GRASSHOPPERS’ DANCE ~ [0:00]
WEDDING OF THE ROSE ~ [3:18]
Jack Hylton and his Orchestra
HMV B3970 (16 June 1931)


Jack Hylton is in palm-court mode with two whimsical instrumental pieces from 1905. They were recorded inHMV’s C Studio, i.e. the Small Queen’s Hall in the building that stood across Portland Place from the Langham Hotel. Often the Small Queen’s Hall is incorrectly described as being ‘on the roof of the Queen’s Hall’. The blame probably lies with Hylton’s autobiographical reminiscences of his days there as pianist and early-arranger/bandleader, when the Small Hall was promoted as a ‘roof top’ cabaret venue. It was, actually, on the second floor of the front part of the building above the ground and first floor grand foyer spaces for the large Queen’s Hall. It had its own entrance in Riding House Street.

At the end of October 1931, nearly five months after this recording, Hylton left HMV for the new Decca where he was both the premier bandleader with first pickings (and not liked by Ambrose), and a director of the company with an account in Panama (and not much liked by others on the board). In November, HMV left the Small Queen’s Hall for their new, three-studio complex in the gardens behind the houses numbered 3 and 5 in Abbey Road in St John’s Wood. The front door of number 3 is the entrance.

The label for GRASSHOPPERS’ DANCE has ‘DT’ embossed under the paper, straddling the hole, and indicating ‘Double Tax’ paid. So, this record was a war-time pressing subject to ‘Double Tax’ (i.e. 66⅔ % Purchase Tax), which dates it to between 15 April 1942 and 13 April 1943, after which tax on records rose to ‘Triple Tax’ (i.e. 100 %). Wars cost in many ways. By the time this record was being pressed, the Queen’s Hall building had been an incendiary-bombed shell for at least a year. It languished like that after the war until demolished to make way for the 1960s St George’s Hotel building.

The scans also show that war-time-austerity HMV labels lacked the glossy finish and strong colours of the peace-time ones. The paper quality is poorer and the printing process more basic. The shellac has not aged well either.

There are short Wiki entries for composers Ernest Buccalosi and Leon Jessel, both of whom wrote and arranged light music in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. GRASSHOPPERS’ DANCE is Buccalosi’s enduring work. Jessel’s is The Parade of the Tin Soldiers, which was a 1950s regular on Children’s Favourites on the BBC Light Programme (Saturdays from 9.00 to 9.55; why 9.55 - there was a God-slot programme called Five To Ten - ‘a story, a hymn, and a prayer’.)

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