Ambrose & His Orchestra

A flip back to the thirties now...all tracks were recorded between 1933-1939.

Ambrose was born in Warsaw in 1896, when it was part of the Russian Empire. After a time the family moved to London. They were Jewish, his father being registered as a "Dealer in rags" in the 1911 UK census, where Ambrose was named as "Barnett' (a "Violin musician student"). He began playing the violin while young, and travelled to New York with his aunt. He began playing professionally, first for Emil Coleman at New York's Reisenweber's restaurant, then in the Palais Royal's big band. After making a success of a stint as bandleader, at the age of 20 he was asked to put together and lead his own fifteen-piece band. After a dispute with his employer, he moved his band to another venue, where they enjoyed considerable popularity.In 1922, Ambrose returned to London, where he was engaged by the Embassy Club to form a seven-piece band. He stayed at the Embassy for two years, before walking out on his employer to take up a much more lucrative job in New York. After a year there, besieged by continual pleas to return from his ex-employer in London, in 1925 he was finally persuaded to go back by a cable from the Prince of Wales: "The Embassy needs you. Come back—Edward".

This time Ambrose stayed at the Embassy Club until 1927. The club had a policy of not allowing radio broadcasts from its premises, however, and this was a major drawback for an ambitious bandleader, largely because the fame gained by radio work helped a band to gain recording contracts (Ambrose's band had been recorded by Columbia Records in 1923, but nothing had come of this). He therefore accepted an offer by the May Fair Hotel, with a contract that included broadcasting.Ambrose stayed at the May Fair for six years, during which time the band made recordings for Brunswick Records, HMV and Decca. He teamed up with Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, along with an American harmony song trio, the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce (aka Three X Sisters), to record songs including "My Heart Stood Still" among others. This period also saw the musical development of the band, partly as a result of Ambrose's hiring of first-class musicians, including Sylvester Ahola, Ted Heath, Joe Crossman, Joe Jeannette, Bert Read, Joe Brannelly, Dick Escott and trumpeter Max Goldberg.It was during the recording of a television programme (at the Yorkshire Television studios) that Ambrose collapsed, dying later the same night in Leeds General Infirmary. His music was kept alive after his death by, among others, Radio 2 broadcasters Alan Dell and Malcolm Laycock, the latter continuing to play his records into the 21st century. His records, especially from his many 78-rpm records and Radio Luxemburg recording , still regularly feature on Australian radio 8CCC-FM's long-running nostalgia programme "Get Out Those Old Records", hosted by Rufl.


Specialist dance band radio stations, such as Radio Dismuke and Swing Street Radio, continue to play his records. Ambrose also features regularly on the Manx Radio programme Sweet & Swing, presented by Howard Caine.......(Info Edited From Wikipedia)

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