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British Dance Band
British dance band is a genre of popular jazz and dance music that developed in British dance halls and hotel ballrooms during the 1920s and 1930s, often called a Golden Age of British music, prior to the Second World War. Thousands of miles away from the origins of jazz in the United States, British dance bands of this era typically played melodic, good-time music that had jazz and big band influences but also maintained a peculiarly British sense of rhythm and style which came from the music hall tradition. Often, comedians of the day or music hall personalities would sing novelty recordings backed by well-known British dance band leaders. Some of the British dance band leaders and musicians went on to fame in the United States in the swing era. Thanks to Britain's continuing ballroom dancing tradition and its recording copyright laws, British dance music of the pre-swing era still attracts a modest audience, which American dance music of the same period does not. Notable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Hylton And His Orchestra
Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Jack (surname), including a list of people with the surname * Jack (Tekken), multiple fictional characters in the fighting game series ''Tekken'' * Jack the Ripper, an unidentified British serial killer active in 1888 * Wolfman Jack (1938–1995), a stage name of American disk jockey Robert Weston Smith * New Jack, a stage name of Jerome Young (1963–2021), an American professional wrestler * Spring-heeled Jack, a creature in Victorian-era English folklore * Jack (hero), an archetypal Cornish and English hero and stock character Animals and plants Fish *Carangidae generally, including: **Almaco jack **Amberjack **Bar jack **Black jack (fish) **Crevalle jack **Giant trevally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Cotton
William Edward Cotton (6 May 1899 – 25 March 1969) was an English band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the British dance band era. Cotton is now mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio and television personality, but his musical career had begun in the 1920s. In his younger years, Billy Cotton was also an amateur footballer for Brentford (and later, for the then Athenian league club Wimbledon), an accomplished racing driver and the owner of a Gipsy Moth, which he piloted himself. His autobiography, ''I Did It My Way'', was published in 1970, a year after his death. Life and career Born in Smith Square, Westminster, London, England, to Joseph and Susan Cotton, Cotton was a choirboy and started his musical career as a drummer. He enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers by falsifying his age and saw service in the First World War in Malta and Egypt before landing at Gallipoli in the middle of an artillery barrage. He was recommended for a commi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Payne (bandleader)
John Wesley Vivian Payne (22 August 1899 – 4 December 1969) was a British bandleader who established his reputation during the British dance band era of the 1930s. Early life and career Payne was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, the only son of a music publisher's warehouse manager. While serving in the Royal Flying Corps, he played the piano in amateur dance bands. After the RFC became the Royal Air Force towards the end of World War I, Payne led dance bands for the troops. Prior to joining the Royal Air Force, he was part of "The Allies" concert party. This voluntary group performed to wounded soldiers convalescing around Birmingham. He played with visiting American jazz bands at the Birmingham Palais during the early 1920s, including the Southern Rag-a-Jazz Orchestra in 1922, before moving to London in 1925. He played in a ten-piece band which became the house band at London's Hotel Cecil in 1925. This ensemble regularly performed on the BBC in the latter ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Noble (musician)
Raymond Stanley Noble (17 December 1903 – 3 April 1978) was an English jazz and big band musician, who was a bandleader, composer and arranger, as well as a radio host, television and film comedian and actor; he also performed in the United States. He is best known for his signature tune, " The Very Thought of You" and "Cherokee". Noble wrote both lyrics and music for many popular songs during the British dance band era, known as the "Golden Age of British music", notably for his longtime friend and associate Al Bowlly. His most iconic musical numbers included songs such as " Love Is the Sweetest Thing", "Cherokee", " The Touch of Your Lips", " I Hadn't Anyone Till You", Goodnight, Sweetheart, What More Can I Ask?, and The Very Thought of You. Noble played a radio comedian opposite American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's stage act of Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy, and American comedy duo Burns and Allen, later transferring these roles from radio to TV and popular fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Loss
Joshua Alexander "Joe" Loss (22 June 1909 – 6 June 1990) was a British dance band leader and musician who founded his own eponymous orchestra. Life Loss was born in Spitalfields, London, the youngest of four children. His parents, Israel and Ada Loss, were Russian Jews and first cousins. His father was a cabinet-maker who had an office furnishing business. Loss attended the Jews' Free School, Trinity College of Music and the London College of Music (now part of the University of West London). He started violin lessons at the age of seven and later played violin at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool and also with Oscar Rabin. Loss started band leading in the early 1930s, working at the Astoria Ballroom and soon breaking into variety at the Kit-Cat Club. In 1934, he topped the bill at the Holborn Empire but in the same year moved back to the Astoria Ballroom where he led a twelve piece band. In 1935, Vera Lynn appeared with the Joe Loss Orchestra in her first radio broadc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Lipton
Sydney John Lipton (14 December 1905 – 19 July 1995) was a British dance band leader, popular from the 1930s to the 1960s when he led "one of the most polished of the British Dance Bands." Life and career Born in London, he learned the violin as a child, and was considering finishing his studies with Albert Sammons when an injury to his hand forced a change of plan. He turned to lighter music by joining cinema orchestras providing the accompaniment to silent movies. When living in Edinburgh in the early 1920s he began playing in the band led by Murray Hedges, before joining the Billy Cotton Band in 1925 and making his first recordings. He also recorded with Ambrose (bandleader), Ambrose's orchestra in the mid-1920s. He left Cotton to form his own dance band in 1931, and the following year became the resident bandleader at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. His band started recording in 1932, first for Zonophone Records, Zonophone and then Decca Records, Decca, and ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Kyte
