4. All A Quiver
Saxophobia, the dance band craze with vibrato-laden saxophone sections, London hearings, and saxophonist bandleaders charting an elevated cultural trajectory.
While Rudy Wiedoeft’s remarkable, idiomatic virtuosity was never heard live in Australia, his music was shared via recordings, sheet music, and later by radio. Dubbed the ‘Kreisler of the Saxophone’, recordings of his pieces such as Valse Erica were advertised in the Australian press as early as 1919. Saxophobia, first recorded in 1920, sees Wiedoeft playing ahead of the beat to generate musical excitement.
Rudy Wiedoeft, Saxophobia (1920)
Frank Ellis was a major figure in the dance bands of the second stanza of the Australian Jazz Age (1923–28), whose pedigree included playing piano with bandleader Art Hickman in San Francisco. From their arrival in Sydney in May 1923, the Californians are credited with introducing vibrato to saxophone sections in Australia.
Columbia 143423.
Frank Ellis And His St. Francis Orchestra, Hop Skip (1927)
Bert Ralton was another major saxophonist and dance band figure in Australia from 1923, who presented a more sophisticated image of the saxophone for Australian audiences. Ralton’s soprano saxophone stars in his arrangement from Verdi’s 1851 opera, which originally featured four voices. In dance band form, it was ‘finely played’ in the encore of Ralton’s early Sydney performances in November 1923, and was also ‘warmly applauded’ when heard in Newcastle in April 1925.
Bert Ralton’s Havana Band, Rigoletto (1923)
Vibrato-laden saxophone sounds can be briefly heard in this 1925 Australian recording of Ralton’s band.
Austral 6 D22.
Bert Ralton’s Havana Band, Copenhagen (1925)
Melbourne-born Ern Pettifer, heard here on alto saxophone, began playing woodwind instruments after seeing the Sousa Band in 1911, and took up the saxophone as part of the orchestra at Her Majesty’s Theatre to ‘earn an extra quid a week’. He then shifted to dance bands, playing alongside touring US saxophonists such as Walter Beban in this 1926 Sydney recording, before leading bands at St Kilda’s Palais de Danse from 1929–36 and visiting London in 1936.
The Palais Royal Californians, Milenberg Joys (1926)
Australians had long compared their cultural products to those of London, and in 1930 Sydney’s star saxophonist Abe Romaine ventured to London. Romaine won first chair with the band of Jack Hylton, performed across Britain and continental Europe, made a number of recordings such as this Depression-era concert item – Hylton’s records sold in the millions – and was a celebrity in Australian dance band circles thereafter.
Decca K660.
Jack Hylton and His Orchestra, By the Fireside (1932)
US-born, British-based Howard Jacobs was selected to lead the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Melbourne Dance Band in 1936, and (similar to Wiedoeft before him) was known as the ‘Kreisler of the Saxophone’ for his technique and refined playing style. Jacobs’ less oppositional image for the saxophone can be seen in this 1932 recording featuring singer Frances Day.
Howard Jacobs and The Savoy Hotel Orpheans, I’m For You A Hundred Percent (1932)
This 1938 recording, of a slow fox trot by Jacobs and his band from London, illustrates the four-bass-beats-to-a-bar rhythm characteristic of swing. Jacobs’ sympathetic saxophone tone shares the melody alongside guitar.
Columbia FB1899.