Plantation Orchestra - Silver Rose

The Plantation Orchestra was a pseudonym of the Pike Davies Orchestra, an African-American jazz band that supported Florence Mills and Edith Wilson in Charles B. Cochran's production of Lew Leslie's musical revue "Blackbirds". This show premiered at Alhambra Theatre in New York and then moved to London’s Pavilion Theatre where it played for 276 performances. Florence Mills, née Florence Winfrey (1896 in Grenada-1927 in New York), known as the "Queen of Happiness," was an American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian. Mills starred in Shuffle Along (1921), as well in acclaimed reviews in London, Paris, Ostend, Liverpool, and other European venues. She became an international superstar starring in the hit show Lew Leslie's Blackbirds (1926), an excerpt of which is presented here. Exhausted from more than 250 performances of the hit show Blackbirds in London in 1926, she became ill with tuberculosis. Her condition further weakened her and she died of infection following an operation in NYC. After her death, Duke Ellington memorialized Mills in his song "Black Beauty." This brilliant record was made in 1926.