Various Artists – London Jazz Scene – The 30´s (1969)

This is a very intersting sampler … that take us back to the London Jazz scene in the 30´s of the last century:

Lew Stone (28 May 1898 – 12 January 1969) was a bandleader and arranger of the British dance band era, and was well known in Britain during the 1930s.

Stone learned music at an early age and became an accomplished pianist. In the 1920s, he worked with many important dance bands. Some arrangements attributed to Stone can be heard on particular records by the Savoy Orpheans (1927) and Ray Starita and his Ambassador’s Band (1928).

During 1927–1931, Stone’s arrangements for the Bert Ambrose Orchestra made it virtually the best in Europe. The HMV discs are today sought after as much for those arrangements as for the superb instrumentalists or vocals.

Stone continued to work with other bands like Jack Hylton’s and Jack Payne’s BBC Dance Orchestra, and he also took several top musicians into the studio to make a few recordings that were issued on the Duophone label as ‘Lewis Stone and his Orchestra’.

Roy Fox’s Band opened at the Monseigneur Restaurant in 1931 and Stone took up the position of pianist and arranger. When Fox became ill in October he was sent to Switzerland to rest and Stone assumed leadership of the band. The main vocalist at the Monseigneur was the very popular Al Bowlly who had already sung on over 30 recordings.

When Fox returned to London in April 1932, he found that his band was the most popular in the city. A contemporary article in The Gramophone magazine described events.

In 1932, Stone also worked with a studio band and several recordings were issued on the flexible Durium Records featuring vocals by Al Bowlly, Sam Browne and Les Allen. Some of the arrangements on Durium were by Stan Bowsher.

In October 1932, when Roy Fox’s contract at the Monseigneur ended, Stone was offered the post of bandleader and this story filled the pages of the music press. An article from Rhythm magazine describes how this happened.

The Tuesday night broadcasts from the Monseigneur established Stone’s band as a great favourite with the listening public, who recognised the sheer quality of the music, and the royal clientele attracted an unsurpassed reputation. Rave reviews were common in the music press, for example Melody Maker.

The popularity of vocalist Al Bowlly increased; he was a regular on broadcasts, his name was credited on many of the Decca records and he toured with the band including an appearance before of royalty at the London Palladium.

In 1933, Stone’s Monseigneur Band was involved in a competition designed to test the popularity in Britain of British vs US dance bands. It was run by the ‘News Chronicle’ newspaper and was based on the sales of specially recorded dance tunes by Stone’s band, Jack Hylton’s, Guy Lombardo’s and Wayne King’s. The songs were “What More can I Ask?” and “Can’t We Meet Again?”.

From late 1931 until 1934, Stone was also musical director for British & Dominions Film Corporation, working mostly from Elstree Studios, and later worked with other film companies. About 40 pre-1947 films which involved Stone with his band or as Musical Director are included in the listings of British musical films on the British Dance Bands on Film, British Entertainers on Film, British Musical Directors website.

In November 1933, Stone transferred his band to the Cafe Anglais and in February 1934 started a very successful tour for the Mecca Agency. The band returned to the Monseigneur in March 1934 until the summer when the Monseigneur was sold to become a cinema. In September 1934, Al Bowlly and Bill Harty left to join Ray Noble in USA.

For about a year from November 1934, Stone moved to the Regal Zonophone record label, continued with theatre tours, and the band was resident for a time at the Hollywood Restaurant. Alan Kane became the main vocalist while there were also vocal contributions from Nat Gonella, Joe Ferrie, Tiny Winters and Joe Crossman. When Gonella left to concentrate on his own Georgians band in March 1935, trumpeter Tommy McQuater joined Stone’s band. On 12 October, Stone featured Sam Browne as vocalist for the first time with “Cheek To Cheek” and Isn’t This A Lovely Day?. In November, Stone and his band returned to the Decca record label.

