British Dance Bands

An excellent clarinetist, saxophonist, and arranger from England, Sid Phillips was an important force behind the scene with Ambrose's orchestra in the 1930s, and, after serving in the RAF, led a variety of swing bands. Many of his finest recordings are on this definitive sampler. Four songs...

This excellent transfer of a pair of mid-'50s albums has no new annotation or information (some credits on the First American Tour! album would have been nice) but great sound. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide

During the first week of October 1929 Raymond Stanley Noble (1903-1978) replaced Carroll Gibbons as leader of the English HMV record company's house band. Over the next two years Noble, today remembered mainly as the composer of pop and jazz standards like "The Very Thought of...

Dutton Vocalion's Ray Noble retrospective inches inexorably onward with this parcel of 24 recordings made for the HMV label between October 1933 and February 1934, heavily featuring crooner Al Bowlly as well as vocalists Eve Becke and Dawn Davis. This is British dance band music from the...

British dance band leader Jack Hylton started making records in 1921. Since most Hylton compilations seem to fixate on the '30s, Dutton Vocalion's Vol. 4: I'm Perfectly Satisfied is a real treat for those who crave the earlier (if not the earliest) sounds. Skimming the surface of...

Swings: Concert Recordings Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1954 is a detailed, 27-track set chronicling bandleader Geraldo's (Gerald Bright) 1954 engagements recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall. The sound quality is top-notch, and the performance features several arrangements by...

Choosing an Al Bowlly compilation to rate above all the others is a difficult proposition, since the fine British ig band singer recorded thousands of titles and his CD compilations tend to be either exhaustively complete series or scattershot single discs. The Pearl Flapper compilation Just a...

Bear Family Records presents an 88-track anthology of what are now termed Depression Era phonograph recordings cut between May 31, 1929, and April 10, 1940. This stretch of time takes in the last few months of the U.S.A.'s already flawed and disintegrating prosperity, the devastating Wall...

This two-fer from Dutton features a pair of out of print LPs by easy listening artist Ted Heath, Those Were the Days and Big Band Themes Remembered, Vol. 2, originally issued in 1971 and 1973. These 21 remastered tracks find the conductor/arranger interpreting swing standards "Moonlight...

British reissue label Flapper's compilation The Thirties is a generous selection of 25 songs from that decade. It is essentially a miscellaneous collection, consisting of many well-known songs, only a few of which are presented in their most popular recordings, with several curiosities and,...

This two-fer from Vocalion features a pair of out of print LPs by easy listening artist Bert Ambrose, Latin America After Dark and Starlit Hour, originally issued in 1956. Also included among the 28 tracks are four songs released as an EP in 1955: "Slide Rule,"

British bandleader Ted Heath's huge legacy of accessible pop and jazz recordings has been trawled by numerous reissue labels and presented piecemeal in collections of both modest and mammoth proportions. While the chronological approach employed by Hep and Dutton Vocalion are useful for...

Trombonist Ted Heath came of age musically during the 1930s as a member of the Ambrose and Geraldo orchestras. In 1944, he began making records under his own name, and kept it up for a quarter of a century, absorbing and adapting to various trends in jazz and popular music until deteriorating...

Perhaps the most prolific Hollywood song composer of the 1930s and '40s, Harry Warren is represented here in a sampling of some of his biggest hits, primarily from the '30s, including

Benny Carter went to London, then to Holland. Everywhere he visited, musicians gathered round and helped him to make jazz records, first for English Vocalion and then for Dutch Decca. Although both takes of

In 1992 the Hep record label brought out a swinging collection of jazz recordings made during the years 1944-1946 by the Royal Air Force Dance Orchestra, more commonly known as the Squadronaires. Composed largely of skilled professional players who performed regular military service during the...

The death of longtime member Malcolm Willoughby resulted in the Temperance Seven adding someone who would become their strongest soloist, baritonist Geoffrey Simkins. This is easily the best of their first three Upbeat CDs, with the English music-hall comedy and corny vocals de-emphasized (but...