The Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra
Encyclopedia
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
from approximately 1933 to 1949.
Denny and the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra appeared in the movie Moonlight and Pretzels in 1933. Both Denny and Cugat had their own orchestras when they began playing at the Waldorf-Astoria, so the term "Waldorf-Astoria orchestras" might be an appropriate description.
History
Some information about the Waldorf-Astoria HotelWaldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
(q.v. for further details) is relevant to the orchestra. The hotel was originally built as two separate adjacent hotels, the Waldorf in 1893 and the Astoria in 1897. Both were on the land that is now occupied by the Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
, and the two hotels were connected after construction of the second one. The hotel had its current site on Park Avenue built in 1931. In addition to the normal function of a hotel to house its guests and provide them with amenities, the Waldorf-Astoria had an extensive program of social activities, to include concerts by top artists and an orchestra to provide music for its dinner guests.
An 1898 New York Times article mentions that the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra played at the Astoria, and a 1901 New York Times Article mentions "Prof. Clappe, leader of the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra, and the other fifteen performers."
In his autobiography, Nathaniel Shilkret
Nathaniel Shilkret
Nathaniel Shilkret was an American composer, conductor, clarinetist, pianist, business executive, and music director born in New York City, New York to an Austrian immigrant family.-Early career:...
, a member of the orchestra in its early days, provides information about the Orchestra and anecdotal stories about several of its members. Shilkret says he was a member of the Orchestra while attending the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
. A search of the college’s files shows Shilkret attended classes in the Fall 1904 semester and is listed as an alumni, Class of ex’1910. This information establishes Knecht as director prior to 1910. Shilkret described the hotel as “almost a conservatory, rather than a hotel engagement…. There were thirty-five men engaged steadily for the dining rooms. In the Rose Room, Caruso records were played, with our group following the music of the record.” Shilkret said that there were nightly concerts from 9 pm to 10 pm, with the Orchestra enlarged to fifty on Sundays, and chamber music from 11 pm to 1 am, with Joseph Knecht as director.
Music historian Howard Pollack says, “This hotel orchestra, comprising a highly trained group of mostly Italian and Jewish musicians, regularly gave serious concerts, including one that [George] Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
attended on April 13, 1913, at which [Charles] Hambitzer performed the first movement of Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
’s Piano Concerto in D Minor.Pollack, Howard, George Gershwin: His Life and Work, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2006, p. 26. ISBN 978-0-520-24864-9 (Pollack quotes Shilkret as saying that Hambitzer was “one of the greatest pianists I ever heard. I would say he was a genius.”) Pollack says Hambitzer came to New York no later than 1908 and began playing in the string section (Hambitzer played many instruments) of the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra.
A 1919 New York Times article states that, "Joseph Knecht led an 'all-American' program recently by the Waldorf Orchestra, whose twenty-five men have played together for twenty years," but does not indicate whether or not the orchestra played for the Waldoff-Astoria for its entire twenty-year existence. Two New York Times articles note the beginning and ending of the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra's thirteenth season of Sunday concerts, which would imply that the Sunday concert feature of the Orchestra began in 1912. New York Times articles from 1926 refer to "Knecht's Silvertone Dance Orchestra" and "Knecht's orchestra," without any reference to the Waldorf-Astoria, from which it seems that Knecht's association with the Waldorf-Astoria ended in 1925. A New York Times obituary says that Knecht died on May 30, 1931.
Several New York Times articles mention Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra with various conductors, including Harold Leonard (1926--1927), Meyer Davis (1929--1932), Nat Brandywine (1932), Jack Denny (1932), and Oscar Adler (1933). Meyer Davis's Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra is sometimes described as directed by Bill Artzt, Joe Moss, and Mischa Barr, instead of Davis himself.
Denny departed when Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
's Orchestra began creating a stir at the Waldorf-Astoria. Cugat never had a contract with the Waldorf-Astoria, but his band reigned supreme there for 16 years. He began with a salary of $500 per week which escalated to $7,000 per week plus a percentage of the door.
Early members
A picture of the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra, dated March 4, 1918 and marked “to Mr. Oscar Tschirky on his 25th anniversary” is signed by each member of the orchestra. Tschirky was the maître d’ of the Waldorf-Astoria and was very well known. From the signatures on the picture, together with information from Shilkret’s autobiography, his payroll for his radio orchestras from 1928 through 1933 and the New York Philharmonic Archives, the orchestra members, and their principal instrument when known, include the following, with question marks indicating the signatures were not clear: Joseph Knecht (director), V. Adamo, F. Cardone?, N. Cassellee?, Leonard D'Amico (violin), Edward Davis, Carl W. Dodge (cello), Joseph Febbraio (horn), R. Fritock, Nicholas Garagusi (violin; Boys' Symphony Orchestra of New York soloist and concertmaster in 1902), Roy R. Haines (trombone), Charles J. Hambitzer (George Gershwin’s principal piano teacher), Louison? Heidelberg, Edward Kilenyi (violin), A. Kirchner (bassoon), Peter Le Fina, Frank Longo (piano), Benjamin Posner (violin), D. Reggel, D. Saeirtel, Max Schlossberg (trumpet), Nathaniel Shilkret (clarinet), Harry K. Spedick, Stefano L. Stefan?, F. Tantangelo, Van Praag, George Vaughn (clarinet), O. Walther. Shilkret also cites Dan Marshall as a flute player in the orchestra under Knecht.Recordings
Knecht, and Cugat each directed over 150 recordings with the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra. Denny also made a significant number of recordings, but only about fifteen appeared with the Waldorf-Astoria name.The first recording by the Orchestra was Maytime Waltz, recorded on December 10, 1917 and issued as Victor 18432. Whitburn lists this recordings being charted as a number 9 hit the following year, and lists three other Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra recordings as being “charted,” including Beautiful Ohio, which was listed as charted number one in 1919. The Orchestra made recordings for several different record companies, with the last recording directed by Knecht being made for Edison in November 1925.
Denny recorded for Victor in 1932, including an experimental LP recording.
Cugat also directed over 150 recordings with the Orchestra between 1937 and 1942, the earlier recordings for Victor and the later ones for Columbia. Whitburn lists twenty-one of the Cugat recordings as "charted."
Radio broadcasts
The Orchestra was one of the earliest orchestras heard on radio. Broadcasts began on WJZ in Newark, New JerseyNewark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
and continued throughout the 1920s as the network chain was established.
On February 4, 1923, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
reported:
- The Sunday evening concert of the Waldorf-Astoria orchestra numbers, under the leadership of Joseph Knecht, will continue to be broadcast through the month of February, according to a statement made by WJZ, Newark.
Sies describes details of a spring 1924 broadcast of classical music on Dinner Music from the Rose Room on WEAF (soon to be the flagship station of the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
network), and the New York Times said that the Rose Room Dinner Music was a favorite program for listeners of WEAF for many years.
The Eveready Hour article includes a picture (see Commons below) which is labeled as including the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra in a publicity picture for the November 4, 1924 Eveready Hour broadcast. Neither the musicians nor the instrumentation match the 1918 photograph of the orchestra cited above.
By 1928, the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra was heard Saturdays in the New York area on WABC and WEAF, in Washington, D.C. on WRC, and it was also heard in Detroit (WWJ), Boston (WEEI) and WCAE (Hartford). The music was usually on at 6pm to provide what was labeled "dinner music," and NBC broadcast it throughout the United States in the 1930s. Minus a brass section, the 1932 orchestra that Jack Denny helmed at the Waldorf-Astoria employed three pianos, clarinets, saxophones, strings and possibly a French horn or oboe.