In 1936, Stone stopped touring and formed a smaller band which opened on 30 March at the Cafe de Paris. The band also began to broadcast regularly for commercial radio stations Radio Normandy and Radio Luxembourg. In October, Stone became musical director for the show On Your Toes (opened February 1937). The band continued at the Cafe de Paris until 31 July 1937. In September, Stone became musical director of the show Hide and Seek at the London Hippodrome starring Cicely Courtneidge and Bobby Howes.

Al Bowlly returned to England at the end of 1937 and in February 1938 he began recording with Stone again. Recordings with Bowlly in 1938 are as good as those made during the earlier years. Stone’s band played music of all kinds, for all tastes, and for all the dance tempos, but today it is particularly their playing of the sentimental ballads that is recognised and in demand for re-issue on CD, especially the titles featuring Bowlly. In his own arrangements, Stone was particularly careful to match Bowlly’s voice with appropriate ensemble phrasing and short instrumental solos resulting in very pleasant recordings which make much more satisfying listening than many other bands’ recordings of the standard tunes.

Stone was not afraid to work with modern music and was also an innovator. His recordings of the Gene Gifford/Casa Loma Orchestra titles are not mere copies but careful interpretations which make full use of the superb musicians in his band. The skills of Lew Davis, Joe Crossman and Nat Gonella are particularly evident on several of Stone’s earlier jazz titles, some of which were issued in USA.

In June 1938, the band was the first name band to play at Butlins Holiday Camps and in September they were back at The Cafe de Paris and broadcasting regularly from there.

In October, Stone became musical director for the Jack Hulbert show Under Your Hat which continued into 1939 and featured the Rhythm Brothers (Clive Erard, Jack Trafford, Frank Trafford). His band played at the El Morocco Club, London.

In June 1940, Stone opened at the Dorchester Hotel with a seven piece band which he led on the novachord. This band was much praised for its original style. Later Stone also made several records with his jazz group the Stonecrackers which featured Britain’s finest soloists. Broadcasting and recording with his large band continued and he toured the country during the rest of the war years.

After the war, his band resided at various places including The Embassy Club, The Pigalle Restaurant and Oddenino’s Restaurant up to 1955. In this period he made several recordings with the King of Jiddish Music Leo Fuld. Stone continued to work round the ballrooms and broadcast with his fourteen piece band until 1959 when the BBC told him that he could not expect to broadcast as frequently as he would wish unless he reduced the size of his band. So, Lew Stone and his sextet was born.

For the next eight years they played frequently for ‘Music While You Work’ also appearing weekly, for nearly two years in ‘The Bands Played On’- a breakfast-time programme. Lew was also concentrating on his entertainments agency in the 1960s.

At the time of his death in 1969 Stone’s music from the 1930s was just beginning to gather a whole new following.

Benjamin Baruch Ambrose (11 September 1896 – 11 June 1971), known professionally as Ambrose or Bert Ambrose, was an English bandleader and violinist. Ambrose became the leader of a highly acclaimed British dance band, Bert Ambrose & His Orchestra, in the 1930s.

Ambrose was born in Warsaw in 1896, when it was part of the Russian Empire. After a time the family moved to London. They were Jewish, his father being registered as a “Dealer in rags” in the 1911 UK census, where Ambrose was named as “Barnett’ (a “Violin musician student”). He began playing the violin while young, and travelled to New York with his aunt. He began playing professionally, first for Emil Coleman at New York’s Reisenweber’s restaurant, then in the Palais Royal’s big band. After making a success of a stint as bandleader, at the age of 20 he was asked to put together and lead his own fifteen-piece band. After a dispute with his employer, he moved his band to another venue, where they enjoyed considerable popularity.

