2SER Radiothon Wk 1 Honeysuckle Rose – Phantom Dancer 11 Oct 2022

2SER Radiothon comes by but 2 weeks a year. It’s your chance to win great prizes when you pledge your support to this community radio station. 2SER has been bringing you The Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton since 1985. This week’s show is a Honeysuckle Rose-a-thon – all from vinyl 1930s-60s radio transcriptions.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 11 October) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

HONEYSUCKLE ROSE

Honeysuckle Rose is a 1929 song composed by Fats Waller with lyrics by Andy Razaf -written in Razaf’s home in Asbury New Jersey. It was introduced in the 1929 Off-Broadway revue “Load of Coal” at Connie’s Inn as a soft-shoe dance number.

Jazz is all about improvisation. And on this week’s Phantom Dancer, while you’re subscribing to 2SER, I’ll be playing as many versions of Honeysuckle Rose as I can from 1930s-60s radio

2SER RADIOTHON

2SER IS BRINGING BACK THE FAMILY FOR RADIOTHON 2022. SUBSCRIBE NOW

After years of COVID restrictions, 2SER is getting back into the studios for radiothon – our biggest revenue raiser for the year – and we’re getting the family together in person!

From Oct 7 to 21 the station takes a break from regular programming to celebrate everything that makes 2SER great! The music, the talks and, most importantly, the 2SER family! Under the theme of We Are Family, we’ll be asking everyone to become financial subscribers or to donate.

2SER Breakfast presenter, Danny Chifley, said ”Subscribers and donors are so important for the station – they help us maintain our independence and provide us with some stability in an ever-shifting cultural and economic environment”

“When sponsorship of events abruptly evaporated at the start of the pandemic, our subscribers helped us stay afloat. When lightning struck our antenna three years ago, our donors got us right back on air”, said Danny. “So we love our family and we’re really excited to be reconnecting again”

Anyone who subscribes during radiothon goes into the draw for incredible prizes including a vintage turntable and record voucher from Egg Records, Newtown or a Complete Studio Kit from RØDE that contains everything you need to make professional, studio-quality recordings at home. There’s also small business subscriber prizes including an Atomic Brewery Dinner and Drinks for 10 people.

Between 7 and 21 October call 9514 9500 or get online at 2ser.com and join the family!

11 OCTOBER PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney LISTEN ONLINESUBSCRIBE Community Radio Network Show CRN #565
107.3 2SER Tuesday 11 October 2022 12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm National Program 5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am 3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am 4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am 2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am 2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am 2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am 2YYY Young Monday 3 – 4am 3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm 7MID Oatlands Monday 6 -7pm 6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Tuesday 12am – 1am 2SEA Eden Tuesday 6 – 7pm 2MCE Bathurst Wednesday 9 – 10am 2RDJ Burwood Wednesday 12 – 1pm 1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am 2RRR Ryde Friday 11am -12 noon 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm Denmark FM (West Australia) Saturdays 10 – 11am Repeat: Wednesdays 10 – 11pm 7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am 3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
Set 1	Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose	Benny Goodman Orchestra	‘Camel Caravan’ WABC CBS NYC 24 May 1938
Honeysuckle Rose	Benny Goodman Orchestra	‘Camel Caravan’ WABC CBS NYC 4 Apr 1939
Honeysuckle Rose	Benny Goodman Quartet	‘Camel Caravan’ WABC CBS NYC 18 Jan 1938
Honeysuckle Rose	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Aircheck 9 Oct 1943
Set 2	Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose	Benny Goodman Quintet (voc) Kay Starr	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood Jan 1948
Honeysuckle Rose	Benny Goodman Orchestra	‘Let’s Dance’ WEAF NBC Red NYC 5 Jan 1935
Honeysuckle Rose	Bunny Berrigan, Bud Freeman, teddy Wilson, Joe Marsala, Stan King	‘A Demonstration of a Modern Form of Music’ Aircheck 12 Mar 1936
Set 3	Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose	Duke Ellington Orchestra	Apollo Theatre WJZ ABC NY 30 Jun 1945
Honeysuckle Rose	Henry Busse Orchestra (voc) Lenny Cohn	Radio Transcription 1935
Honeysuckle Rose	Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (voc) Lena Horne	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood 1944
Honeysuckle Rose	Harry James Orchestra (g) Allen Reuss	Aircheck 1943
Set 4	Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose	Harry James Octet	Aircheck 1950
Honeysuckle Rose	Joe Haymes Orchestra	Grill Room Hotel McAlpen WABC CBS NYC 29 Jan 1935
Honeysuckle Rose	Jay McShann Orchestra	KFBI Witchita Falls, Kansas 2 Dec 1940
Honeysuckle Rose	Fats Waller	Aircheck 1930s
Set 5	Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose	Fats Waller	Aircheck 14 Oct 1938
Honeysuckle Rose	Leo Watson & John Kirby Sextet	‘Rudy Vallee Show’ WEAF NBC Red NYC 24 Mar 1939
Honeysuckle Rose	International Sweethearts of Rhythm	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood Feb 1945
Honeysuckle Rose	Louis Armstrong et al	‘Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street’ WJZ Blue NYC 16 Jan 1944.
Set 6	Honeysuckle Rose
Honeysuckle Rose	Django Reinhardt (g) ATC Rhythm	AFN Paris 26 Oct 1945
Honeysuckle Rose	Eddie Condon Group	‘Eddie Condon Jazz Concert’ WJZ Blue NYC 24 Feb 1945
Honeysuckle Rose	Django Reinhardt (g) ATC Rhythm with alto sax	‘Beaucoup de Music’ AFN Paris 1 Dec 1945
Honeysuckle Rose
Set 7	Honeysuckle Rose
Set 8	Honeysuckle Rose

Ted Fio Rito Cocoanut Grove 1934 – Phantom Dancer 13 September 2022

Ted Fio Rito, band leader, composer and pianist, under the radio pseudonym ‘Vincent Valsanti’, is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist in a 1934 Cocoanut Grove radio transcription.

Since I’ve been playing radio transcriptions made in 1934 of ‘Valsanti’ from the Cocoanut Grove Los Angeles over the past three weeks, here’s a little about the Ted Fio Rito / Valsanti / Cocoanut Grove story along with videos from the era.

The Phantom Dancer – your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV hosted by me, Greg Poppleton.

Enjoy a whole library of Phantom Dancer mixes online now at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/.

This show will be online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 13 September at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

 

COCOANUT GROVE

The Cocoanut Grove at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel was a lavishly appointed club – part of the massive 23-acre Ambassador resort, which also included four restaurants, a bowling alley, a billiard room, a shopping plaza, and even a movie theater – decorated in Moroccan style and featured full-sized palm trees reportedly salvaged from Rudolph Valentino’s film “The Sheik.” In addition to the decor, which also offered a night sky filled with stars (thanks to about 1000 small light bulbs), an elevated stage, and both dining and dancing room for several hundred patrons, customers came for the smooth musical entertainment provided by a series of dance orchestras and popular vocalists – many of whom would later go on to star careers in radio, recordings, and the film industry.

In the 1980 book, “Are the Stars Out Tonight?”, former Ambassador PR Director, Margaret Tante Burk, recalls the Grove’s opening night:

“…on the night of April 21, 1921… the new club officially opened its Moroccan style, gold leaf and etched palm tree doors… The Cocoanut Grove was aptly named, guests agreed as they were escorted by the maître de and captains down the wide plush grand staircase… Overhead, soaring about the room were cocoanut trees of papier mache, cocoanuts and palm fronds which had been rescued from the sandy beaches of Oxnard where they had served as atmosphere of the 1921 classic, The Sheik. Swinging from their branches were stuffed monkeys blinking at the revelers with their electrified amber eyes. Stars twinkled in the blue ceiling sky, and on the southernmost wall hung a full Hawaiian moon presiding over a painted landscape and splashing waterfall.”

Ray West Orchestra in 1930…

Due to the foresight of Abe Frank, the manager of both the hotel and the Grove, in the mid-1920s the Ambassador had been equipped with a small radio studio, allowing the music of the various orchestras to be broadcast and enjoyed well outside the confines of the nightclub. From the late 1920s well into the 1960s, live “remote” programs broadcast from the Cocoanut Grove were a popular feature of nighttime radio, allowing millions of people to enjoy the music they would otherwise be unable to afford to hear in person. These broadcasts, aired live nightly for two full hours, only increased the reputation of the Grove as “the place to be” when it came to top notch West Coast entertainment.

From the beginning, the Cocoanut Grove’s glamorous atmosphere attracted the top names in Hollywood for dining, dancing, and mingling. This celebrity connection was always well-publicized by the Ambassador and for a very good reason, too: tourists coming to Los Angeles for a vacation wanted to see the stars and there was no place where the stars came out quite so regularly as the Ambassador Hotel. On an average evening, it was common to see such well-known celebrities as Joan Crawford, Jack Oakie, or Jean Harlow coming to see Bing Crosby or Russ Columbo sing with Gus Arnheim’s Orchestra or dance to Jimmie Grier’s band as they accompanied Loyce Whiteman, The Three Ambassadors (Martin Sperzel, Jack Smith, and Al Teeter), or popular tenor Donald Novis. Even though there was a nationwide depression, Hollywood stars and executives still needed to be entertained — and the Cocoanut Grove was often their first choice.

From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were hosted at the hotel. As many as seven U.S. presidents stayed at the Ambassador, from Hoover to Nixon, along with heads of state from around the world.

It was the place to be even in the 1960s…

In 1968, the Ambassador Hotel was the scene of the shooting of Bobby Kennedy.

Due to the decline of the hotel and the surrounding area, the Ambassador Hotel was closed to guests in 1989. In 2001, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) purchased the property with the intent of constructing three new schools within the area. After subsequent litigations to preserve the hotel as a historic site, a settlement allowed the Ambassador Hotel to be demolished in 2005.

