May’s Dardanella of the Month - Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra

Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. The single biggest recording act of the 1920s. In movies, when they want to evoke the sound of the era, this is who they play. I won’t say he was bigger than the Beatles — he was a chubby, balding, middle-aged man, so his appeal was on quite a different level — but his sound was the standard of the age, and many great names worked with him over the years, including Bix Beiderbecke and Bing Crosby.

Whiteman’s version of the song was not the biggest seller — that honor goes to Ben Selvin and His Orchestra, which made the song famous in 1920. (In those days, everyone had an orchestra. It was mandatory, like getting a Social Security Number.) Read the label on this video, and you’ll note that the song is designated as a Foxtrot. Which it was, after all. Not that anyone cares about such things these days.

Frankly, the Ben Selvin version of the song is better, and I’ll get around to posting that one one of these months. But you can hear the standard Whiteman approach, with competence oozing from every element, as the musicians swap solos in the usual jazzband style of the day.

Anyhoo, here it is. Click to play, Dummy!

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