Will Osborne & His Orchestra - Stardust | 1941 Soundie
Channel: C Porter
Date: 2023-07-21

At the beginning of 1941, Will Osborne was one of the most uniquely identifiable bandleaders of the era. Spending the last 7 years with a style he meticulously worked to perfection to convey a myriad of emotional beauty, finally giving a much needed legitimacy to glissando. One in which surpassed simple novelty, and could be taken as seriously as Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Firebird Suite being perhaps the only other notable legitimate usage of glissing before Osborne's Slide Music aside from legitimate novelty. Slide-Music being the first innovation that we can truly confirm was his own, why? He patented it! US Pat 2,059,898 billed as "Method Of Producing Musical Sound Effects" back in 1935. By the beginning of the year, Osborne had many times over demonstrated his genius of legitimate trombone glissing over many a recording, radio broadcast, film short, and especially on the stage. Although least of all on film. So he did something that made headlines in the middle of January, 1941. He left his orchestra to his singer Dick Rogers. Abandoning Slide Music, and heading west to create a new orchestra, hoping to become a producer of films.

After the fallout of this, Will unveiled a new orchestra early in April over in Los Angeles. Aside from Osborne leading, and their new singer Janalee Moore, it was a 15-peice orchestra with a 4-piece string section, just as many saxes, and just as many brass, with three rhythm to top it off. The strings would carry the sound, and it was Will's goal to play as another society, hotel orchestra, but having a band-in-band augmentation known as the Knob Hill Seven, to play swing and Dixieland jazz. This orchestra wouldn't last too long, as Osborne fans (most of them being collegiates) had grown accustomed with his personality and humor worked into his music, and this new smooth styled dance band wasn't what they wanted. Osborne would junk this orchestra by June of that year. Very little ever materialized of this orchestra, aside from four Soundies recorded in April, and reportedly transcription discs were also made, but no evidence of these discs have appeared. Leaving just the Soundies.

Four of these three minute Soundies were made with the Osborne orchestra. A Feller That Plays In The Band, Stardust, Pickle Puss, and Singing Telegram Song, including the vocal and visual talents of Susan Miller, Johnny Downs, Bill Irving, Dick Hogan, Tanya Widrin, along with Maxine Amour & Marilyn Christine seen dancing with Will here. According to Mark Cantor, the renowned Soundies expert and author of the book "The Soundies: A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940s", as well as in general a large jazz-film archivist with strong ties with UCLA and also knew plenty of those involved in Soundies, Universal & Vitaphone shorts among others; These four Soundies with Will's orchestra had their music recorded on April 12th, 1941, likely at Radio Recorders studio in Hollywood. While the sideline sessions where the film was recorded would be on April 15th, likely at Ralph Like's International Studio, after a rehearsal the day prior. In editing before release, both audio and film would be synced together for the finished result for the public. Soundies themselves were made by more than 50 groups, like these were by a group known as Cameo. Although interestingly, Shirley & Johnson's American Dance Bands On Record And Film (2010) list this being recorded at "RCM Soundies" in New York. Also saying this was during "May, 1941", which is an understandable assumption. Probably stemming from Wally Hose's filmography book "Soundies" (2007), which lists the copyright dates of each of Osborne's four Soundies. Feller and Pickle Puss receiving May 12th, 1941; while Stardust had May 26th and Singing Telegram had June 2nd. But according to Mark: "Soundies were often released on the date of copyright, but not always, so you cannot make that particular assumption." 

In the process of obtaining this film from him, Mark and I discussed the production in deep detail. Mark and I came to agreement that considering the producer is Sam Coslow, the famous songwriter of plenty of the songs we all love, including writing the three others made in soundies, Pickle Puss, The Singing Telegram Song, and Feller That Plays In The Band, that Coslow probably had Osborne play stock arrangements created in house for the orchestra. While for Stardust being the famous Hoagy Carmichael-Mitchell Parish standard was doubtlessly a song in which Osborne would've already had arrangements for. It'd be cheaper and better for Osborne to just use his own. So this recording of Stardust is most likely THE ONLY AUDIO of how this orchestra would've naturally sounded that survives! Unless we find evidence of transcriptions from the spring or summer of 1941, it is the definitive theory.

A different soundie from 1945 of Stardust has been falsely billed as Will. Its Harry Cool with the June Taylor Dancers and an unidentified orchestra.