| “High Jinks” Eric Harden And His Orchestra January 1937 (Parlophone F-1168 mx Bi 2846) |
Here’s a novelty ragtime recording from Germany that is among the selections to be added to Radio Dismuke on this week’s playlist update.
Novelty ragtime emerged in the United States during the same period when the ragtime era itself was giving way to jazz. The genre is often referred to as “novelty piano,” since many of its early compositions were issued on piano rolls featuring arrangements that were usually too complex for the typical home piano player. During the 1920s, however, American dance bands occasionally recorded full-fledged orchestral versions of these pieces.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, by the mid-1930s dance band recordings of novelty ragtime had achieved far greater popularity in Germany than they ever had in the United States. In my opinion, German dance bands—especially those led by Otto Dobrindt and Hans Bund—as well as German composers such as Fritz Häringer, who wrote the selection featured here, took the genre to its highest level.
This recording of “High Jinks” comes from a British pressing on the Parlophone label. Its catalog number indicates that it was added to the British Parlophone catalog in 1938. However, the matrix number shows that it was actually recorded in January 1937. The “Bi” prefix on the matrix number indicates that the recording was intended for release on the German budget label Gloria. I have not been able to find any online reference to its catalog number or German title on Gloria or any of its sister labels, such as Odeon. My ability to research German recordings is somewhat limited, but it was not uncommon for record companies to make masters that they chose not to issue in their domestic market available to their foreign affiliates.
Eric Harden was a recording pseudonym on Odeon and Gloria, usually—though not always—used for Otto Dobrindt’s in-house studio orchestra. I was not able to confirm with certainty that the band on this recording is Dobrindt’s, but my strong assumption is that it is.
If you enjoyed this recording, you can find a few other examples of novelty ragtime from its 1930s German heyday in earlier blog postings. One is “Puppe und Kobold” by Hans Bund’s Bravour Dance Orchestra. You can also hear two excellent recordings by Otto Dobrindt’s Piano Symphonists—“Will O’ the Wisp” and “Rouge et Noir”—from a record that took me many years to find.