By 1917 Earl Fuller led a society dance band at the popular Rector’s Restaurant in New York City called Earl Fuller’s Rector Novelty Orchestra. Their records released on Victor, Columbia, Emerson and Edison sold well from 1918 to 1920. Fuller ensembles helped popularize dance band trends of that period.

For several of his earliest sessions Fuller led a small jazz ensemble dubbed on record labels Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band, which was probably formed at the suggestion of Victor executives eager to duplicate the success of the first disc of the Original Dixieland Jass Band, made in late February of 1917.

Fuller’s orchestra, called Earl Fuller’s Rector Novelty Orchestra, recorded for Columbia over two dozen dance numbers from mid-1917 to early 1919. Each number features a xylophone played by Teddy Brown. The songs recorded for the last Columbia sessions incorporated musical themes suggesting exotic lands.

Titles of such fox trots include “Sweet Siamese” (A2712), “Egyptland” (A2722), “Mummy Mine” (A2722), “Singapore” (A2686), “Out Of The East” (A2686), and “Spaniola” (A2697). Notable jazz numbers are “Graveyard Blues” and “Sweet Emalina, My Gal,” issued on Columbia A2523. Other titles include the one- step “Howdy” (written by “Ted and Josh,” which may be Ted Lewis and another band member) and “Russian Rag” (A2649).

An advertisement on page 67 of the February 1920 issue of Jacobs’ Orchestra Monthly identifies Fuller as president of the American Musicians Syndicate, Inc., with an office at 1604 Broadway in New York City. Fuller managed various dance ensembles. Labels for Pathé records made in 1919 by Joseph Samuels’ Orchestra identify Earl Fuller of the Cafe de Paris as manager of the band.

By 1921, his ensemble was called Earl Fuller’s New York Orchestra on Edison Diamond Discs and Blue Amberols. The same name was used on two Olympic discs issued around the same time though the misleading pseudonym Haynes’ Harlem Syncopators was used when “Melody in F,” originally on Olympic 15118, was issued on Black Swan 2058.

Fuller’s wife was prominent as a booker of musicians. Page 62 of the May 1924 issue of Metronome identifies Mrs. Earl Fuller as “booker of clubs and social functions for the Consolidated Orchestras Booking Exchange of 1587 Broadway.”

By Tim Gracyk from the book Popular American Recording Pioneers 1895 -1925.