09 January 2024

Jack Hylton: Britsh King of Jazz | Phantom Dancer

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Jack Hylton was an English pianist, composer, band leader and impresario. He was called the “British King of Jazz” and “The Ambassador of British Dance Music” because of his worldwide popularity, unusually large ensembles and polished arrangements. After 1940 he became a successful theatrical businessman. He’s your Phantom Dancer feature artist this week.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 9 January) and weeks of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

JACK

Jack Hylton learnt piano to accompany his amateur singer father who was also a cotton yarn twister.

Hylton later sang to the customers when his father bought a pub, becoming known as the “Singing Mill-Boy”. He was a relief pianist for various bands.

In 1905 he joined a pierrot troupe and went on to conduct the orchestra of a touring pantomime.

In 1913 he moved to London where he initially worked as an organist at a cinema .

A year later he was working as a pianist in the 400 Club and playing with the Stroud Haxton Band.

During the First World War he moved to be a musical director of the band of the 20th Hussars, and later in the Army Entertainment Division (N.A.C.B.)

After the First World War, Hylton formed a double act with comedian Tommy Handley to little success, also collaborating in a number of short-lived stage shows.

In 1919 he moved to Blackpool, where he composed and sold songs to tourists.

He returned to London, playing with the “Queens” Dance Orchestra, wrote arrangements of popular songs and recorded them for His Master’s Voice and Zonophone under the label “Directed by Jack Hylton” (being credited in lieu of a pay rise), his records carrying the new style of jazz-derived American dance music.

After being dismissed by his own bandmates from the Queen’s Hall in 1922, Hylton set up his own band, and a number of other orchestras under the Jack Hylton Organisation.

Even though he was not professionally trained for business, he brought his band to success when the Great Depression hit hard during the 1930s.

His good reputation allowed him to make contacts with famous jazz artists. He is credited for bringing Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and others to Britain and Europe in the 1930s.

HYLTON

As an ensemble of more than 20 musicians, the Hylton orchestra quickly stood out from the rest.

Hylton often embarked on lengthy tours of England, which ultimately moulded the concept most Britons had of jazz.

By the mid-1920s he was usually referred as the “British King of Jazz”, a notion Hylton initially dismissed.

As late as 1926, he thought of jazz as “a bunch of noises” popular at the end of the First World War, “when everything was topsy-turvy”.

Hylton first appeared on radio through station 2LO in 1924, and cut HMV’s first electric record the following year.

The second half of the 1920s marked Hylton’s highest point of prominence. After recovering from a near-fatal car accident – which took place on 20 January 1927, on the way to the HMV studios at Hayes, Middlesex – he made the first in a string of “continental tours” that lasted until 1930.

In 1931, Hylton became a director and major shareholder of the new Decca record label.

He was decorated by the French government in 1932, recorded with Paul Robeson, and made the first transatlantic entertainment broadcast with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra.

In late 1933, Hylton left Decca after refusing to take a pay cut. He spent 1934 touring Europe again. In 1935, he appeared in his first feature film, the musical comedy She Shall Have Music.

That same year, Hylton performed in the United States. He had repeatedly attempted this for almost a decade, but had been opposed by the musicians’ unions.

Standard Oil signed Hylton for a radio show on CBS. Union pressure led him to return to the UK in 1936, although his singer Pat O’Malley and pianist Alec Templeton stayed in America to successful careers.

On returning to Britain, he was criticised for adopting the then-popular swing rhythm, so he kept playing in his well-established style, including a series of new concert recordings.

After a new tour of Europe in 1937, which included a performance at the Scala in Berlin. Hylton began appearing on radio more frequently, starring in Radio Luxembourg’s Rinso Radio Revue until 1939 which you’ll hear on this week’s Phantom Dancer.

He appeared in the BBC’s Band Waggon, as well as its 1940 film adaptation.

TV

Hylton and his band also made a number of appearances on BBC television in the 1930s, on one of which Ernie Wise made his television debut.

The Jack Hylton orchestra disbanded in 1940 as many of its members were called up for service,

Jack continued to conduct orchestras for radio in the years to come, leading the Glenn Miller Orchestra when it visited England in 1943.

During the war, he took the London Philharmonic Orchestra around Britain, giving promenade concerts.

He became an impresario, discovering new stars and managing radio, film and theatre productions, from ballets to circuses. His productions dominated the London theatres with such productions as The Merry Widow, Kiss Me, Kate, and Kismet.

In 1950 he reunited with a number of his former employees, many of whom had become successful in their own right, for that year’s Royal Command Performance, billed as “The Band that Jack Built”. Despite their success, Hylton resisted calls for his return to band-leading.

In November 1955, he was contracted as Advisor of Light Entertainment to Associated-Rediffusion (A-R), winner of the London weekday franchise in the recently established ITV network. He founded Jack Hylton Television Productions, Ltd. in that same month to produce a range of light entertainment programming exclusively for A-R. In spite of their popularity, however, the company’s productions were of low quality, with performers even apologising in front of millions of viewers at times. The last shows made by the company were broadcast in 1960.

In 1965 a televised tribute to Hylton, The Stars Shine for Jack, was held in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with many artists including Arthur Askey, the Crazy Gang, Marlene Dietrich, Dickie Henderson and Shirley Bassey.

Last week, on the first set, I played a Bobby Sherwood Orchestra aircheck instead of the listed Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge ‘Stars in Jazz’ remote which you’ll hear this week. Enjoy!

9 January PLAY LIST