VALSANTI

Ted Fio Rito used the pseudonym ‘Valsanti’ for these Cocoanut Grove transcriptions because of an existing recording contract.

Fio Rito was a pianist, hammond organist and the composer of such classic tunes as, “I Never Knew,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye,” “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” “Roll Along, Prairie Moon” and “Alone at a Table for Two.”

He started his career as a pianist with a series of bands led by Harry Yerkes, then moved to Chicago in 1921 to join Dan Russo’s band. The following year, he joined with Russo to become the co-leader the Oriole Terrace Orchestra, which he eventually took over when Russo departed in 1928.

Before coming to the Cocoanut Grove in mid-1933, Fio Rito had spent a number of years touring the East Coast and Midwest, including many engagements in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Cincinnati. An early radio enthusiast, Fio Rito’s band was frequently heard on the air from various nightspots – preparing him well for the regular broadcasts scheduled to emanate from the Grove during his stay.

Musically, the orchestra that Fio Rito brought to the Grove was sweet, smooth and clever, playing highly danceable music accented with temple blocks, rapid triplets, and even an occasional solo on the Hammond organ by its talented leader.

Due to an existing recording contract, Theodore Salvatore Fiorito’s singers also adopted pseudonyms for these transcriptions. Muzzy Marcellino, Fio Rito’s guitarist and primary vocalist, sings as Jack Howard. Howard Phillips sings under the name of Bill Thomas, and Fio Rito’s vocal trio The Debutants appear as The Three Keys. 

Watch Ted Fio Rito from the Cocoanut Grove in this 1934 Paramount short ‘Star night atthe Cocoanut Grove’ also featuring Mary Pickford and Bing Crosby. You’ll hear the extreme high and low four octave voice of Jimmy Durante’s future comic foil Candy Candido in what is thought to be his earliest film performance….

 

 

13 SEPTEMBER PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney LISTEN ONLINE   Community Radio Network Show CRN #563
107.3 2SER Tuesday 13 September 2022 12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm National Program 5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am 3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am 4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am 2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am 2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am 2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am 2YYY Young Monday 3 – 4am 3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm 7MID Oatlands Monday 6 -7pm 6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Tuesday 12am – 1am 2SEA Eden Tuesday 6 – 7pm 2MCE Bathurst Wednesday 9 – 10am 2RDJ Burwood Wednesday 12 – 1pm 1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am 2RRR Ryde Friday 11am -12 noon 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm Denmark FM (West Australia) Saturdays 10 – 11am Repeat: Wednesdays 10 – 11pm 7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am 3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
Set 1	Swing Bands One Night Stand Radio
Theme + Song of the Wanderer	Buddy Morrow Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Roseland Ballroom NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 1 Mar 1946
16:00 On The Clock	Shep Field and His New Music	‘One Night Stand’ Copacabana NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 9 Aug 1944
Come Rain Come Shine + Close	Hal McIntyre Orchestra (voc) Frankie Lester	‘One Night Stand’ Century Room Hotel Commodore NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 15 May 1946
Set 2	1950s-60s Jazz Radio
Jazz Connoisseur	Harry James Orchestra (dms) Buddy Rich	Moonbowl Freedomland WNEW NYC 1962
The Theme	Miles Davis Sextet	‘Treasury of Music’ Birdland WRCA NBC NY AFRTS Re-broadcast 25 Aug 1959
Set 3	Benny Goodman in Chicago
Let’s Dance (theme) + Farewell Blues	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 20 Jan 1936
Soft Spring	Benny Goodman Orchestra (voc) Helen Forrest	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Chicago 10 Aug 1941
King Porter Stomp + Goodbye (theme)	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Feb 1936
Set 4	Vincent Valsanti (Ted Fio Rito)
Serenade of Love (theme) + Flirtation Walk	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
When You’re in Love	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Two Cigarettes in the Dark	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Phil Thomas	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Were You Foolin’? + I’ll Take an Option on You + Serenade of Love (theme)	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard and The Three Blue Keys	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Set 5	1930s German Swing
Darf ich bitten?	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Sep 1936
Ja und nein	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Aug 1939
Aus lauter Liebe	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Peter Igelhoff	Comm Rec Berlin Jul 1937
Oh! Aha!	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Rudi Schuricke Terzett	Comm Rec Berlin Feb 1939
Set 6	Early Dorseys
Theme + On The Beach at Bali Bali	Tommy Dorsey Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 11 Aug 1936
Sandman (theme) + Is That Religion?	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra (voc) Bob Crosby	Riviera Fort Lee NJ WEAF NBC Red NY 20 Sep 1934
Weary Blues	Eddy Howard Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 4 Aug 1936
Farewell Blues	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra	‘Chrysler Show’ Radio Transcription 1934
Set 7	Sweet Music
Romance (theme) + We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye	Ray Herbeck Music with Romance Orchestra (voc) Lorraine Benson	Trianon Ballroom WGN Mutual Chicago 24 Nov 1947
For You	King Sisters	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood Jun 1945
Sweet Lorraine	Frank Sinatra	‘Frank Sinatra Show’ AFRS Re-broadcast 26 Nov 1946
What is This Thing Called Love?	Paul Whiteman Orchestra (voc) Eugenie Baird	‘Forever Pops’ ABC Chicago 1947
Set 8	1930s Fats Waller
Yacht Club Swing (theme) + Whatcha Know, Joe?	Fats Waller	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Dec 1940
Pent Up in a Penthouse	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 14 Oct 1938
Sto Beating ‘Round The Mulberry Bush	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
I Had To Do It	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 18 Oct 1938

Ted Fio Rito Cocoanut Grove 1934 – Phantom Dancer 24 May 2021

Ted Fio Rito, band leader, composer and pianist, under the radio pseudonym ‘Vincent Valsanti’, is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist in a 1934 Cocoanut Grove radio transcription.

Since I’ve been playing radio transcriptions made in 1934 of ‘Valsanti’ from the Cocoanut Grove Los Angeles over the past three weeks, here’s a little about the Ted Fio Rito / Valsanti / Cocoanut Grove story along with videos from the era.

The Phantom Dancer – your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV hosted by me, Greg Poppleton.

Enjoy a whole library of Phantom Dancer mixes online now at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/.

This show will be online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 24 May at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

 

COCOANUT GROVE

The Cocoanut Grove at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel was a lavishly appointed club – part of the massive 23-acre Ambassador resort, which also included four restaurants, a bowling alley, a billiard room, a shopping plaza, and even a movie theater – decorated in Moroccan style and featured full-sized palm trees reportedly salvaged from Rudolph Valentino’s film “The Sheik.” In addition to the decor, which also offered a night sky filled with stars (thanks to about 1000 small light bulbs), an elevated stage, and both dining and dancing room for several hundred patrons, customers came for the smooth musical entertainment provided by a series of dance orchestras and popular vocalists – many of whom would later go on to star careers in radio, recordings, and the film industry.

In the 1980 book, “Are the Stars Out Tonight?”, former Ambassador PR Director, Margaret Tante Burk, recalls the Grove’s opening night:

“…on the night of April 21, 1921… the new club officially opened its Moroccan style, gold leaf and etched palm tree doors… The Cocoanut Grove was aptly named, guests agreed as they were escorted by the maître de and captains down the wide plush grand staircase… Overhead, soaring about the room were cocoanut trees of papier mache, cocoanuts and palm fronds which had been rescued from the sandy beaches of Oxnard where they had served as atmosphere of the 1921 classic, The Sheik. Swinging from their branches were stuffed monkeys blinking at the revelers with their electrified amber eyes. Stars twinkled in the blue ceiling sky, and on the southernmost wall hung a full Hawaiian moon presiding over a painted landscape and splashing waterfall.”

Ray West Orchestra in 1930…

Due to the foresight of Abe Frank, the manager of both the hotel and the Grove, in the mid-1920s the Ambassador had been equipped with a small radio studio, allowing the music of the various orchestras to be broadcast and enjoyed well outside the confines of the nightclub. From the late 1920s well into the 1960s, live “remote” programs broadcast from the Cocoanut Grove were a popular feature of nighttime radio, allowing millions of people to enjoy the music they would otherwise be unable to afford to hear in person. These broadcasts, aired live nightly for two full hours, only increased the reputation of the Grove as “the place to be” when it came to top notch West Coast entertainment.

From the beginning, the Cocoanut Grove’s glamorous atmosphere attracted the top names in Hollywood for dining, dancing, and mingling. This celebrity connection was always well-publicized by the Ambassador and for a very good reason, too: tourists coming to Los Angeles for a vacation wanted to see the stars and there was no place where the stars came out quite so regularly as the Ambassador Hotel. On an average evening, it was common to see such well-known celebrities as Joan Crawford, Jack Oakie, or Jean Harlow coming to see Bing Crosby or Russ Columbo sing with Gus Arnheim’s Orchestra or dance to Jimmie Grier’s band as they accompanied Loyce Whiteman, The Three Ambassadors (Martin Sperzel, Jack Smith, and Al Teeter), or popular tenor Donald Novis. Even though there was a nationwide depression, Hollywood stars and executives still needed to be entertained — and the Cocoanut Grove was often their first choice.

From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were hosted at the hotel. As many as seven U.S. presidents stayed at the Ambassador, from Hoover to Nixon, along with heads of state from around the world.

It was the place to be even in the 1960s…

In 1968, the Ambassador Hotel was the scene of the shooting of Bobby Kennedy.

Due to the decline of the hotel and the surrounding area, the Ambassador Hotel was closed to guests in 1989. In 2001, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) purchased the property with the intent of constructing three new schools within the area. After subsequent litigations to preserve the hotel as a historic site, a settlement allowed the Ambassador Hotel to be demolished in 2005.

