Orville Knapp & His Orchestra - I Was Taken By Storm

This Midwest big band leader was one of the rare artists with no family background in music. The young boy and his sister, Pauline Knapp, became interested in music and theater in elementary school, and in high school Orville taught himself to play the saxophone. After graduating, he and Pauline moved to New York where they appeared in a vaudeville dancing act. He played with both Leo Reisman and Vincent Lopez's orchestras during this New York stay, sometimes hitting the road. At 19 years old, he toured with the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks band. Since his sister had headed for Hollywood to try a film career, he went out there to visit her in 1933. Orville found performance possibilities on the West Coast, starting out with a small combo in a series of café gigs and then escalating to starting his own big band. This group debuted at Santa Monica's Grand Hotel in 1934, featuring vocalists Virginia Verrill, then only 18 years old, and Don Raymond. The band was signed to a recording contract for Decca the same year. Later he pianist and arranger Charles Floyd and singer Edith Caldwell, both pilfered from the Ted Black Orchestra. The group quickly went through a series of male vocalists, including Ray Hendricks, Dave Marshall, and Norman Ruvell. A permanent male vocalist was not found until Leighton Noble came over from the George Hamilton Orchestra in 1935. The band began touring and broadcasting over WOR radio the same year. While in New York, the band recorded eight songs for Brunswick and Knapp married actress Gloria Grafton. Shortly after his wedding, he bought a biplane and while practicing emergency landings at a Boston airport, he was involved in a fatal accident. The band stayed together after the leader's death, with vocalist Leighton Noble temporarily taking charge. The singer was ousted by both the band's booking agency and widow Gloria Knapp, who decided that '20s bandleader George Olsen should take over. Under his direction, the group became known as the Orville Knapp Orchestra & the Music of Tomorrow. In 1937, Noble took talented bandmember Floyd under his wing and the two formed their own band, which operated under Noble's name. By the summer of 1938, the Knapp band was history. This lovely record, featuring a vocal by Dave Marshall, was made in 1935.