While at the Palais Royal, on 5 June 1918, he registered for the draft (Local Board Division 169, City of NY NY, 144 St Nicholas Ave; Registration 232). He gave as his date of birth 11 September 1896; place of birth Warsaw, Russia; nationality Russian; father’s birthplace Grietza, Russia; place of employment Palais Royal, 48th Street & Broadway; nearest relative Mrs Becky Ambrose, mother, 56 “Blaksley” Street, London, England. He signed as “Bert Ambrose”. The registrar recorded medium height, medium build, brown hair, brown eyes and no physical disability that would render him exempt from the draft.

In 1922, Ambrose returned to London, where he was engaged by the Embassy Club to form a seven-piece band. He stayed at the Embassy for two years, before walking out on his employer to take up a much more lucrative job in New York. After a year there, besieged by continual pleas to return from his ex-employer in London, in 1925 he was finally persuaded to go back by a cable from the Prince of Wales: “The Embassy needs you. Come back—Edward”.

This time Ambrose stayed at the Embassy Club until 1927. The club had a policy of not allowing radio broadcasts from its premises, however, and this was a major drawback for an ambitious bandleader, largely because the fame gained by radio work helped a band to gain recording contracts (Ambrose’s band had been recorded by Columbia Records in 1923, but nothing had come of this). He therefore accepted an offer by the May Fair Hotel, with a contract that included broadcasting.

During his time at the Embassy, he married “Kathryn Lucille otherwise Kitty Brady”, a 24-year-old Irish-American from New Jersey, on 20 January 1924. Oddly, he is named and signed as “Bernard Ambrose”, a 27-year-old “Musical Director”, on the marriage certificate. They had two daughters, Patricia S (b. 1931) and Monica J (b. 1933).

Ambrose stayed at the May Fair for six years, during which time the band made recordings for Brunswick Records, HMV and Decca. He teamed up with Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, along with an American harmony song trio, the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce (aka Three X Sisters), to record songs including “My Heart Stood Still” among others. This period also saw the musical development of the band, partly as a result of Ambrose’s hiring of first-class musicians, including Sylvester Ahola, Ted Heath, Joe Crossman, Joe Jeannette, Bert Read, Joe Brannelly, Dick Escott and trumpeter Max Goldberg.

In 1933, Ambrose was asked to accept a cut in pay at the May Fair; refusing, he went back to the Embassy Club, and after three years there (and a national tour), he rejected American offers and returned to the May Fair in 1936. He then went into partnership with Jack Harris, an American bandleader, and in 1937 they bought a club together, Ciro’s Club. For three months they even employed Art Tatum there, to some the greatest jazz pianist who ever lived. Ambrose and Harris alternated performances at Ciro’s until a disagreement led to the rupture of their partnership. Ambrose then worked at the Café de Paris until the outbreak of the Second World War, when he again went on tour.

His major discovery in the years leading up to the war was the singer Vera Lynn (b. 1917), who sang with his band from 1937 to 1940 and, during the war, became known as the “Forces’ Sweetheart”. Lynn married Harry Lewis, a clarinettist in the band, in 1939. Other singers with the Ambrose band included Sam Browne, Elsie Carlisle, Denny Dennis, who recorded a number of duets with Vera Lynn, Max Bacon (also the band’s drummer), Evelyn Dall and Anne Shelton, with whom “When That Man is Dead and Gone”, a jibe at Adolf Hitler, written by Irving Berlin, was recorded in 1941. Ambrose’s signature tune was “When Day is Done”.

After a short period back at the May Fair Hotel, Ambrose retired from performing in 1940, although he and his orchestra continued to make records for Decca until 1947. Several members of his band became part of the Royal Air Force band, the Squadronaires, during the war. Ambrose’s retirement was not permanent, however, and he formed and toured with the Ambrose Octet, and dabbled in management.

In the mid-1950s, despite appearances in London’s West End and a number of recordings for MGM, Ambrose, in common with other bandleaders, was struggling because rock and roll had arrived. He was forced to start performing in small clubs with casual musicians, and his financial position deteriorated catastrophically. His situation was saved, however, by his discovery of the singer Kathy Kirby (1938–2011), whom he heard singing at the age of 16 at the Ilford Palais. He started a long personal relationship with Kirby and promoted her career.

