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From Big Bands Database:
George Olsen's Orchestra was one of the
better bands working in the 1920s, Olsen
played all over the U.S. Like many others,
the band was formed in a University (of
Michigan), but unlike the others, this band
made it to Broadway and the Big Time, playing
in the Theater 'pits' of many musicals. The
Band put on a sensational Vaudeville show.
The 1926 Olsen Orchestra had such members as
George Olsen: violin, Red Pepper:trumpet,
Chuck Campbell:trombone, Dick Stable:clarinet
and alto sax, Ed Killfeather:piano, Jack
Hansen:Tuba, and others unknown.
Interestingly, George Olsen was the band on
Jack Benny's first radio program for Canada
Dry - about 1932. A 1933 recording, "There's
a Cabin in the Pines", featured vocalist
Lorette Lee.
The band featured two great singers in Fran
Frey (male) a baritone (ca. 1989, and Ethel
Shutta (female), who later became Mrs George
Olsen. Ethel was his wife for many years,
-from the Ziegfield Broadway show, 'Whoopee'
until the late 1930s, when they divorced and
she married George Kirksey, a sports writer
for NEA.
Unfortunately, the band seemed to lose it's
spirit and vitality in the 1930s, and
disappeared with the coming of the Big Band
Swing era. In the mid-1930s, when another
bandleader, Orville Knapp, was killed, Olsen
took over leadership of the Knapp band, (and
added the new 'tag': "The Music of Tomorrow")
but he had no good success with it. On May
17, 1940, the Olsen orchestra appeared on the
stage of The Lyric Theatre of Indianapolis
(Indiana), with 'The Bachelors' vocal group,
consisting of Bob Rice, Ronnie Mansfield, and
Jack Clifford.
Ethel Shutta, went on to work as a 'single'
in the supper clubs before retiring. In 1971,
she was again seen on stage in Stephen
Sondheim's "Follies", while Olsen went on to
'conduct' a restaurant in New Jersey (ca.
1941) where the background music was his own
recordings.
George Olsen And His Music, voc. Ethel Shutta
- Underneath The Arches (Bud Flanagan /Joseph
McCarthy)Victor 1933
Tags : George Olsen Ethel Shutta tango 1930s dance band hot jazz nostalgia 78s |