VALSANTI

Ted Fio Rito used the pseudonym ‘Valsanti’ for these Cocoanut Grove transcriptions because of an existing recording contract.

Fio Rito was a pianist, hammond organist and the composer of such classic tunes as, “I Never Knew,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye,” “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” “Roll Along, Prairie Moon” and “Alone at a Table for Two.”

He started his career as a pianist with a series of bands led by Harry Yerkes, then moved to Chicago in 1921 to join Dan Russo’s band. The following year, he joined with Russo to become the co-leader the Oriole Terrace Orchestra, which he eventually took over when Russo departed in 1928.

Before coming to the Cocoanut Grove in mid-1933, Fio Rito had spent a number of years touring the East Coast and Midwest, including many engagements in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Cincinnati. An early radio enthusiast, Fio Rito’s band was frequently heard on the air from various nightspots – preparing him well for the regular broadcasts scheduled to emanate from the Grove during his stay.

Musically, the orchestra that Fio Rito brought to the Grove was sweet, smooth and clever, playing highly danceable music accented with temple blocks, rapid triplets, and even an occasional solo on the Hammond organ by its talented leader.

Due to an existing recording contract, Theodore Salvatore Fiorito’s singers also adopted pseudonyms for these transcriptions. Muzzy Marcellino, Fio Rito’s guitarist and primary vocalist, sings as Jack Howard. Howard Phillips sings under the name of Bill Thomas, and Fio Rito’s vocal trio The Debutants appear as The Three Keys. 

Watch Ted Fio Rito from the Cocoanut Grove in this 1934 Paramount short ‘Star night atthe Cocoanut Grove’ also featuring Mary Pickford and Bing Crosby. You’ll hear the extreme high and low four octave voice of Jimmy Durante’s future comic foil Candy Candido in what is thought to be his earliest film performance….

 

 

24 MAY PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney LISTEN ONLINECommunity Radio Network Show CRN #546
107.3 2SER Tuesday 24 May 2022 12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm National Program 5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am 3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am 4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am 2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am 2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am 2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am 2YYY Young Monday 3 – 4am 3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm 7MID Oatlands Monday 6 -7pm 6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Tuesday 12am – 1am 2SEA Eden Tuesday 6 – 7pm 2MCE Bathurst Wednesday 9 – 10am 1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm Denmark FM (West Australia) Saturdays 10 – 11am Repeat: Wednesdays 10 – 11pm 7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am 3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
Set 1	Swing Bands One Night Stand Radio
Theme + Song of the Wanderer	Buddy Morrow Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Roseland Ballroom NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 1 Mar 1946
16:00 On The Clock	Shep Field and His New Music	‘One Night Stand’ Copacabana NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 9 Aug 1944
Come Rain Come Shine + Close	Hal McIntyre Orchestra (voc) Frankie Lester	‘One Night Stand’ Century Room Hotel Commodore NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 15 May 1946
Set 2	1950s-60s Jazz Radio
Jazz Connoisseur	Harry James Orchestra (dms) Buddy Rich	Moonbowl Freedomland WNEW NYC 1962
The Theme	Miles Davis Sextet	‘Treasury of Music’ Birdland WRCA NBC NY AFRTS Re-broadcast 25 Aug 1959
Set 3	Benny Goodman in Chicago
Let’s Dance (theme) + Farewell Blues	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 20 Jan 1936
Soft Spring	Benny Goodman Orchestra (voc) Helen Forrest	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Chicago 10 Aug 1941
King Porter Stomp + Goodbye (theme)	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Feb 1936
Set 4	Vincent Valsanti (Ted Fio Rito)
Serenade of Love (theme) + Flirtation Walk	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
When You’re in Love	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Two Cigarettes in the Dark	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Phil Thomas	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Were You Foolin’? + I’ll Take an Option on You + Serenade of Love (theme)	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard and The Three Blue Keys	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Set 5	1930s German Swing
Darf ich bitten?	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Sep 1936
Ja und nein	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Aug 1939
Aus lauter Liebe	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Peter Igelhoff	Comm Rec Berlin Jul 1937
Oh! Aha!	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Rudi Schuricke Terzett	Comm Rec Berlin Feb 1939
Set 6	Early Dorseys
Theme + On The Beach at Bali Bali	Tommy Dorsey Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 11 Aug 1936
Sandman (theme) + Is That Religion?	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra (voc) Bob Crosby	Riviera Fort Lee NJ WEAF NBC Red NY 20 Sep 1934
Weary Blues	Eddy Howard Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 4 Aug 1936
Farewell Blues	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra	‘Chrysler Show’ Radio Transcription 1934
Set 7	Sweet Music
Romance (theme) + We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye	Ray Herbeck Music with Romance Orchestra (voc) Lorraine Benson	Trianon Ballroom WGN Mutual Chicago 24 Nov 1947
For You	King Sisters	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood Jun 1945
Sweet Lorraine	Frank Sinatra	‘Frank Sinatra Show’ AFRS Re-broadcast 26 Nov 1946
What is This Thing Called Love?	Paul Whiteman Orchestra (voc) Eugenie Baird	‘Forever Pops’ ABC Chicago 1947
Set 8	1930s Fats Waller
Yacht Club Swing (theme) + Whatcha Know, Joe?	Fats Waller	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Dec 1940
Pent Up in a Penthouse	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 14 Oct 1938
Sto Beating ‘Round The Mulberry Bush	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
I Had To Do It	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 18 Oct 1938

Cocoanut Grove Radio 1934 – Phantom Dancer 4 January 2022

Ted Fio Rito, band leader, composer and pianist, under the radio pseudonym ‘Vincent Valsanti’, is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist in a 1934 Cocoanut Grove radio transcription.

As it’s the holiday season and I’m taking a day off, this is a repeat of The Phantom Dancer broadcast 11 May 2021

The Phantom Dancer – your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV hosted by me, Greg Poppleton.

Enjoy a whole library of Phantom Dancer mixes online now at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/.

This show will be online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 4 Jan 2022 at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

 

COCOANUT GROVE

The Cocoanut Grove at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel was a lavishly appointed club – part of the massive 23-acre Ambassador resort, which also included four restaurants, a bowling alley, a billiard room, a shopping plaza, and even a movie theater – decorated in Moroccan style and featured full-sized palm trees reportedly salvaged from Rudolph Valentino’s film “The Sheik.” In addition to the decor, which also offered a night sky filled with stars (thanks to about 1000 small light bulbs), an elevated stage, and both dining and dancing room for several hundred patrons, customers came for the smooth musical entertainment provided by a series of dance orchestras and popular vocalists – many of whom would later go on to star careers in radio, recordings, and the film industry.

In the 1980 book, “Are the Stars Out Tonight?”, former Ambassador PR Director, Margaret Tante Burk, recalls the Grove’s opening night:

“…on the night of April 21, 1921… the new club officially opened its Moroccan style, gold leaf and etched palm tree doors… The Cocoanut Grove was aptly named, guests agreed as they were escorted by the maître de and captains down the wide plush grand staircase… Overhead, soaring about the room were cocoanut trees of papier mache, cocoanuts and palm fronds which had been rescued from the sandy beaches of Oxnard where they had served as atmosphere of the 1921 classic, The Sheik. Swinging from their branches were stuffed monkeys blinking at the revelers with their electrified amber eyes. Stars twinkled in the blue ceiling sky, and on the southernmost wall hung a full Hawaiian moon presiding over a painted landscape and splashing waterfall.”

Ray West Orchestra in 1930…

Due to the foresight of Abe Frank, the manager of both the hotel and the Grove, in the mid-1920s the Ambassador had been equipped with a small radio studio, allowing the music of the various orchestras to be broadcast and enjoyed well outside the confines of the nightclub. From the late 1920s well into the 1960s, live “remote” programs broadcast from the Cocoanut Grove were a popular feature of nighttime radio, allowing millions of people to enjoy the music they would otherwise be unable to afford to hear in person. These broadcasts, aired live nightly for two full hours, only increased the reputation of the Grove as “the place to be” when it came to top notch West Coast entertainment.

From the beginning, the Cocoanut Grove’s glamorous atmosphere attracted the top names in Hollywood for dining, dancing, and mingling. This celebrity connection was always well-publicized by the Ambassador and for a very good reason, too: tourists coming to Los Angeles for a vacation wanted to see the stars and there was no place where the stars came out quite so regularly as the Ambassador Hotel. On an average evening, it was common to see such well-known celebrities as Joan Crawford, Jack Oakie, or Jean Harlow coming to see Bing Crosby or Russ Columbo sing with Gus Arnheim’s Orchestra or dance to Jimmie Grier’s band as they accompanied Loyce Whiteman, The Three Ambassadors (Martin Sperzel, Jack Smith, and Al Teeter), or popular tenor Donald Novis. Even though there was a nationwide depression, Hollywood stars and executives still needed to be entertained — and the Cocoanut Grove was often their first choice.

From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were hosted at the hotel. As many as seven U.S. presidents stayed at the Ambassador, from Hoover to Nixon, along with heads of state from around the world.

It was the place to be seen even in the 1960s…

In 1968, the Ambassador Hotel was the scene of the shooting of Bobby Kennedy.

Due to the decline of the hotel and the surrounding area, the Ambassador Hotel was closed to guests in 1989. In 2001, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) purchased the property with the intent of constructing three new schools within the area. After subsequent litigations to preserve the hotel as a historic site, a settlement allowed the Ambassador Hotel to be demolished in 2005.

VALSANTI

Ted Fio Rito used the pseudonym ‘Valsanti’ for these Cocoanut Grove transcriptions because of an existing recording contract.

