Well, well, Phantom Dancers, another most delightful show of live swing and jazz from 1920s-60s radio & TV for you this Tuesday.
There’s a set of swing and bop small groups from the 1940s & 50s, a set of dance music from the late 20s and early 30s, a set of swing from the 1940s and lots, lots more
And for your Video of the Week, Alistair Cooke talks to Les Paul and Mary Ford on the CBS TV show ‘Omnibus’, 23 Oct 1953, about their music and multitracking. Les & Mary demonstrate. Enjoy!
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
Music In The Moonlight (theme) + Say You Are Teasing Me
Jimmy Grier Orchestra (voc) Gogo Delys
Cocoanut Grove
TRANSCO
Radio Transcription
Los Angeles
1933
Quel Motivetto Che Mi Piace Tanto
Orchestra Barzizza (voc) Trio
Comm Rec
Rome
c 1928
Yellow Dog Blues
Coot Grant (voc)
‘This Is Jazz’
WOR MBS NY
3 May 1947
Carnegie Leap
Eddie Condon Ensemble
‘Eddie Condon Jazz Concert’
Ritz Theatre
WJZ Blue NY
10 Feb 1945
Set 2
Dark Eyes
Harry Sosnick and the Savings Bonds Orchestra
‘Guest Star’
New York
1948
Let’s Go Home
Charlie Spivak Orchestra
Palladium Ballroom
KNX CBS LA
1948
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Woody Herman Orchestra
Palladium Ballroom
KNX CBS LA
17 Oct 1944
Flight Of The Bumble Bee + Close (Rhythm & Romance by Ella Fitzgerald (voc) Chick Webb Orch.
‘Dick Hallsy’ Orchestra
‘Rhythm & Romance’
WJSV CBS
Washington DC
21 Sep 1939
Set 3
Gone With What Wind
Benny Goodman Sextet with Charlie Christian
Cocoanut Grove
Ambassador Hotel
KFI NBC Red LA
6 Apr 1940
Andyology
John Kirby Sextet
‘One Night Stand’
Aquarium Restaurant NY
AFRS Re-broadcast
18 Jul 1944
Sometimes I’m Happy
Archie Bleyer Group
‘Arthur Godfrey Show’
CBS
1950s
Ornithology + 52nd Street Theme
Charlie Parker Quintet
‘Symphony Sid Show’
WCOP Boston
1954
Set 4
Right About Face
Benny Goodman Orchestra (voc) Helen Ward
‘Let’s Dance’
WEAF NBC Red NY
27 Apr 1935
Wabash Blues
Johnny Green Orchestra
‘Fitch Bandwagon’
WEAF NBC Red NY
9 Apr 1939
A Boy Named Lem
Larry Clinton Orchestra (voc) Mary Dugan
Coconut Grove
Park Central Hotel
WEAF NBC Red NY
7 Jul 1939
I’ll Remember April
Gay Claridge Orchestra
‘One Night Stand’
Chez Paree
Chicago
AFRS Re-broadcast
7 Aug 1944
Set 5
Second Balcony Jump
Billy Eckstine Orchestra
‘Rhythm In A Riff’
Film Soundtrack
mid-1946
Beulah’s Boogie
Lionel Hampton Orchestra
Casa Manana
Culver City Ca
KFI NBC LA
20 Jul 1947
Theme + Mr Ghost Goes To Town
Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
WEAF NBC Red NY
31 Jan 1937
Poor Little Rich Girl
Chick Webb Orchestra
Southland Cafe
WNAC NBC Boston
20 Feb 1940
Set 6
Buds Won’t Bud
Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
Comm Rec
New York
10 Apr 1940
I Remember You
Harry James Orchestra (voc) Helen Forrest
‘Chesterfield Show’
WABC CBS NY
30 Dec 1942
Stormy Weather
Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra
‘Uncle Sam Presents’
NBC
Oct 1943
Medley: Sleepy Time Gal / Cuddle Up A Little Closer / Ragtime Cowboy Joe / I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter + Close (So Long For Now)
Eddy Howard orchestra (voc) Eddy Howard
Aragon Ballroom
Mutual Chicago
5 Dec 1945
Set 7
Sloppy Water Blues
Fats Waller (pipe organ)
Comm Rec
Camden NJ
14 Jan 1927
Can’t We Be Friends + Moanin’ Low
Dixie Two-Steppers
Radio Transcription
Chicago
1929
Melody In F
Red Nichols ARC-Brunswick Studio Band
‘Devoe and Reynolds Program’
New York
30 Nov 1931
One Two Button Your Shoe
Red Nichols Orchestra (voc) Songcopators
Radio Transcription
World Broadcasting System
New York
30 Nov 1936
On this week’s show, you’ll hear a rare radio broadcast from Shep Fields’ New Music (including early electric guitar) and a broadcast excerpt from Glen Island Casino by Bob Strong. There’s also a couple of sets of jazz and dance from 1920s-30s radio for your listening and dancing pleasure. Full play list below.
