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The Casa Loma Orchestra was a popular American dance band active from 1927 to 1963. From 1929 until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands. With the decline of the big band business following the end of World War II, it disbanded in 1947. However, from 1957 to 1963, it re-emerged as a recording session band in Hollywood, made up of top-flight studio musicians under the direction of its most notable leader of the past, Glen Gray. The reconstituted band made a limited number appearances live and on television and recorded fifteen LP albums for Capitol Records before Gray died in 1963. ==History== The future members of the band first came together in 1927 as the Orange Blossoms, one of several Detroit-area groups that came out of the Jean Goldkette office. The band had adopted the Casa Loma name by the time of its first recordings in 1929, shortly after it played an eight-month engagement at Casa Loma Hotel in Toronto. The band never actually played the Casa Loma under that name, still appearing as the Orange Blossoms at that time. In 1930, the Casa Loma Orchestra was officially incorporated in New York as a corporation with the members all being owners / shareholders and board members of it. The band members were hired on the grounds of "musical and congenial" competence and followed strict conduct and financial rules. Because the band operated as a collective group, as opposed to almost all other bands that had a "leader" for whom everyone worked, the band maintained an extremely stable collection of personnel, that did not change very much as years passed. (It being a period when many bandleaders would not think twice about poaching musicians from other bands whenever they were inclined to and firing those being replaced in many instances with little or no notice given.) Members who broke the rules though, could be summoned before the "board", have their contract bought out and be ejected from the band. The band was fronted for the first few years by violinist Hank Biagini, although the eventual leader, saxophonist Glen Gray (1900-1963) was from the very beginning "first among equals." The complex arrangements called for talented musicians such as trombonist Pee Wee Hunt, guitarist S. Jack Blanchette, trumpeter Frank L. Ryerson, trumpeter Sonny Dunham, clarinetist Clarence Hutchenrider, drummer Tony Briglia and singer Kenny Sargent. Arrangements were by Gene Gifford, who also composed much of the band's book, Spud Murphy, Larry Wagner, Salvador "Tutti" Camarata and Horace Henderson. Gifford's arrangements were credited in large part to giving the band its sound, but even he fell victim to the band's strict rules, being bought out in 1935 due to alcohol-related infractions. The band's Manager, Cork O'Keefe, was made a Vice President in the corporation and arranged bookings in venues such as Glen Island casino, which they helped popularize, and the Essex House Hotel, that led to their increasing fame via radio broadcasts before and throughout the "swing era" of 1935-1946. In 1944, Eugenie Baird became "the first girl vocalist ever featured" with the Casa Loma Orchestra. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Casa Loma Orchestra」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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