It was during the recording of one of Kirby’s television programmes (at the Yorkshire Television studios) that Ambrose collapsed, dying later the same night in Leeds General Infirmary. His music was kept alive after his death by, among others, Radio 2 broadcasters Alan Dell and Malcolm Laycock, the latter continuing to play his records into the 21st century. His records, especially from his many 78-rpm records and Radio Luxemburg recording , still regularly feature on Australian radio 8CCC-FM’s long-running nostalgia programme “Get Out Those Old Records”, hosted by Rufl.

Specialist dance band radio stations, such as Radio Dismuke and Swing Street Radio, continue to play his records. Ambrose also features regularly on the Manx Radio programme Sweet & Swing, presented by Howard Caine.

Ambrose was commemorated in 2005 by a blue plaque unveiled on the May Fair Hotel. (by wikipedia)

What a wonderful trip in the history of the past, in the history of the golden days of Big Band Jazz !

Alternate labels

Personnel:

Ambrose & His Orchestra:
Billy Amstell (saxophone)
Max Bacon (drums)
Dick Ball (bass)
Bert Barnes (piano)
Joe Brannelly (guitar)
Eric Breeze (trombone)
Les Carew (trombone)
Lew Davis (trombone)
Joe Ferrie (trombone)
Max Goldberg (trumpet)
Albert Harris (guitar)
Ted Heath (trombone)
Joe Jeanette (saxophone)
Tommy McQuater (trumpet)
Alfie Noakes (trumpet)
Sid Phillips (saxophone)
Danny Polo (saxophone, clarinet)
Dennis Radcliffe (trumpet)
Tony Thorpe (trombone)
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Eddie Carroll (piano on 04.)
Clinton French (trumpet on 05.)
Jack Simpson (timpani on 05., xylophone on 04. + 05.)

The Lew Stone Band:
Harry Berly (saxophone, viola)
Al Bowlly (guitar)
Joe Crossman (saxophone, clarinet)
Lew Davis (trombone)
Jim Easton (saxophone, clarinet)
Nat Gonella (trumpet)
Billy Harty (drums)
Monia Liter (piano)
Alfie Noakes (trumpet)
Ernest Ritte (saxophone)
Tiny Winters (bass)
+
Don Barrigo (saxophone on 09.)
Harry Berly (saxophone on 09.)
Tommy McQuater (trumpet on 09.)
Bill Mulraney (trombone on 09.)
Barry Wicks (drums on 09.)

Tracklist:

Ambrose & His Orchestra:
01. Embassy Stomp (Barnes) 2.41
02. Caravan (Ellington/Mills/Tizol) 2.36
03. Deep Henderson (Rose) 3.15
04. Hors D’Oeuvre (Comer) 3.12
05. The Night Ride (Phillips) 2.59
06. Cotton Pickers’ Congregation (Phillips) 3.07
07. Copenhagen (Davis/Melrose) 3..01

The Lew Stone Band:
08. White Jazz (Gifford) 3.08
09. St Louis Blues (Handy) 2.40
10. Nagasaki (Warren/Dixon) 2.50
11. Milenberg Joys (Rose/Morton/Roppolo/Mares) 3.03
12. Blue Jazz (Gifford) 2.59
13. Serenade For A Wealthy Widow (Foresythe) 3.08
14. Tiger Rag (Original DixieLand Jazz Band) 3.08

01 3rd January 1935
02, 03, 06 8th July 1937
04 4th January 1935
05 29th June 1936
07 30th July 1935
08, 12 3rd November 1933
09 9th November 1935
10 24th October 1933
11, 13 16th May 1934
14 9th January 1934

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Swingin´ London in the 30´s

Robert Johnson – The Complete Recordings (1990)

One hundred years ago, a boy-child was born in Mississippi – a dirt-poor, African-American who would grow up, learn to sing and play the blues, and eventually achieve worldwide renown. In the decades after his death, he has become known as the King of the Delta Blues Singers, his music expanding in influence to the point that rock stars of the greatest magnitude – the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers – all sing his praise and have recorded his songs.