And for your Phantom Dancer Video of the Week, from 1929, rap from the High Hatted Tragedian of Jazz, Ted Lewis.
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
The Phantom Dancer playlist for Tuesday 7 May 2013 is posted for you below. You can hear the show on 2SER 107.3 and online (see the online address at the top of the play list). Tune in for live 1930s – 60s swing and jazz radio by Duke Ellington, Pee Wee Erwin, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Anita O’Day and more. Enjoy!
And now for your Phantom Dancer Video of the Week, two Phantom Dancer regulars in a soundie of CBS’ Saturday Night Swing Club. Together on the sound stage, the house swing band lead by Leith Stevens and Eddie Condon’s Dixieland group. But who is the singer? Is it Kay Thompson, Bea Wain…?
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
Do come to the Django Bar of the Camelot Lounge on Thursday 23 May for a night of toe-tappin’ 20′s croonin’ with Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters. With Geoff Power trumpet and sousaphone and Grahame Conlon tenor banjo. I’ll be singing. Please spread the word. Doors open at 6pm. Music at 8pm. Pizzas are the best in Sydney. Just whipped up a poster…
Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters in the Django Bar
The Django Bar is on the corner of Marrickville Road and Railway Parade opposite Sydenham Station
The very first 2 hour Phantom Dancer (and Program 50 for national listeners) starts this week.
I started The Phantom Dancer on 107.3 2SER Sydney way back in December 1985.
I had already been doing a 15 minute segment of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV within another program called Cityscope since Dec 1984. The segment was called, Hot House, after the song.
Then in December 1985 I was asked to fill in for a vacated time slot. The previous show had been called Jazz Direction Out and I unhappily inherited the name.
However, the show hit the right note with listeners. I even had a few live shows, bring musicians into the studio like James Morrison, John Morrison, Ian Date, Andrew Speight, Ted Heath Goes Latin (the band) and an outside recording of Mic Conway and his Hiccups Orchestra.
And the first request came in, handwritten in blue biro, posted from a motel in Blakehurst on a scrap of pad paper.
The next name for the show after a schedule reshuffle was even worse than Jazz Direction Out. I didn’t choose it. My proposed title, ‘Hot Shit!’, was not accepted (and was at that time illegal). Because the show was in a late lunchtime slot, it got called ‘Swing Sandwich’. Cringe.
In 1989 there was yet another radio schedule reshuffle and the show was moved to 11:30pm – 1am Sunday night – Monday mornings. I called it ‘Round About Midnight’, after the song. Listenership bloomed. And I did a few ‘wacky’ things like a ‘Honeysuckle Rose-a-thon’ and a live mix of women in jazz with excerpts from an episode of Lost In Space. Like, far out, daddy-o!’.
Sunday nights used to start at 6pm for me at 2SER, because that’s when I’d also record, then dub edit, a weekly half-hour quiz show that had a 2 year run on 2SER called, ‘Wordsports’, a word game devised by performance poet Komninos and which I also ran at the Harold Park Hotel.
I also won the first of two BASF Hi Fi Certificates Of Merit for a soundscape called ‘Registered Clubs Of NSW A Musical Legacy,’ and began working in radio professionally.
In 1991 The Phantom Dancer won a BASF Hi Fi Certficate Of Merit for its special, ’42 Years Of TV’, demonstrating that TV had been around much longer than the 25 years the Australian commercial networks had been crowing about that year.
Another reshuffle saw the show put back to a weekday afternoon at 1pm. This, too, was considered a dead spot like late Sunday night, but contrary to expectations, listenership grew some more. In this ‘carnation, I called the show ‘The One O’Clock Jump’.
Another reshuffle shunted the show in 1994 to another then graveyard slot of 10:30am Tuesday morning. But the show did well. And I changed the name to The Phantom Dancer.
Introduced in 1994, The Phantom Dancer was the first 2SER show with a digitally edited theme – and that’s the show theme that’s still in use.
On 8 May 1995, The Phantom Dancer, was the first 2SER show (and possibly one of the first Sydney radio shows) to be wholly digitally produced and edited. The one hour special commemorated the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe. And it went to air on CD. The hard-to-get CD blank cost me around $30.
In 1997, The Phantom Dancer almost went off-air due to a ‘music producer’ who nevertheless still thought enough of the show to claim in a prestigious jazz dictionary (without telling me) that he ‘produced’ the show. He went on to an academic career.
