From Album: "Larry Adler ~ The Great Larry Adler"

Larry Adler was an internationally renowned harmonica virtuoso whose jazz and European classical interpretations brought unprecedented attention and acclaim to the humble mouth organ. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants (the family name was changed from Zelakovitch), Lawrence Cecil Adler was born on February 10, 1914, in Baltimore. His first performing idol was Al Jolson; he also admired comedian George Jessel and worked as a sidekick for Eddie Cantor, who he resembled. Adler's career as a professional mouth organist began when at the age of 14 he won a statewide harmonica competition with an abbreviated rendition of Beethoven's Minuet in G. He then surprised his family by moving to New York City without parental permission.

After briefly serving as an intermission performer for Rudy Vallée, he convinced bandleader Paul Ash to help him secure a $100 per week contract with a traveling variety show that entertained audiences between films in Paramount theaters. Adler's direct involvement with cinema began when he synchronized a harmonica solo with the soundtrack of a newly developed animated "sound cartoon." He recorded with vocalist Ruth Etting and appeared with her, Gus Edwards, and tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at Broadway's Palace Theater in 1929, and in Flo Ziegfeld's Smiles with Fred and Adele Astaire in 1931.

The catalyst for a turning point in Adler's career was Maurice Ravel's Bolero, which he initially presented at the Blackhawk in San Francisco, using a dance band arrangement by Hal Kemp. As a part of a "prologue" to Eddie Cantor's film Roman Scandals, Adler performed Bolero at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Unfamiliar with the time signature of the work as written and convinced that the orchestra was lagging, he improvised wildly while waving his free arm as if "chopping an invisible tree." This extroverted display, which he would later describe as "corny Sturm und Drang," brought down the house and earned him immediate notoriety. Adler now became a high-profile participant in Hollywood social life. In 1934 he appeared in the film Many Happy Returns with Ray Milland, Burns & Allen, and Duke Ellington, and was filmed in heavy "Chinese" makeup for a sequence in Busby Berkeley's The Singing Marine. Adler performed duets with George Gershwin, whose "Rhapsody in Blue" would become one of the staples in his repertoire, which also included mouth organ adaptations of violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi and J.S. Bach as well as works composed expressly for him and his instrument by Malcolm Arnold, Arthur Benjamin, Jean Berger, Darius Milhaud, Cyril Scott, Graham Whettam, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.  ~ Read more from Amazon

\\ Tags: As Time Goes By, Harmonica, Instrumental, Larry Adler

\\ Posted by admin on 23 Aug 2009 under As Time Goes By