Abe Lyman's band was basically a dance orchestra. Nevertheless, in the mid 1920s he cut for Brunswick the series of outstanding hot jazz arrangements - among which the most famous are \"Too Bad\" and \"Shake That Thing\" - the second assumed as almost \"prophetic\" for rock'n'roll rhythm. Here's the B side of \"Too Bad\" - recorded Feb,1926 in L.A.
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Abe LYMAN (1897 -1957) was a popular bandleader from the 1920s to the 1940s. His name at birth was Abraham Simon Lymon. Abe and his brother Mike changed their last name to Lyman because they both thought it sounded better. Abe learned to play the drums when he was young, and at the age of 14 he had a job as a drummer in a Chicago café. Around 1919, Abe was regularly playing music with two other notable future big band leaders, Henry Halstead and Gus Arnheim in California. In the 'roaring twenties' Lyman and Arnheim started their career as joint leaders of the \"Syncopated Five\" band. They co-wrote \"I Cried for You\" while with this group. After splitting, Arnheim went on to lead his own band at the famed Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, while Abe went on to form his own orchesra too. At times, Abe's band included Teddy Powell, who went on to composing hit songs and leading his own band. Also, Abe had Caspar Reardon, the great harpist.
He made many recordings for Brunswick records. His band toured Europe in 1929, appearing at the Kit Cat Club and the Palladium in London and at the Moulin Rouge and the Perroquet in Paris. Abe Lyman and his orchestra were featured in a number of early talkies, including Hold Everything (1930), Good News (1930) and Madam Satan (1930). In 1931, Abe Lyman and his orchestra recorded a number of soundtracks for the Merrie Melodies cartoon series. During the 1930s, the Lyman Orchestra was heard regularly on such shows as Accordiana and Waltz Time. When Lyman was 50 years old, he left the music industry and went into the restaurant management business. He died in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 60.
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Recording:
Abe Lyman's California Ambassador Hotel Orchestra - Too Bad (Schoebel) Fox Trot, Brunswick 1926
ATTENTION: There's a wrong title of the song in the film's intro: I wrote erroneolusly the title from the side B of that record: Nothing Else To Do, while ofcourse, it is \"Too Bad\"!