The Phantom Dancer did have its one only ever producer in 1999. Jo White helped refocus the show and as a result, the show became even more popular in the 2000s and 2010s.
In April 2007, a story on The Phantom Dancer, was the feature article in a Sydney Morning Herald Metro lift out.
In November 2007, The Phantom Dancer, won Best Music Show in the annual national CBAA Radio Awards.
In 2008, the show began to be repeated 6am Sunday mornings.
Then in 2010, the repeat program was moved to 6pm Saturday evenings.
In 2011 I was very honoured to receive a much coveted 2SER volunteers award.
In 2012, The Phantom Dancer, went national. It’s now heard on over 30 radio stations of the Community Radio Network across Australia. It has a particularly strong listenership on the popular ArtsoundFM in Canberra.
And now, as of 30 April 2013, The Phantom Dancer has grown to be two hours long! And I still work professionally in radio – as a voice over artist with RGM Voices (here’s my voicereel) – as well as volunteer.
I suppose that makes me one of the many radio professionals 2SER has created over the years.
Many people have supported and nurtured the Phantom Dancer since 1985 when hair was long, black pants, black coats and black pointy shoes were de rigueur, and swing was a dirty word. The list of names is too long to print here. Most important are the many 2SER Phantom Dancer subscribers who keep Australia’s only live 1920s-60s radio swing & jazz show, and 2SER, on air with their subscriptions and donations. 2SER is a community supported station. Thank you.
Hence, this week’s Phantom Dancer Video of the Week. It’s a mix of 2SER 1st Birthday Idents by Sydney commercial radio personalities for the very first subscriber drive in 1980. Long time 2SER listeners, is that the voice of John Cochrane giving George Donikian some feedback after his first ID read? Enjoy…
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
After six years of being heard twice a week on 2SER, the show will now be heard just once weekly – every Tuesday at the same time since the late 1990s – 12 noon.
But, instead of being a 90 minute show on Tuesday, it’ll be 2 hours from next week, 12 noon – 2pm
And, sometime this year, and I don’t know when as yet, you’ll be able to hear The Phantom dancer any time you want on the 2SER website
And now for this week’s Phantom Dancer Video of the Week, Vitaphone’s latest news on Hollywood from 1934. Enjoy!
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
The Hudson-AMC Car Club of Australia is dedicated to the preservation of cars built by the Hudson, Nash and American Motors Corporation.
Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters are Sydney’s 1920s Speakeasy and 1930s Swing Trio – Sextet. We feature Sydney’s only authentic 1920s – 1930s singer, Greg Poppleton, and world-touring vintage swing jazz musicians.
The Hudson-AMC Car Club and Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters were at the annual Fairfield Museum Fair. Thank you, Tony, for the pictures…
Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters around the 1929 Essex Roadster. In the Bakelite Broadcasters, singer Greg Poppleton seated with megaphone, Geoff Power big silver sousaphone and trumpet, Paul Baker banjo, Adam Barnard drums and washboard
Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters – Sydney’s 1920s Speakeasy Trio – Sextet
The 1929 Essex Roadster belonging to the Hudson-AMC Club of Australia
Of course this week’s show has a version of ‘Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead’
But we’re a cut above the rest
We’ll be playing the live Glenn Miller swing version with Marion Hutton singing over WEAF New York in 1939. Make sure you tune in. What makes this version special? Marion obviously doesn’t think much of the song!
And since the famous song is from The Wizard Of Oz, this week’s Video Of The Week is a Command Performance USA film clip of Oz star, Judy Garland, singing the most famous song from the film, ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’. And Bob Hope’s in there, too. Enjoy!
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
On this week’s Phantom Dancer we highlight Benny Goodman’s swing band, swing sextet and his bop group in three different radio broadcasts. See the play list below
And the Video of the Week: a German swing song (Hmm Hmm) by the great Czech swing band and singers, R.A. Dvorsky and the Allan Sisters recorded in 1941. Enjoy!
