A Dolce-Tone Phonograph For Christmas 1920

Reed, Dawson, and Company, Inc. of Newark, New Jersey placed an advertisement for the Dolce-Tone phonograph in the December 12, 1920 Newark Sunday Call. The Dolce-Tone was made by this company, itself.

 

The Master-Tone Phonograph 1919

From the Sunday Chronicle of Paterson, New Jersey, comes this well illustrated advertisement of the Master-Tone phonograph and its various models. The advertisement date was June 8, 1919.

Brunswick, New Edison, Franklin, Master Tone and Victrola all for Christmas 1919

 

The Paterson New Jersey Sunday Chronicle ran these two different Christmas phonograph ads in the same edition, December 7, 1919 for competing music stores. The less known Franklin and Master Tone phonographs are mentioned in the top advertisement.

Claude Thornhill

From Wikipedia

Claude Thornhill
Claude Thornill, ca. 1947. Photography by William P. Gottlieb
Background information
Birth name	Claude Thornhill
Born	August 10, 1909 Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Died	July 2, 1965 (aged 55) New Jersey, USA
Genres	Jazz Cool jazz
Occupations	Pianist, Bandleader, Arranger, Composer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1924–1965
Associated acts	Paul Whiteman Benny Goodman Ray Noble Billie Holiday Lee Konitz Gil Evans Gerry Mulligan

Claude Thornhill (August 10, 1908^[1] at Terre Haute, Indiana – July 1, 1965, New Jersey) was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. He composed the jazz and pop standards “Snowfall” and “I Wish I Had You”, the last recorded by Billie Holliday.

Career

As a youth, he was recognized as an extraordinary talent and formed a traveling duo with Danny Polo, a musical prodigy on the clarinet and trumpet from nearby Clinton, Indiana. As a student at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, he played with several theater bands.

Thornhill entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age 16. That same year he and clarinetist Artie Shaw started their careers at the Golden Pheasant in Cleveland, Ohio with the Austin Wiley Orchestra. Thornhill and Shaw went to New York together in 1931.

Claude went to the West Coast in the late 1930s with the Bob Hope Radio Show, and arranged for Judy Garland in Babes in Arms.

In 1935, he played on sessions for Glenn Miller‘s first recordings under his own name, as Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. He played on Glenn Miller’s composition “Solo Hop,” which was released on Columbia Records.

After playing for Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, Glenn Miller, and Billie Holiday, and arranging “Loch Lomond” and “Annie Laurie” for Maxine Sullivan, in 1939 he founded his Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Danny Polo was his lead clarinet player. Although the Thornhill band was originally a sophisticated dance band, it became known for its many superior jazz musicians and for Thornhill’s and Gil Evans‘ innovative arrangements; its “Portrait of a Guinea Farm” has become a classic jazz recording.

The band played without vibrato so that the timbres of the instruments could be better appreciated, and Thornhill encouraged the musicians to develop cool-sounding tones. The band was popular with both musicians and the public; the Miles Davis Nonet was modeled in part on Thornhill’s cool sound and use of unconventional instrumentation. The band’s most successful records were “Snowfall,” “A Sunday Kind of Love” and “Love for Love.”

His most famous recording, “Snowfall,” was released in 1941 as Columbia 36268. He released the song also as a V-Disc recording, as V-Disc 271A1.

Playing at the Paramount Theater in New York for $10,000 a week in 1942, Thornhill dropped everything to enlist in the US Navy to support the war effort. As chief musician, he played shows across the Pacific Theater with Jackie Cooper as his drummer and Dennis Day as his vocalist.

In 1946, he was discharged from the Navy. Then in April, he reformed his ensemble. He kept his same stylistic lines, but added some Bop lines to it. He got his old members of Danny Polo, Gerry Mulligan, and Barry Galbraith back together, but also added new members like Red Rodney, Lee Konitz, Joe Shulman and Bill Barber. Barber was a tuba player, who was considered as a “soft brass” player rather than a bass as to not interfere with (Joe) Shulman on the bass. Their creative and immaculately clean and delicate interpretation of Evans’s arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie’s fast bop theme “Anthropology” (1947) provides a particularly noteworthy example of Thornhill’s style, which influenced Miles Davis’s recordings in 1949 for Capitol and many musicians who followed .

In the mid 1950s, Thornhill became Tony Bennett‘s musical director briefly.

He offered his big band library to Gerry Mulligan when Gerry formed the Concert Jazz Band, but Gerry regretfully declined the gift, since his instrumentation was different. A large portion of his extensive library of music is currently held by Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.

After his discharge from the Navy he continued to perform with his orchestra until his death of a heart attack at 1:30 a.m., July 2, 1965, at his home in Caldwell, New Jersey.^[3]Claude was booked at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the time, the engagement was kept in his honor with his music director in his place. He was survived by his wife, actress Ruth Thornhill, and his mother, Maude Thornhill (81 at the time), of Terre Haute, Indiana, still active at the time conducting choirs.

Compositions by Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill’s compositions included the standard “Snowfall”, “I Wish I Had You”, recorded by Billie Holiday and Fats Waller, “Let’s Go”, “Shore Road”, “Portrait Of A Guinea Farm”, “Lodge Podge”, “Rustle Of Spring”, “It’s Time For Us To Part”, “It Was A Lover And His Lass”, “The Little Red Man”, “Memory Of An Island”, and “Where Has My Little Dog Gone?”

Claude Thornill Orchestra, with Joe Shulman,Danny Polo, Lee Konitz, Louis Mucci, Barry Galbraith, Bill Barber, ca. 1947.
Photography by William P. Gottlieb.

George Olsen

From Wikipedia

The label of a contemporary European issue of George Olsen’s 1925 hit recording of Jerome Kern‘s Who?.