That boy-child was Robert Johnson, an itinerant blues singer and guitarist who lived from 1911 to 1938. He recorded 29 songs between 1936 and ‘37 for the American Record Corporation, which released eleven 78rpm records on their Vocalion label during Johnson¹s lifetime, and one after his death.

Most of these tunes have attained canonical status, and are now considered enduring anthems of the genre: “Cross Road Blues,” “Love In Vain,” “Hellhound On My Trail,” “I Believe I¹ll Dust My Broom,” “Walking Blues,” “Sweet Home Chicago.”

Like many bluesmen of his day, Johnson plied his craft on street corners and in jook joints, ever rambling and ever lonely – and writing songs that romanticized that existence. But Johnson accomplished this with such an unprecedented intensity, marrying his starkly expressive vocals with a guitar mastery, that his music has endured long after the heyday of country blues and his own short life.

Never had the hardships of the world been transformed into such a poetic height; never had the blues plumbed such an emotional depth. Johnson took the intense loneliness, terrors and tortuous lifestyle that came with being an African-American in the South during the Great Depression, and transformed that specific and very personal experience into music of universal relevance and global reach. “You want to know how good the blues can get?” Keith Richards once asked, answering his own question: “Well, this is it.” Eric Clapton put it more plainly: “I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson.”

The power of Johnson’s music has been amplified over the years by the fact that so little about him is known and what little biographical information we now have only revealed itself at an almost glacial pace. Myths surrounding his life took over: that he was a country boy turned ladies’ man; that he only achieved his uncanny musical mastery after selling his soul to the devil. Even the tragedy of his death seemed to grow to mythic proportion: being poisoned by a jealous boyfriend then taking three days to expire, even as the legendary talent scout John Hammond was searching him out to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

In 1990, Sony Legacy produced and released the 2-CD box set Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings to widespread critical acclaim and, for a country blues reissue, unprecedented sales. The Complete Recordings proved the existence of a potential market for music from the deepest reaches of Sony¹s catalog, especially if buoyed by a strong story with mainstream appeal. Johnson¹s legend continues to attract an ever-widening audience, with no sign of abating. If, in today¹s world of hip-hop and heavy metal, a person knows of only one country blues artist, odds are it is Robert Johnson. (robertjohnsonbluesfoundation.org)

The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28, 1990 on Columbia Records. The album’s recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company (ARC) during 1936 and 1937. Most of the songs were first released on 78rpm records in 1937. The Complete Recordings contains every recording Johnson is known to have made, with the exception of an alternate take of “Travelling Riverside Blues”.

The Complete Recordings peaked at number 80 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album has sold more than a million copies, and won a Grammy Award in 1991 for “Best Historical Album.” In 1992, the Blues Foundation inducted the album into the Blues Hall of Fame. It also was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2003. The board selects recordings in an annual basis that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Prior to his death in 1938, through the help of H. C. Speir Johnson recorded 29 songs for the American Record Company (ARC). His complete canon of recordings includes these 29 masters, plus 13 surviving alternate takes, all recorded at two ARC sessions held in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas. The Mississippi Delta—two hundred miles of fertile lowlands stretching from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south—was one of the primary locales in which the blues originated and developed. He is said to have been heavily influenced by early blues artists like Skip James, who was recorded in 1931, around the same time that Johnson amazed his elders with his mastery of the guitar. James’s eerie, distinctive style is reflected throughout Johnson’s recordings, most notably in “32-20 Blues,” which he adapted from James’s “22-20 Blues.”

