Athos C. "Ace" Brigode (January 5, 1893 – February 3, 1960) was a United States dance band leader who enjoyed his greatest popularity in the 1920s. Ace Brigode 1938

Ace Brigode was born in Illinois. He entered show business as a member of a touring minstrel show. His band began playing professionally in early 1921 as "Ace Brigode & His 10 Virginians"; a bit later they were renamed "Ace Brigode & His 14 Virginians"; this name stuck although the band varied between having 9 to 19 members over the years. The band played in the moderately

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

-influenced peppy dance band style called "Collegiate Hot" that to many people exemplifies the music of the "Roaring Twenties". The most noted musician who played with Brigode was trombonist

Abe Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1 ...

. Brigode hosted the "White Rose Gasoline Show" on

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

, featuring his band. The band also made

gramophone record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...

s for various

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

s, including

OKeh Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...

, Cameo and

Pathé Records Pathé Records was an international record company and label and producer of phonographs, based in France, and active from the 1890s through the 1930s. Early years The Pathé record business was founded by brothers Charles and Émile Pathé, ...

; their biggest hit was a 1925 version of " Yes Sir, That's My Baby" for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. The band's theme song was "

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" is a song written circa 1878 by James A. Bland (1854–1911), an African-American composer and minstrel performer. It was Virginia's state song from 1940 until 1997. There is some evidence suggesting that it i ...

Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

was among the band's fans. Brigode himself played

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

and

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

, but mostly acted as master of ceremonies. The band toured widely around the United States. Brigode kept the band current with newer style arrangements into the early

swing music Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...

era, before disbanding the group in 1946. After this Ace Brigode worked as promotions manager for

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

's Chippewa Lake Park, and also did

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

commercial voice work. Brigode refused to book rock and roll performers into the park because of his dislike for the musical genre. He was survived by his wife, Theresa, sons Robert and Richard, and a daughter, Mrs. James Knott.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brigode, Ace 1893 births 1960 deaths American bandleaders American male violinists 20th-century American conductors (music) 20th-century American violinists 20th-century American male musicians

See also

References