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Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in American Music.

Article Excerpt
Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in American Music. Volume I: 1890-1930. By Don Rayno. (Studies in Jazz, 43.) Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003. [xxviii, 775 p. ISBN 0-8108-4579-2. $49.95.] Illustrations, chronology, discography, bibliography, indexes.

Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) was the most popular dance orchestra leader in America in the 1920s, and surely one of the most controversial figures in American popular music. Classically trained, Whiteman played viola in the Denver Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Minetti String Quartet. Lured by syncopated dance music, ragtime, and the intoxicating rhythms of early jazz, Whiteman organized a successful dance orchestra in California in 1918, later moving to Atlantic City, and eventually settling in New York in 1920. Recording contracts with Victor and later Columbia spread the orchestra's popularity nationwide. Whiteman's recording of "Whispering" (1920) backed with "The Japanese Sandman"--only the eleventh one-million-record seller since the birth of the recording industry--sealed his fame.

As the twenties roared, the Whiteman Orchestra swelled in size (from a few players to nearly thirty) and glory, dominating popular music entertainment. The orchestra headlined Broadway revues (George White's Scandals, Ziegfeld's Follies), held court in fabulous New York hotel ballrooms, and toured extensively in the United States and abroad. Paul Whiteman, Inc., sponsored "satellite" bands that played officially sanctioned concerts of authorized Whiteman musical arrangements. The orchestra was featured on radio (The Old Gold Hour), and in half a dozen films--most famously, The King of Jazz (1930). The Depression hit big bands hard in the 1930s, but Whiteman persevered with a smaller, brassier ensemble. Embracing the new technology of...

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