• HOME
  
• CATALOG
  
• SPECIALS
  
• ARTICLES
  
• ARCHIVES
  
• LINKS
  
• NEWS
  
• COMPANY INFO
  
• CONTACTS

American Dance Orchestras

Paul Whiteman, Inc.: A Preliminary Survey
of the Whiteman Agency Dance Orchestras

By Allan Sutton

With thanks to Anna-Maria Manuel for locating the photographs in the G. G. Bain Collection
(Library of Congress)

Note: This material is excerpted from author’s American Dance Band Encyclopedia, which is currently in development for publication in 2009.

In 1921, Paul Whiteman incorporated a booking agency to handle appointments for his orchestra. In short order, the agency began signing other New York-area orchestras as well, to be dispatched when Whiteman’s increasingly popular group was unavailable. Demands on Whiteman’s time were such that beginning in September 1922 he was occasionally absent from his own Victor sessions, leaving Edward King or other house conductors to direct his orchestra for him. These sessions will be detailed in John Bolig’s Victor Black Label Discography, 18000-19000 Series, to be released later this year by Mainspring Press.

In launching his orchestra-booking agency, Whiteman joined the ranks of such well-known band contractors as Harry Yerkes, Sam Lanin, Ben Selvin, and Ed Kirkeby. There was an important difference, however. Those contractors maintained large pools of musicians on retainer, ready to be dispatched as needed to perform or record under their managers’ names. Whiteman, instead, retained entire orchestras and allowed them to perform and record under their own names. Initally, at least, the agency provided the arrangements and seems to have exerted some control over repertoire. By 1923, Whiteman’ booking agency had expanded to the point that it was managing orchestras across the nation. In early 1924, the name was changed to United Orchestras, Inc.

*          *          *          *          *

The following is a preliminary survey of orchestras managed by Paul Whiteman, Inc., or United Orchestras, Inc., that are known to have made commercial recordings while under Whiteman management.

All Star Trio & their Orchestra — The team of F. Wheeler Wadsworth (saxophone), Victor Arden (piano), and George Hamilton Green (xylophone) was formed in 1918, as an outgrowth of Wadsorth’s Novelty Orchestra, and free-lanced for many major and minor labels through 1920. In 1921, as the vogue for small novelty groups was waning, the trio began performing with additional musicians. The enlarged group, billed as the All Star Trio & their Orchestra, actually consisted of musicians associated with the Carl Fenton and Bennie Krueger orchestras. Once under Whiteman’s management, this group became exclusive to Victor. They filled their last Victor session in July 1922.

Busse’s Buzzards (Henry Busse, trumpet / director) — A small, short-lived unit from the main Whiteman orchestra. German-born Henry Busse, infamous for his clipped, simpering “wah-wah” style, was Whiteman’s lead trumpeter for much of the 1920s, until toppled by Bix Beiderbecke. His group had four Victor sessions, all in 1925, but only four titles were issued. Although Busse was the Buzzards’ nominal director, Victor house conductor Edward King directed the band’s last session (December 28, 1925), which produced “The Monkey Doodle Doo.” Pianist Willard Robison was added for the band’s July 9, 1925, recording of “Deep Elm,” according to the Victor ledgers, but was not a regular band member.
 

Club Royal Orchestra (Clyde Doerr, saxophone / director) — This was the house group at New York’s Club Royal, a popular restaurant at 9 East 52nd Street. Doerr, who performed in the style of Rudy Weidoeft and other novelty players of the period, also recorded as a soloist.

Doerr conducted on all sessions, according to the Victor ledgers, and sometimes used Joseph C. Smith’s old piano team of Hugo Frey and Frank Banta. The group’s strong aural resemblance to Whiteman’s early orchestra has led collectors to speculate, incorrectly, that the Club Royal Orchestra was a Whiteman pseudonym.

The Collegians (Bob Causer, director) — True to its name, this was a group of Cornell college students, formed in Ithaca, New York, in 1922. The band had three Victor sessions in 1923 but apparently failed to make much of an impression on the record-buying public, and only three titles were released. Causer went on to become a successful arranger and band leader under his own name in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Zez Confrey & his Orhestra (Zez Confrey, piano / director) — The composer of “Kitten on the Keys” and numerous other piano novelties fronted his own orchestra through much of the early-to-mid 1920s under Whiteman’s management. Later (electrical) recordings credited to this group actually were made by Confrey with members of the Victor house band under the direction of Nat Shilkret. On the 1927 Confrey Orchestra remake of “Kitten on the Keys,” Shilkret substituted anonymously for Confrey at the piano.

Eddie Davis & his Orchestra (Eddie Davis, violin / director) — Davis’ orchestra was popular in New York, but had only a few recording sessions, all in 1922-23, for Grey Gull and Paramount. Davis fronted supper-club orchestras at various New York restaurants in the 1930s, and during 1937-39, he shared the bandstand at the Hotel Larue with another 1920s veteran, Joseph C. Smith.

