Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Benjamin Bernard Selvin was an American musician, bandleader, and record producer. He was known as the Dean of Recorded Music.
"Beer Barrel Polka", originally in Czech "Škoda lásky", also known as "The Barrel Polka", "Roll Out the Barrel", or "Rosamunde", is a 1927 polka composed by Czech musician Jaromír Vejvoda. Lyrics were added in 1934, subsequently gaining worldwide popularity during World War II as a drinking song.
"Singin' in the Rain" is a song with lyrics by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown. Doris Eaton Travis introduced the song on Broadway in The Hollywood Music Box Revue in 1929. It was then widely popularized by Cliff Edwards and the Brox Sisters in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Many contemporary artists had hit records with "Singin' in the Rain" since its release, including Cliff Edwards, Earl Burtnett and Gus Arnheim in 1929 alone.
"Shine On, Harvest Moon" is a popular early-1900s song credited to the married vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. It was one of a series of moon-related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era. The song was debuted by Bayes and Norworth in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 to great acclaim. It became a pop standard, and continues to be performed and recorded in the 21st century.
John Serry Sr. was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives during the Golden Age of Radio. He also concertized on the accordion as a member of several orchestras and jazz ensembles for nearly forty years between the 1930s and 1960s.
Alexander Emil Caiola was an American guitarist, composer and arranger, who spanned a variety of music genres including jazz, country, rock, and pop. He recorded over fifty albums and worked with some of the biggest names in music during the 20th century, including Elvis Presley, Ray Conniff, Ferrante & Teicher, Frank Sinatra, Percy Faith, Buddy Holly, Mitch Miller, and Tony Bennett.
Squeeze Play is an Ultra High Fidelity monaural phonographic album which was released on the Dot Records label in 1956 (DLP-3024) featuring John Serry Sr. It includes an original composition by Serry, classical works, and popular music of the era. Ben Selvin serves as the musical director/producer for the album. The works were arranged by Serry and performed with his ensemble featuring two accordions, piano, guitar, bass, drum, vibes, and marimba.
RCA Thesaurus, a brand owned by RCA Victor, was a supplier of electrical transcriptions. It enjoyed a long history of producing electrical transcriptions of music for radio broadcasting which dated back to NBC's Radio Recording Division.
Anthony C. "Tony" Mottola was an American jazz guitarist who released dozens of solo albums. Mottola was born in Kearny, New Jersey and died in Denville.
"Little Brown Jug" is a song written in 1869 by Joseph Eastburn Winner, originally published in Philadelphia with the author listed as Winner's middle name "Eastburn".
"My Melancholy Baby" is a popular song published in 1912 and first sung publicly by William Frawley. The music was written by Ernie Burnett (1884–1959), the lyrics by George A. Norton.
"Chicago" is a popular song written by Fred Fisher and published in 1922. The original sheet music variously spelled the title "Todd'ling" or "Toddling." The song has been recorded by many artists, but the best-known versions are by Frank Sinatra, Ben Selvin and Judy Garland. The song alludes to the city's colorful past, feigning "... the surprise of my life / I saw a man dancing with his own wife", mentioning evangelist Billy Sunday as having not been able to "shut down" the city, and State Street where "they do things they don't do on Broadway".
American Rhapsody was written for the accordion by John Serry Sr. in 1955 and subsequently transcribed for the free-bass accordion in 1963 and for the piano in 2002. The composer was inspired by the classical orchestral works of George Gershwin along with various Latin jazz percussive rhythms utilized throughout South America while composing this opus.
"Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay" is a vaudeville and music hall song first performed by the 1880s. It was included in Henry J. Sayers' 1891 revue Tuxedo in Boston, Massachusetts. The song became widely known in the 1892 version sung by Lottie Collins in London music halls, and also became popular in France.
"Nobody's Sweetheart", also known as "Nobody's Sweetheart Now" and "You're Nobody's Sweetheart Now", is a popular song, written in 1924, with music by Billy Meyers and Elmer Schoebel, and lyrics by Gus Kahn and Ernie Erdman. The song is a jazz and pop standard.
"Chinatown, My Chinatown" is a popular song written by William Jerome (words) and Jean Schwartz (music) in 1906 and later interpolated into the musical Up and Down Broadway (1910). The song has been recorded by numerous artists and is considered an early jazz standard.
"Somebody Stole My Gal" is a popular song from 1918, written by Leo Wood. In 1924, Ted Weems & his Orchestra had a five-week run at number one with his million-selling version. Its Pee Wee Hunt and his orchestra version is also known in Japan, particularly in Osaka and surrounding area as the theme song used by Yoshimoto Kogyo for their theatre comedies at Namba Grand Kagetsu and other venues.
"If You Knew Susie" is the title of a popular song written by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Meyer. It was published by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. in 1925. The sheet music included ukulele tabs by Richard Konter. In the largely comic song, a man sings that he knows a certain woman named Susie to be much wilder and more passionate than most people realize.
"La Cinquantaine" is a piece of music which was composed by Jean Gabriel-Marie in 1887.