Fio Rito was a pianist, hammond organist and the composer of such classic tunes as, “I Never Knew,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye,” “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” “Roll Along, Prairie Moon” and “Alone at a Table for Two.”

He started his career as a pianist with a series of bands led by Harry Yerkes, then moved to Chicago in 1921 to join Dan Russo’s band. The following year, he joined with Russo to become the co-leader the Oriole Terrace Orchestra, which he eventually took over when Russo departed in 1928.

Before coming to the Cocoanut Grove in mid-1933, Fio Rito had spent a number of years touring the East Coast and Midwest, including many engagements in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Cincinnati. An early radio enthusiast, Fio Rito’s band was frequently heard on the air from various nightspots – preparing him well for the regular broadcasts scheduled to emanate from the Grove during his stay.

Musically, the orchestra that Fio Rito brought to the Grove was sweet, smooth and clever, playing highly danceable music accented with temple blocks, rapid triplets, and even an occasional solo on the Hammond organ by its talented leader.

Due to an existing recording contract, Theodore Salvatore Fiorito’s singers also adopted pseudonyms for these transcriptions. Muzzy Marcellino, Fio Rito’s guitarist and primary vocalist, sings as Jack Howard. Howard Phillips sings under the name of Bill Thomas, and Fio Rito’s vocal trio The Debutants appear as The Three Keys. 

Watch Ted Fio Rito from the Cocoanut Grove in this 1934 Paramount short ‘Star night atthe Cocoanut Grove’ also featuring Mary Pickford and Bing Crosby. You’ll hear the extreme high and low four octave voice of Jimmy Durante’s future comic foil Candy Candido in what is thought to be his earliest film performance….

 

 

4 JANUARY PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney LISTEN ONLINE   Community Radio Network Show CRN #525
107.3 2SER Tuesday 4 JANUARY 2022 12:04 – 2:00pm (+11 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm National Program 5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am 3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am 4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am 2SEA Eden Monday 3 – 4am 2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am 2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am 2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am 3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm 7MID Oatlands Monday 6 -7pm 6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Tuesday 12am – 1am 2MCE Bathurst Wednesday 9 – 10am 1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am, Sunday 11 – 11:56pm 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm Denmark FM (West Australia) Saturdays 10 – 11am, Wednesdays 10 – 11pm 7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am 3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
Set 1	Swing Bands One Night Stand Radio
Theme + Song of the Wanderer	Buddy Morrow Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Roseland Ballroom NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 1 Mar 1946
16:00 On The Clock	Shep Field and His New Music	‘One Night Stand’ Copacabana NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 9 Aug 1944
Come Rain Come Shine + Close	Hal McIntyre Orchestra (voc) Frankie Lester	‘One Night Stand’ Century Room Hotel Commodore NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 15 May 1946
Set 2	1950s-60s Jazz Radio
Jazz Connoisseur	Harry James Orchestra (dms) Buddy Rich	Moonbowl Freedomland WNEW NYC 1962
The Theme	Miles Davis Sextet	‘Treasury of Music’ Birdland WRCA NBC NY AFRTS Re-broadcast 25 Aug 1959
Set 3	Benny Goodman in Chicago
Let’s Dance (theme) + Farewell Blues	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 20 Jan 1936
Soft Spring	Benny Goodman Orchestra (voc) Helen Forrest	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Chicago 10 Aug 1941
King Porter Stomp + Goodbye (theme)	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Feb 1936
Set 4	Vincent Valsanti (Ted Fio Rito)
Serenade of Love (theme) + Flirtation Walk	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
When You’re in Love	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Two Cigarettes in the Dark	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Phil Thomas	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Were You Foolin’? + I’ll Take an Option on You + Serenade of Love (theme)	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard and The Three Blue Keys	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Set 5	1930s German Swing
Darf ich bitten?	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Sep 1936
Ja und nein	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Aug 1939
Aus lauter Liebe	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Peter Igelhoff	Comm Rec Berlin Jul 1937
Oh! Aha!	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Rudi Schuricke Terzett	Comm Rec Berlin Feb 1939
Set 6	Early Dorseys
Theme + On The Beach at Bali Bali	Tommy Dorsey Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 11 Aug 1936
Sandman (theme) + Is That Religion?	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra (voc) Bob Crosby	Riviera Fort Lee NJ WEAF NBC Red NY 20 Sep 1934
Weary Blues	Eddy Howard Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 4 Aug 1936
Farewell Blues	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra	‘Chrysler Show’ Radio Transcription 1934
Set 7	Sweet Music
Romance (theme) + We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye	Ray Herbeck Music with Romance Orchestra (voc) Lorraine Benson	Trianon Ballroom WGN Mutual Chicago 24 Nov 1947
For You	King Sisters	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood Jun 1945
Sweet Lorraine	Frank Sinatra	‘Frank Sinatra Show’ AFRS Re-broadcast 26 Nov 1946
What is This Thing Called Love?	Paul Whiteman Orchestra (voc) Eugenie Baird	‘Forever Pops’ ABC Chicago 1947
Set 8	1930s Fats Waller
Yacht Club Swing (theme) + Whatcha Know, Joe?	Fats Waller	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Dec 1940
Pent Up in a Penthouse	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 14 Oct 1938
Sto Beating ‘Round The Mulberry Bush	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
I Had To Do It	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 18 Oct 1938

Ted Fio Rito Cocoanut Grove 1934 – Phantom Dancer 11 May 2021

Ted Fio Rito, band leader, composer and pianist, under the radio pseudonym ‘Vincent Valsanti’, is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist in a 1934 Cocoanut Grove radio transcription.

Since I’ve been playing radio transcriptions made in 1934 of ‘Valsanti’ from the Cocoanut Grove Los Angeles over the past three weeks, here’s a little about the Ted Fio Rito / Valsanti / Cocoanut Grove story along with videos from the era.

The Phantom Dancer – your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV hosted by me, Greg Poppleton.

Enjoy a whole library of Phantom Dancer mixes online now at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/.

This show will be online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 11 May at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

COCOANUT GROVE

The Cocoanut Grove at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel was a lavishly appointed club – part of the massive 23-acre Ambassador resort, which also included four restaurants, a bowling alley, a billiard room, a shopping plaza, and even a movie theater – decorated in Moroccan style and featured full-sized palm trees reportedly salvaged from Rudolph Valentino’s film “The Sheik.” In addition to the decor, which also offered a night sky filled with stars (thanks to about 1000 small light bulbs), an elevated stage, and both dining and dancing room for several hundred patrons, customers came for the smooth musical entertainment provided by a series of dance orchestras and popular vocalists – many of whom would later go on to star careers in radio, recordings, and the film industry.

In the 1980 book, “Are the Stars Out Tonight?”, former Ambassador PR Director, Margaret Tante Burk, recalls the Grove’s opening night:

“…on the night of April 21, 1921… the new club officially opened its Moroccan style, gold leaf and etched palm tree doors… The Cocoanut Grove was aptly named, guests agreed as they were escorted by the maître de and captains down the wide plush grand staircase… Overhead, soaring about the room were cocoanut trees of papier mache, cocoanuts and palm fronds which had been rescued from the sandy beaches of Oxnard where they had served as atmosphere of the 1921 classic, The Sheik. Swinging from their branches were stuffed monkeys blinking at the revelers with their electrified amber eyes. Stars twinkled in the blue ceiling sky, and on the southernmost wall hung a full Hawaiian moon presiding over a painted landscape and splashing waterfall.”

Ray West Orchestra in 1930…

Due to the foresight of Abe Frank, the manager of both the hotel and the Grove, in the mid-1920s the Ambassador had been equipped with a small radio studio, allowing the music of the various orchestras to be broadcast and enjoyed well outside the confines of the nightclub. From the late 1920s well into the 1960s, live “remote” programs broadcast from the Cocoanut Grove were a popular feature of nighttime radio, allowing millions of people to enjoy the music they would otherwise be unable to afford to hear in person. These broadcasts, aired live nightly for two full hours, only increased the reputation of the Grove as “the place to be” when it came to top notch West Coast entertainment.

From the beginning, the Cocoanut Grove’s glamorous atmosphere attracted the top names in Hollywood for dining, dancing, and mingling. This celebrity connection was always well-publicized by the Ambassador and for a very good reason, too: tourists coming to Los Angeles for a vacation wanted to see the stars and there was no place where the stars came out quite so regularly as the Ambassador Hotel. On an average evening, it was common to see such well-known celebrities as Joan Crawford, Jack Oakie, or Jean Harlow coming to see Bing Crosby or Russ Columbo sing with Gus Arnheim’s Orchestra or dance to Jimmie Grier’s band as they accompanied Loyce Whiteman, The Three Ambassadors (Martin Sperzel, Jack Smith, and Al Teeter), or popular tenor Donald Novis. Even though there was a nationwide depression, Hollywood stars and executives still needed to be entertained — and the Cocoanut Grove was often their first choice.

From 1930 to 1943, six Academy Awards ceremonies were hosted at the hotel. As many as seven U.S. presidents stayed at the Ambassador, from Hoover to Nixon, along with heads of state from around the world.

It was the place to be even in the 1960s…

In 1968, the Ambassador Hotel was the scene of the shooting of Bobby Kennedy.

Due to the decline of the hotel and the surrounding area, the Ambassador Hotel was closed to guests in 1989. In 2001, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) purchased the property with the intent of constructing three new schools within the area. After subsequent litigations to preserve the hotel as a historic site, a settlement allowed the Ambassador Hotel to be demolished in 2005.

VALSANTI

Ted Fio Rito used the pseudonym ‘Valsanti’ for these Cocoanut Grove transcriptions because of an existing recording contract.

Fio Rito was a pianist, hammond organist and the composer of such classic tunes as, “I Never Knew,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye,” “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” “Roll Along, Prairie Moon” and “Alone at a Table for Two.”

