The Glen Gray Casa Loma Orchestra - Sounds of the Great Bands in Latin

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The Glen Gray Casa Loma Orchestra - Sounds of the Great Bands in Latin

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The Casa Loma Orchestra was a popular American dance band active from 1927 to 1963. From 1929 until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands. It did not tour after 1950 but continued to record as a studio group. The future members of the band first came together in 1927 as the Orange Blossoms, one of several Detroit-area groups that came out of the Jean Goldkette office. The band had adopted the Casa Loma name by the time of its first recordings in 1929, shortly after it played an eight-month engagement at Casa Loma Hotel in Toronto. The band never actually played the Casa Loma under that name, still appearing as the Orange Blossoms at that time. In 1930, the Casa Loma Orchestra was officially incorporated in New York as a corporation with the members all stockholders and board members. The band members were hired on the grounds of "musical and congenial" competence and followed strict conduct and financial rules. Members who broke the rules could be summoned before the "board", have their contract bought out and be ejected from the band. The band was fronted for the first few years by violinist Hank Biagini, although the eventual leader, saxophonist Glen Gray (1900-1963) was from the very beginning "first among equals." The complex arrangements called for talented musicians such as trombonist Pee Wee Hunt, trumpeter Frank L. Ryerson, trumpeter Sonny Dunham, clarinetist Clarence Hutchenrider, drummer Tony Briglia and singer Kenny Sargent. Arrangements were by Gene Gifford, who also composed much of the band's book, Spud Murphy, Larry Wagner, Salvador "Tutti" Camarata and Horace Henderson. Gifford's arrangements were credited in large part to giving the band its sound, but even he fell victim to the band's strict rules, being bought out in 1935 due to alcohol-related infractions. Manager Cork O'Keefe was made a Vice President in the corporation and arranged bookings in venues such as Glen Island Casino, which they helped popularize, and the Essex House Hotel, that lead to their radio appearances.

Glen Gray Knoblauch, better known as Glen Gray, (June 7, 1900 – August 23, 1963, Plymouth, Massachusetts) was a jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra. Gray was born to Lurdie P. and Agnes (Gray) Knoblauch in Metamora, Illinois. His father was a lifelong railroad worker who died when Glen was two years of age. His widowed mother married George H. DeWilde, who was a few years younger than she was. Gray graduated from Roanoke High School. He is said to have joined the army at seventeen and two years later he was living at home with his family. He was employed as a bill clerk for the railroad. He attended Illinois Wesleyan University but left to work for the Santa Fe Railroad. In 1927, his Orange Blossoms Band was renamed the Casa Loma Orchestra, after Casa Loma in Toronto, where the band played for eight months. Gray collaborated with the jazz musician Jean Goldkette and with trumpeter/arranger Salvador Camarata. Ill health forced Gray to retire from touring in 1950. In 1956, he went back into the studio to record the first of what became a series of LPs for Capitol Records, which recreated the sounds of the big band era in stereo.