the1920sand30s | Ted Lewis & His Band - Bugle Call Rag (1926) @the1920sand30s | Uploaded August 2021 | Updated October 2024, 7 hours ago.
Performed by: Ted Lewis And His Band

Full Song: Bugle Call Rag

Recorded in: 1926

Scenes:
The Heart of Cleveland is a 1924 silent film produced for the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company in Cleveland, Ohio. I have found no records of this film’s existence anywhere else. The only references from contemporary sources about The Heart of Cleveland come from a 1925 article titled “Education at Five Cents per Capita” Link:hagley.org/sites/default/files/pictures/Heart_Of_Cleveland_Article.pdf .

Theodore Leopold Friedman (born June 6, 1890 – died August 25, 1971), known as Ted Lewis, was a popular American entertainer, bandleader, singer, and musician. He fronted a band and touring stage show that presented a combination of jazz, comedy, and nostalgia that was a hit with the American public before and after World War II. He was known by the moniker "Mr. Entertainment" or Ted "Is Everybody Happy?" Lewis.

Born in Circleville, Ohio, Lewis was one of the first Northern musicians to start imitating the New Orleans jazz musicians who came up to New York in the teens. He first recorded in 1917 with Earl Fuller's Jazz Band, who were attempting to copy the sound of the city's newest sensation, the Original Dixieland Jass Band. At the time, Lewis did not seem to be able to do much on the clarinet other than trill. (Promoting one recording the Victor catalog stated: "The sounds as of a dog in his dying anguish are from Ted Lewis' clarinet".) He improved a bit later, forming his style from the influences of the first New Orleans clarinetists to reside in New York, Larry Shields, Alcide Nunez, and Achille Baquet.

By 1919, Lewis was leading his own band, and had a recording contract with Columbia Records, which marketed him as their answer to the Original Dixieland Jass Band who recorded for Victor records. For a time (as they did with Paul Whiteman) Columbia gave him a special record label featuring his picture. At the start of the 1920s, he was considered by many people without previous knowledge of jazz (that is to say, most of America) to be one of the leading lights of hot jazz. Lewis's clarinet playing barely evolved beyond his style of 1919 which in later years would sound increasingly corny, but Lewis certainly knew what good clarinet playing sounded like, for he hired musicians like Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Frank Teschemacher, and Don Murray to play clarinet in his band. Lewis actually could play normally well without missed notes, as exemplified by his earliest records. For years, his band also included jazz greats Muggsy Spanier on trumpet and George Brunies on trombone. Ted Lewis' band was second only to the Paul Whiteman band in popularity during the 1920s, and arguably played more real jazz with less pretension than Whiteman, especially in his recordings of the late 1920s.

Lewis recorded for Columbia from 1919-1933. He was on Decca 1934 into the 1940s. In 1932, Lewis recorded "In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town", which he had performed in the film "The Crooner" with his orchestra. It was released on a 78 and reached number one on the charts where it stayed for 10 weeks.

One of Lewis' most memorable songs was "Me and My Shadow" with which he frequently closed his act. Around 1928, Lewis noticed an usher named Eddie Chester mimicking his movements during his act. He hired Chester to follow him on stage as his shadow during "Me and My Shadow". Eddie was followed by four other African-American shadows, the most famous being Charles "Snowball" Whittier, making Ted one of the first prominent white entertainers to showcase African-American performers.

Ted Lewis and His Orchestra were one of the featured entertainers at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition – Pageant of the Pacific on Treasure Island.

Lewis' band became cornier and schmaltzier as the Great Depression wore on, but this seemed to match the general public's taste, as he remained commercially successful during an era when many bands broke up. Through it all he retained his famous catchphrase "Is everybody happy?", along with "yessir!". Lewis adopted a battered top hat for sentimental, hard-luck tunes (he called himself "the high-hatted tragedian of song"). Frequently he would stray from song lyrics, improvising chatter around them.

Lewis died in his sleep in New York on August 25, 1971, of lung failure at the age of 81. Following a Jewish funeral service in New York City, his body was brought to Circleville where thousands walked past his coffin. Lewis's stone, in the family plot, has his hat and cane incised upon it. His wife Adah, who died on May 31, 1981, rests beside him.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

Best wishes,
Stu
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