George Edward Olsen, Sr. (March 18, 1893 – March 18, 1971) was an American band-leader. Born in Portland, Oregon, he played the drums and attended the University of Michigan, where he was drum major. Here he formed his band, George Olsen and his Music, which continued in the Portland area. He then made the cross-county transition to Broadway, appearing in Kid Boots, the Ziegfeld Follies of 1924, and Good News.

George Olsen and his Music were prolific Victor recording artists and their records are among the most numerous found by record collectors today, testifying to their original popularity. He and his orchestra were in Eddie Cantor‘s 1928 Broadway hit Whoopee!, and in the 1930 movie version. In the Follies George met a singer, Ethel Shutta, who sings and dances memorably in Whoopee!, and they married, appearing together in nightclubs and on radio. They had two children, George, Jr. and Charles; following a divorce, Olsen opened a restaurant in Paramus, New Jersey.^{[citation needed]}

Olsen signed with Victor in 1924 and remained as one of Victor’s most popular bands through 1933 when he signed with Columbia. He stayed with Columbia through January, 1934. He recorded a single session in 1938 for Decca, and one final date for the rare Varsity label in 1940.

Olsen’s bands, though excellent, produced few stars. Singer-saxophonist Fred MacMurray passed through in 1930 on his way to eventual movie stardom, recording a vocal on I’m in the Market for You. Olsen’s long-time alto saxist and singer, Fran Frey, with his distinctive, reedy bass-baritone, was perhaps the best known Olsenite until he left in 1933 for a career as a music director in radio.

In 1936, Olsen became leader of Orville Knapp‘s band after Knapp died in a plane crash. Olsen was chosen to lead the band by Knapp’s widow.  Morale problems plagued the group, and in 1938, after many musicians had already left, the group disbanded.

A resident of Paramus, New Jersey, George Olsen ran a popular local restaurant there on Paramus Road for many years before he died there on March 18, 1971.

Cozy Cole

From Wikipedia

Cozy Cole
Photo by Ralph F. Seghers
Background information
Birth name	William Randolph Cole
Born	October 17, 1909
Origin	East Orange, New Jersey,United States
Died	January 9, 1981 (aged 71)
Genres	Swing
Occupations	Drummer
Instruments	Drums
Years active	1930s — 1970s
Associated acts	Cab Calloway Blanche Calloway Benny Carter Stuff Smith Willie Bryant Raymond Scott

Cozy Cole (October 17, 1909 – January 9, 1981)  was an American jazz drummer who scored a #1 Cashbox magazine hit with therecord “Topsy Part 2“. “Topsy” peaked at number three on Billboard Hot 100, and at number one on the R&B chart.  It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.  The track peaked at No. 29 in the UK Singles Chart in 1958.  The recording contained a lengthy drum solo, and was one of the few drum solo recordings that ever made the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single was issued on the tiny Brooklyn-based Love Records label.

William Randolph Cole was born in 1909 in East Orange, New Jersey. His first music job was with Wilbur Sweatman in 1928. In 1930 he played for Jelly Roll Morton‘s Red Hot Peppers, recording an early drum solo on “Load of Cole”. He spent 1931–33 withBlanche Calloway, 1933-34 with Benny Carter, 1935-36 with Willie Bryant, 1936-38 with Stuff Smith‘s small combo, and 1938-42 withCab Calloway. In 1942, he was hired by CBS Radio music director Raymond Scott as part of network radio’s first mixed-race orchestra. After that he played with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars.

Cole appeared in music-related films, including a brief cameo in Don’t Knock the Rock. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s Cole continued to perform in a variety of settings. Cole and Gene Krupa often played duets at the Metropole in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s.

He died of cancer in 1981, in Columbus, Ohio.

Cole is cited as an influence by many contemporary rock drummers, including Cozy Powell, who took his nickname “Cozy” from Cole.

Zez Confrey

From Wikipedia

The sheet music for “Dizzy Fingers” by Zez Confrey, one of the most popular of the novelty piano composers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The sheet music for “Dizzy Fingers”.

Edward Elzear “Zez” Confrey (April 3, 1895 – November 22, 1971)  was an American composer and performer of piano music. His most noted works were “Kitten on the Keys,” and “Dizzy Fingers.”

Life and career

Confrey was born in Peru, Illinois, United States, the youngest child of Thomas and Margaret Confrey. After World War I he became a pianist and arranger for the QRS piano roll company.  He also recorded for the AMPICO Company, which made piano rolls for their reproducing player piano mechanisms, which were installed in pianos such as the Mason&Hamlin, and Chickering to name a few. His novelty piano composition “Kitten on the Keys,” released in 1921, became a hit, and he went on to compose many other pieces in the same genre.  This piece was inspired by a cat at his grandmother’s house that he discovered prancing up and down the piano keyboard. “Dizzy Fingers” (1923) was Confrey’s other ragtime biggest seller.

After the 1920s he turned more and more toward composing for jazz bands. He retired after World War II but continued to compose occasionally until 1959. He died in Lakewood, New Jersey after suffering for many years from Parkinson’s disease.  He left behind more than a hundred piano works, miniature operas, and songs, plus numerous piano rolls, music publications, and recordings.

The Broadway Bellhops – There’s a Cradle In Caroline. Harmony 504-H

Sam Lanin dir. Bix Beiderbecke-c/Hymie Farberman-t/Bill Rank-tb/Don Murray-cl/Frank Trumbauer-Cm/Bobby Davis-as/Joe Venuti-vn/Frank Signorelli-p/John Cali-bj/Joe Tarto-bb/Vic Berton-d/irving Kaufman-v.
New York, September 29, 1927