On this week’s Phantom Dancer…
There’s jazz harpsichord by Sylvia Marlow from 1941 radio, a set Duke Ellington’s women singers on live 1930s-50s radio, and a set of 1943-45 recordings by Sydney swing band leader, George Trevare, with a track by singer Lawrie Brooks, father of Pulitzer author, Geraldine Brooks.
See the full play list, program link and weekly video here.
I’m Greg Poppleton, 1920s-1930s singer. I’ve been bringing you the Phantom Dancer on 107.3 2SER Sydney every week since December 1985. It’s your non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV. And it’s now heard on 23 radio stations around Australia.
You can hear this week’s show online for the next four weeks on the website of radio station 2SER. And as always, the last hour of The Phantom Dancer is all vinyl.
LAWRIE BROOKS
The father of author, Geraldine Brooks, sings with the George Trevare Orchestra on today’s Phantom Dancer.
Quoting from a review of one his daughter’s novels in The Australian newspaper, 6 February 2008,
“Lawrie Brooks was American, ‘a big-band singer in Hollywood and Hawaii in the 1930s’ who, stranded in Australia in 1938 (when the band manager made off with the earnings), became an early star of Australian radio, and who, at the age of 54, transformed himself into a proofreader for a daily newspaper. He was a man of opinion and integrity, angry, flawed, eccentric and delightful.
An obsessive subject to drinking bouts, he was addicted also to firing off letters to notables such as Albert Einstein and Rupert Murdoch (and often receiving replies). With his mysterious past and an assumed name, he is the most vivid character in Brooks’s memoir: loveable, infuriating, certainly less than perfect, but a fellow most of us would stand in a queue for the pleasure of meeting.”
GERALDINE BROOKS (Officer of the Order of Australia)
is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author now based in the U.S.
Recognition
2006: Pulitzer Prize for ‘March’ (a chronicle of wartime service for the ‘absent father’ of the March girls in Louise May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’.)
2008: Australian Publishers Association’s Literary Fiction Book of the Year for People of the Book[12]
2009: Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award[13]
2010: Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award[14]
2016: Officer of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours
Novels
Year of Wonders (2001)
March (2005)
People of the Book (2008)
Caleb’s Crossing (2011)
The Secret Chord (2015)
Nonfiction
Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women. 1994.
Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal’s Journey from Down Under to All Over. 1997.
Boyer Lectures 2011: The Idea of Home (or “At Home in the World”). 2011.
Also on this week’s Phantom Dancer, Rosa Rio. His a short obit about her. She was still performing on the theatre organ age 107
Make sure you come back to this blog, Greg Poppleton’s Radio Lounge, every Tuesday, for the newest Phantom Dancer play list and Video of the Week!
Thank you.
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio Community Radio Network Show CRN #301
107.3 2SER Tuesday 23 Jan 2018 After the 2SER 12 noon news, 12:04 – 2:00pm (+11 hours GMT)
National Program:
ArtSoundFM Canberra Sunday 7 – 8pm
and early morning on 22 other stations.
Set 1
Swing 1940-44 Radio
Theme + Chopping Wood
Woody Herman Orchestra
Famous Door
WEAF NBC Red NY
7 Jan 1940
It’s a Crying Shame
Woody Herman Orchestra (voc) Frances Wayne
Cafe Rouge
Hotel Pennsylvania
WABC CBS NY
21 Aug 1944
Flying Home
Lionel Hampton Orchestra
’One Night Stand’
Civic Auditorium
Oakland Ca
4 Jun 1944
Set 2
Jazz Organ and Harpsichord
Sunrise Serenade (theme) + This Is The Missus
Rosa Rio
’Rosa Rio Time’
WJZ ABC NY
14 Jul 1947
Tea For Two
Johnny Saab
’Organ Interlude’
WJSV Washington DC CBS
21 Sep 1939
The Turkish March
Sylvia Marlowe (harpsichord)
’Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street’
WJZ NBC Blue NY
17 Dec 1941
Set 3
Latin Strains On 1930s-40s Radio
Theme + Chiu Chiu + Begin the Beguine
Desi Arnez Orchestra (voc) DA and Band
Ciro’s
KECA ABC LA
1947
Habenero and Vacero
A&P Gypsies
’A&P Show’
WEAF NBC Red NY
1933
Night Must Fall + Nightingale + My Shawl (theme)
Xavier Cugat Orchestra
’All-Star Parade of Bands’
Last Frontier
NBC Las Vegas
30 Nov 1953
Set 4
Bop and Hard Bop on 1950s Radio
Strike Up The Band
Pete Brown Quintet
’One Night Stand’
Birdland
WNBC NBC NY
2 Sep 1952
Happy Birthday + Body and Soul
Sarah Vaughan
’Stars in Jazz’
Birdland
WNBC NBC NY
26 Mar 1953
Out of Nowhere + Jumping With Symphony Sid
Charlie Parker
Hi-Hat Club
WCOP Boston
24 Jan 1954
Set 5
Women Singers with the Duke Ellington Orchestra on 1930s-50s Radio
In A Mizz
Ivie Anderson (voc) Duke Ellington Orchestra
Ritz Carlton Hotel
WNAC NBC Boston
26 Jul 1939
Riff Staccato
Joya Sherrill (voc) Duke Ellington Orchestra
’One Night Stand’
Club Zanzibar
AFRS Re-broadcast
28 Oct 1945
Rose of the Rio Grande
Ivie Anderson (voc) Duke Ellington Orchestra
Eastwood Gardens
WWJ NBC Red Detroit
31 Jul 1940
Take The A Train
Bette Roche (voc) Duke Ellington Orchestra
Blue Note
WMAQ NBC Chicago
13 Aug 1952
The Kissing Bug
Joya Sherill (voc) Duke Ellington Orchestra
‘Date With The Duke’
400 Restaurant
WJZ Blue NY
28 Apr 1945
Set 6
Commercial Sides: George Trevare and His Australians
Don’t Sweetheart Me
George Trevare Orchestra (voc) Joan Blake
Comm Rec
Sydney
1943-45
Under The Trees
George Trevare Orchestra (voc) Lawrence Brooks
Comm Rec
Sydney
1943-45
No Love No Nothin’
George Trevare Orchestra (voc) Al Royal
Comm Rec
Sydney
1943-45
Let’s Have One For The Road
George Trevare Orchestra (voc) Unknown
Comm Rec
Sydney
1943-45
Set 7
Glenn Miller and his Orchestra 1939 – 41 Radio
Intro + Here We Go Again + White Cliffs of Dover
Glenn Miller Orchestra (voc) Ray Eberle
’Sunset Serenade’
Cafe Rouge
Hotel Pennsylvania
WJZ NBC Blue NY
27 Dec 1941
Georgia On My Mind
Glenn Miller Orchestra
’Sunset Serenade’
Cafe Rouge
Hotel Pennsylvania
WJZ NBC Blue NY
30 Aug 1941
Blueberry Hill
Glenn Miller Orchestra (voc) Marion Hutton
’Sunset Serenade’
Cafe Rouge
Hotel Pennsylvania
WJZ NBC Blue NY
6 Nov 1940
