|
Savoy Orpheans
The Savoy Orpheans is a British dance band currently led by Alex Mendham. They were resident at the Savoy Hotel, London. The band was formed by Debroy Somers, an ex-army bandmaster, in 1923. Both the Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band were under the management of William de Mornys. The Orpheans were later led by the violinist Cyril Ramon Newton, and by the pianist Carroll Gibbons.Rust, Brian, "The Savoy Orpheans at the Savoy Hotel, London": sleeve notes to disc 1 of World Record Club LP set SH165/6, issued 1971 On 15 June 1925, Somers conducted the Orpheans in the first British performance of George Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue'', alongside the Savoy Havana Band and Gershwin himself on piano. The performance was broadcast live by the BBC. The owner of the Savoy Hotel, Rupert D'Oyly Carte, Rupert D'Oyly, called the original Orpheans and their colleagues, "probably the best-known bands in Europe." Among their popular songs was "Let's All Go to Mary's House" from 1925. D'Oyly Carte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Alex Mendham
Alex Mendham (born 13 September 1989) is a British bandleader, singer, and saxophonist known for reviving the music and glamour of the Jazz Age. He is the founder and leader of Alex Mendham & His Orchestra, a transatlantic ensemble recognised for its authentic recreations of 1920s and 1930s dance band repertoire. Through historically faithful arrangements, period instruments, and a meticulous visual style, Mendham brings the golden age of popular music to contemporary audiences. Mendham formed the orchestra in 2010. At the age of 23, he became the youngest bandleader in history to secure a residency at London’s Savoy Hotel, where his ensemble performed for six years. His orchestra has since performed at prestigious venues including Claridge’s, The Ritz, Highclere Castle, and Hearst Castle. He has also led private performances for high-profile clients, including a birthday celebration for King Charles III. He is the only bandleader to have performed with an orchestra aboar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as '' chef de cuisine''; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous, and other entertainers (who were also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debroy Somers
Debroy Somers (born William Henry Somers; 11 April 1890,1939 England and Wales Register – 27 May 1952) was a British dance band leader. Somers was born in Dublin, Ireland. He had trained as a musician at the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Chelsea, 1900-1905 where he was entered by his mother Clara (a nurse) after the death of his father William, Sergeant Drummer Gloucestershire Regiment, on St. Helena after 25 years service. He made the rank of colour corporal. He continued his studies in Dublin under Signor Michele Esposito at The Royal Irish Academy of Music in 1904. At the age of 15 he joined the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment as a boy bandsman before retiring in 1913. He rejoined his old regiment in 1916 retiring as a sergeant musician in 1918; being demobilised in Wiltshire.British Army WWI Service Records, 1914-1920 His period of celebrity stretched from the 1920s to the 1940s. He appeared in numerous films, including '' Second Choice'', ''Stars on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savoy Havana Band
The Savoy Havana Band was a British dance band of the 1920s. It was resident at the Savoy Hotel, London, between 1921 and 1927. The band made their first live outside broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation from the Savoy Hotel on 3 October, 1923.'Stomping at the Savoy' in ''Storyville'' No. 30, August/September 1970, p. 222 History The band was formed by the American saxophonist Bert Ralton (''aka'' Bert Louis Ralton; ''né'' Albert Lewis Ralton; ca. 1885–1927) in 1921. Originally there were six players including Ralton. It was later increased to ten players. From 1924 it was led by the English violinist Reginald Batten. Both the Savoy Havana Band and their colleagues the |
Carroll Gibbons
Carroll Richard Gibbons (January 4, 1903 – May 10, 1954) was an American-born pianist, bandleader and popular composer who made his career primarily in England during the British dance band era. Early life and career Gibbons was born and raised in Clinton, Massachusetts, United States, one of three children of Peter and Mary Gibbons. In his late teens he travelled to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1924, he returned to London as a relief pianist with the Boston Orchestra for an engagement at the Savoy Hotel in the Strand. He liked Britain so much that he settled there, and after becoming pianist with the Sylvians, featuring members of the Savoy Orpheans, he later became the co-leader (with Howie Jacobs) of the Orpheans, the resident band at the Savoy Hotel until their contract ended in 1927, when they embarked on a tour of Germany. On his return, he became Director of Light Music at His Master's Voice, and the bandleader of the New MayFair Orchestra, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Gershwin
