Paul Pendarvis

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Paul Pendarvis(néPaul Plumley Pendarvis; 2 December 1907 Enid, Oklahoma – 13 January 1987 Palmdale, California) was an American violinist and big band leader popular in the swing era.

Enid, Oklahoma City in Oklahoma, United States

Enid (ē'nĭd) is a city in Garfield County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 49,379, making it the ninth-largest city in Oklahoma. It is the county seat of Garfield County. Enid was founded during the opening of the Cherokee Outlet in the Land Run of 1893, and is named after Enid, a character in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. In 1991, the Oklahoma state legislature designated Enid the "purple martin capital of Oklahoma." Enid holds the nickname of "Queen Wheat City" and "Wheat Capital" of Oklahoma and the United States for its immense grain storage capacity, and has the third-largest grain storage capacity in the world.

Palmdale, California City in California, United States

Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the city of Los Angeles to the south.

United States Federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Contents

Career

Pendarvis was born in Enid, Oklahoma. After completing his junior year (11th grade) at Enid High School in 1924, he transferred to Santa Monica High School, graduating in 1925. He went on to attend the University of California, Los Angeles.

Enid High School public secondary school

Enid High School (EHS) is a public tertiary school in Enid, Oklahoma, USA, operated by the Enid Public Schools school district. With a student body of about 1,800 in grades 9-12, Enid High School has a matriculation rate of about 65 percent. Some graduates continue their education at University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, or other establishments in Oklahoma. In recent years some have gone to West Point, Princeton University, Trinity University (Texas) and Yale University.

Santa Monica High School

Santa Monica High School, officially abbreviated to SAMOHI, is located in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1891, it changed location several times in its early years before settling into its present campus at 601 Pico Boulevard. It is a part of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

University of California, Los Angeles Public research university in Los Angeles, California

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public research university in Los Angeles. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the third-oldest undergraduate campus of the 10-campus University of California system. It offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA enrolls about 31,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students and had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, making the school the most applied-to of any American university.

Pendarvis worked in business and had minor roles in silent films, then moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he assembled a dance band that quickly found success. Pendarvis's band received radio airplay in the Kansas City area and worked regionally as a territory band in Kansas and the Midwest, including bookings at the Congress Hotel in Chicago. [1] He also booked engagements in New York, and later in the decade moved the band to Los Angeles, playing venues on the California coast. [2] Early in the 1940s he dissolved the group and took a position directing a radio station in California.

Silent film Film with no synchronized recorded dialogue

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound. In silent films for entertainment, the plot may be conveyed by the use of title cards, written indications of the plot and key dialogue lines. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in the late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system. The term "silent film" is a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds During the silent-film era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the intertitle cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the video did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience.

Kansas City, Missouri City in western Missouri

Kansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city had an estimated population of 488,943 in 2017, making it the 37th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Kansas–Missouri state line. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a Missouri River port at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850 the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after.

Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, 6 or 7 nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges, Lions Clubs, hotel ballrooms, and the like. Francis Davis, jazz critic for The Village Voice, likened territory bands to "the Top 40 cover bands of their day, typically relying on stock arrangements of other ensembles' hits." He said, "many historians give much credit to territory bands for popularizing modern ballroom dancing that began during the World War I era with the influence of Vernon and Irene Castle."

Recordings

Pendarvis recorded for Columbia Records, notably his band's signature song, "My Sweetheart". His vocalists included Marilyn Duke and Phyllis Lynne.

Columbia Records American record label; currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment

Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded in 1887, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1990, Columbia recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records.

Marilyn (Marylin) Duke(néeManfrey Lecta Duke; 3 October 1916 Jackson, Georgia – 7 August 1995 Clayton County, Georgia), was an American singer from the swing era of the mid to late 1930s and early 1940s. She began as a soloist in 1933 on radio in Atlanta, then, beginning 1936, was carried on syndicated and network radio from New York. In the first half of the 1940s, Duke traveled and recorded as a featured singer with big bands, notably with Vaughn Monroe. She distinguished herself as a rhythm singer — that is, a singer who swings. And, while with the Monroe Orchestra, she was acclaimed for having an engaging personalty. Duke was a tall brunette, and, according to journalists, attractive. As for her hair color, Duke was a blonde when she re-joined Monroe's band in 1944. After her career with big bands — after 1945 — and into the late 1960s, she performed on-and-off as a nightclub pianist-singer in the metropolitan areas of Boston, New York, and Newport, Rhode Island. Her recorded hits with Vaughn Monroe include "There'll Be Some Changes Made" and "The Trolley Song" — the latter being a late-1944, post-Petrillo-ban, rush-to-market, swing band vocal duet with Monroe.

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References

  1. ↑ "Paul Pendarvis". Colin Larkin, Encyclopedia of Popular Music. 4th edition, 2006.
  2. ↑ Leo Walker, The Big Band Almanac. Ward Ritchie Press, 1978, p. 340.
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