Johnson’s first session in San Antonio, Texas lasted three days, on the 23rd, 26th, and 27th of November 1936, sixteen songs were recorded in the Gunter Hotel, where ARC had set up equipment to record a number of musical acts. “Kind Hearted Woman Blues” was the first song recorded. Also captured in San Antonio were “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” and “Sweet Home Chicago,” both of which became post-war blues standards. “Terraplane Blues,” known for its metaphoric lyrics, became a regional hit and Johnson’s signature song. Most of the selections were released on Vocalion 78s, but three songs and several interesting alternate takes remained unissued until they appeared on the Columbia albums. Six months later, on the 19th and 20th of June 1937, other recording sessions took place in a Dallas, Texas warehouse where, once again, ARC had set up its recording equipment to capture many different acts. This time 13 songs were recorded and 10 were released during the following year.

The song “Cross Road Blues” is one of his most popular, thanks to Eric Clapton and Cream (Wheels of Fire), whose interpretation popularized the song in the late 1960s. Johnson’s recordings became popular in the early ’60s when Columbia Records released a collection of called King of the Delta Blues Singers. Bluesmen like Clapton and Keith Richards viewed the release as something of a blues bible, considered by some to be the “King of the Delta Blues Singers” The Rolling Stones recorded “Love in Vain” on their 1969 album, Let It Bleed, and “Stop Breakin’ Down” on their Exile on Main St. (1972) album.

While Robert Johnson’s professional recording career can be measured in months, his musical legacy has survived more than 70 years. Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, two prominent Chicago bluesmen, have their roots in the Delta: both knew Robert Johnson, and were heavily influenced by him. Johnson’s emotive vocals, combined with his varied and masterful guitar playing, continue to influence blues and popular music performers to this day. In 2004, Eric Clapton recorded Me and Mr. Johnson as a tribute to legendary bluesman; the album reached number 6 on the Billboard 200 and has sold more than 563,000 copies in the United States. The Chicago Tribune‍ ’​s Greg Kot wrote that The Complete Recordings, along with Clapton’s The Layla Sessions (1990), survive as “monuments of 20th Century music that will rarely, if ever, be equaled”. (by wikipedia)

A double-disc box set containing everything Robert Johnson ever recorded, The Complete Recordings is essential listening, but it is also slightly problematic. The problems aren’t in the music itself, of course, which is stunning and the fidelity of the recordings is the best it ever has been or ever will be. Instead, it’s in the track sequencing. As the title implies, The Complete Recordings contains all of Johnson’s recorded material, including a generous selection of alternate takes. All of the alternates are sequenced directly after the master, which can make listening to the album a little intimidating and tedious for novices. Certainly, the alternates can be programmed out with a CD player or mp3 player, but the set would have been more palatable if the alternate takes were presented on a separate disc. Nevertheless, this is a minor complaint — Johnson’s music retains its power no matter what context it is presented in. He, without question, deserves this kind of deluxe box set treatment. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

Personnel:
Robert Johnson (guitar, vocals)

Tracklist:

CD 1:
01. Kind Hearted Woman Blues 2.49
02. Kind Hearted Woman Blues (alternate take) 2.31
03. I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom 2.56
04. Sweet Home Chicago 2.59
05. Ramblin’ On My Mind (alternate take) 2.51
06. Ramblin’ On My Mind 2.20
07. When You Got A Good Friend 2.37
08. When You Got A Good Friend (alternate take) 2.50
09. Come On In My Kitchen (alternate take) 2.47
10. Come On In My Kitchen  2.35
11. Terraplane Blues 3.00
12. Phonograph Blues 2.37
13. Phonograph Blues (alternate take) 2.35
14. 32-20 Blues 2.51
15. They’re Red Hot 2.56
16. Dead Shrimp Blues 2.30
17. Cross Road Blues 2.39
18. Cross Road Blues (alternate take) 2.29
19. Walkin’ Blues 2.28
20. Last Fair Deal Gone Down 2.39

