SENSATIONAL ONE-NIGHT ENGAGEMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 28, 26 April 1927, Page 15

SENSATIONAL ONE-NIGHT ENGAGEMENT

AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS DANCE BANDS “Once in a lifetime” is a term too aptly misused, but it is the only way to bring 1 before the public the unique opportunity provided them this evening to hear the most sensational dance orchestras of America —Ruth Varin and Her Maryland Maids and Harvey. Ball and his Virginians. These unprecedented combinations have been secured at amazing expense by the Regent Theatre management, by arrangement with Mr. J. C. Bendrodt, who is taking them to the Palais Royale, Sydney. The combination will positively appear to-night only, as both bands leave by the Aorangi at 19 p.m. Their engagement is regarded as one of the greatest ever brought about by an Auckland theatrical management. Patrons of the Regent who are successful in securing -seats for this great event are promised the most remarkable exposition of dance and classical music ever heard here. Incidentally, the appearance will mark the bands’ first public performances in the Southern hemisphere. The bands, as before mentioned, are being presented by arrangement with Air. J. C. Bendrodt, of the renowned Palais Royale, Sydney. Determined to bring to the Antipodes the finest ballroom musical attractions for the Palais Royale irrespective of price, he toured the length and breadth of the United States of America. While there he had offered to him the most famous musical combinations in -he country, but acting on the advice of his many friends in the show world, he finally chose Ruth Varin’s and her Maryland Maids from the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit, and Harvey Ball and his Virginians.

The Ruth Varin combination is billed throughout America as the world’s greatest girl band, and they are also known as “the darlings of American ballrooms.” There are ten musicians and they play 37 instruments. They include in their repertoire not only dance music but every musician is a solo artist on some instrument or other. They play everything from grand opera to what the Americans describe as “hot dance music.” The orchestra carries its own arranger and all the numbers tire specially prepared by liim before the girls present them to the public. The band has played all through America on the stage and in a large number of the greatest hotel ballrooms. Before bringing the band from America it was necessary for Air. Bendrodt to obtain the permission of the United States Government for three of the saxaphone players to leave America in view of the fact that they are only 17 years of age. Harvey Ball and his Virginians need little introduction to gramophone enthusiasts who have heard their remarkable records. The boys in this combination are from the Sunny Southern States, where modern dance music had its birth. Like Ruth Varin’s Band, these people were not only one of the most sought-after dance and recording bands in the U.S.A., but they include some of the greatest single musical acts in the American world of dancing. r I hey have as specialities “Soft Shoe” dances, “Buck and Wing” dances, “Black Shuffle” experts, comedians, singers and some wonderful solo specialists. While they are the last word in the most modern of “black bottom” and ‘stomp” type of dance music, they, too, specialise in big classical arangements of the more famous overtures, etc. Their long suite, however, is interpreting that peculiar fascinating rhythm and musical phrasing which has set the whole world dancing to the modern fox trot. As far as the Southern Hemisphere is concerned, it can be defintely and. safely said that with the exception of those New Zealanders and Australians who have visited America in the last year, no one in this part of the world has heard the peculiar type of "stomp” music which is responsible for the latest craze in dancing in America. The music is a remarkably weird departure from the average type of fox trot, and is described in the country of its origin as the "grand opera” of jazz. Only the most famous of the American musical

combinations excel in it because of the extreme difficulty in executing it adequately. Harvey Ball’s Band also carries its own arranger.