Len Fillis Novelty Quartet – 1929

Here are two recordings by a jazz quartet led by South African-born Len Fillis, who was widely regarded as Britain’s top banjoist and guitarist at the time.  Fillis was very prolific in the recording studios and made a large number of recordings, either playing with small combos such as the one on this recording or as a sideman with some of the era’s top British dance bands.

The quartet features piano, violin, tenor guitar, and Fillis on Hawaiian guitar. The tenor guitar player is believed to be another South African, Al Bowlly, who, in the 1930s, was Britain’s most famous vocalist and whose recordings continue to enjoy a large fan base.

Leonard Milford Fillis was born in 1903 in Cape Town, South Africa.  A genealogy website states that he was born with the last name Harris and that he and several family members changed their surname to Fillis.

Some sources say that Fillis moved to London in 1923.  Others say 1925.  I couldn’t quickly find any period sources to settle the matter one way or another. The earliest mention of him listed in Brian Rust’s British Dance Bands On Record is for a 1925 recording session. But that does not rule out the possibility that he had been in the country earlier.

In 1922-1923, Fillis and Bowlly were both members of a South African dance band led by pianist Edgar Adeler.  Multiple sources say that when Fillis came to London in either 1923 or 1925, Edgar Adeler accompanied him.

In 1928, Fillis was working for British bandleader Fred Elizalde while Al Bowlly was working in Germany.  When a vacancy for a vocalist opened up in the Elizalde band, Fillis recommended Bowlly for the position and notified Bowlly by letter. Bowlly sent Elizalde one of the records he had made in Germany and was subsequently hired.

I was unable to find these recordings listed in any of the discographies that I have access to.  While the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) does include some British recordings, they are mostly recordings for which there was a corresponding American pressing, which was not the case for either of these recordings.

In the second paragraph of this posting, I intentionally stated that the tenor guitar player on these recordings is “believed to be” Al Bowlly because my only source for that and the July 4th recording date is this listing on an Al Bowlly fan site for the Len Fillis Novelty Quartet’s recording of “Carolina Moon,” which has the next sequential matrix number following WA 9239 for “Deep Night.”

The author of the page clearly states:

the Quartet is described as Hawaiian Guitar, Tenor Guitar, Violin and Piano so suggested personnel is Fillis, Bowlly, [violinist] unknown, [pianist Sid] Bright.

The sequential matrix numbers suggest that both sides were made during the same recording session or, if not, then during a continuation of the session on the following day.  The recording on the flip side of “Carolina Moon,” “The Heart of the Sunset,” is not listed on that site, as it was by the Len Fillis Novelty Trio, which omitted the tenor guitar.

The key words here are “suggested personnel,” which I appreciate that site for using.  Even if the July 4th date is not correct, given the matrix numbers involved, it is close.

As for the “suggested personnel,” I think it is highly likely to be correct given the number of similar recordings that Fillis, Bowlly, and Sid Bright (in English via Google Translate) appeared on.

As for the unknown violinist, one possible guess is Ted Edbrooke, who frequently joined the other three on recordings.

One of the things that sometimes frustrates me enormously when I research background information for these postings is that it is not uncommon for me to turn up wildly contradictory information.  And sometimes I will come across patently false information that is unwittingly picked up by multiple other websites.  I, too, have passed along information that I assumed was correct but later proved not to be. To some degree, it is unavoidable; even highly respected and authoritative sources and discographies make errors.  But researching relatively obscure subjects, where much, if not all, of one’s sources are labor-of-love-type websites, would be much easier if more people followed the example of the Al Bowlly site and identified reasonable assumptions as such, rather than presenting them as assertions of fact.

“Deep Night” is a well-known 1929 song composed by Charles E. Henderson with lyrics by Rudy Vallée, who recorded it on February 6 of that year during his first recording session after signing with Victor.

“I’ll Never Ask For More” was composed by Fred E. Ahlert with lyrics by Roy Turk.  The song was published in 1928, but the majority of recordings of it from that era were made in early 1929.