Sydney Bernard Kyte (born Solomon Barnett Chyte; 1 June 1896 – 29 July 1981) was a British dance band leader and violinist who became known in the 1930s, when he led the resident band at The Piccadilly Hotel in London's West End.Principal Probate Registry; London, England; ''Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England''General Register Office. ''England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes''. London, England: General Register Office. Kyte made numerous recordings, and remained active into the 1950s. Early life Kyte, who was Jewish, was born in Whitechapel, east London, in 1896. As a 13-year old boy, he took part in a performance of classical music at the Salle Érard which was reviewed in ''The Daily Telegraph''. The newspaper wrote that his solo performance "showed promise". Kyte studied at the Royal Academy of Music, winning a scholarship at the age of 15, and was later an associate of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Kunz
Charles Leonard Kunz (August 18, 1896 – March 16, 1958) was an American-born pianist and band leader who worked in Great Britain during the British dance band era, eventually becoming a well-known solo pianist. Life and career Kunz was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States, the only son of Margaret T. (Wehr) and Leonard Kunz, a master baker who played the French horn. He made his debut aged six and made his first appearance as a prodigy aged seven. During World War I he led his own resident band, while working in a munitions factory. He came to the United Kingdom in 1922 as a pianist in a small dance band. He was to remain there until his death from a heart attack in 1958. He is buried in Streatham Vale Cemetery. He was such a distinctive and popular pianist that he abandoned his orchestra to concentrate on his piano playing, both at music hall venues and on the BBC. Two of Britain's most famous female vocalists were with his orchestra in the 1930s: Vera Lynn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Jackson (British Radio)
Jack Jackson (20 February 1906 – 15 January 1978) was an English trumpeter and bandleader popular during the British dance band era, and who later became a highly influential radio disc jockey. The BBC's nickname "Auntie" is often credited to Jackson. Early life and career Jackson was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, the son of a brass band player and conductor, and began playing cornet at the age of 11, before playing violin and cello in dance bands. He learnt to play trumpet and worked in swing bands in circuses, revues, ballrooms and ocean liners. In 1926, Bert Ralton brought his band to England, and Jackson joined them for a three-month tour of southern Africa, starting at Cape Town in October. In January 1927, they were in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); they played in Salisbury (Harare) then stayed on for a hunting picnic party. However, Bert Ralton was shot in the leg and died the next day. Fame Jackson joined Jack Hylton's band in 1927, staying until 1930 as the orche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton (born John Greenhalgh Hilton; 2 July 1892 – 29 January 1965) was an English pianist, composer, band leader and impresario. Hylton rose to prominence during the British dance band era, being referred as the "British King of Jazz" and "The Ambassador of British Dance Music" by the musical press, not only because of his popularity which extended throughout the world, but also for his use of unusually large ensembles for the time and his polished arrangements. He mostly retired from the music industry after 1940, becoming a successful theatrical businessman until his death. Early life and career He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in Great Lever near Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Hylton learned piano to accompany him on the stage. Hylton later sang to the customers when his father bought a pub (The Round Croft) in nearby Little Lever, becoming known as the "Singing M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Hall (bandleader)
Henry Robert Hall, CBE (2 May 1898 – 28 October 1989) was an English bandleader who performed regularly on BBC Radio during the British dance band era of the 1920s and 1930s, through to the 1960s. Early life and career Henry Hall was born in Peckham, South London, England. He won a scholarship to Trinity College of Music where he studied trumpet, piano, harmony and counterpoint. His first job was as a copyist at the head office of the Salvation Army for which he wrote several marches. During World War I, Hall served with the Royal Field Artillery, and played trumpet and piano in the regimental band. Hall's musical career was slow to start but eventually he was engaged by the London Midland and Scottish Railway to take charge of music throughout their then large chain of hotels, including Gleneagles Hotel, where he had previously led the band. Hall describes in his autobiography, ''Here's to the Next Time'', that in October 1923 he met a young woman, Margery Harker, while t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nat Gonella
Nathaniel Charles Gonella (7 March 1908 – 6 August 1998) was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist, and mellophone, mellophonist. He founded the big band The Georgians (Nat Gonella), The Georgians, during the British dance band era. Early life and career Gonella was born in Islington, North London, where he attended St Mary's Guardian School, an institution for underprivileged children, where he started playing cornet. After a short spell as a furrier's apprentice, his professional career began in 1924 when he joined Archie Pitt's Busby Boy's Band, a small pit orchestra and touring review band. During his four years with the band, he discovered the music of Louis Armstrong and dixieland jazz. He transcribed Armstrong's solos and learned them by heart. Beginning in 1928, Gonella spent a year in Bob Bryden's Louisville Band before working with Archie Alexander and Billy Cotton. Cotton's band allowed him to record his first solos and to explore scat singing. The 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
