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Roarin' 20s London: Debroy Somers Band - The Wedding of the Painted Doll, 1929

2,522 views · Published 24 February 2014 · 3:04 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: 240252 · 2014 · Music

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Debroy Somers Band with Vocal Chorus -- The Wedding of the Painted Doll, Slow Fox Trot from the musical "Broadway Melody" (A.Freed -- N.H.Brown), Columbia 1929 (UK)

NOTE: Debroy Somers was actually Irish, b. 1890 in Dublin to the family of military band sergeant. At first he studied piano in the Royal Irish Academy of Music and later, also oboe in the Royal Military School of Music. After military service during the 1st WW, he traveled to London where he met Bert Ralton, an American musician who led the Savoy Havana Band at the hotel Savoy. Somers wrote arrangements for Ralton's  excellent hot dance orchestra -- which was considered then as one of the best in  Europe. In 1923, when Ralton returned to the US, Somers started leading the band, which he renamed as The Savoy Orpheans. By  means of Debroy Somers' highly original orchestrations, the Savoy Orpheans provided a new and immensely successful sound for the flapper generation and their recordings from the time of Debroy Somers leadership are of the higesth esteem among European jazz age connoisseurs.   However, when in 1926 orchestra's leadership was taken over by Ramon Newton, one of the band's members, who was followed by orchestra's pianist Carroll Gibbons, Somers left the band and created another orchestra under his own name, which successfully recorded for Columbia and was featured in films and on the air. Through 1930s and 40s Debroy Somers continued his artistic activity as arranger as well as  bandleader performing in London's theaters and clubs, such as London Casino, he also did a lot of radio work, notable on Radio Luxembourg & Normandy. He died of a cerebral haemorrhahe in 1952 at early age of 62.

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