Jazz King from Kilbirnie

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 437, 7 November 1947, Page 25

Jazz King from Kilbirnie

BE ROMAIN, born in Wellington and educated at the Kilbirnie School, and the Marist Brothers’ School, Wellington, used to deliver the milk from his parents’ dairy. farm out of school hours, and like all good milkmen, he probably whistled on his way. Now he is a dance-band leader who has performed in 36 different countries since 1933, and who now conducts Abe Romain’s Bandstand at Station GB, Sydney, on four : ts a week. : During his schooldays, Romain cast an envious eye on what appeared to him to be the local wizards of dance-rhythm. He decided to go and do likewise and studied the violin. Later he added proficiency on the clarinet, alto saxophone and his vocal chords to his entertainment equip-

ment, and worked his ~ passage to America as a ship-musicians’ steward. In the U.S, he bought dance recordings from which he compiled his own orchestrations and so learned how to arrange music. Playing with dance bands in South America, Canada, Europe, and the Far East, he has been associated with such notables in the rhythm addicts’ catalogues as Harry Roy, Jack Hylton, Rudy Vallee, and Paul Whiteman. On one

oceasion he played at a Royal Command performance at the London Palladium with Jack Hylton’s Band; on the same bill were Jack Buchanan, Flanagan and Allen, Will Fyfe and Cicely Courtneidge. Some of Abe Romain’s recordings will be heard from 2ZB Wellington, in a 20-minutes’ session on Sunday, November 16, at 2.30 p.m.