Big band remote

A big band remote (aka dance band remote) was a remote broadcast, popular on radio during the 1930s and 1940s, involving a coast-to-coast live transmission of a big band.

As early as 1923, listeners could tune in The Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra. The Oriole Orchestra (Dan Russo and Ted Fio Rito) was performing at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel when they did their first radio remote broadcast on March 29, 1924, and two years later, they opened the famous Aragon Ballroom in July 1926, doing radio remotes nationally from both the Aragon and the Trianon ballrooms. In 1929, after Rudy Vallée's Orchestra vacated Manhattan's Heigh-Ho Club to do a movie in Hollywood, Will Osborne's dance band found fame with a nationwide audience due to radio remotes from the Heigh-Ho. By 1930, Ben Bernie was heard in weekly remotes from Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel.

Broadcasts were usually transmitted by the major radio networks directly from hotels, ballrooms, restaurants and clubs. During World War II, the remote locations expanded to include military bases and defense plants. Band remotes mostly originated in major cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Chicago. The Chicago broadcasts featured bands headed by Count Basie, Frankie Carle, Duke Ellington, Jan Garber, Jerry Gray, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Eddy Howard (from the Aragon Ballroom), Dick Jurgens, Kay Kyser (from the Blackhawk Restaurant), Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra (from the Blackhawk), Ted Weems, Shep Fields (from the Palmer House) and Griff Williams.

The usual procedure involved the network sending a two-man team, announcer and engineer, with remote radio equipment to a designated location. The announcer would open with music behind an introduction::Coming to you from Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook on Route 23, just off the Pompton Turnpike in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, we present the music of Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=8za1hY2NSbwC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=%22big+band+remotes%22&source=web&ots=bptcHOI2Np&sig=Y_wjZPvQjK60GphaW12nE-ThBZk#PPA15,M1 Thompson, E.D. "More Nashville Nostalgia". Westview Publishing, 2004.] ]

:For your dancing pleasure, Columbia brings you the music of Count Basie and his orchestra, coming to you from the Famous Door on Fifty-Second Street in New York City. [Orgill, Roxane. "Dream Lucky: When FDR Was in the White House, Count Basie Was on the Radio, and Everyone Wore a Hat". Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2008.]
Artie Shaw's many remote broadcasts included the Rose Room of Boston's Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Blue Room of New York's Hotel Lincoln was the location of his only regular radio series as headliner. Sponsored by Old Gold cigarettes, Shaw broadcast on CBS from November 20, 1938 until November 14, 1939. Before he launched Sun Records, Sam Phillips ran regular big band remotes with the Chuck Foster orchestra and others from the Peabody Hotel Skyway Ballroom in Memphis, Tennessee. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=wWG_RoIMxZkC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=%22big+band+remote%22&source=web&ots=M8U6xan0G3&sig=p7hGE-Yodh8_EExr5aTii08LHi0 Harrison, Jennifer. "Elvis As We Knew Him", iUniverse, 2003] ] The tradition continued into the 1950s with jazz club remotes on NBC's "Monitor" by Al Hibbler and others. [ [http://www.monitorbeacon.net/patweaver.html "Monitor"] ]

Bands heard on 1930s-40s radio remotes

*Desi Arnaz
*Gus Arnheim
*Charlie Barnet (from the Brown Hotel in Denver)
*Count Basie (from Kansas City's Reno Club, the Famous Door in New York and California's Palomar Ballroom)
*Bunny Berigan
*Cab Calloway (from the Savoy Ballroom)
*Bob Chester
*Larry Clinton
*Francis Craig (from the Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville)
*Bob Crosby
*Tommy Dorsey (from the Glen Island Casino)
*Roy Eldridge
*Duke Ellington (from the London Palladium in the UK)
*Skinnay Ennis (from the Statler Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles)
*Shep Fields (from the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles & the Palmer House in Chicago)
*Jan Garber (from the Blue Room of the Hotel Roosevelt in New Orleans)
*Benny Goodman (from the Hotel New Yorker)
*Glen Gray
*Phil Harris (from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu)
*Harry James (from the Hollywood Palladium)
*Stan Kenton
*Andy Kirk
*Gene Krupa (from The Roof of the Hotel Astor in Manhattan)
*Freddy Martin (from the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles)
*Ray McKinley
*Glenn Miller (from the Cafe Rouge of New York's Pennsylvania Hotel)
*Ozzie Nelson (from New York's Lexington Hotel)
*Will Osborne (from the Heigh-Ho Club in New York)
*Tony Pastor (from the Century Room of the Hotel Adolphus in Dallas)
*Jan Savitt
*Barney Rapp with vocalist Doris Day (from Rapp's own club, The Sign of the Drum in Cincinnati, Ohio)
*Bobby Sherwood (from Camp Atterbury, Indiana),
*Jack Teagarden
*Orrin Tucker (from Elitch's Gardens in Denver)
*Chick Webb. [ [http://www.nostalgiadigest.com/musicandbigbands.html Music & Big Bands] ]

ources

* [http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-0425-4 Ansbro, George. "I Have a Lady in the Balcony". McFarland, 2000.]

References

Listen to

* [http://www.swing-sked.wikispaces.com Big Band/Swing Internet Broadcast schedules]
* [http://www.live365.com/stations/bigbandremote Live365: Big Band Remote Internet stream]
*InternetArchiveOTR|id=BigBandRemotes|title=Big Band Remotes
* [http://www.otr.com/vj.html Cab Calloway music remote from New Zanzibar (NYC) interrupted by VJ Day report (1:50am, August 14, 1945)]
* [http://www.wpr.org/search/index.cfm?searchbox=remotes Wisconsin Public Radio: New Year's Eve remotes (December 31, 1945)]
* [http://www.wkhr.org/information/liveonline.aspx WKHR (Cleveland, Ohio)]
* [http://www.bigbandremote.com Big Band Remote]

External links

* [http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=70688&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=f1c3c9d0ba8a3a9f49ef0a2ff064bf44 Antique Radios: Big band remotes project]
* [http://www.richsamuels.com/nbcmm/slobb/floor.html "The Nineteenth Floor" by Kermit Slobb]