DOWN BY THE FRONT DOOR GATE { 0:00 } - The Rhythm Band (George Fisher)
ALL BY YOURSELF IN THE MOONLIGHT { 2:58 } - The New Mayfair Dance Orchestra – Vocalist Eddie Grossbart (and the band)
HMV B-5562 (recorded 22 October and 7 November 1928, respectively, issued December 1928)
By 1928 it was rare to find different performers paired on the same record; but here we have George Fisher’s The Rhythm Band paired with HMV’s house band The New Mayfair Dance Orchestra. (The latter’s predecessor, The Mayfair Dance Orchestra, dates back to at least 1911.)
Both sides were cut in the Small Queen’s Hall on Langham Place (HMV’s C studio). The NMDO get a more distant and spaced recording, with the room acoustic showing through. Presumably HMV’s recording engineers were very well practised at mic arrangement for the house band.
ALL BY YOURSELF was obviously the purchaser’s preferred side, given the wear on it. Personally, I have never understood how Eddie Grossbart carved a vocalist’s career with that voice. At 3:26 the sound of the NMDO goes muffled as he steps between them and the mic. Carroll Gibbons was the director of the NMDO at this time and, just as he did when directing the Savoy Orpheans up to about eleven months previously, he had to get his piano solo interlude in there. After the Orpheans’ demise at the close of 1927, in early 1928 Gibbons led a 14-man band (10 ex-Savoy) on a continental tour, including cutting 8 sides for Homocord as the ‘Original Orpheans Band from Savoy Hotel London’ (that's how it is on the labels). Back in London he led a band for the musical ‘Running Wild’. He took over the NMDO leadership from Percival Mackey around September 1928.
I bought the record for DOWN BY THE FRONT DOOR GATE. The Rhythm Band never fails.