Charles Dornberger’s Orchestra — Dornberger (reeds / director) was a member of Whiteman’s Los Angeles orchestra but stayed behind when Whiteman left for the East Coast in 1920. Dornberger soon formed his own orchestra and was in New York by June 1923, when his orchestra was featured in that year’s edition of George White’s Scandals (Globe Theater, later moved to the Fulton). Dornberger’s was one of the few Whiteman-managed band to have a regular “hot” policy, and its 1927 recording of “Tiger Rag”was still available, as a Montgomery Ward issue, well into the 1930s. In the early 1930s, Dornberger moved to Montreal, Canada, where he fronted the dance orchestra at the Mount Royal Hotel.

Eddie Elkins & his Orchestra (Eddie Elkins, violin / director) — Elkins’s original orchestra, which apparently pre-dated his signing with Whiteman, was featured at New York’s Knickerbocker Grill (42nd Street at Broadway). This group became exclusive to Columbia in late 1921, according to The Talking Machine World for January 15, 1922. TMW stated that the musicians were all from California and included some former members of the Los Angeles Symphony. The band also recorded as the Knickerbocker Orchestra, Knickerbocker Grill Orchestra, and Pavilion (or Pavillon) Royal Orchestra for several smaller companies in the early-to-mid 1920s, including Paramount and Pathé. By 1926, the Elkins orchestra was holding forth at Sophie Tucker’s Playground, a 52nd Street night club. In the late 1920s, Elkins’ orchestra appeared in Pathé movie shorts, and was present during the disastrous fire that swept Pathé’s Manhattan film studio in December 1929. He later fronted an orchestra that made several sides for the American Record Corporation’s dime-store labels in the 1930s.

Alex Hyde’s Orchestra (Alex Hyde, violin / director) — Hyde’s was the house orchestra at New York’s Club Richman (157 W. 56th Street), a nightclub owned by Broadway star Harry Richman, in 1924. Hyde orchestra’s made no American recordings, and its tenure as a Whiteman-managed orchestra was brief. In the autumn of 1924, Hyde left the Whiteman fold and moved to Berlin, where his group recorded for Vox as Alex Hyde’s New York Orchestra. In early 1925 he switched to Deutsche Grammophon’s Polydor label, for which he recorded many sides in Berlin as Alex Hyde and his Original New York Jazz Orchestra. Brian Rust’s citation of September–October 1924 as the date of Hyde’s first Berlin sessions is in error; advertisements in the New York Times confirm that the group was still playing in New York as late as October 23, 1924.

Barney Rapp & his Orchestra (Barney Rapp, percussion / director) — Rapp’s orchestra, like Elkins’, was featured at New York’s Knickerbocker Grill (42nd Street at Broadway) in the early 1920s. The group made its first records for Victor on December 7, 1921, a session that produced only rejected masters. House conductor Edward King substituted for Rapp on the Victor session of May 8, 1924 (“I Need Some Pettin’” / “When Dixie Stars Are Playing Peek-a-Boo”). The orchestra’s last Victor session was held on October 10, 1924. Rapp did not record again until November 3, 1933, when his orchestra cut seven titles for Victor’s low-priced Bluebird, Electradisc and Sunrise labels. Rapp also recorded for Irving Mills’ Variety label in 1937.

Joe Raymond & his Orchestra (Joe Raymond, violin / director) — Raymond’s orchestra was featured at the Little Club (New York). Brian Rust’s American Dance Band Discography incorrectly shows Victor house conductor Edward King directing all of the Raymond sessions. In fact, according to the Victor session sheets, King directed only the session of June 27, 1923 (“Dirty Hands, Dirty Face” / “My Sweetie Went Away”). The Victor ad for Raymond’s first record coyly referred to their playing at “a world-famous fox-trot paradise up around Broadway and 46th Street.”
 

The Virginians (Ross Gorman, reeds / director) — This small group of “hot” players from the Whiteman orchestra served as Victor’s house jazz band beginning in 1921 and used Whiteman-supplied arrangements. The band was conducted by Whiteman reedman Ross Gorman, best remembered today as the musician for whom Ferde Grofé scored the clarinet introduction to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Victor house conductor Edward King occasionally substituted as director beginning in October 1922, according to the Victor ledgers, primarily on those sessions at which the Virginians served as accompanists to Isabella Patricola and other singers.

Later (electrical) Victor recordings credited to the Virginians are by an entirely different group under the direction of Nathaniel Shilkret, with no connection to Whiteman.

___________

Document history: Initial posting on May 1, 2008. Revision 1 (photographs added) posted May 8, 2008.