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Melody Master (film Series)
The Melody Masters were a series of first-rate big band musical film shorts produced by Warner Brothers, under the supervision of Samuel Sax at their Vitaphone studio in New York between 1931 and 1939, and in Burbank, California with producer Gordon Hollingshead in charge between 1940 and 1946. Overview Among the most popular short subjects of their kind (making the Motion Picture Herald top money-making shorts lists in 1939 ); these were an offshoot of the Vitaphone Varieties. Each ran from 9 to 11 minutes in length and was produced in black and white. While rival studios like Universal Pictures focused mostly on the performance itself in their own “Name Band Musicals” shorts, Warner Bros. added more storyline material and visual experimentation. Early films often used a gimmick to frame the musical performances such as the roller skates used in ''Eddie Duchin & His Orchestra''. As the series progressed, the uses of multiple exposures (a great example being ''Symphony of Swin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing. In contrast to the typical jazz emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements. They gave a greater role to bandleaders, arrangers, and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Instruments Big bands generally have four sections: trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section of guitar, piano, double bass, and drums. The division in early big bands, from the 1920s to 1930s, was typically two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, three or four saxo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Gilbert
William Gilbert Barron (September 12, 1894 – September 23, 1971), known professionally as Billy Gilbert, was an American actor and comedian. He was known for his comic sneeze routines. He appeared in over 200 feature films, short subjects and television shows beginning in 1929. Career Early life and vaudeville career The child of singers with the Metropolitan Opera, he was born in a dressing room at the Hopkins Opera House in Louisville, Kentucky. Gilbert began working in vaudeville at the age of 12, and later played in burlesque on the Columbia and Mutual wheels. Big break in films Gilbert was spotted by Stan Laurel, who was in the audience of Gilbert's show ''Sensations of 1929''. Laurel went backstage to meet Gilbert and was so impressed by him he introduced him to comedy producer Hal Roach. Gilbert was employed as a gag writer, actor and director, and at the age of 35 he appeared in his first film for the Fox Film Corporation in 1929. Gilbert broke into comedy shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Lanin
Howard Lanin (July 15, 1897 – April 26, 1991) was an American bandleader, called "The King of Society Dance Music."DeLong, Thomas A. (1996). ''Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of 953 Performers, 1920 through 1960''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . P. 158. Early years Lanin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Benjamin and Mary Lanin. His father was an entrepreneur and musician. He was the middle child of nine children and one of six brothers who became bandleaders, playing in ballrooms and at resorts. He attended South Philadelphia High School, where he began playing cornet, leaving when he was 15 to go into music. Career Lanin led the Howard Lanin Orchestra, a group that performed show tunes, waltzes and sweet jazz. Lanin also established orchestras led by his brothers, including Sam Lanin (who was one of the most prolific of recording bandleaders under many pseudonyms) and Lester Lanin. The orchestras of the Lanin brothers gave a start to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Waring
Fredrick Malcolm Waring Sr. (June 9, 1900 – July 29, 1984) was an American musician, bandleader, and radio and television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing". He was also a promoter, financial backer and eponym of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric blender on the market. Biography Fredrick Malcolm Waring was born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, on June 9, 1900, to Jesse Calderwood and Frank Waring. During his teen years, Waring, his brother Tom ''(né'' Thomas Lincoln Waring; 1902–1960), and their friend Poley McClintock founded the Waring-McClintock Snap Orchestra, which evolved into Fred Waring's Banjo Orchestra. The band often played at fraternity parties, proms, and dances, and achieved local success. Waring attended Penn State University, where he studied architectural engineering. He aspired to be in the Penn State Glee Club, but he was rejected with every audition. His Banjo Orchestra becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noble Sissle
Noble Lee Sissle (July 10, 1889 – December 17, 1975) was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical ''Shuffle Along'' (1921), and its hit song "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Early life Sissle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, around the time his father Rev. George A. Sissle was pastor of the city's Simpson M. E. Chapel.Reef (2010) His mother, Martha Angeline (née Scott) Sissle, was a school teacher and juvenile probation officer. As a youth, Sissle sang in church choirs and as a soloist with his high school's glee club in Cleveland, Ohio. Sissle attended De Pauw University in Greencastle, Indiana on scholarship and later transferred to Butler University in Indianapolis before turning to music full-time. Career In early 1916, Sissle joined one of the society orchestras organized by James Reese Europe in New York. He persuaded Europe to also hire his friend, pianist and composer Eubie Blake, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abe Lyman
Abe Lyman (August 4, 1897 – October 23, 1957) was a popular bandleader from the 1920s to the 1940s. He made recordings, appeared in films and provided the music for numerous radio shows, including ''Your Hit Parade''. His name at birth was Abraham Simon. He and his brother, Mike, changed their last name to Lyman because they both thought it sounded better. Abe learned to play the drums when he was young, and at the age of 14 he had a job as a drummer in a Chicago café. Around 1919, he was regularly playing music with two other notable future big band leaders, Henry Halstead and Gus Arnheim, in California. In Los Angeles Mike Lyman opened the Sunset, a night club popular with such film stars as Mary Pickford, Norma Talmadge, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. When Abe's nine-piece band first played at the Sunset, it was a success, but the club closed after celebrities signed contracts stating they were not to be seen at clubs. For an engagement at the Cocoanut G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ted Husing
