My HERO!....and..I played with some of these guys. To get in there one is Required to be an excellent musician. The real stuff. Old school. Dig Spikes album "Kiddin' The Classics"
Well back then you couldn’t fool people with ZERO talent. There wasn’t auto tune or computer generated music. It was real and raw. These performers could sing, dance, play instruments, do comedy, everything. True legends.
They would have called it "tap dancing" then, but you're right. Spike Jones' band, the City Slickers were really funny and amazingly talented musicians too. (I love stepdancing, by the way)
My Uncle Bing had Spike as his drummer with John Scott Trotter's orchestra and Helen told me it was Bing that introduced her to Spike. The finest side men in the business worked fir this exceptional performer and drummer. Just remarkable musicianship
Spike and all his band were excellent musicians, but when they started to wreck a tune & play like their brains were scrambled they got me as a baby thru now rolling on the floor with laughter. Pure Joy! By the way Johnny, if Bing Crosby was your uncle, your Uncle Bob had one of the finest bands I ever heard (recordings only).
In the big old LA hotel where the Oscars were first held, there's a huge photo of an early Academy Awards ceremony. If you look carefully, you'll see Spike behind the drum kit. Der Bingle might be in the picture too!
John Scott Trotter ?!? That's ONE name that I haven't heard in a while !!! -- Trotter handled the orchestrations for Columbia Pictures 'Pennies from Heaven' .. which was his first work with Bing Crosby. --- This would start a 17-year professional association with Crosby, although Trotter and Crosby had first met in 1929 in New York City at the Manger Hotel while Crosby was working with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. - In July 1937, Trotter replaced Jimmy Dorsey as the musical director for Crosby on NBC's radio program Kraft Music Hall. - That same year, Trotter began arranging and conducting songs for Crosby's records for Decca. Their first recording together, 'It's the Natural Thing to Do' .. reached the No. 2 spot in the charts of the day and they had many hits over the ensuing years. Trotter would remain Crosby's musical director until 1954. ~ The involvement with the Kraft Music Hall came about when .. -----*[ Larry Crosby, .. Bing's brother ]* --------- and public relations director, sent Trotter a wire asking if he could be in Hollywood on June 28, 1937 to take over the orchestra of the Kraft Music Hall on July 8. - Although Trotter had rehearsed and directed orchestras, he had never had an orchestra of his own, with his own name. - The first time he appeared under his own name 'John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra' was on the Kraft Music Hall with Bing Crosby. The Kraft Music Hall went fifty weeks a year and Trotter did one hundred and forty consecutive Thursdays without missing one; some sort of record. ~ Bing Crosby talked very warmly about Trotter in his 1953 autobiography 'Call Me Lucky' .. and commented about Trotter's remarkable self-control. ~ Trotter also had orchestra related responsibilities. - Jerry Colonna was a trombonist for the band and future entertainer Spike Jones* served as his drummer. ~ Carroll Carroll, who was the chief writer of Kraft Music Hall, recalled Trotter's massive volume and appetite when it came to his everyday life; - - - ```>>>> "Trotter, a monolith of a man, stood astride pop and 'long hair' music, as it was then called, like a colossus, and occasionally flew from Hollywood to New Orleans for the weekend (something not done often in the thirties) just to cater to his gourmet tastes with a decent plate of oysters Rockefeller." During the war, when home economist M. F. K. Fisher was a guest on the show to plug her wartime conservation cookbook, .. 'How to Cook a Wolf' ... she told Bing that her book explained how to use leftovers. The heartily-fed Trotter stepped to the mike and, in his most polite and gentle North Carolina drawl, asked, 'Pardon me, ma'am, but what are left-overs ??? ~ Trotter, along with Jack Kapp, has been criticized for mainstreaming Crosby's style away from his jazz roots. The reality is that Crosby himself chose the songs he performed on his radio shows and had ultimate approval for anything he recorded to disc. - Crosby could have worked with any musical arranger he chose, but he preferred working with Trotter for 17 years. -- Crosby once said of Trotter; ... "I'm not musically educated enough to really describe what he was in music terms. I just knew he was very good and he had marvelous taste." ~ Trotter died of cancer on October 29, 1975, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He was buried in Sharon Memorial Park in Charlotte. Surviving him were a sister, Margaret Kinghorn, and two brothers, William and Robert Trotter.[ --- (rip) ~~~ So .Mr. Johnnie Holiday .. I guess the question is ... ( 4 years later ) ... was your dad, Larry Crosby, .. Bing's brother ??? From Wikipedia ------->>> { Laurence Earl "Larry" Crosby (January 3, 1895 - February 7, 1975) was the long-time publicity director of his younger brother, the singer Bing Crosby his brother. Larry was the eldest of Bing's six siblings. - He was born in Tacoma, Washington. - The seven Crosby children were brothers Larry (1895-1975), Everett (1896-1966), Ted (1900-1973), Harry (1903-1977, popularly known as Bing Crosby), and sisters Catherine (1905-1974), Mary Rose (1907-1990) and Bob (1913-1993). His parents were English-American bookkeeper Harry Lowe Crosby (1871-1950) and Irish-American Catherine Helen "Kate" Harrigan (1873-1964), daughter of a builder from County Cork, Ireland.Larry managed annual Bing Crosby National Pro-Amateur, or also called Crosby Clambake, now called AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, California, near Monterey.Starting in 1971 Larry was also director of "Prisoners in Exchange for American Construction Enterprise -PEACE" a group seeking better treatment of prisoners of Vietnam War. - Larry died of cancer in Century City, California at age of 80. }
