Graham Dalby & The London Swing Orchestra

The Roaring Twenties

1: You’re the Cream in my Coffee

2: It Had to Be You

3: Wedding of the Painted Doll

4: Jealousy

5: What’ll I Do?

6: The Sheik of Araby

7: The Charleston

8: Breakaway

9: Dance Little Lady

10: Because My Baby Don’t Mean Maybe Now

11: Makin’ Whoopee

12: My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes

13. The Mooche

14. Copper Coloured Gal

15. Stormy Weather

16. Cotton Club Stomp

17. Ill Wind

18. Mackie Messer

19. Chicago

20. Forty Second Street

The Roaring Twenties is the first of an anthology of four albums by The London Swing Orchestra.

The twenty tracks on this CD reflect the various segments of musical life after the Great War. The album opens with several tracks used to great effect in the BBC series Mrs Bradley Murder Mysteries. It Had To Be You, The Sheik of Araby, The Charleston and the wistful waltz What’ll I Do were all featured in the film The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford. Staying with the bright young flappers, Dance Little Lady and Breakaway are English dance band arrangements. The two Donaldson numbers Because My Baby and Makin’ Whoopee are arrangements for the great Paul Whiteman Orchestra of 1922 which featured Bix Beiderbecke on trumpet. The remainder of the album is more of a gangster, Prohibition feel with music by the great Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen and Cab Calloway from The Cotton Club in Harlem. There is a quick nod to the clubs of pre Nazi Berlin with Kurt Weill’s Mackie Messer sung in German. The more famous version Mack The Knife can be heard on the fourth album. Returning to America for Chicago, the album closes with the title song of one of the greatest Busby Berkeley shows, 42nd Street. This album reflects an era of great change - of millionaires like Gatsby and murderous thugs like Dutch Schultz and how the music transcended Prohibition, Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression.

Upbeat Jazz URCD249