He started his career as a pianist with a series of bands led by Harry Yerkes, then moved to Chicago in 1921 to join Dan Russo’s band. The following year, he joined with Russo to become the co-leader the Oriole Terrace Orchestra, which he eventually took over when Russo departed in 1928.

Before coming to the Cocoanut Grove in mid-1933, Fio Rito had spent a number of years touring the East Coast and Midwest, including many engagements in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Cincinnati. An early radio enthusiast, Fio Rito’s band was frequently heard on the air from various nightspots – preparing him well for the regular broadcasts scheduled to emanate from the Grove during his stay.

Musically, the orchestra that Fio Rito brought to the Grove was sweet, smooth and clever, playing highly danceable music accented with temple blocks, rapid triplets, and even an occasional solo on the Hammond organ by its talented leader.

Due to an existing recording contract, Theodore Salvatore Fiorito’s singers also adopted pseudonyms for these transcriptions. Muzzy Marcellino, Fio Rito’s guitarist and primary vocalist, sings as Jack Howard. Howard Phillips sings under the name of Bill Thomas, and Fio Rito’s vocal trio The Debutants appear as The Three Keys. 

Watch Ted Fio Rito from the Cocoanut Grove in this 1934 Paramount short ‘Star night atthe Cocoanut Grove’ also featuring Mary Pickford and Bing Crosby. You’ll hear the extreme high and low four octave voice of Jimmy Durante’s future comic foil Candy Candido in what is thought to be his earliest film performance….

 

11 MAY PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney LISTEN ONLINE Community Radio Network Show CRN #489
107.3 2SER Tuesday 11 MAY 2021 12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm National Program 5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am 3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am 4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am 2SEA Eden Monday 3 – 4am 2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4am 2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4am 2BRW Braidwood Monday 3 – 4am 3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm 7MID Oatlands Tuesday 8 – 9pm 1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Friday 10 – 11am 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 5LCM Lofty FM Adelaide Friday 1 – 2pm 4RPH Brisbane Sunday 3 – 4am 7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am 6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Sunday 5 – 6am 3BBR West Gippsland Sunday 5 – 6pm
Set 1	Swing Bands One Night Stand Radio
Theme + Song of the Wanderer	Buddy Morrow Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Roseland Ballroom NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 1 Mar 1946
16:00 On The Clock	Shep Field and His New Music	‘One Night Stand’ Copacabana NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 9 Aug 1944
Come Rain Come Shine + Close	Hal McIntyre Orchestra (voc) Frankie Lester	‘One Night Stand’ Century Room Hotel Commodore NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 15 May 1946
Set 2	1950s-60s Jazz Radio
Jazz Connoisseur	Harry James Orchestra (dms) Buddy Rich	Moonbowl Freedomland WNEW NYC 1962
The Theme	Miles Davis Sextet	‘Treasury of Music’ Birdland WRCA NBC NY AFRTS Re-broadcast 25 Aug 1959
Set 3	Benny Goodman in Chicago
Let’s Dance (theme) + Farewell Blues	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 20 Jan 1936
Soft Spring	Benny Goodman Orchestra (voc) Helen Forrest	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Chicago 10 Aug 1941
King Porter Stomp + Goodbye (theme)	Benny Goodman Orchestra	Joseph Urban Room Congress Hotel WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Feb 1936
Set 4	Vincent Valsanti (Ted Fio Rito)
Serenade of Love (theme) + Flirtation Walk	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
When You’re in Love	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Two Cigarettes in the Dark	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Phil Thomas	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Were You Foolin’? + I’ll Take an Option on You + Serenade of Love (theme)	Vincent Valsanti Orchestra (voc) Jack Howard and The Three Blue Keys	Cocoanut Radio Transcription TRANSCO Los Angeles 1934
Set 5	1930s German Swing
Darf ich bitten?	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Sep 1936
Ja und nein	Die Goldene Sieben	Comm Rec Berlin Aug 1939
Aus lauter Liebe	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Peter Igelhoff	Comm Rec Berlin Jul 1937
Oh! Aha!	Die Goldene Sieben (voc) Rudi Schuricke Terzett	Comm Rec Berlin Feb 1939
Set 6	Early Dorseys
Theme + On The Beach at Bali Bali	Tommy Dorsey Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 11 Aug 1936
Sandman (theme) + Is That Religion?	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra (voc) Bob Crosby	Riviera Fort Lee NJ WEAF NBC Red NY 20 Sep 1934
Weary Blues	Eddy Howard Orchestra	‘Ford V-8 Show’ Texas Centennial Exhibition KRLD CBS Dallas Tx 4 Aug 1936
Farewell Blues	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra	‘Chrysler Show’ Radio Transcription 1934
Set 7	Sweet Music
Romance (theme) + We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye	Ray Herbeck Music with Romance Orchestra (voc) Lorraine Benson	Trianon Ballroom WGN Mutual Chicago 24 Nov 1947
For You	King Sisters	‘Jubilee’ AFRS Hollywood Jun 1945
Sweet Lorraine	Frank Sinatra	‘Frank Sinatra Show’ AFRS Re-broadcast 26 Nov 1946
What is This Thing Called Love?	Paul Whiteman Orchestra (voc) Eugenie Baird	‘Forever Pops’ ABC Chicago 1947
Set 8	1930s Fats Waller
Yacht Club Swing (theme) + Whatcha Know, Joe?	Fats Waller	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Dec 1940
Pent Up in a Penthouse	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 14 Oct 1938
Sto Beating ‘Round The Mulberry Bush	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
I Had To Do It	Fats Waller	Yacht Club WABC CBS NY 18 Oct 1938

Fats Waller – Phantom Dancer 18 August 2020

Fats Waller from 1938-43 radio and recordings is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist. You’ll hear Fats Waller broadcsting live and on V-Discs.

Greg Poppleton presents The Phantom Dancer every week. It’s your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week. The Phantom Dancer’s been on-air over 107.3 2SER Sydney since 1985.

Hear The Phantom Dancer online from 12:04pm AEST Tuesday 18 August at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/ where you can also hear two years of archived shows.

As always, the finyl hour is vinyl.

THE FINAL CURTAIN

At the end Waller’s career in 1943, the year he died, Fats Waller had the distinction of becoming the first African-American songwriter to compose a hit Broadway musical that was seen by a mostly white audience. Broadway producer Richard Kollmar’s hiring of Waller to create the musical Early to Bed was recalled in a 2016 essay about Waller by John McWhorter, an American academic and linguist who is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he teaches linguistics, American studies, philosophy, and music history.

“Even as late as 1943, the idea of a black composer writing the score for a standard-issue white show was unheard of. When Broadway performer and producer Richard Kollmar began planning Early to Bed, his original idea was for Waller to perform in it as a comic character, not to write the music. Waller was, after all, as much a comedian as a musician. Comedy rarely dates well, but almost 80 years later, his comments and timing during “Your Feet’s Too Big” are as funny as anything on Comedy Central, and he nearly walks away with the movie Stormy Weather with just one musical scene and a bit of mugging later on, despite the competition of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Lena Horne, and the Nicholas Brothers. Kollmar’s original choice for composer [of Early to Bed] was Ferde Grofé, best known as the orchestrator of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” whose signature compositions were portentous concert suites. But Grofé withdrew, and it is to Kollmar’s credit that he realized that he had a top-rate pop-song composer available in Waller. Waller’s double duty as composer and performer was short-lived. During a cash crisis and in an advanced state of intoxication, Waller threatened to leave the production unless Kollmar bought the rights to his Early to Bed music for $1,000. (This was typical of Waller, who often sold melodies for quick cash when in his cups. The evidence suggests, for example, that the standards “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street” were Waller tunes.) Waller came to his senses the next day, but Kollmar decided that his drinking habits made him too risky a proposition for eight performances a week. From then on, Waller was the show’s composer only, with lyrics by George Marion, whose best-remembered work today is the script for the Astaire-Rogers film The Gay Divorcée.”

Six months after the premiere of Early to Bed, it was still playing in a Broadway theater. At that point newspapers reported Waller’s premature death.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Two acetates of piano by Fats Waller recorded in 1943 probably in September during a private session.
The first piece is ‘That Does It’, the second one is unknown.

