Old Vintage Jazz Bands 2

ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JASS BAND 1918 Chicago

A rare glimpse in to a British recording studio -

The Savoy Havana Band in Columbia’s Clerkenwell Road studios in early 1923.

 L-R: 

Billy Mayerl, Bert Ralton, Cyril Ramon Newton,

 drummer Martin 'Whitey' Higley (standing), 

Eddie Frizelle, Dave Wallace (standing), 

George Eskdale, Bill Marcus, unknown sax, Jim Bellamy. 

Interesting to note that all bar Mayerl, Newton, Eskdale and Bellamy are Americans.

 The Savoy Havana Band was led by American saxophonist Bert Ralton, 

and they recorded and broadcast prolifically through the 1920s. 

Ralton left the Savoy Hotel in October 1923

 to take a band of ex-Savoy musicians and others to Australia, 

and he was accidentally killed in a hunting accident

 in South Africa on 16 January 1927.

New York circa 1926.

"Victor Salon Orchestra."