Variety (July 1923)

yA KIETT W^dnewUx, July 4, 1929 THE GREATEST SUCCESS THAT EVER CAME TO LONDON PALAIS ROYAL V * -.i ■ and his ORCHESTRA Exclusive Victor Artist "SUNDAY TIMES" **BRIGHTER LONDON' A R«vu* by Uiuri Wylt*. Musio by Herman Finok. Wednesday, March 28. There are only two men the thouarht of irhom might reconcile me to forswear my native land and transform myself into "an American cltiien." They are Abraham Lin- coln and Paul Whlteman. The dead man stands for American freedom, thought, and principle. The living one representa modern American tyranny In its most efflclent and fle\'astatlng development. What are we miserable Europeans today? We are the •laves of America. She has taken us in thrall not merely by the magic of the dollar, but by her terrible efflclency In everything, es- pecially Ja«B. We only lire by her permis- sion. Her Jazx has put shackles on our minds as well as on our feet. She jaraoe us into clnomas, whore hor jazzy plays defeat our Imaginations. She jaxses the Continent Into fourteen points of politics untU It re- sembles the fretful porcupine. And Paul Whlteman is the King, the Bm- p«t>r, the Groat Panjandrumu the embodi- ment of Jaxs. He does not conduct hifl orchestra. He and his baiuS are one. Tb«y unite themselves into a diabolical machine made of brass, wood, nickel, and Ivory, a monstrous device for taking ragtime prisoner and licking merry hell out of It They are the strong men of music, the cave men of the band worlfl. And there are fifteen of them, including the leader. They seize on a piece of dance music. They lure It to a beautiful pavilion tent of everchanging colours. They corrupt It Into amoi^ua irregularities and eooentriciUes. **DAILY GRAPHIC" Monday, April IS, 1023 Mr. Meehan and Mr. Robins sat for hours In the Orafton Oalleriea Club, where Paul Whlteman and hie Band, playing for the Aret time and on such favourable terms that they refused £6S0 a week to appear at the Ex- press Rooms, Kensington, crowded the danc- ing-floor to excess. On the previous night, at Lord Louis Mountbatten's residence, ^rook House, Park- lane. Paul Whiteman's orchestra had played while forty or fifty people danced, the com- pany Including the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, Prince Henry. Prince George, and Prince Paul of Serbia. And, so delighted with the dance music was the Prince, that he had booked a table for twelve at the Grafton Galleries so that, with a party, he could dance to the music again. Half the stage stars of London were there. The danc- ing Peerage, too. was well represented. , London is dance-mad and they have hung from the roof Jazz-like lamps and made the scene itself quite syncopated. Whiteman's orchestra was playing for the first time for English dancers, except at the Royal party. Paul has been talking to me about his Wagnerian selections, for weeks now; but I had never had a chance of hearing one. So one of the Tomson Twins, who appear in the cabaret, walked on the floor and announced that, "by request" the next item would be a Wagnerian selection. 'Tou are requested not to dance.** he said. 80 the midnight mob of revellers sat still. The syncopation had ceased, and Whitenrmn used the saxophone and the snaky brasses in his orchestra to reproduce music, to hear which people have journeyed to Bayreuth from all over the world. Wagner used to invent musical instruments himself, I be- lieve, so that his music might be played his way. I wonder what the great autocrat would have thought of Whiteman's set Yes, the dancers sat still and looked; and the room was as quiet as a grave. And then there burst aj>plause, as noisy as Whlteraan's band is whei^ it is playing to please the public. And the Dutchman, whom they call "Bussle"—he does most of the comic bits in Whiteman's music—put his bowler hat that he clowns with on the end of the comic thing he plays on; and they Jazzed on till the lights went out. And the Prince, almost the last to leave, took his little party home. Sailing for New York via S. S. "Leviathan," August 7, after a most successful engagement at the Hippodrome, London, and Grafton Galleries Club. . - c • . V- Unable to accept offers to remain until Christmas, as American engagements compel return. My warmest personal felicitations to Mr. R. H. Gillespie, Managing Director, Moss Empires, and Mr. Harry Foster, my British booking representative. ::....;Mm^mm'i%^w^m:. r^'%%?^'^