G-Daddy
04-05-2003, 03:21 PM
Note: I'm posting this on behalf of Grandfather - DanceMentor.
I've dance to some of the great ones when they were live on the bandstand. The ones I remember are the great trumpet players, Charlie Spivak and Harry James. Spivak was the greatest of the two in my opinion. Harry James played the muted trumpet, but Spivak pure trumpet. In my senior years in highschool I took a date with some others to hear and dance to Harry James at a night club in Cincinnati. During an intermission, my girl friend ask me to get Harry James autograph. I walked up to him with a pen and paper and asked for his autograph. He scowled at me and said, "Go away from me boy, you bother me!" I've never liked him since. I also saw Ted Weems, who had a great band, when Perry Como was his soloist, just starting out in his late teens. This was at the Schubert Theatre in Cincinnati sometime in the thirties. There were a few others that I've danced to at live performances: Jan Garber (soft and sweet, like Guy Lombardo), Charlie Spivak and Benny Goodman.
The big dances of my day were jitterbug, which I never mastered, and the Big Apple. That's about all I can think of right now. Reading the booklet for "String of Pearls" should give you a better feel for that fun era. Other great bands of that day were:Horace Heidt, Tommy Dorsey and his bother Jimmy Dorsey who had his own band and, lest I forget, Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, a small Combo that could really jazz it up. I danced to them on The Island Queen, an Ohio River steam boat with five decks, the middle deck being almost entirely a dance floor with band stand and many *******ment stands. That was the way we traveled to Coney Island in Cincy, but they also had what was called moonlight cruises with many good bands from time to time.
That's about all I can think of right now. Maybe more later as things come to mind. Have fun.
Jim DuVal
I've dance to some of the great ones when they were live on the bandstand. The ones I remember are the great trumpet players, Charlie Spivak and Harry James. Spivak was the greatest of the two in my opinion. Harry James played the muted trumpet, but Spivak pure trumpet. In my senior years in highschool I took a date with some others to hear and dance to Harry James at a night club in Cincinnati. During an intermission, my girl friend ask me to get Harry James autograph. I walked up to him with a pen and paper and asked for his autograph. He scowled at me and said, "Go away from me boy, you bother me!" I've never liked him since. I also saw Ted Weems, who had a great band, when Perry Como was his soloist, just starting out in his late teens. This was at the Schubert Theatre in Cincinnati sometime in the thirties. There were a few others that I've danced to at live performances: Jan Garber (soft and sweet, like Guy Lombardo), Charlie Spivak and Benny Goodman.
The big dances of my day were jitterbug, which I never mastered, and the Big Apple. That's about all I can think of right now. Reading the booklet for "String of Pearls" should give you a better feel for that fun era. Other great bands of that day were:Horace Heidt, Tommy Dorsey and his bother Jimmy Dorsey who had his own band and, lest I forget, Red Nichols and His Five Pennies, a small Combo that could really jazz it up. I danced to them on The Island Queen, an Ohio River steam boat with five decks, the middle deck being almost entirely a dance floor with band stand and many *******ment stands. That was the way we traveled to Coney Island in Cincy, but they also had what was called moonlight cruises with many good bands from time to time.
That's about all I can think of right now. Maybe more later as things come to mind. Have fun.
Jim DuVal