16 November 2021

Glen Gray Casa Loma 1920s-40s Ork – Phantom Dancer 16 Nov 2021

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist. It was a collective that was the top swing band before Benny Goodman. Loved for its complex, danceable arrangements, Coleman Hawkins named it as his favourite band.

HEAR this Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 16 November) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

I’m Greg Poppleton and I’ve brought you The Phantom Dancer every week on 107.3 2SER radio Sydney since 1985.

Here’s a 1941 Warner Brothers short of the band featuring Lindy Hoppers, Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan. Key band soloists are also introduced in the fimal song…

COLLECTIVE

The Casa Loma Orchestra began in 1927 as a unit of the Jean Goldkette organisation under the name ‘Orange Blossoms’. Orange Blossoms, in the early 20th century was the newspaper headline for reports on wedding receptions.

The name, Casa Loma, came in 1929 when they were booked to play at the Casa Loma in Toronto, which suddenly closed. Stranded in that city, the musicians formed a musical collective, first under the direction of violinist Hank Biagini. In 1933, saxophonist Glen Gray was voted to front the band as the ‘first among equals’.

In 1930, the Casa Loma Orchestra was incorporated in New York with the members becoming owners, shareholders and board members. The band members were hired on the grounds of musical and congenial competence and followed strict conduct and financial rules. Because the band operated as a collective group, as opposed to almost all other bands that had a leader for whom everyone worked, the band maintained a stable collection of personnel that varied little. Members who broke the rules could be summoned before the board, have their contract bought out, and be ejected from the band.

Even the orchestra’s talent arranger, Gene Gifford, who created the unique Casa Loma sound, fell victim to the band’s strict rules, being bought out in 1935 for alcohol-related infractions.

In 1943, Eugenie Baird became the first woman vocalist with the Casa Loma Orchestra.

Here she is being interviewed by Guy Lombardo on 1955 TV. She also sings, You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You…

RADIO

The orchestra featured in the mid-1930s incarnation of the long-running ‘Camel Caravan’ series, which you’ll hear an excerpt from on this week’s Phantom Dancer. You’ll also hear a radio transcription of their famous sound made in 1934, and the orchestra live in 1943 and on the air with Eugenie Baird singing in 1944.

16 NOVEMBER PLAY LIST