04 October 2022

Lenny Herman and 1950s Lounge Music

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Lenny Herman accordianist and xylophonist led what was dubbed ‘The Mightiest Little Band in the Land’ in the 1940s and 50s. For fans of 1950s Lounge Music albums, here’s one of those bent easy listening orchestras live on 1948 and 1957 radio as this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist.

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 4 October) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

LENNY

Lenny was a ‘best-seller on stereophonic tape’ (he released songs on reel-to-reel tape) and a band with bright party-like LP album covers from the 1950s beloved of record bin hunters with a penchant for the staidly wacky.

The Lenny Herman Quintet that you’ll hear on this week’s Phantom Dancer airchecks:

Lenny Herman – Accordion, Vibraphone, And Vocals
Alan Shurr – Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, And Vocals
Charles Shaw – Piano, Celeste, And Organ
Earl “Gumpy” Comfort – Violin, String Bass, And Vocals
Stan Scott – Drums

Lenny Herman’s legacy has been dumped on from great heights by contemporary music reviewers such as Eugene Chadbourne who wrote in All-Music:

“Lenny Herman is sometimes described as a jazz bandleader of the ’40s and ’50s, yet his band bus was really more of a bandwagon, using the latter word in terms of a fad or flavor of the day.

He got in early on [sic], covering “Daddy’s Little Girl” in 1947, and not with the shroud that might have really been appropriate with this anthem of treacle. Alternate publications of the sheet music for this song featured photographs of artists who recorded it; the version with the Lennie Herman Quintet describes the group as “Latin-American.” Despite this stylistic designation the small combo was also featured on a recording of “Grandfather’s Clock” the year before.

Herman also took charge of much larger groups, building a reputation as a big-band leader that eventually eclipsed that of the quintet, if a word as mighty as “eclipsed” can be used to describe something more like a radar blip than a super nova.

He recorded orchestra sides such as “When You Fall in Love” for Decca and a nifty red vinyl 45 entitled “Mightiest Lil’ Band in the Land.” During the early ’50s Herman was on the front line of the new trends in commercial children’s music, waving a diaper like a flag of surrender.

He used the quintet to cut “Percy the Pale Faced Polar Bear” in 1951 and eventually had enough tracks for tots and tykes to tote up the early-’60s Family Album LP, also featuring singer Ginny Gibson. The 1957 Dance Party showcases Herman’s talents on both accordion and xylophone, the set list consisting mostly of Tin Pan Alley hits.”

The reviewer, Eugene Chadbourne, and his Electric Rake…

HERMAN

Lenny gets a fairer review in musicbio.org:

“Although generally uncelebrated during his career being a band head, Lenny Herman made a substantial contribution towards the dance band music of NY, USA, from the first 50s onwards.

Located in hotels like the Astor, Edison, Roosevelt, Waldorf-Astoria and New Yorker, his small band, frequently dubbed ‘The Mightiest Small Music group In The Property’, etched an absolute impression over the night time dancers of these establishments with music such as for example ‘No Foolin’’.

Led by Herman’s accordion playing, the music group, which hardly ever numbered a lot more than ten and sometimes significantly less than eight, also discovered engagements additional afield in Philadelphia (the Warwick Resort), Atlantic Town (the Straymore Resort), Virginia Seaside (the Cavalier Resort) and Dallas (the Baker Resort).

With the middle-60s the music group had moved completely towards the Lake Tahoe region, where the right now five or six solid ensemble gained its living playing to combined audiences in the resort hotels.”

So now enjoy Lenny Herman on this week’s Phantom Dancer in airchecks from 1948 and 1957…

4 OCTOBER PLAY LIST