CD 2:
01. Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil) 2.50
02. If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day 2.34
03. Stones In My Passway 2.27
04. I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man 2.35
05. From Four Till Late 2.23
06. Hellhound On My Trail 2.35
07. Little Queen Of Spades 2.11
08. Little Queen Of Spades (alternate take) 2.15
09. Malted Milk 2.17
10. Drunken Hearted Man 2.24
11. Drunken Hearted Man (alternate take) 2.19
12. Me And The Devil Blues 2.37
13. Me And The Devil Blues (alternate take) 2.29
14. Stop Breakin’ Down Blues (alternate take) 2.16
15. Stop Breakin’ Down Blues 2.21
16. Traveling Riverside Blues 2.47
17. Honeymoon Blues 2.16
18, Love In Vain (alternate take) 2.28
19. Love In Vain 2.19
20. Milkcow’s Calf Blues (alternate take) 2.14
21. Milkcow’s Calf Blues 2.20

All songs written by Robert Johnson

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Record of death

Nat Gonella & His New Georgians – Swing All Night (CD 1) (2003)

Nathaniel Charles (Nat) Gonella (7 March 1908 – 6 August 1998) was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist and mellophonist born in London, perhaps most notable for his work with the big band he founded, The Georgians, during the British dance band era.

His vocal style was reminiscent of Louis Armstrong, though the voice was often eclipsed by his achievements as a band leader and trumpeter. Gonella has been a major influence on other British jazz trumpeters, including Humphrey Lyttelton and Digby Fairweather.

Gonella was born in a deprived area of east London, and took up cornet while attending an institution for underprivileged children, St Mary’s Guardian School in Islington.

His first professional job arrived when, after a short spell as a furrier’s apprentice, he joined Archie Pitt’s Busby Boy’s Band in 1924, a small junior pit orchestra and touring review band. He remained with the band until 1928, and it was during this period that he became acquainted with the early recordings of Louis Armstrong, and the New Orleans jazz style in general. He transcribed Armstrong’s solos and learned them by heart.

He worked with Bob Bryden’s Louisville Band for a time in 1928-9, and with pianist Archie Alexander in Brighton, then joined the Billy Cotton band at the end of 1929, a move which provided him with a more prominent platform, both on the concert stage and also on radio, and allowed him to record his first jazz solos and vocal features (which included scat singing).
The 1930s

He played briefly with Roy Fox in 1931, and then stayed in that band when Lew Stone, Fox’s former pianist, took over leadership the following year. It was with Stone’s band that he firmly established his reputation.

When Louis Armstrong visited London in 1932, Gonella met his idol by begging the staff at Boosey and Hawkes’s music shop to allow him to deliver Armstrong’s trumpet, left at the shop for cleaning, to his hotel room. Armstrong was apparently initially amused to find such an ardent devotee, but appreciated his willingness to help, and the two men became good friends.

In 1933 Gonella published a book called Modern Style Trumpet Playing – A Comprehensive Course. In the same year he made uncredited appearances (alongside Lew Stone and Al Bowlly) in the films Bitter Sweet and The King’s Cup.

Gonella’s standing grew even more quickly after the formation of his own band, The Georgians, in 1935. The band took its name from a highly-popular version of the song “Georgia On My Mind” that he recorded for Lew Stone in 1932, and which became the trumpeter’s signature tune. The Georgians began as a featured band within Stone’s shows, before setting up as an independent unit.

Gonella formed his own big band, and quickly became a headline artist on the still-thriving variety circuit, and they continued to top bills around the country until the outbreak of World War II.

He joined the army in 1941, and was recruited into the Stars in Battledress campaign, touring allied camps in Europe and North Africa. Whilst in Europe and North Africa Gonella served as the personal servant or “batman” to Major Alexander Karet and once the war had ended was offered the position as personal Butler to the Major, but he politely refused in order to pursue his music career.

