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Lester Lanin and His Orchestra
"Lester Lanin and His Orchestra Play The Madison Avenue Beat"
Musical commercials are older than we might think. Seated one day (in 1890 at the organ, idle and ill at ease, Charles Gounod sipped a little Vin Marian), a tonic that "strengthens the entire system," its discoverer claimed. "Positively the Most Agreeable, Effective and Lasting Renovator of the Vital Forces! One gulp, and Gounod felt so great he dashed off four bars of melody and a lyric of praise to boot. Vin Mariani hasn't lasted. As a jingle man, Gounod was better at "Faust."
Other jingles came along in the next quarter-century, however. There was 1910's "Oh You Spearmint Kiddo, with the Wriggley Eyes" and even "The World's Progress" which Victor Herbert turned out for The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, while college youths plinked their mandolins
as they sang, "come out like a ribbon and lie flat on the druggist's shelf, comes out like a ribbon-lies flat on the brush."
An advertising entrepreneur of that same brand has recently said that slogan made the brand. But it survived, possibly helped by later jingles.
Today's radio and television songs about things to buy — unlike such items as Mother Love, home, misery and joys of the heart, etc — got their big push when an enterprising duo, Alan Kent and Ginger Johnson, distinguished themselves by swinging "John Peel" into a memorable pitch for a soft drink. That was in the nickel-nickel-nickel days of 1939, and ever since, the air has been ringing with sales arias. Some of the older jingles, in fact, if broadcast again in the 60's might well cause nostalgic murmurs of "Listen, Mother, they're playing Our Song.
Suggestion: when you're all danced out, try matching the tunes to their original sales subjects. This can be a game of either innocent amusem*nt or hard-boiled chance. Hint: there is positively no composition herein rhapsodizing over Brand X.
But clues will be found in the list of advertisers without whose permission the music — created to identify their wares — couldn't have been assembled here to wear down your dancing pumps. It was about 70 years ago that a lady won a prize for her jingle — one of 27,388 entries — which had a suburban housewife chanting to her commuter husband, "Now get a fancy waiter and a nut-meg grater, And for Susie buy a jumping rope. Bring a coffee boiler, some muffin pans and broiler, And don't come back without some Ivory Soap."
THE MADISON AVENUE BEAT
Have Fun Listening and Dancing to 58 Radio and TV Commercial Favorites.
... Identifying the products and services of these companies...
Anheuser-Busch
Barbasol
Beecham Products
Beech-Nut Life Savers
Bon Ami
Bristol-Myers
Carling Brewing
Cities Service Oil
Colgate-Palmolive
Duffy Mott
Dutch Masters Cigar
Eastman Kodak
Ford Motor
General Foods
General Mills
Gillette
Grove Laboratories
Kellogg
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Lestoil
Lever Bros.
Liggett & Myers
P. Lorillard
Merkel
Standard Brands
Tetley Tea
Toni
Trans-World Airlines
United Fruit
Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical
William Wrigley, Jr.
Nat'l Fed. Coffee Growers of Colombia
Northwest Orient Airlines
Pabst Brewing
Philip Morris
Pitsbury
Potter Drug & Chemical
Procter & Gamble
Renfield Importers
Harold F. Ritchie
River Brand Rice
Robert Hall Clothes
Jos. Schlitz Brewing
Shulton
Standard Brands
Tetley Tea
Toni
Trans-World Airlines
United Fruit
Warner–Lambert Pharmaceutical
William Wrigley, Jr.
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Nathaniel Lester Lanin (August 26, 1907 – October 27, 2004) was an American jazz and pop music bandleader. He was famous for long, smoothly arranged medleys, at a consistent rhythm and tempo, which were designed for continuous dancing. Lanin's career began in the late 1920s and his popularity increased through the advent of the LP era. His music remained very popular among fans of the ballroom dance world. Starting with Epic Records in the middle of the 1950s, he recorded a string of albums for several labels, many of which hit the US Billboard 200.
Lester Lanin's brothers, Sam and Howard, were also both bandleaders; they came from a family of ten (of which Lester was the youngest) born to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. He originally attended South Philadelphia High School but quit at the age of 15 to play music with his brothers abandoning his plans to be an attorney. Beginning in 1927, he led ensembles that were paid to play at the houses of wealthy socialites in Philadelphia and New York, continuing even after the 1929 stock market crash.
In 1930, Lanin was hired to play at a gala for Barbara Hutton, and the event garnered so much press in New York newspapers that it made Lanin as much a star as as the young heiress. Lanin soon became a major star of the dance music world, and was hired worldwide to play for dignitaries and monarchs, in addition to a recurring invitation to play at White House inaugural balls from the Eisenhower administration to the Carter administration. In the 1930s his orchestral performances at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel's Starlight Roof included John Serry Sr. as a sideman. Lanin was managed for much of his career by New York socialite music promoter Al Madison.
He conducted the music for Grace Kelly's engagement party, as well as the nuptials between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. According to Lanin, one of his most memorable performances was playing at a party for avant-garde rock musician Frank Zappa. This was reported by Billboard magazine in 1974. At the time Mr. Zappa was in New York City to play two Halloween concerts at the Felt Forum (now known as The Theater at Madison Square Garden.)
Lanin also played for other celebrities, including Billy Joel's 1985 wedding to Christie Brinkley. Lanin continued performing well into the 1990s. In 1999 he played himself in the black-and-white film comedy Man of the Century, where he was the favorite musician of lead character Johnny Twennies.
Until his death, Lanin and his orchestra played at the prestigious International Debutante Ball where upper-class girls from prominent American and international families are presented to high society at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Since his death, his orchestra continues to play biennially at the International Debutante Ball. Lanin and his orchestra are famous for handing out "Lanin Hats," with the logo of the Lester Lanin orchestra, to the crowd and debutantes at the International Debutante Ball.
The Lester Lanin Orchestra continues to perform full-time. The Orchestra is now led by musical director Spencer Bruno who was the band leader under Lanin and took over after Lanin's passing. ... — W.
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... previously on the Great Instrumental Music, program:
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/rnr/d/play-us-song-youre-the-piano-man/7761260450.html
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/rnr/d/its-friday/7761204900.html
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/rnr/d/mellow-mood/7760993043.html
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/rnr/d/coffee-and-jazz/7760801861.html
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/rnr/d/djangology/7760731713.html
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... HEAR YE, Hear Ye. ... the currently-available Great Instrumental Music posts, from the last few weeks, ... all of them highly wonderful in diverse ways!
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/search/rnr?query=great%20instrumental%20music#search=1~list~0~0
Thank you for your time and your attention to Great Instrumental Music.
