Will Osborne & His Orchestra - Ja-Da (1940)
Channel: C Porter
Date: 2023-12-19

Transfers courtesy of Jeremy Passarelli. 
Recorded in February, 1940.

Will Osborne Audible Discography Project: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5I_eUpXmCpUb1uzHIseeuLnUGbq4Amut&si=4rvbfRkRR5xj-6Z5 

Will Osborne's Orchestra had enjoyed wide success throughout 1939. Collegiates had for years truly loved this incredibly unique and humor-rich band, filled with talent from plenty of sidemen delivering the music who never wanted to depart from the Osborne orchestra, including one or two that had been with Will since the early 30s in a previous orchestra. Slide Music is how the orchestra swung, basing off of the musical technique glissando played by slide trumpets and slide trombones harmoniously, and legitimizing it as something more than just something used for novelty purposes only. Now it could be used for beauty and plenty of dance music. Will patented it, and in the process had become the first person to patent a musical technique and style, seemingly in ALL of American history. And he used Slide Music quite well throughout these years. By the end of 1939 he was broadcasting regularly over NBC stations across New York, at the coveted 30 minute timeslot of 12:00 midnight several times a week; had the record of band playing at most college events nationwide; was cutting records for the USRC (Varsity, Montgomery Ward, Royale, etc); was writing songs with his featured vocalist Dick "Stinky" Rogers, such as Between 18th And 19th On Chestnut Street, and Wouldst Could I But Kiss Thy Hand Oh Babe, which became quite popular hits for others that next year; and cutting radio transcription discs for Thesaurus; having a Vitaphone short filmed with his band; and topping it off with bringing in a new female vocalist, Barbara Bush, fresh from Charlie Barnet's orchestra. Just in time for Will's band to end the year over NBC's "Parade Of Bands" program on New Years alongside Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, and Jan Savitt orchestras. 

Barbara Bush proved quite popular through January 1940, Will would cut more records for Varsity of superb quality such as Indian Summer, I'm Stepping Out With A Memory Tonight, and Louisiana Purchase, and a instrumental Will & Dick wrote known as "East Dubuque Breakdown". After a two week vacation down in Florida, the Osborne band came back up to New York in February, at this time Thesaurus wanting them to cut nearly 20 sides for them, including The Little Red Fox with Dale and Barbara singing, (which you can also hear in a March 20th broadcast), Missouri Scrambler (another Osborne band creation, also listenable over broadcasts in 1940), previously listed songs, 1926 hit song After I Say I'm Sorry as an instrumental, Gotta Get Home with Will singing, and lastly a 1918 novelty song called Ja-Da with Will singing. All 4 on this disc Thesaurus 1176. Will had tried to record Ja-Da for Decca back in 1937, but Decca never issued it. We definitely must mourn it's loss if it sounded as good if not better than this 1940 recording of it.

Documenting the release dates of these transcription discs are quite hard, and speculative due to them never being publicly accessible and instead relegated to radio stations. But perhaps this first was played over the air to audiences in April or May of that year. 

Listen to the other tracks here:
Gotta Get Home: https://youtu.be/OXYiQnhuGi0
After I Say I'm Sorry: https://youtu.be/CveETXlSRN8
The Little Red Fox: https://youtu.be/7_48E9qcXvU