He reformed his band after the war, but the economic and musical climate was changing rapidly at that time. He flirted briefly with bebop, acknowledged that it was not for him, and returned to the variety stage during the 1950s, touring with the likes of the comedian Max Miller.

The revival in traditional jazz in the late Fifties allowed him to reform his Georgians in 1960. In February 1960 he featured on the UK television show This Is Your Life, an appearance which later inspired an album The Nat Gonella Story, modelled on Louis Armstrong’s A Musical Autobiography. He also appeared on the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs in August 1966.

All of this attention re-established Gonella, at least until the advent of The Beatles brought the trad jazz boom to a halt. He moved to Lancashire in 1962, and toured regularly on the Northern club circuit until his alleged retirement on his 65th birthday, on 7 March 1973.

That retirement did not last long. Drummer Ted Easton persuaded him to come to play to his (Easton’s) club in Holland during the mid-1970s, and a new recording of a song he had first cut with Roy Fox in 1931, “Oh, Monah”, became a big hit in Holland.

It was to be his final flourish on trumpet, but he continued to sing after moving to Gosport, Hampshire, in 1977 – where a square was renamed in his honour in 1994, and was always happy to stand up and do so in a local pubs or at the Gosport Jazz Club.

Digby Fairweather’s New Georgians paid tribute to Gonella’s musical heritage in 1984, and Fairweather and fellow trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton co-hosted a television tribute, Fifty Years of Nat Gonella, the following year, in which Gonella himself was an enthusiastic participant.

He continued to sing occasionally with various bands, and made the headlines again in 1997 when a sampled excerpt of his trumpet playing from a recording he made in 1932 was used in White Town’s number one pop hit, “Your Woman”.

Nat Gonella died at his home in Gosport on 6 August 1998, aged 90.

Gonella was a down-to-earth and unassuming character, and remained so throughout his life. On BBC Radio 4, Barry Humphries said that “Oh Mona” was one of two tracks that had most appealed to him in his life. Humphrey Lyttelton is among those who have testified to the fact that fame and success sat easily on his shoulders, and reports that he would show genuinely astonishment when Lyttelton would confess, as well as other prominent musicians, to Gonella having been his first jazz hero. (by wikipedia)

This is part 1 of a sampler of his very fine recordings during the 30´s … I will present the 2nd part of this sampler in a few days ! Enjoy this music from the golden days of swing !

Personnel:
Nat Gonella (trumpet, vocals)
Jimmy Messene (vocals)
Pat Smuts (saxophone)
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The New Georgians

Tracklist:
01. The Music Goes Round And Round (Hodgson/Farley/Reilly) 2.56
02. Blue Turning Grey Over You (Razaf/Waller) 3.06
03. Wabash Blues (Kaingle/Meinken) 3.05
04. You Rascal You (Theard) 2.59
05. Jealous (Maile/Finch/Little) 2.56
06. Down At Uncle Bill´s (Mercer/Carmichael) 3.05
07. Nagasaki (Dixon/Warren) 2.53
08. Tiger Rag (La Rocca) 2.59
09. Stardust (Carmichael) 3.05
10. Mam Don´t Allow (Davenport) 3.11
11. Woe Is Me (Cavanaugh/Emmerich/Stanford) 2.32
12. The Sheik Of Araby (Smith/Wheeler/Snyder) 3.11
13. Capri Caprice (Kennedy/Grosz/Gonella) 2.47
14. Georgia Rockin´ Chair (Fisher) 3.12
15. I Want To Be Happy (Caesar/Yoomans) 3.11
16. Farewell Blues (Rappolo/Mares/Schoebel) 3.10
17. E Flat Blues (Marks/Williams) 2.17
18. Fan It (Jaxon) 3.05
19. Way Down Yonder In New Orleans (Creamer/Layton) 2.59
20. Lazy River (Carmichael) 2.57

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