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"The Kinkajou" Knickerbockers (Ben Selvin ensemble) Johnny Marvin (1927) [From "Rio Rita"]
YouTube ^ | 1927 | Ben Selvin

Posted on 05/17/2015 12:52:23 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan

VIDEO


TOPICS: History; Hobbies; Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: dance; hot; rio; rita

1 posted on 05/17/2015 12:52:23 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan

1927

If I had a time machine I’d leave for there today.


2 posted on 05/17/2015 12:58:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Arthur McGowan

I actually met the gal that sang this song in the 1929 film version of “Rio Rita.”

Ben Selvin’s studio orchestra recorded hundreds upon hundreds of recordings, often using pseudonyms because he was so prolific. But most were in the mid-1920s to early-1930s. Sometimes he’d hire familiar jazzmen to sit in and serve up solos for his recordings, like Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden and such.


3 posted on 05/17/2015 1:08:29 PM PDT by greene66
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To: Arthur McGowan

Great fun music!!


4 posted on 05/17/2015 1:25:42 PM PDT by luvbach1 (We are finished. It will just take a while before everyone realizes it.)
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To: greene66

I met Ben Selvin at a Record Research Associates meeting in NYC in 1980. Delightful guy.

Selvin is reputed to have made about 9000 recordings in one capacity or another. After making commercial records from 1909 into the early ‘thirties, he made recordings for Muzak and other outfits for many more years.

Selvin was, of course, Jewish. His son, Rick, became a Catholic in the 1990’s, and died a couple of years ago.


5 posted on 05/17/2015 1:32:05 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan

I knew Selvin lived up into the 1980s, which always seemed so surprising, since his heyday and fame was so far back. Nifty that you got to meet him! “Record Research”... was that the same outfit that always had that bi-monthly newsletter with auctions of records listed in tiny, tiny print?


6 posted on 05/17/2015 1:35:10 PM PDT by greene66
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To: BenLurkin

And die of a staph infection from a tooth extraction!

Records cost 75 cents then. Now they come free on YouTube.

Society was certainly healthier then, though!


7 posted on 05/17/2015 1:37:07 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan

A great little radio station in nearby Olympia plays this type of music - nothing newer than the 1950’s. Listener supported with no commercials, streaming from their web site at kbrd.org.


8 posted on 05/17/2015 1:40:16 PM PDT by dainbramaged (Get out of my country now)
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To: Arthur McGowan

Well, you didn’t have to actually purchase the record back then. You could always just sit back and listen to the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks on the radio for free.


9 posted on 05/17/2015 1:49:20 PM PDT by greene66
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To: Arthur McGowan

Thanks. Great music. “Don’t make ‘em like they used to springs to mind.”

I always wonder if female beauty standards have changed — women in the 20s seem so plain. Maybe the lookers stayed on the farm because there wasn’t so much siren call of stardom at the time. Or women were more respectable and weren’t drawn to beauty pageants and dance halls.


10 posted on 05/17/2015 2:01:30 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, no explanation is possible)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I wouldn’t say that at all. Google or Bing for photos of Garbo, or Bessie Love, or Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, any movie star.

The style from about 1916 to about 1935 was for flat chests—so maybe the women don’t look like “bombshells” to some modern eyes. But “plain”???


11 posted on 05/17/2015 2:17:19 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: greene66

But the hot dance music lasted from 1924 to 1934, and then it was over. We who have rediscovered it have been enjoying it for forty years.


12 posted on 05/17/2015 2:18:57 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan

I sure don’t see the dazzling beauties w high cheek bones and classic beauty. Look at the lineup of chorus girls in the stills that flash by on YouTube during the song. I think things began to change in the 30s when Hollywood started to get big and have outsize influence.


13 posted on 05/17/2015 2:26:03 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, no explanation is possible)
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To: Arthur McGowan

Not to mention, Billie Dove or Dolores Costello.

But I do think, recalling from the comments of my grandfather and his friends and peers, they did actually cast a wider net in terms of what they felt constituted beauty and attractiveness, compared to nowadays. It incorporated a certain hard-to-describe element of feminine sturdiness and poise, as opposed to the kind of sloppy, bosomy sexpot look that increasingly took over in the post-war years.


14 posted on 05/17/2015 2:26:20 PM PDT by greene66
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To: BenLurkin

“1927

If I had a time machine I’d leave for there today”
So would I...I belong in that decade.


15 posted on 05/17/2015 5:24:51 PM PDT by pallmallman (Q)
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To: BenLurkin
1927

If I had a time machine I’d leave for there today.

Same here. I have always wanted to go back and live in 1929.

16 posted on 05/19/2015 6:32:35 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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