Vintage Music Productions, one great source of reissued dance band and swing music from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, has done us all a big favor by reissuing a little more than 25 percent of the output generated by Sam Lanin's band when it recorded for Harmony during 1926-1928 as
the Broadway Bell-Hops. With the exception of the catchy "I Found a Round About Way to Heaven," "Collette," and "Don't Somebody Want Somebody to Love," this collection is chock-full of pop vocals by Billy Jones, the Harmony Brothers, Arthur Fields, and especially Irving Kaufman, who is heard on no less than seven out of 22 titles. While jazz purists may bristle at the old-fashioned singers and foxtrot arrangements,
the Bell-Hops were strengthened by the presence of trombonist
Miff Mole and trumpeter
Red Nichols, who on "Tonight's My Night with Baby" was replaced by
the California Ramblers' front-liner Chelsea Quealey. Even more importantly, "There Ain't No Land Like Dixieland" and "There's a Cradle in Caroline" were performed by a group directed by Lanin but otherwise known as
Frankie Trumbauer's orchestra, a unit that included cornetist
Bix Beiderbecke. The personnel on tracks 16-22 is indeterminate or conjectural, although it is likely that if you hear a kazoo it is being sounded by clarinetist Larry Abbott. Like many other entries in the Vintage Music Productions catalog,
the Broadway Bell-Hops' album is recommended for those who are capable of appreciating the innocent charm of harmless vocals and vintage dance band entertainment. ~ arwulf arwulf