George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular music, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swanee (song), Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the orchestral compositions ''Rhapsody in Blue'' (1924) and ''An American in Paris'' (1928), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930) and the opera ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935), which included the hit "Summertime (George Gershwin song), Summertime". His ''Of Thee I Sing'' (1931) was the first musical theater, musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris, intending to study with Nadia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhapsody In Blue
''Rhapsody in Blue'' is a 1924 musical composition for solo piano and jazz band by George Gershwin. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects and premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Building (42nd Street), Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman's band performed the Rhapsody (music), rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano. Whiteman's arranger Ferde Grofé orchestrated the rhapsody several times, including the 1924 original scoring, the 1926 pit orchestra scoring, and the 1942 symphony orchestra, symphonic scoring. The rhapsody is one of Gershwin's most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin's piece inaugurated a new era in America's musical history, established his reputation as an eminent composer and became one of the most popular of all concert works. In the ''American Heritage (magazine), American He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte (; 3 November 1876 – 12 September 1948) was an English hotelier, theatre owner and impresario, best known as proprietor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from 1913 to 1948. Son of the impresario and hotelier Richard D'Oyly Carte, Rupert inherited the family businesses from his stepmother Helen Carte, Helen. After serving in the First World War, he took steps to revitalise the opera company, which had not appeared in central London since 1909, hiring new designers and conductors to present fresh productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas in seasons in the West End theatre, West End. The new productions generally retained the original text and music of the operas. Carte launched international and provincial tours, as well as the London seasons, and he released the first complete recordings of the operas. He also rebuilt the half-century-old Savoy Theatre in 1929, opening the house with a season of Gilbert and Sullivan. As an hotelier, Cart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Let's All Go To Mary's House
The Savoy Orpheans is a British dance band currently led by Alex Mendham. They were resident at the Savoy Hotel, London. The band was formed by Debroy Somers, an ex-army bandmaster, in 1923. Both the Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band were under the management of William de Mornys. The Orpheans were later led by the violinist Cyril Ramon Newton, and by the pianist Carroll Gibbons.Rust, Brian, "The Savoy Orpheans at the Savoy Hotel, London": sleeve notes to disc 1 of World Record Club LP set SH165/6, issued 1971 On 15 June 1925, Somers conducted the Orpheans in the first British performance of George Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue'', alongside the Savoy Havana Band and Gershwin himself on piano. The performance was broadcast live by the BBC. The owner of the Savoy Hotel, Rupert D'Oyly, called the original Orpheans and their colleagues, "probably the best-known bands in Europe." Among their popular songs was " Let's All Go to Mary's House" from 1925. D'Oyly Carte's judgment was ech ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Rust
Brian Arthur Lovell Rust (19 March 1922 – 5 January 2011) was an English jazz discographer. Career Rust was born in 1922 in Golders Green, then part of the Municipal Borough of Hendon in Middlesex. He collected records from the age of five, but his most significant purchase was aged 14, when he acquired a copy of "Ostrich Walk" by the Original Dixieland Jass Band. After leaving school, Rust became a bank clerk. During the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector, and worked as an auxiliary fire officer. After the war, he returned to being a bank clerk. He worked in the BBC's record library from 1945 to 1960, and supervised broadcasting selections. He contributed to '' The Gramophone'' magazine from 1948 to 1970, and wrote freelance from 1960, including liner notes for record releases. During the early 1960s, he was living in Hatch End, Middlesex. Rust hosted the ''Mardi Gras'' radio programme on Capital Radio from 1973 to 1984, in which he played only 78s; his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was founded on April 17, 1924, and has been owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon (company), Amazon since 2022. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well-known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious filmmaking company, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards. MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959, was bracketed by two productions of ''Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
