Here is a superb side by the Decca studio band, the Rhythm Maniacs, featuring the Bix-influenced cornet playing of Norman Payne in two great solos (the first one being open horn and the second muted). The arrangement of this lovely British dance tune, composed by Norman Hackforth, provides the perfect setting for Payne's lyrical cornet style. Indeed, the entire recording is empathetic to the late 1920s style of hot arranging of ballads that was emphasised by American bands such as Hal Kemp's, which also had a Bixian cornet player (Bob Mayhew). Even the vocalist here - Len Lees, a drummer who worked in Arthur Rosebery's band - sings in a similar fashion to Hal Kemp's well known vocalist Skinny (later Skinnay) Ennis.
Len Lees is, in my opinion, much better suited to the modernistic style of hot dance music heard here than Maurice Elwin, the usual singer for the Rhythm Maniacs' sessions. Although Elwin was perfectly adequate as a singer of popular songs, competent and highly reliable, he was already starting to sound old fashioned by this date and within a couple of years had completely disappeared from the dance band scene, as others - notably Al Bowlly - came to the fore. It's a pity that Len Lees didn't carry on as a dance band singer, as he's very good.
Incidentally, the coda reminds me of a Paul Whiteman recording of the late 1920s, \" I'd Rather Cry Over You\".
Apart from Norman Payne and Len Lees, the personnel here is an aural guestimate. I am not convinced that the personnel given for the Rhythm Maniacs sessions around this time in Rust-Forbes \"British Dance Bands On Record\" is accurate, though I'm not claiming that the one provided below is guaranteed to be 100% accurate either, though I think the make up is more likely!
THE RHYTHM MANIACS
Arthur Lally, alto sax, baritone sax, clarinet, directing: Norman Payne - cornet / Dennis Ratcliffe or Bill Shakespeare - trumpet / Ted Heath - trombone / Joe Crossman - alto sax, clarinet / Joe Jeannette - tenor sax / Jean Pougnet and Reg Pursglove - violins / Claude Ivy - piano / Joe Brannelly - banjo or tenor guitar / Tiny Stock - brass bass / Len Lees - drums, vocals
Recorded at the Chenil Galleries, Chelsea, London, October 29th, 1930
GB- 2144-2 Who Cares? Dec F-2036
This is an exceptional record musically, but also exceptional in terms of the recording session itself. The session is entered in the Decca files as \"Savoy Havana Band - Commercial Test\"!! The official Savoy Havana Band - the one that played at the Savoy Hotel - broke up way back in December 1927, though a band called the Original Havana Band, directed by that old Savoyard Cyril Ramon Newton, recorded for Vocalion (for its Broadcast label) in 1928 and 1929. However, it seems that there is no connection whatsoever between this recording and either the official Savoy Havana Band or the \"Original Havana Band\". Aurally, it sounds very much like a typical Rhythm Maniacs line up for the period, apart from the use of Len Lees as the vocalist, so why the session was entered in the books as \"Savoy Havana Band - Commercial Test\" is a mystery.