18 AUGUST PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #450
107.3 2SER Tuesday 18 August 2020 After the 2SER 12 noon news, 12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) and Saturdays 5 – 5:55pm National Program: 1ART ArtsoundFM Canberra Sunday 10 – 11pm 5GTR Mt Gambier Monday 2:30 – 3:30am 3MBR Murrayville Monday 3 – 4am 4NAG Keppel FM Monday 3 – 4am 2SEA Eden Monday 3 – 4am 2MIA Griffith Monday 3 – 4pm 2BAR Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4pm 3VKV Alpine Radio Monday 6 – 7pm 7MID Oatlands Tuesday 8 – 9pm 2MCE Bathurst / Orange / Central West NSW Wednesday 9 – 10am 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 7LTN Launceston Sunday 5 – 6am 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am 6GME Radio Goolarri Broome Sunday 5 – 6am
Set 1	1940s Swing Orchestras Live On-Air
Open + Whispering	Gene Krupa Orchestra	‘Spotlight Bands’ Blue Network 11 Nov 1944
Speak Low + Instrumental	Bob Chester Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Panther Room Hotel Sherman Chicago AFRS Re-broadcast 10 Aug 1944
With My Head In The Clouds + Close	Glenn Miller AAF Orchestra (voc) Tex Beneke and The Modernaires	‘Uncle Sam Presents’ New York City AFRS Re-broadcast Feb 1944
Set 2	Let’s Go To Town Transcriptions 1954
Open + Song In Blue	Les Paul and Mary Ford	‘Let’s Go To Town’ Radio Transcription Hollywood 1954
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra (voc) Patti Page	‘Let’s Go To Town’ Radio Transcription Hollywood 1954
Man From Mars + Blue Flame (Close)	Woody Herman Third Herd	‘Let’s Go To Town’ Radio Transcription Hollywood 1954
Set 3	Vaudeville and Music Hall on the Radio
So Is Your Old Lady	Sadie Gale (voc) Humphrey Bishop and his AWA Light Opera Company	‘Songs Of The Shows’ 2CH – AWA Sydney Jun 1944
Selections from ‘The Girlfriend’	Royal Air Force Concert Party	‘Serenade To The Stars’ British Forces Radio London 1944
Have Your Chill	Coot Grant and Kid Socks Wilson	‘This is Jazz’ WOR Mutual NY 3 May 1947
Set 4	1930s – 1940s Pop on Your Hit Parade
As Long As Your Not In Love With Somebody Else + Brazil	Mark Warnow Orchestra (voc) Barry Wood and The Hit Paraders	‘Your Hit Parade’ AFRS Re-broadcast New York 23 Jan 1943
Let’s Get Lost	Mark Warnow Orchestra (voc) Fran Sinatra	‘Your Hit Parade’ Rehearsal WABC CBS NY 9 Oct 1943
Change Partners + I’ve Got A Pocket Full of Dreams + Close	Al Goodman Orchestra (voc) The Hit Paraders	‘Your Hit Parade’ WABC CBS NY 22 Oct 1938
I’ll See You In My Dreams	Greg Poppleton (voc) and the Bakelite Broadcasters	From the new album ‘Back In Your Own Backyard’
Set 5	Fats Waller on the Radio
Waller Jive	Fats Waller (piano and vocal)	V-Disc New York City 23 Sep 1943
Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Open) + Hold My Hand	Fats Waller and his Rhythm (voc) FW	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
Yacht Club (Open) + I Do, Do You?	Fats Waller and his Rhythm	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 10 Dec 1940
When You And I Were Young + Yacht Club Swing (theme)	Fats Waller and his Rhythm (voc) FW	Panther Room Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 3 Dec 1940
Set 6	Early 1930s Radio Bands
Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea	Roane’s Pennsylvanians (voc) ‘Snowball’ and Band Chorus	Comm Rec New York City 28 Jan 1932
Do The New York	Gus Arnheim Orchestra	‘Cocoanut Grove’ Radio Transcription Los Angeles 1932
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes	Ruth Etting (voc) Ben Selvin Orchestra	Radio Transcription New York City 1930
When The Rest Of The Crowd Goes Home	Jimmy Grier Orchestra (voc) Donald Novis	‘Cocoanut Grove’ Radio Transcription Los Angeles 1931
Set 7	Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson 1940s Radio
Handsome Harry The Hipster	Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson	Radio Transcription Muzak NYC 21 Apr 1944
In A Mist	Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson	‘Eddie Condon Jazz Concert’ Town Hall WJZ Blue NY 22 Jul 1944
Candlelight	Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson	‘Eddie Condon Jazz Concert’ Town Hall WJZ Blue NY 22 Jul 1944
Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine	Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson	Radio Transcription Los Angeles 8 Feb 1946
Set 8	Women Big Band Singers on 1940s Radio
‘sWonderful	Betty and Rosemary Clooney (voc) Tony Pastor Orchestra	Aircheck New York City Oct 1948
It’s So Peaceful In The Country	Peggy Lee (voc) Benny Goodman Orchestra	Meadowbrook Ballroom Cedar Grove NJ WABC CBS NY 20 Sep 1941
I’d Do It All Over Again	Anita O’Day (voc) Gene Krupa Orchestra	Astor Roof, Hotel Astor WOR Mutual NY 15 Aug 1945
Beg Your Pardon	Dinah Shore (voc) Harry James Orchestra	‘Dinah Shore Show’ KFI NBC LA 4 May 1948

Julius Sumner Miller and Toys – Phantom Dancer 27 August 2019

Another classic Phantom Dancer, this week, from 2015.

I can’t make it to the studio because I walk so much I have bursitis in one knee. I’m hoping that I can hobble to the studio with the long promised Dolly Dawn feature by next week. 

In the meantime, enjoy this PD from 2015.

See the play list and Video of the Week of your weekly non-stop 2 hour swing jazz mix, below.

Hear the show online at 2ser.com

And there’s more than a year of non-stop swing jazz mixes from live 1920s-60s radio and TV archived at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/  for you, too.

Cole Porter, Fats Waller, and Jan Savitt’s Orchestra at the opening of a radio station in 1937 feature on this week’s Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton

As this week’s Phantom Dancer Video of the Week, recorded at ABC-TV in Sydney in 1969, Julius Sumner Miller investigates ‘The Physics of Toys’ Part 2. This is program 29 in the series, ‘Dramatic Demonstrations In Physics’. Enjoy!

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #400
2SER Tuesday 27 Aug 2019 12 noon – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT)
Set 1
Open + Panamania	Leith Stevens Orchestra	‘Saturday Night Swing Club’ WABC CBS NY 12 Jun 1937
T’ain’t What You Do It’s The Way How You Do It	Freddy Monroe (Frankie Masters) Orchestra	‘Streamlined Interview’ WJSV CBS Washington 21 Sep 1939
Ad + Flight of a Hay Bag	Paul Whiteman Orchestra	‘Paul Whiteman’s Musical Varieties’ WJZ NBC Blue NY 2 Feb 1936
Set 2
There’s a Small Hotel	Teddy Stauffer and his Original Teddies (voc) Billy Toffel	Comm Rec Berlin 30 Sep 1936
Ad + You’re The Top + Ad	Cole Porter	‘Fleischman Yeast Hour’ WEAF NBC Red NY 13 Dec 1934
Open + Hold Me + Idolising + Cuban Love Song	Larry Taylor (voc) with Orchestra	‘Melody Lane’ Radio Transcription 1936
Set 3
Cirribirribin (Open) + Noodlin’	Harry James Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Palladium Ballroom AFRTS Re-broadcast 27 Nov 1959
Instrumental	Ray Anthony Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Cafe Rouge Hotel Pennsylvania NY 12 Aug 1950
Prelude to a Kiss + Things Ain’t What They Used To Be	Duke Ellington Orchestrs	Basin Street CBS NY KNX Los Angeles Aircheck 16 Apr 1956
Set 4
No. 10 Ritchie Drive	Gene Krupa Trio	‘One Night Stand’ Hotel Astor Roof NY AFRS Re-broadcast 16 Jan 1945
Joshua Fought The Battle of Jericho	Paul Laval’s Woodwinds	‘Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street’ WJZ NBC Blue 28 Jul 1941
I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling	Wild Bill Davison	‘This Is Jazz’ WOR Mutual NY 24 May 1947
Set 5
Tenderly	Gene Krupa Quartet	London House WBBM CBS Chicago 13 Mar 1959
Open + Walkin’	Miles Davis All-Stars	‘Bandstand USA’ Birdland WOR Mutual New York 3 Jan 1959
Set 6
Nola	Claude Hopkins Orchestra	Radio Transcription New York 18 Oct 1935
It Had to Be You	Artie Shaw Orchestra	Blue Room Hotel Lincoln WEAF NBC Red NY 25 Nov 1938
Open + Boogie Woogie Maxixe	Bob Crosby Orchestra	Blackhawk Restaurant WGN Mutual Chicago 25 Mar 1940
Rigmarole + Close	Jan Savitt Orchestra	KYW Studio Launch Philadelphia 14 Sep 1937
Set 7
You Go To My Head	Billie Holliday	Storyville Copley Square Hotel WMEX Boston Late 1953
Open + Bensonality	Duke Ellington Orchestra	Blackhawk Restaurant WMAQ NBC Chicago 30 Jun 1952
Every Tub	Count Basie Orchestra	‘Stars in Jazz’ Birdland WRCA NBC NY 14 Jan 1953
Cherokee	Art Tatum (piano) Murray MacEachern Orchestra	Aircheck Los Angeles 1952
Set 8
Sheik of Araby	Benny Goodman Sextet	Aircheck Los Angeles 12 Aug 1940
Rachel’s Dream	Benny Goodman	Esquire Jazz Concert Metropolitan Opera House WJZ Blue Network 18 Jan 1944
Stop Beatin’ ‘Round The Mulberry Bush	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me	Coleman Hawkins Orchestra	WABC CBS NY Savoy Ballroom, Harlem 1940

7 May Phantom Dancer – What is Trad Jazz, Dad?

IT’S TRAD, DAD!

This week’s feature artist on The Phantom Dancer, your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio by Greg Poppleton, is actually a feature style. The style is designated by a term a lot of its fans use without being too precise about its actual meaning. It’s Trad jazz, Dad.

See the full Phantom Dancer play list below.

PHANTOM DANCER

This week’s Phantom Dancer will be online right after this 7 May 2SER live mix at 2ser.com.
Hear the show live every Tuesday 12:04-2pm on 107.3 2SER Sydney. See other stations and times in the play list below.

FRONTLINE

Trad Jazz is short for traditional jazz. It’s the Dixieland and ragtime jazz styles of the early 20th century which typically used a front line of trumpet, clarinet, and trombone.

REVIVAL

A Dixieland revival began in the United States on the West Coast in the late 1930s as a backlash to the Chicago style, which was close to swing. Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, and trombonist Turk Murphy, adopted the repertoire of Joe “King” Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and W. C. Handy: bands included banjo and tuba in the rhythm sections. A New Orleans-based traditional revival began with the later recordings of Jelly-Roll Morton and the rediscovery of Bunk Johnson in 1942, leading to the founding of Preservation Hall in the French Quarter during the 1960s.

