Ben Bernie, Fats Waller- I've Got A Feeling I'm Falling,1929

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Ben Bernie Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra, voc. Scrappy Lambert - I've Got A Feeling I'm Falling (Rose/Link/T."Fats" Waller), Brunswick 1929

Casa Loma Orch. - Under A Blanket Of Blue, 1933

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Their name often linked with leader Glen Gray, the Casa Loma Orchestra was the first ''swing'' band. As early as 1929 they began playing the same mixture of hot jazz and sweet ballads that Benny Goodman would later popularize and that would dominate the music industry in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Originally named the Orange Blossoms, the group first formed in Detroit during the mid-1920s as an offshoot of Jean Goldkette's orchestra. Gray, then known as Spike Knoblaugh, joined the group in the winter of 1925-26 as a sax player. Henry Biagini was leader. Playing in and around the Detroit area the Orange Blossoms were booked into a brand new Toronto club called the Casa Loma in 1927. Built in preparation for a visit by the Prince of Wales the club never opened, and in 1929 the Orange Blossoms, shedding Goldkette's mantel and striking out on their own, decided to rename themselves the Casa Loma Orchestra in memorial.
The bandmembers formed a cooperative, dismissing Biagini and electing Gray as president and leader. They moved to New York and were soon booked into the Roseland Ballroom, where a representative from Okeh Records discovered them and offered a deal. Alternating between big band jazz and sentimental ballads the group sounded better on the latter than it did on the former. Nevertheless, the Casa Loma Orchestra had a unique sound and quickly began to attract the attention of the hipper college crowd.
After cutting six sides for Okeh the group signed with Brunswick. They were so popular however that Victor also signed them, and the group ended up recording on both labels simultaneously. Eventually they began to record exclusively for Brunswick and remained there until signing with Decca in 1943. Kenny Sargent, who also played sax, was vocalist. On their first sides for Okeh and Brunswick, they were billed as simply the ''Casa Loma Orchestra.'' Victor however billed them as the ''Glen Gray Orchestra.'' After leaving Victor they began using the combined moniker ''Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra.''

Recording: Glen Gray & His Casa Loma Orch. voc. Kenny Sargent - Under A Blanket Of Blue (Jerry Levinson/Marty Symes, Al Neiburg), Brunswick 1933

Casa Loma Orch. - Talk Of The Town, 1942

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The Casa Loma Orchestra was an American swing band active from 1927 to 1963. It did not tour after 1950 but continued to record as a studio group.
The band was organized in 1927, in Detroit, by Jean Goldkette, a French born pianist, who had over 20 bands under his name by the mid-'20s . The one which is remembered today was his main unit which recorded for Victor during 1924-29; that is the one who included Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and Joe Venuti and the legendary cornetist Bix Beiderbecke . In 1927 Paul Whiteman hired away most of Goldkette's top jazz players (including Bix and Trumbauer) and -- from the remaining musicians plus a few new ones (including the saxophonist, Glen Gray) Jean Goldkette organized the Orange Blossoms. However, in 1928 during their stay in Toronto, Canada, Glen Gray took over the leadership and the band had adopted the Casa Loma name, by the time of its first recordings in 1929, when it was the house band at Casa Loma in Toronto, which was then operating as a hotel.

From 1929 until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands, featuring trombonist Pee Wee Hunt, trumpeter Frank L. Ryerson, trumpeter Sonny Dunham, clarinetist Clarence Hutchenrider, drummer Tony Briglia and singer Kenny Sargent. Arrangements were by Gene Gifford, who also composed much of the band's book, Salvador "Tutti" Camarata and Horace Henderson. Their mid-1930s appearances on the long run radio comedy-variety program,The Camel Caravan (introduced with their theme, "Smoke Rings") increased their popularity.
Hits included "Casa Loma Stomp," "No Name Jive" and "Maniac's Ball". Part of the reason for the band's decline is that other big bands included in their books hard-swinging numbers emulating the hot Casa Loma style. In the 1940s the band featured guitarist Herb Ellis, trumpeter Bobby Hackett and cornetist Red Nichols. Jazz historians are currently researching and writing articles and books about the orchestra.


Recording: Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra & Vocal Trio- Talk Of The Town (Jerry Livingston, Al J. Neiburg and Marty Symes), Decca 1942

Thanks to YT friend: fromthesidelines, I can add this important detail about the recording. It's what he writes:
The "Casa Lomans" originally recorded this for Columbia in 1933- this was the "remake", recorded for Decca on January 15, 1942, with Kenny Sargent (again) delivering the vocal, with chorus.....
Categoria: Musica

Tag: Glen Gray Jean Goldkette American dance band jazz age swing era 78s nostalgy

Heinz Sandauer orchestra: Whiskey - Soda 1936

Jazz from Vienna: Heinz Sandauer Orch. - Whiskey-Soda, 1936