Roarin' 1920s: Eddie Elkins' Orchestra - Blue, 1922 

Eddie Elkins' Orchestra -- Blue, Fox Trot (Lou Handman), Columbia 1922 (accoustical recording; USA)
NOTE: Edward G. (Eddie) Elkins (1897--1984) - American violinist and leader of the jazzy Knickerbocker Grill Orchestra (often billed simply as Eddie Elkins' Orchestra) - a popular supper-club orchestra in New York during the Roaring Twenties. Born in San Francisco, Elkins was among the first to develop the use of elaborately arranged dance numbers for orchestras. Starting off as a hotel band in Los Angeles, Elkin's ten piece orchestra then moved to New York. Under his baton musicians such as Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey, Red Nichols, Oscar Levant and others honed their techniques. From 1922 to 1925 Elkins' orchestra recorded for Columbia Records and later for Okeh, Perfect. He and his band were featured in films including ''Night on the Ziegfeld Roof,'' with Eddie Cantor in 1929, and in Ginger Rogers's first pictures at Pathe. By the time he retired in 1932 to go into the stock market, he had appeared on stage with Sophie Tucker, George Gershwin, Fred Allen and Dorothy Lamour, at one time a vocalist with his band.