Tangos - Emil Coleman

La Cumparsita

Tangos
Emil Coleman and His Orchestra
RCA Victor LPM 3003
1952 (10 Inch 33 RPM)

From the back cover:

On this record, Emil Coleman plays for you some of the numbers he is currently offering the exclusive clientele of one of New York's most elegant night spots – the Empire Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (where it would cost your several times the price of this record to hear him in person). Among the hundreds of people who will dance to his music this winter, there will be many who themselves, or whose parents, have danced to his music for more than thirty years; for Coleman is one of the most long-established leaders in the business – if not the longest.

It was about the time of the First World War that the management of Bustanoby's then one of New York's best-known restaurants, decided to open their select "Domino Room" and install the unknown Emil Coleman and his orchestra to attract the "carriage trade." Sigmund Romberg had picked the young pianist, recently arrived from England, to head one of his orchestras, and Bustanoby's felt that the young leader's quiet, danceable music was exactly the kind that would attract the expensive clientele they wanted for the new room. Within a few months, the "carriage trade" proved Bustanoby's was right by flocking to the "Domino Room," and they've been dancing to Coleman's music regularly ever since.

This was in the days of the "Bunny Hug" and the "Turkey Trot." Coleman made an immediate hit with the debs and their dates who "hugged" and who "trotted," and, a little later, with his own orchestra, he played for the Scott Fitzgerald flappers and college boys who met under the Biltmore clock to go "tea dancing" at the Ritz and the Plaza. For those tireless fox trotters, Coleman invented the medley, a continuous string of dance numbers that allowed them to dance uninterrupted for an hour.

Since 1918, when he began an eleven-year engagement at the Montmartre, a swank night club atop the Winter Garden theater, Emil Coleman and his Orchestra's smooth, unobtrusive music has delighted two generations of dance lovers. "Music by Coleman" has been the rule at more than a thousand deb parties, including the most fabulous of all, that of Brenda Frazier in 1938; and in recent years, Coleman has been assisting at the debuts of daughters of girls he helped launch twenty-years ago.

The Coleman career began in Odessa White Russia, where he was born, the son of a university professor. Brought up in England, he was a brilliant scholarship student at the Watford Conservatory. Shortly after his graduation, he began playing in an orchestra that shuttled between England and Germany. While coaching a London opera company, he wooed and won the prima donna, and came to America with her as her accompanist. But, because she was forced to cancel her contract in view of an impending blessed event, Coleman found himself a job as a pianist with Simon Romberg's orchestra at Bustanoby's.

Coleman began playing tangos long before most of the current crop of Latin-American band leaders were ever heard of. He's delighted with its present popularity because it's always been one of his favorite dances. Coleman's style is particularly well suited to the suavity and elegance of the tango.

From Billboard - March 22, 1952: The new Emil Coleman tango album contains all the well known tangos of today and yesterday, played cleanly and tastefully by the ork. Best sides are "La Cumparsita," and "Adios Muchachos" (which is now known also as "I Get Ideas"). The set is excellent for those who dance the tango, and will bring back a lot of memories for those who have danced to Coleman's ork at the Waldorf or other fine clubs in New York one the past 25 years. No vocals on this set, just good, well-played tangos.

Director Viejo
Nostalgia
La Cumparsita
Cuando Llora La Milonga
Adios Muchachos
Inspiracion
Caminito
A Media Luz