Hot British Dance Bands 1925-1937

JAZZ CLASSIC OF THE MONTH

While dance music was always much more popular in Great Britain in the 1920s and ’30s than jazz, even the top society bands occasionally performed jazz since it was danceable. The orchestras could not devote themselves exclusively to the music because, to an extent, jazz was looked down upon in England and the dance orchestras did not want to scandalize the conservatives in their audience. But once in awhile they were able to play a heated number for the younger set.

Hot British Dance Bands, which was released by the Timeless label in 1991, has 22 examples of British jazz from 1925-37. Compiled in chronological order, most of the top jazz-friendly British orchestras are represented on a song apiece including the Kit-Cat Band, Fred Elizalde’s Cambridge Undergraduates, the Rhythmic Eight, Philip Lewis, Jack Hylton, Spike Hughes, Billy Cotton, Roy Fox, Lew Stone, Ray Noble, Madame Tussaud’s Dance Orchestras, the Six Swingers, Harry Roy, and Ambrose. The latter’s “Cotton Pickers’ Congregation” is a classic.

On such numbers as “Riverboat Shuffle,” “Sugar Foot Stomp,” “That’s A Plenty,” “Tiger Rag,” “Nobody’s Sweetheart,” and “China Boy,” the British bands show that they could swing and play hot jazz when they were allowed to. This is an excellent compilation.

Hot British Dance Bands
Timeless 1-005
www.amazon.com

Scott Yanow

Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.