOTTE
Parlophone F 1884 1941
24 Dark Red Roses (Philip Braham)
REGINALD KING AND HIS ORCHESTRA
HMV B 3481 1930
25 King Chanticleer (Seymour Brown; Nat D. Ayer)
INTERNATIONAL NOVELTY ORCHESTRA
Regal Zonophone MR 1215 1934

All tracks in mono

Before the large light orchestras became firmly established from the 1940s onwards, many people enjoyed light music performed by smaller groups of musicians. The advent of radio in the 1920s brought many of them national – and sometimes international – fame, and there was a strong demand for gramophone records by the most popular ensembles. At times the boundaries between light music and dance bands became somewhat blurred, especially when leaders such as Jack Hylton included novelty instrumentals in their concert programmes.

Raymond ‘Ray’ Stanley Noble (1903-1978) did not quite fit into the same mould. His early career found him concentrating on recording: in 1927 he won an arranging competition in the magazine Melody Maker, and two years later he was appointed leader of the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, HMV’s studio band that recorded many hits of the day. But there were the occasional exceptions, as evidenced by Fairy On The Clock and Finesse. Noble also turned to songwriting, resulting in a string of standards such as The Very Thought Of You, The Touch Of Your Lips and Goodnight Sweetheart. In the mid-1930s he took his own band to the USA, where he achieved considerable success: he also developed a new career in films, often acting the part of comic English characters.

The International Novelty Orchestra appeared on many 78s issued in Britain by the Regal Zonophone label – sometimes as a quartet, but more usually as a small orchestra as represented on this CD. For many years discophiles have tried to discover the true identity of the performers, apparently without success. During the 1930s it was not uncommon for well-known bands under contract to major record companies to earn welcome extra cash by ‘moonlighting’ on other labels. Listening carefully to the INO it is possible to discover similarities with other British dance bands, as well as popular ensembles on the continent of Europe. These recordings are generally of a high standard, so the notion that they might be the work of non-professionals doesn’t hold water. Also one would expect that a bandleader producing music of this quality would insist that his name appeared on the record label, unless there was a very strong reason to maintain anonymity. To confuse matters even more, there have been other ‘International Novelty Orchestras’ in Britain and the USA, which appear to have no connection with the Regal Zonophone releases. One name that has been mentioned as a strong contender for making the sides recorded in England is George Scott Wood (1903-1978), but why should he choose to hide his identity when his name appears on other records on the same label? This is a mystery that still needs to be solved.

Alfredo Campoli (1906-1991) was born in Rome where his father was a violin teacher: his mother – the operatic soprano Elvira Celi – had toured with Caruso. The family moved to England in 1911, and young Alfredo made his professional debut as a violinist at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1923. He was soon recognised as a virtuoso on his chosen instrument, and his sublime playing enhanced numerous recordings for the rest of his career. In the early days he toured with the likes of Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Clara Butt, and in addition to playing with symphony orchestras he also performed light music – often with his own salon orchestra, as heard in several tracks on this CD. For many years he was responsible for the distinct violin sound on numerous Victor Silvester Ballroom Orchestra 78s, and post-war he was a regular session musician in the leading light orchestras that made countless LPs in the 1950s and the following years. He has left a vast recorded legacy, including a renowned recording of Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor. In1955 he gave the first performance of Sir Arthur Bliss's Violin Concerto, which was written for him. Foreign tours included an appearance at the Carnegie Hall in New York in 1953, and other overseas concerts took him twice to the Soviet Union. Campoli (as he was often simply called) owned two Stradivarius violins, the Baillot-Pommerau of 1694 and the Dragonetti of 1700.

Rudy Starita (1899-1978) was an Italian-American dance band performer in England, who specialised in various percussion instruments, such as the xylophone on this CD. For several years he was a member of his younger brother Ray’s band, but he also performed on a large number of 78s for other leaders, such as the Firman brothers Bert and John, and Harry Hudson.

The English bandleader Jay Wilbur (1898-1970) provided backings for many popular singers during the 1930s. He worked as staff director for Dominion Records, then moved on to Crystalate and their subsidiaries Imperial, Eclipse and Rex. Jay also conducted mood music recordings for Boosey & Hawkes. Like several other musicians, when he found that his style fell out of favour in Britain after the war, he emigrated to continue his career in South Africa where he died in Cape Town.

During the last century, and especially in the 1930s, there was much interest in ‘Wiener Walzer’, those delightful Viennese Waltzes composed by the Strauss family, Joseph Lanner, Carl (Karl) Ziehrer, Franz Lehar and many others. The orchestras of Marek Weber, Dajos Béla, Paul Godwin, Otto Kermbach and a little later Barnabas von Géczy, to mention just a few names, made numerous recordings of this kind of music. But the most popular of all was the Wiener Bohème Orchester.

Among those who have nostalgia for the light music of this period, there is renewed interest into this once very famous ensemble, which from 1930 until the Second World War was responsible for hundreds of recordings that sold in large numbers. It is curious that there is so little known about this extremely popular orchestra, and part of the reason may be that it was familiar through several different names.

‘The Wiener Bohème Orchester’ is the name on the labels of their Odéon 78s issued in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, while in France and Belgium they were called Le Grand Orchestre Bohémien (or Le Grand Orchestre Bohémien de Vienne). In Italy they became Orchestra Tipica Viennese on Odéon and Parlophone, while in Spain and Argentina their assumed identity was Orquesta Los Bohemios Vieneses on Odéon and EMI discs. In the Netherlands their Odéon 78s were credited as the Wiener Bohème Orchester, and on Parlophon the Wiener Walzer Orkest; and on the other side of the world in Japan they were released on Maniac and Nihon-Columbia as Vienna Boheme-Orchestra. ‘Orchestra Mascotte’ is a name coined by Parlophone for records by the Wiener Bohème Orchester in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. With such confusion over its name, it is hardly surprising that the conductors were also rather shadowy figures.