Early King Oliver pieces exemplify this style of hot jazz; however, as individual performers began stepping to the front as soloists, a new form of music emerged. One of the ensemble players in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Louis Armstrong, was by far the most influential of the soloists, creating, in his wake, a demand for this “new” style of jazz, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Other influential stylists who are still revered in traditional jazz circles today include Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke, Wingy Manone and Muggsy Spanier. Many artists of the big band era, including Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman, had their beginnings in trad jazz.

On this week’s Phantom Dancer, you’ll hear Trad and Chicago style is Set 4 by the Bob Crosby Bobcats, Eddie Condon and Red Nichols direct from 1929 radio

The last hour is all vinyl.

Your Phantom Dancer Video of the Week this week is: Westend Blues featuring Bob Barnard on trumpet and Lawrie Thompson, drums. I mention these two particular musicians out of the band in this 1980s telecast because I have had the huge pleasure of them both playing in my own Greg Poppleton band.

Enjoy!

Make sure you come back to this blog, Greg Poppleton’s Radio Lounge, every Tuesday, for the newest Phantom Dancer play list and Video of the Week!

Thank you.

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #384
107.3 2SER 12:04pm Tuesday 7 May 2019 5pm Saturday 11 May 2019  (+10 hours GMT) National Program: Edge FM Bega Monday 3 – 4pm 7MID Oatlands Tuesday 8 – 9pm 2ARM Armidale Friday 12 – 1pm 3MGB Mallacoota Sunday 5 – 6am ArtSoundFM Canberra Sunday 7 – 8pm and early morning on 23 other stations.
Set 1	Big Bands on 1940s Radio
Theme + The Moon Is Low	Ray McKinley Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Century Room Hotel Commodore AFRS Re-broadcast 1946
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah	Jack Barrow Orchestra (voc) Dolores Crane	‘One Night Stand’ Aragon Ballroom Ocean Park Ca AFRS Re-broadcast Jul 1945
I Can’t Get Started + Theme	Jack Jenney (tb) Frank DeVol Orchestra	’Music Depreciation Revue’ KHJ Mutual – Don Lees Los Angeles 4 Feb 1945
Set 2	Smooth On 1950s Radio
Open + It’s A Good Day	Perry Como and the Ray Charles Singer (voc) Mitchell Ayres Orchestra	’Let’s Go To Town’ Radio Transcription Hollywood 1954
Champagne Music (theme) + Red Petticoats	Lawrence Welk Orchestra	Aragon Ballroom Ocean Park Ca KECA ABC LA 1958
Medley: How Deep Is The Ocean? + I’m In The Mood For Love + Avalon + Close	Sammy Kaye Orchestra	’One Night Stand’ Hotel Astor Roof NY AFRS Re-broadcast 27 Aug 1945
Set 3	Dixie on 1920s-50s Radio
Muskrat Ramble	Bob Crosby Bobcats	’Bob Crosby Show’ Radio Transcription Los Angeles 1955
I Want To Be Happy	Eddie Condon	’Dr Jazz’ Eddie Condon’s WMGM NY 10 Dec 1951
Jazz Me Blues	Little Buster and the Corn Poppers (Red Nichols)	’Dickenson Program’ Radio Transcription New York City Nov 1929
Set 4	1930 Radio Jazz
Tin Ear	Bob Effros and The Philco Orchestra	’Philco Program’ WABC CBS NY 1930
Singing River	Boswell Sisters	Continental Broadcasting Corporation Radio Transcription Hollywood 1930
I Don’t Need Atmosphere To Fall In Love With You + Close	Little Jack Little	’Little Jack Little Program’ Radio Transcription New York City 1930
Set 5	Doris Day on 1939-45 Radio
I’m Happy About The Whole Thing	Doris Day (voc) Barney Rapp and his New Englanders	NBC Cincinatti 17 Jun 1939
Blue Music	Doris Day (voc) Les Brown Orchestra	Peacock Room Baker Hotel CBS Dallas 9 Aug 1945
Long Ago and Far Away	Doris Day (voc) Les Brown Orchestra	Cafe Rouge Hotel Pennsylvania WABC CBS NY 7 Jul 1944
I Wish I Knew	Doris Day (voc) Les Brown Orchestra	Palladium Ballroom KNX CBS Hollywood 16 Aug 1945
Set 6	Fats Waller 23 Sep 1943 in Story and Song
Reefer Song	Fats Waller	Comm Rec New York City 23 Sep 1943
Ain’t Misbehavin’ + There’s a Girl in my Life + Honeysuckle Rose	Fats Waller	’Personally, It’s Off The Record’ WABC CBS NY 23 Sep 1943
Set 7	1934 Radio Jazz and Dance
Maniacs’ Ball	Glen Gary and the Casa Loma Orchestra	Radio Transcription New York City 1934
Intro + It Don’t Mean A Thing	Dorsey Brothers Orchestra	’Chrysler Program’ Radio Transcription New York City 1934
Song of the Vipers	Louis Armstrong	Comm Rec Paris Oct 1934
Swingy Little Thingy	Hal Kemp Orchestra	’Lavena Program’ Radio Transcription New York City 1934
Set 8	Bop on 1940s-50s Radio
A Night In Tunisia	Charlie Parker	‘Symphony Sid Show’ Royal Roost WMCA NY 12 Mar 1949
Now’s The Time	Howard McGee	Birdland WJZ ABC NY Oct 1951
I’m Glad There’s You	Charlie Ventura (voc) Jackie Kain and Roy Kral	‘Symphony Sid Show’ Royal Roost WMCA NY 1949

She Was Almost Sold To A Brothel – The Zhou Xuan Story – Phantom Dancer 23 April 2019

CHINESE

Zhou Xuan singing jazz influenced ‘Mandopop’ is your feature artist on this week’s Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton.

The best of China’s ‘Seven Great Singers’, you’ll hear her in three Pathe recordings she made in Hong Kong in 1994 and 1946, including the song that became Shanghai’s unofficial anthem before 1949, ‘Ye Shanghai’.

See the full Phantom Dancer play list below of swing and jazz mixed by Greg Poppleton from live 1920s-60s radio below.

PHANTOM DANCER

This week’s Phantom Dancer will be online right after the 23 April 2SER live mix at 2ser.com.
Hear the show live every Tuesday 12:04-2pm on 107.3 2SER Sydney

ZHOU XUAN

whose name is also romanised as Chow Hsien was an international diva popular from Shanghai to Singapore.
She was China’s top singing movie star with a life full of professional triumphs and personal tragedies. She was in over 40 movies and recorded more than 200 songs.

She was the illegitimate and abandoned child of a Buddhist nun and raised by an opium addicted foster father who was about to sell her to a brothel at age 13 when fate led her to join Li Jinhui’s Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe.

GOLDEN VOICE

When she was fourteen, she won second prize in a singing contest in Shanghai and was given the nickname “Golden Voice” (金嗓子) for her effortless high-pitched melodies.

ANGELS OF THE STREETS

The 1920s-1930s were a time of change in Chinese music when traditional opera and folk music melded with jazz and Western rhythms to create the first generation of Mandopop.

Zhou began her film career in 1935. She achieved stardom in 1937 when director Yuan Muzhi cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl in Angels of the Streets. In that 1937 movie she sang in traditional Chinese song a song still popular in China today, The Wandering Songstress.

1940s

Zhou rapidly became the most famous and marketable popular singer in the gramophone era up to her death, singing many famous tunes from her own movies. You’ll hear three of her most famous Mandopop movie songs on today’s Phantom Dancer. These songs incorporate Latin rhythms, Western opera and jazz dance music into traditional Chinese forms. There’s even a snatch of Mrs Hills’ 1936 ‘Happy Birthday to You’.

Between 1946 and 1950, she often went to Hong Kong to make films such as “All-Consuming Love” (長相思), “Hua wai liu ying” (花外流鶯), “Sorrows of the Forbidden City”, and “Rainbow Song” (彩虹曲). After introducing “Shanghai Nights” (夜上海) in 1949, Zhou returned to Shanghai. She spent the next few years in and out of a mental institutions owing to frequent breakdowns. Through the years, Zhou led a complicated and unhappy life marked by her failed marriages, illegitimate children, and suicide attempts. Zhou’s first husband was the composer Yan Hua (严华, 1912-1992), who wrote and sometimes also performed songs with her. She died in a mental institution aged 39 in 1957.

VIDEO

This week’s Phantom Dancer video of the week is from 1947 – Zhou Xuan’s waltz, “Goodnight Serenade”. It was used as a station closer by Rediffusion TV Hong Kong in the early 1960s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCqfJKKzNB0

You can also see the video of Zhou Xuan’s most famous song, Ye Shanghai (Shanghai Nights) in a 2017 post on this blog at https://gregpoppleton.wordpress.com/2017/03/29/18-april-phantom-dancer-1946-%E5%91%A8%E7%92%87-zhou-xuan-%E5%A4%9C%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7-ye-shang-hai-nightlife-in-shanghai/

