Orville Knapp

Orville Knapp (born January 1, 1904 in Kansas City (Missouri) , † July 16, 1936 ) was an American saxophonist and big band leader in the field of swing and popular music .

Live and act

Orville Knapp was a self-taught saxophone student when he attended high school in his hometown of Kansas City. In the early 1920s, he and his sister Pauline moved to New York City , where they performed as dancers in vaudeville troops. Knapp also worked as a musician and then in 1923 became a member of the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawks Orchestra , with which he went on tour, and played in the dance bands of Paul Specht , Leo Reisman and Vincent Lopez .

In the late 1920s, Pauline Knapp moved to Hollywood to begin an acting career; In 1933 Orville followed her to the west coast , after he had previously been a member of a short-lived comedy formation with Curly Howard (The Three Stooges) , and played there with a jazz band, which he was able to gradually expand, before finally joining a short orchestra in 1934 Got engagement at the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel . The instrumentation was unusual for the time; The band also played the organ and the electric guitar. This gave Knapp's orchestra a very distinctive sound. Recordings were made for Decca Records , later for Brunswick ; The band was arranged by Chick Floyd; Knapp's band singers were first Virginia Verrill and Don Raymond, then Ray Hendricks, Dave Marshall, Norman Ruvell and Leighton Noble.

The Orville Knapp Band has recorded 17 records from 78 , including 13 for Decca; their appearances were broadcast nationwide on radio. Knapp's orchestra made a guest appearance at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1936 and was in the process of becoming one of the best-known big bands in the country when Orville Knapp - an avid aviator - was killed in a plane crash. Leighton Noble took over the band briefly; then Knapp's widow Gloria George Olsen chose to continue the orchestra under Knapp's name; however, the band soon disintegrated. In 1937 Noble and Floyd dropped out to form their own band under the Leighton Nobles name, taking band singer Edith Caldwell and many of Olsen's musicians with them. Olsen continued to run the Knapp Orchestra until 1938.

The most famous songs included Why the Stars Come Out at Night, Everything Stops for Tea and the signature tune of the band Accent on Youth.

The critic Eugene Chadbourne , who also addresses the dire prophecy of the given name in connection with its cause of death - Knapp was named after the famous aviation pioneer Orville Wright - mentions Orville Knapp's lack of instinct for talent; he had failed to bring two later famous musicians, the later band leaders Stan Kenton and Spike Jones , into his band.

Web links

swell

Leo Walker: The Big Band Almanac . Ward Ritchie Press, Pasadena. 1978

Remarks

↑ For her career as an actress, she took the name Evelyn Knapp; she worked for Warner Brothers ; her most famous film was Sinner's Holiday with James Cagney .

personal data
SURNAME	Knapp, Orville
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American jazz saxophonist and big band leader
DATE OF BIRTH	January 1, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kansas City (Missouri)
DATE OF DEATH	July 16, 1936

[1] For her career as an actress, she took the name Evelyn Knapp; she worked for Warner Brothers ; her most famous film was Sinner's Holiday with James Cagney .