Edward Britt Husing (November 27, 1901 – August 10, 1962) was an American sportscaster. He was among the first to lay the groundwork for the structure and pace of modern sports reporting on television and radio. Overview Early life and career Husing was born in the Bronx, New York, and given the name Edmund. (One source says Husing was born in Deming, New Mexico. Another says, "Husing was born in New Mexico, and while still in knee breeches was moved across to icthe United States to Gloversville, N.Y.") The youngest of three children of immigrant German parents, he was the only one to survive childhood. His father, Henry, was a fan of middleweight boxing champ Jimmy Edward Britt. By his tenth birthday, the boy's name was changed to Edward Britt Husing. As a teenager, he took on the tag of "Ted" and the nickname stuck. He was active in four sports at Stuyvesant High School and was all-scholastic center in football. At age 16, he joined the National Guard and in World War ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tess Gardella
Therese Gardella (December 19, 1894 – January 3, 1950) was an American performer on the stage and screen whose stage persona was Aunt Jemima. She was of Italian descent. The Aunt Jemima brand name used for pancake mix and related products in the United States was patterned after her performance persona. She performed on both stage and screen, usually in blackface. Tess was born in Glen Lyon, Pennsylvania, to John and Louisa Gardella. She came to New York City in 1918, singing in dances and nightclubs and also political rallies. She died of diabetes in Brooklyn, New York, on January 3, 1950.''obituary, ''Variety''Jan. 11,1950 Vaudeville She was introduced to the vaudeville stage by Lew Leslie, who gave her the stage name of Aunt Jemima. She appeared at the Palace and the New York Hippodrome, and attracted very favorable reviews from ''Variety''. For her final performance, she returned to vaudeville, playing the Palace once more in 1949. Theater Her first performance in the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gertrude Niesen
Gertrude Niesen (July 8, 1911 – March 27, 1975) was an American torch singer, actress, comedian, and songwriter who achieved popular success in musicals and films in the 1930s and 1940s. Early years Niesen was born aboard ship as her Swedish father and Russian mother returned from a vacation in Europe. As a child, she hoped for a career on stage and began performing in vaudeville. She attended Brooklyn Heights Seminary, where she found and developed an interest in music. Career Niesen began singing as a career in the early 1930s, performing on radio and in night clubs. She first appeared on film (credited as Gertrude Nissen) with Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra and Artie Shaw in a Vitaphone short film, ''Yacht Party'' (1932). On old-time radio, Niesen was the featured singer on ''The Ex-Lax Big Show'' on CBS and host of ''The Show Shop'' (1942), on NBC-Blue. She left ''The Ex-Lax Big Show'' in the summer of 1935 to sing leads in musical productions of the St. Loui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Wolf Kahn
Roger Wolfe Kahn (October 19, 1907 – July 12, 1962) was an American jazz and popular musician, composer, bandleader (Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra) and an aviator. Life and career Roger Wolfe Kahn (originally spelled "Wolff") was born in Morristown, New Jersey, into a wealthy German Jewish banking family. His parents were Adelaide "Addie" (Wolff) and Otto Hermann Kahn, a famous banker and patron of the arts. His maternal grandfather was banker Abraham Wolff. Otto and Roger Kahn were the first father and son to appear separately on the cover of '' Time'' magazine: Otto in November 1925 and Roger in September 1927, aged 19. On 16 August 1926, Time magazine wrote: "''If it is strange that Otto Hermann Kahn, sensitive patron of high art in Manhattan, should have a saxophone-tooting, banjo-plunking, clarinet-wailing, violin-jazzing son, it is stranger still that that son, Roger Wolfe Kahn, has become a truly outstanding jazzer at the perilous age of 18. Roger's ten orchest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Denny
Jack Denny (September 25, 1895 – September 15, 1950) was an American dance band leader during the pre-War years. He was born in the United States and started his musical career in Montreal, Quebec in 1920. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Denny led dance bands with a conventionally styled orchestra during the 1920s, playing at various venues, including the Mount Royal Hotel in Montreal, Canada. In 1931, he relocated to New York City, where he played at the newly opened Waldorf-Astoria Hotel the following year. Denny's band quickly gained popularity among the high society clientele of the Waldorf-Astoria, prompting him to develop a sweet and marvelous sound that had no brass section. His arrangements were often complex and fast-paced, unique for a sweet band. The Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra consisted of four saxes, three violins, bass, piano, and drums, with the pianist sometimes doubling on accordion. They recorded around two dozen titles for Victor in 1932 and appeared in the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Mack (director)
Roy Mack (December 14, 1889, New Brunswick, New Jersey - January 16, 1962, Los Angeles, California), born Leroy McClure, was an American director of film shorts, mostly comedy films, with 205 titles to his credit. Born and raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he attended New Brunswick High School.Baltin, Will"Roy Mack - Another New Brunswick Boy Who Has Made Good" ''The Central Jersey Home News'', May 23, 1937. Accessed August 10, 2020. "Folks don't know him as Leroy McClure in the entertainment world, but rather as Roy Mack.... But few know that Roy is a New Brunswick boy who has really accomplished much in the world of make-believe.... He attended Bayard School and then entered the old high school on Livingston avenue where the present Roosevelt Junior High stands." Selected filmography *'' Bubbles'' (1930) with Judy Garland * ''The Silent Partner'' (1931) *''Pie, Pie Blackbird'' (1932) with the Nicholas Brothers and Eubie Blake *''Rufus Jones for President'' (1933) with Ethel W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
