Bert Ambrose

Plaque for Bert Ambrose at the Mayfair Hotel in London.

Bert Ambrose , also just Ambrose , actually Benjamin Baruch Ambrose (born September 15, 1896 in London , England , † June 11, 1971 there ) was an English violinist and band leader .

Ambrose comes from a Jewish family of traders from the East End of London . During his childhood his family moved to New York City ; there he gained his first experience as a musician and musical director. In 1923 he recorded for Columbia ; At the end of the 1920s he returned to London, where in 1927 he founded an orchestra mainly with American musicians and until the end of the 1930s he played with his own (dance) orchestras, mainly in the Embassy Club or the May Fair Hotel . In 1928 the BBC began broadcasting his appearances regularly from Mayfair . This and his numerous recordings ( Brunswick , His Master's Voice and Decca ) made him one of the most popular band leaders in the United Kingdom and the United States. One of his most famous soloists was Danny Polo , band vocalist Elsie Carlisle in the 1930s .
Ambrose continued to perform with bands of various sizes until the end of the big band era in the mid-1950s. Later he worked in the field of artist management (he looked after the pop singer Kathy Kirby ).

swell

• Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler: Reclams Jazzführer (= Reclams Universal Library. No. 10185). 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-15-010185-9 .
• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz . Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .

Web links

• Ambrose & his Orchestra on Big Bands Database Plus - British Bands
• Ambrose on The British Dance Band Encyclopedia
• Let me tell you about ...... Bert Ambrose on Vintage Jazz and Dance Band Music on 78rpm Records and Talkies

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In other encyclopedias only the year 1897 is sometimes given as the date of birth