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
The latest independent release by Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters is pure 1920s in flavour and available on Bandcamp
With the same maverick spirit that produced ‘The Phantom Dancer’ (the sold-out first CD and the award-winning, national community radio show), ‘Doin’ The Charleston’, is the long-awaited second album from Greg Poppleton & The Bakelite Broadcasters
Recorded live-in-studio in just 5 hours, ‘Doin’ The Charleston’, is the first document of Greg Poppleton & The Bakelite Broadcasters as a purely Roaring 20s Speakeasy 5-piece. There are more layers, more stylistic tangents than before, with a DNA recovered from the very bones of smoking, catchy, 1920s speakeasy pop. At the forefront is the undeniably authentic and unique Roaring 20s vocal style of Greg Poppleton
A pre-release spin of ‘Doin The Charleston’ at the 2012 Sydney Fringe Festival had swing dancers crowding the dance floor
Greg Poppleton is very proud of the results, “For me, ‘Doin’ The Charleston’, is all about the songs, how they line up, intertwine, switch partners and promenade home”
Greg has expanded his 3.5 octave sonic palette with a long list of influences to forge his own sound. Heir to a tradition of finely-crafted, dramatic, confessional music that explores the ups and downs of life and love with a keenly-observed honesty that touches all who hear, Greg Poppleton is backed by what really is an all-star speakeasy band of world-touring jazz musicians…
Paul Furniss weaves shimmering, infectious, toe-tapping anthems using soprano, alto, tenor saxophones and clarinet. Al Davey wails, growls and caresses on trumpet and trombone. He brings together the brightest elements and darkest undertones in a unique blend of unshackled two-beat. Grahame Conlon’s banjo demands attention weaving audacious fat chords around the pulsing, minimalist sousaphone loops of Rod Herbert and ARIA nominee Geoff Power and the chemically infused drum beats and bootleg hooch washboard laid down by Bell band legend, Lawrie Thompson
The quintet makes lullabies, lush dreamy vintage pop, and the powerful, bone-rattling immediacy of hot, danceable jazz. Vocal hooks are inescapable, lush productions uncannily authentic to the Roaring 20s, as sophisticated and pristine as anything on a 78 disc. ‘Doin’ The Charleston’s’ 14 tracks (including a bonus alternate take on the soaring St James Infirmary) trace a unique aesthetic universe that is fully-crafted and fully-realised, deftly walking the lines between joyous exhilaration and otherworldly rapture, pleasure-centre pop and total self-possession
It has been described as the Temperance Seven meets’ Don Byron’s Bug Music
Greg Poppleton & The Bakelite Broadcasters’ is a universe that invites exploration and demands revisiting. ‘Doin’ The Charleston’ is a journey from darkness to light, from anger to love, from chaos to order. Buy at Bandcamp, CD Baby and bakelitejazz.com
Greg Poppleton and the Bakelite Broadcasters Trio for a 30th Birthday at the ArtHouse
‘Doin’ The Charleston’ has been featured by Bob Rogers in a one hour special on the album over 2CH and the Macquarie Network, Sydney. It has also been CD of the Week on ArtSoundFM Canberra and Jazz Album of the Week on 5MBS Adelaide
Former jazz critic for The Australian newspaper, Kevin Jones, wrote about ‘Doin The Charleston’…
“Even in the 21st century, the music of the so-called jazz age (the Roaring Twenties) still holds a fascination for many, judging by the number of bands which play this style of music world-wide. The Bakelite Broadcasters, led by vocalist Greg Poppleton, keeps the 1920s’ flag flying in Sydney as this enjoyable disc, the second by the group, shows.
They are mostly pre-Swing Era songs written before Benny Goodman launched jazz’s most popular years at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935 ranging from Paul Dresser’s My Gal Sal (1907) to Fats Wallers’ I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Lettter (1935) and include The Charleston (1923) and Sweet Lorraine and Button Up Your Overcoat (both written in 1928)
Listening to the 1929 recording by the Mound City Blue Blowers of I Ain’t Got Nobody and My Gal Sal shows the Broadcasters have captured the basic sound. Not surprising when you consider the group includes musicians of the calibre of Paul Furniss (reeds) Al Davey (trumpet and trombone) and Lawrie Thompson (drums and washboard) who show how well they have mastered the style. Grahame Conlon (tenor banjo) makes a mockery of those many banjo jokes with his rollicking solo on The Road To Gundagai. As for the leader, some may find his voice a little affected at times but he has captured that decade’s vocal style to perfection especially on Falling in Love Again sung in both English and German. As enjoyable as they are to listen to The Bakelite Broadcasters must be even better live.”
Bakelite Band Website
Official website of Greg Poppleton & Bakelite Jazz – Sydney’s only 1920s -1930s Singer & duo to sextet Band
Bakelite Jazz CD
Hear & Buy The Phantom Dancer: 14 Swinging Songs from 1926 – 1939 by Greg Poppleton & his Bakelite Dance Band at CD Baby
Band YouTube Channel
Latest Greg Poppleton & Bakelite Jazz Clips. Plus lots of Vintage YouTube Weirdness
MySpace
Greg Poppleton & Bakelite Jazz songs from our Phantom Dancer CD and recent live recordings
Charleston Dance Teacher
Kim-lin is a Charleston dance teacher and 1920s enthusiast. She teaches a regular class in Reading, UK, on Thursday nights, and also run workshops before tea dances, vintage club nights, dinner dances, and at festivals and events