..I discovered this clip very recently. It has finally answered a question that I have pondered for over 50 years. When I was about 8 or 9 yrs. old, at my Grandmothers insistence, I auditioned for Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. There was a producer and others from the show holding auditions in Dallas at Ch. 4, then known as KRLD-TV. My Dad talked a friend of his into accompanying me on piano and I did a little drum solo thing to Bye Bye Blues, with big showing off- busting my chops solo for the big finish. I will never forget what the talent scout/producer said that day: "Kid, we get lots of drummers, but if you could play the xylophone and tap dance at the same time I'd put ya on television". So when I saw this clip, my mind flash back to that audition, wow I shouldn't have stop piano lessons and tap dance class
Sorry dude, that type disappeared in the late '60s with the emergence heavy satire and below-the-belt humor. Keep dreaming if you think this style of comedy will EVER come back!(fool!) 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Love the talent and the humor of that music. Along with being fantastic at playing the xylophone and tap dancing at the same time, I'm really impressed with how he changed his whole outfit from a plaid suit to a dark suit and then back to plaid. They don't make 'em like that any more.
LOVE this stuff! i love it he went into the audience to bang on something! ANYTHING! including the one guy's shoe! Hey SpikeJonesEstate hope u put more videos of Spike on here! LOVE IT!
David Theisen "That guy..." was Eddie Cline. Cline directed several films that starred W.C. Fields. Spike hired him after Clines directing days had come to an end. Cline served as an idea man and stage director, of sorts.
VERY NICE!!! THAT'S LIKE SAYING YOU'RE GOING TO GET MOIST IN A TITLEWAVE!!! HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE? NICE! HIS DRUMMING IS EXTROIDINARY!!! ONE OF A KIND!!
Amazing! Here you got a glance of a 1954 TV-studio! But this TV-program could not have been video-taped. The first video-recorder (Ampex VR 1000) was not introduced until 1956. So this must be a tele-film (The screen of a monitor beeing filmed with a film-camera).
Spike was a great studio drummer before he put the band together. You have to be SO good to play THAT bad.....look at Jack Benny. He was an exceptional vilonist, was planning a career as a classical musician before he discovered he was a comedian.
You didn't get a job in the Jones band solely on your musical abilities. You had to have some other odd talents to throw in the mix, which is what would get Spike's attention. ALL of his musicians were fantastic showmen as well.
1954 and he drums on the back of sets and walks out to the audience? people must have thought he was the devil back then. when you watch early TV, everyone is proper, like they are addressing the queen of England.
Ah ! si j'avais un franc cinquante. J'aurais bientôt deux francs cinquante. Ah ! si j'avais deux francs cinquante. J'aurais bientôt trois francs cinquante. Ah ! si j'avais trois francs cinquante. J'aurais bientôt quatre francs cinquante. Ah ! si j'avais quatre francs cinquante… ça m'ferait bientôt cinq sous ! (Boris Vian)
Danial Acosta | This old man, he played two, He played knick-knack on my shoe; With a knick-knack paddywhack, Give a dog a bone, This old man came rolling home "
Extraordinaire... C'est le son de ce qu'on voit à l'image ?!?... Même si ce n'était pas le cas, c'est extraordinaire... Non mais, comment a-t-on fait pour prendre le son, ou bien pour sonoriser les images après ?...
Ca m'intrigue ce truc-là. Je n'y connais rien en histoire de prise de son, mais à supposer que ce soit en prise de son direct, où diable fourre-t-on les micros ?... surtout à cette époque, ça date de quoi, les années 50, genre... c'est forcément post-synchronisé...
A few seem to associate Jones with Bing Crosby and call Bing "Der Bingle." I went to the same college as Crosby and I think the affeciado was "Der Bingo," just saying.
David Hadley Mic's are hung like in the audience for applause and laughs. The there are floor mic's that cover certain area's. By the way, when you watch it again, the guy acting as the camera man get's hurt twice during the bit. Once when he's hit in the head with the wooden camera lens and when he falls he lands right on his headset. You can see it in his face. Ouch.
Spike Jones Jr. I am guessing that the older guy sitting in the audience whose shoes are being rapped upon by Spike is Eddie Cline, and the cameraman is Peter James. Am I correct?