The founder of the Wiener-Bohème Orchester was the well-known conductor of the Berlin State Opera, Dr. Frieder Weissmann (1893-1984), who made a large number of recordings for the Lindström labels, Odeon and Parlophon, in the classical and light classical genre. The Wiener Bohème Orchestra was formed of selected musicians from the Berlin State Opera Orchestra, conducted until 1933 by Dr. Frieder Weissmann. It seems that Weissmann had been asked by the Lindström-company in Berlin to form a special ‘Walzer-Orchester’ purely to make recordings, as there was so much demand for that kind of music.

In 1933 Weissmann had to leave Germany for South America to escape the Nazis, because he was Jewish. He died in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 1984. The recording of Sphinx Waltz on this CD, although not released in Britain until 1941, was actually recorded in December 1931 under Weissmann’s baton. The other ‘Orchestra Mascotte’ track included this time, Secrets Of The Adige, was recorded in the autumn of 1935, probably with the new conductor of the WBO, Otto Dobrindt (1886 -1963), Lindström’s house-conductor. Under his leadership the WBO (which only existed to make recordings) grew from strength to strength.

The many fine recordings of the Wiener Bohème-Orchester were made at the Carl Lindström Studios on the Schlesische Strasse in eastern Berlin. This studio had the added bonus of a 2 manual 8 rank Welte organ which WBO's Otto Dobrindt often used most effectively, presumably played by Ernst Fischer (1900-1975, better known as Marcel Palotti, the name he used for many of his solo 78s of that period) on many of WBO's later 78s. The organ was destroyed by allied bombing on 18 March 1945. What remains of the building is currently being used as a garage, its illustrious past long forgotten. The ‘Orchestra Mascotte’ has previously been included in two Guild collections: Amphitryon Waltz (GLCD5190), and Court Ball Dances (GLCD5163).

The orchestras performing on Library Music recordings in London often contained some of the finest session players, and Bosworth was fortunate in being able to employ Louis Voss (1902-1980). He possessed a wide experience as a conductor, starting with silent films then specialising for a while in café and restaurant work providing Gypsy, Hungarian and Viennese music. He formed the Louis Voss Grand Orchestra during the 1930s, which made many records for Bosworths: they also recorded under the pseudonym ‘The West End Celebrity Orchestra’. The leader was the afore-mentioned violinist Alfredo Campoli. Eventually Louis Voss became one of the BBC’s regular broadcasters, and he combined this with theatrical engagements. Towards the end of his long career he was actually the anonymous conductor of the Sydney Thompson Old Time Orchestra.

Richard Crean (1879-1955) became a familiar name in the 1930s through his association with the London Palladium Orchestra, which was probably the best known British theatre orchestra. In recording terms it was also the most prolific, with almost 150 recordings made between 1927 and the early 1940s, many of them conducted by Richard Crean who was in charge from 1930 to 1937. Before joining the London Palladium Orchestra he had travelled widely as Chorus Master with the Thomas Quinlan Opera Company, later accepting a similar position at Covent Garden with Adrian Boult. Then a spell at Ilford Hippodrome in variety led to his appointment in 1930 at the Palladium, which lasted until he formed his own orchestra which he conducted, on and off, for the rest of his life. For a short while in 1941-42 he conducted the newly-formed BBC Midland Light Orchestra, and like Jay Wilbur he was also a contributor to the Boosey & Hawkes Recorded Music Library.

Reginald Claude McMahon King (1904-1991) was an accomplished pianist, who performed under the baton of Sir Henry Wood at the Proms soon after he completed his studies at London’s Royal Academy. In 1927 he took an orchestra into Swan & Edgar’s restaurant at their Piccadilly Circus store, where they remained until 1939. During this period he also started broadcasting regularly (his number of broadcasts exceeded 1,400), and he made numerous recordings, often featuring his own attractive compositions. He made his last broadcast in 1964, but during a long retirement he continued composing until shortly before his death. His tuneful orchestra can be heard playing popular melodies such as Lullaby Of The Leaves (GLCD 5134) and Roses At Dawning (GLCD 5139) on several Guild CDs.

J. H. Squire (1880-1956) is credited with putting the first Light Orchestra on BBC Radio in 1924. Prior to that he had served in the Royal Navy at their School of Music, but left in 1906. It has been said that he introduced ragtime music to London in 1911, and at one time he was Musical Director of six West End Theatres. He was a prolific recording artist, selling more than two million discs. The Celeste Octet is probably the best known ensemble for which he is still remembered in Light Music circles.

Reginald Pursglove (1902-1982) was an accomplished violinist who worked with many of the British dance bands in the 1920s and 1930s. During four decades he was heard regularly on the radio fronting various ensembles such as small groups (his contribution to this CD is a good example) right up to light orchestras which gradually assumed greater prominence as dance bands were heard less frequently on the air. His Albany Players (later renamed the Albany Strings) constantly provided top quality light music, but eventually the BBC’s decision to rely less upon live music meant that the orchestra did not survive the 1960s – a fate that was also to befall so many of Pursglove’s contemporaries.

Albert Sandler (1906-1948) is remembered by many of the older generation in Britain through his BBC broadcasts "Grand Hotel" from 1943 to 1948. The music featured was known as ‘Palm Court’, a style that surprisingly still survived for quite a while after the war, although it had its roots decades earlier – Sandler himself had been musical director of the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne from 1924 to 1928.

David Ades

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