16 APRIL PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #382
107.3 2SER Tuesday 23 April 2019 After the 2SER 12 noon news, 12:04 – 2:00pm (+10 hours GMT) National Program: ArtSoundFM Canberra Sunday 7 – 8pm 2ARM Armidale Friday 12:04 – 1pm and early morning on 24 other stations.
Set 1	Big Bands on 1946-51 Radio
Open + Star Dust	Eliot Lawrence Orchestra	Meadowbrook Ballroom Cedar Grove NJ WOR Mutual NY 1951
Open + The Best Things in Life are Free	Buzz Adlam Orchestra (voc) Kay Starr	‘Music by Adlam’ KECA ABC LA 27 Dec 1947
El Greco + Let’s Dance (theme)	Benny Goodman Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Hollywood Palladium AFRS Re-broadcast 22 Mar 1949
Set 2	Thrasher Sisters on the Radio
Shoo Shoo Baby	Thrasher Sisters	‘Fountain of Fun ‘ WLW Cincinati 21 Nov 1943
Massachusetts	Thrasher Sisters	‘Fountain of Fun ‘ WLW Cincinati 1 Nov 1942
Tuesday at Ten	Thrasher Sisters	‘Fountain of Fun ‘ WLW Cincinati 28 Nov 1943
Set 3	1935-36 Radio
Open + By The Sea	Spike Jones and his City Slickers (voc) Trio	‘Corn’s A-Poppin” Los Angeles AFRS Re-broadcast 21 May 1949
The Barber of Seville	Spike Jones and his City Slickers (voc) Sir Frederick Gas	‘Corn’s A-Poppin” New York City AFRS Re-broadcast 1948
Carolina Moon + Close	Spike Jones and his City Slickers (voc) Prof. Beetlebaum	‘Corn’s A-Poppin” Charlotte NC AFRS Re-broadcast 27 Feb 1949
Set 4	Zhou Xuan 1944-46
Ye Shanghai	Zhou Xuan	Comm Rec Hong Kong 1946
The Blossom Youth	Zhou Xuan	Comm Rec Hong Kong 1944
Stop Singing	Zhou Xuan	Comm Rec Hong Kong 1946
Set 5	Artie Shaw
Nightmare (theme) + Out of Nowhere	Artie Shaw Orchestra	Cafe Rouge Hotel Pennsylvania WEAF NBC Red NY 19 Oct 1939
I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me	Artie Shaw Orchestra	Blue Room Hotel Lincoln WEAF NBC Red NY 25 Nov 1938
My Heart Stood Still	Artie Shaw Orchestra	Cafe Rouge Hotel Pennsylvania WEAF NBC Red NY 21 Oct 1939
I Won’t Tell a Soul + Nightmare (theme)	Artie Shaw Orchestra	Blue Room Hotel Lincoln WEAF NBC Red NY 2 Dec 1938
Set 6	Fats Waller
Ain’t Misbehavin’ (theme) + Hold My Hand	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
My Best Wishes	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 5 Jul 1938
What’s The Matter With You?	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 16 Jul 1938
Sheik of Araby + Ain’t Misbehavin’ (theme)	Fats Waller	WEAF NBC Red NY 5 Jul 1938
Set 7	1930s Australian Dance Bands
Forty-Second Street	Jim Davidson and his Palais Royal Orchestra (voc) Cantrell Brothers	Comm Rec Sydney 6 Jun 1933
Harlem Heat	Dudley Cantrell and his Grace Grenadiers	Comm Rec Sydney 22 Nov 1937
Says My Heart	Jim Davidson and his ABC Orchestra	Comm Rec Sydney 17 Aug 1938
Cosmopolitan Blues	Maurice Gilmore Orchestra (voc) Jack Davey	Comm Rec Sydney 8 Jan 1935
Set 8	Slim Gaillard
Tutti Frutti + Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen	Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart (Slim and Slam)	‘Rudy Vallee Show’ WEAF NBC NY 14 Jul 1938
Slim’s Jam	Slim Gaillard Orchestra	Comm Rec New York City 14 Dec 1945
Sabroso	Slim gaillard Quintet	‘Symphony Sid Show’ Birdland WJZ ABC NY 7 Jul 1951

1930s Italian Swing – Phantom Dancer 18 Dec 2018

ITALIAN 1930s SWING

Despite Italy being under the Fascist regime of Mussolini, jazz and swing was available on radio in Italy. Names had to be Italianised. Louis Armstrong became Luigi Braccioforte. St Louis Blues was Le Tristezze di San Luigi. We’ll hear a set of 1930s-40s Italian swing on this week’s Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton.

PHANTOM DANCER

The Phantom Dancer is your non-stop swing and jazz mix of live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week. I’ve been bringing you The Phantom Dancer on radio 2SER, and now online, since 1985.

Hear this week’s Phantom Dancer (after 18 Dec) and past Phantom Dancers at 2ser.com.
Hear the show live every Tuesday 12:04-2pm on 107.3 2SER Sydney

Mussolini’s Son is Jazz Pianist – Romano Mussolini, son of the late Fascist dictator, plays piano during Italian Jazz festival at San Remo, Italy, last Sunday. Romano, who plays in a Roman quintet, was a main attraction at the festival. 1956

MUSSOLINI JAZZ DADDY

Visiting American artists had toured ragtime acts in Italy in the early 20th century. British, French and American jazz bands visited in the 1920s. They could also be heard daily over shortwave radio from the US and England and over medium and long wave stations from France.

The first Italian jazz orchestras were formed in the 1930s. Bands like those led by Barzizza and Angelini, and singers such as the Trio Lescano and Alberto Rabagliati were hugely popular. Rabagliati, a jazz crooner, even appeared in movies with such cultural icons as Tito Schipa and had his own radio show on national Italian radio EIAR in 1941, ‘Canta Rabagliati’ (Rabagliati sings).

It helped that dictator Mussolini’s son, Romano, was a great jazz fan and after the war performed prominent jazz pianist. “Occasionally inspired, he was always efficient – he made the refrains run on time”. So, in spite of the anti-American cultural policies of the Fascist regime during the 1930s, American jazz and its Italian form remained popular. Louis Armstrong toured Italy with great success in 1935, whereas he was banned in fascist Germany.

Much of the jazz recorded in Italy up to 1945 has been lost. While 78s exist, many of the original recording matrices were destroyed by bombing during WW2. Most of the Italian recording industry was centred on Milan and Turin, both heavily bombed between 1942-45. Other matrices were destroyed the same way much early Australian jazz has been lost, by record companies and radio stations dumping their libraries.

Maria Jottini on 1939 Italian TV

VIDEO

This week’s Phantom Dancer video of the week is a 1942 commercial recording by Ernesto Bonino, ‘A Zonzo’.

18 DECEMBER PLAY LIST

Play List – The Phantom Dancer 107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #345
107.3 2SER Tuesday 18 December 2018 After the 2SER 12 noon news, 12:04 – 2:00pm (+11 hours GMT) National Program: ArtSoundFM Canberra Sunday 7 – 8pm and early morning on 24 other stations.
Set 1	1944-46 Radio Swing Bands
I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues (theme) + Shine	Jack Teagarden Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Coral Gables Weymouth, Mass AFRS Re-broadcast 24 Aug 1944
Come Rain or Come Shine	Bobby Sherwood Orchestra (voc) Frances Glenn	‘One Night Stand’ Avadon Ballroom Los Angeles Ca AFRS Re-broadcast 3 June 1946
Moten Swing + Cirribirribin (theme)	Harry James Orchestra	Casino Gardens Ocean Park Ca KFI NBC LA 1944
Set 2	Jazz on 1960 Radio
Open + Love Letters	Rodolfo Alchourron Quartet	‘Esto es Jazz’ LR1 Radio el Mundo Buenos Aires 28 May 60
Red Pepper Blues	Art Pepper	‘Jazz International’ AFRTS Hollywood 16 Jun 1960
Cool By the Pool + Close	Gilbert Lacombe Septet	Radio Canada Montreal 1960
Set 3	Swing Bands with Pianist Leaders
Snowball (theme) + Where or When	Claude Thornhill Orchestra	‘One Night Stand’ Glen Island Casino New Rochelle NY AFRS Re-broadcast 23 June 1947
Rocking in Rhythm	Duke Ellington Orchestra	‘Basin Street’ WCBS CBS NY 16 April 1956
If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight	Erroll Garner (piano) Woody Herman Orchestra (voc) WH	‘Monitor’ WRCA NBC NY 26 Jun 1955
Set 4	1930s Italian Swing
Musica Maestro	Angelini e sua Orchestra (voc) Ernesto Bonino	Comm Rec Turin 1938
Se io fossi un millionario	Unknown	Comm Rec Milan 1939
Notte	Angelini e sua Orchestra (voc) Norma Bruni	Comm Rec Turin 1939
Set 5	1920s-30s Dance Bands
My Troubles Are Over	Ted Weems Orchestra (voc) Parker Gibbs	Comm Rec Camden NJ 7 Dec 1929
Ballin’ The Jack / Walkin’ the Dog	Red Nichols Orchestra	‘Heat’ Radio Transcription New York City 1930
That’s A Plenty	Red Nichols Orchestra	‘Brunswick Brevities’ Radio Transcription New York City 27 Aug 1929
Kansas City Kitty + What a Girl, What a Night!	Coon-Sanders Nighthawks (voc) Joe Sanders	‘Maytag Frolics’ Radio Transcription Chicago 1 Mar 1929
Set 6	For The Record
Open + Futurama	Gene Krupa Orchestra	‘For The Record’ WEAF NBC NY 7 Aug 1944
I Can’t Get Started	Charlie Barnet Orchestra (voc) Kay Starr	‘For The Record’ WEAF NBC NY 11 Sep 1944
It Had To Be You	Gene Krupa Orchestra (voc) Peggy Mann	‘For The Record’ WEAF NBC NY 7 Aug 1944
Keep The Home Fires Burning	Charlie Barnet Orchestra	‘For The Record’ WEAF NBC NY 11 Sep 1944
Set 7	The Magic Key 1935-36
Alexander’s Ragtime Band + Dixieland Band	Benny Goodman Orchestra	‘The Magic Key’ WJZ NBC Blue NY 29 Dec 1935
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter + Christopher Columbus	Fats Waller	‘The Magic Key’ WJZ NBC Blue NY 24 May 1936
Set 8	Way Out
Bebop	Howard McGee Sextet	AFRS Los Angeles 29 Apr 1947
I Remember Clifford	Oscar Pettiford	Birdland WABC ABC NY Jun 1957
If I Had You	Lee Konitz Quartet	Storyville Copley Square Hotel WHDH Boston 5 Jan 1954