Hindustan
Nat Brandwynne And His Orchestra
Frank Froeba at The Piano
Allegro/Royale 1285
Here we have another great vintage cover. This is a two color print job, red and silver metallic ink (reflective ink) which is unusual.
Allegro jackets on their 12 inch records were constructed differently then all other 12 inch jackets, slightly smaller and printed on heavier cardboard. Many sported engaging designs.
This is an "Allegro" labeled jacket with a "Royale" labeled record inside. Royale's catalog consisted of re-releases of Allegro Records.
Froeba was a house pianist for Decca in the 1930s and 40s.
The record starts off with some very standard 30s sounding band backed dance tunes but then and thankfully, transitions to some nice light jazz (not at all "dance" music) which Froeba is better known for. These inconsistencies are common on this label. They pressed what they could beg, barrow or steal.
VERY fun cover and nice upbeat piano! GREAT!
ReplyDeleteFrank Froeba (which I've heard pronounced by some as FREE-ba, although I'm not sure this is correct) was a well-known jazz, ragtime, and pop pianist who recorded in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and perhaps earlier and later, too.
ReplyDeleteHe was really great and one of my favorites.
Check out his Wikipedia entry sometime.
One of my favorite albums of his is called "Back Room Piano" but is really hot and tasty playing, unlike far too many so-called "honky-tonk piano" albums of those days.
PLEASE change the spelling of his last name in your article, since you have consistently mis-spelled it "Froebra" on your article here. This makes it very hard to find your nice post of this record via Google, and had I been looking for it, I wouldn't have found it.
As it is, I was fortunate to stumble upon this by accident while browsing thru your pipe organ records.
Thanks!
Thanks again Andrew!
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