ASACurator Videos

When I was six years old, an Aunt of mine gave me a little red leatherette wind-up phonograph and her old stack of 78's...this record was one that was among them and one of the few that survived my childhood, and several moves growing up and into adulthood. Charles F. Dornberger, was born on the 5th of June, 1898 in New York. His main instrument was saxophone, but as reported by relatives, he also played clarinet, piano and accordion. In 1918, Dornberger became acquainted with Paul Whiteman ...

Tags: Charles Dornberger Paul Whiteman Mount Royal Hotel Montreal Victor Talking Machine Company Christmas Seasonal Music New York Great Depression 1932

Lucy Isabelle Marsh was born in Ithaca NY April 10, 1878. As a child she sang in choirs and as a young lady moved to Paris to study under Trabadello and Baldelli, returning to the United States to study further with John Walter Hall. She made her first and only appearance on an operatic stage as the Flower Maiden in Wagner's Parsifal during the Met's 1904-1905 season. In 1907 and 1908 she recorded three sides for Columbia, moving to Victor in 1909, appearing prolifically for the label until ...

Tags: Lucy Isabelle Marsh Anna Howard Classical Opera Metropolitan Opera New York Christmas Carol Seasonal Music Victor Talking Machine Company Columbia 1925

Ok, It's not the most exciting record to listen to, another somewhat dry "go, team, go" record, although that's the Jean Goldkette verion of "In My Merry Oldsmobile" (with an all-but-inaudible Bix Beiderbecke) sampled at the beginning of this recording. Then, President Reuter steps up to the microphone and delivers a pep-talk, painting a rosy picture for the upcoming year 1929 (things were rosy, all right, at least until late October!), and then a reprise of Goldkette which ends abruptly ...

Tags: Christmas Sales and Promotion Oldsmobile Victor Automobiles Automobile History 1928

Florence Easton was a very famous soprano born in South Bank England on October 25th, 1882. The family emigrated to Canada when she was five and settled in Toronto. She came back to England at the age of 18 and trained at the Royal Academy of Music. Her operatic career started at Newcastle and after marrying Francis McLennan, an American tenor, they were both engaged by the Court opera in Berlin from 1907-13, then on to Hamburg from 1913-15 and then to America to record, most notably for ...

Tags: Florence Easton Classical Opera Metropolitan Opera New York Christmas Carol Seasonal Music Brunswick 1921

Victor Arden and Phil Ohman first met while the two were employed at the QRS Piano Roll Company; Ohman recording piano rolls, and Arden as an arranger. There soon developed a warm friendship, and they found that they could work closely as a team. Ohman's brother Ernest, has said that "Phil sketched out the arrangements, but didn't write them down. He decided the style. In their duets, Phil played the treble." Around 1924, they began recording for such labels as Brunswick, Victor, Columbia ...

Tags: Dance Bands Victor Arden Phil Ohman Vitaphone QRS Gershwin Old Time Radio New York 1930s Depression 1932

Bix Beiderbecke was one of the great jazz musicians of the 1920s, and was also a child of the Jazz Age who drank himself to an early grave. His hard drinking and beautiful tone on the cornet made him a legend among musicians during his life. The legend of Bix grew even larger after he died. Bix never learned to read music very well, but he had an amazing ear even as a child. In 1923 Beiderbecke joined the Wolverine Orchestra and recorded with them the following year. He was influenced a ...

Tags: Jazz & Dance Bands 1930s Flappers Prohibition Paul Whiteman New York 1930

Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols was born in Ogden, Utah, the son of a music teacher. By the age of 12 he was playing cornet with his father's brass band. He decided to take up the new style of music called jazz after hearing the phonograph records of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. In 1923 he moved east to perform with a band in Atlantic City, and made New York City his base throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He worked for various bandleaders including Paul Whiteman and Harry Reser, as well as ...

Tags: Jazz Band Dance Band 1920s Prohibition New York Flappers Brunswick Red Nichols 1927

Billy Murray was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1877 and in 1882 his parents moved to Denver, Colorado, where he grew up. He became fascinated with the theater and joined a traveling vaudeville troupe in 1893. He also performed in minstrel shows early in his career. He made his first recordings for a local phonograph cylinder company in San Francisco in 1897. In 1903 he relocated to the New York City and New Jersey area, and began recording regularly with Columbia, Victor, and Edison ...

Tags: Vaudeville Ford Model T Henry Ford Topical Music Automotive History Music History

Samuel C. Lanin was born in Russia, September 4, 1891. where he was the third of ten children. Soon afterward, his parents, Benjamin and Mary, moved the family to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. Clearly, Sam Lanin's family was a musical one, which included a total of six future bandleaders. In addition to Sam, brothers Joe, Jimmy, Howard, Willie and Lester all led bands professionally. As a child, Sam studied violin, but later began playing clarinet. It was as a clarinet ...

Tags: 1920s Jazz Dance Bands New York Roseland Ballroom Flappers Prohibition Irving Kaufman 1928

When I was six years old, an Aunt of mine gave me a little red leatherette wind-up phonograph and her old stack of 78's...this record was one that was among them and one of the few that survived my childhood, and several moves growing up and into adulthood. Although I know nothing of the group that recorded it, they must have been popular (with my Aunt at least!), as I have several records by them. This song was made popular here in the United States by heart-throb crooner, Rudy Vallee in ...

Tags: 1930s Depression London British Dance Band Rudy Vallee 1931