by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As greater Los Angeles underwent in the early 1920s, peaking in 1923 when Walter P. Temple was involved in several real estate projects such as the founding of Temple City, during another of its many development booms, the burgeoning population coupled with growing leisure time for more people allowed for a great increase in entertainment.
This included popular music, with a variety of venues from the Temple Auditorium, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to the Hollywood Bowl, to any number of theaters for vaudeville, movies and concerts. With the growing market for musical performances, one of those who rose to success was Earl Burtnett (1896-1936), a pianist, songwriter and bandleader.
Burtnett hailed from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and his father was a traveling salesperson. Not surprisingly, Burtnett followed that avocation, though he combined this with his fervent interest in music, by working for sheet music companies. This started in his hometown, but he also practiced his profession in other cities, including the not-too-distant Philadelphia, though, when he registered for the draft during the First World War, he was in New Orleans, selling for A.J. Stasny Company, a New York City publisher of sheet music.
Burtnett then secured a gig as pianist for Art Hickman, a native of Oakland who made his mark in San Francisco’s music scene, including during the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, a landmark fair to mark the completion of the Panama Canal. Hickman then took his band to New York City where they played at a rooftop club at the New Amsterdam Hotel for theater impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.
Hickman’s ensemble also started to employ some of the sounds of the emerging jazz scene, but within the confines of popular dance music, though he is generally credited with being among the first of the jazz-influenced dance orchestras. Burtnett migrated, as Hickman did, to Los Angeles, where the first located reference to him was an advertisement in the 21 March 1919 issue of the Los Angeles Express, as the Barker Brothers furniture store featured him among artists performing for its “Melody Shop.”
In the 1920 federal census, Burtnett was listed with his second wife and living with her family, while he gave his profession as “music company salesman.” Yet, he shortly afterward garnered local attention for his compositions, as well as his piano playing. The Los Angeles Times of 8 July 1921 ran an ad by the Wiley B. Allen Company, promoting QRS piano player rolls with one featuring a fox trot called “Just Keep a Thought for Me,” for which Burtnett and Max Fisher wrote the music.
Fisher headed his namesake orchestra, which played at such famous Angel City hostelries as the Alexandria and the Ambassador, and Burtnett was not only the pianist, but wrote tunes with his boss and solo, another of the former including “Some Fox” with one of the latter being “One Kiss,” which the Fisher ensemble recorded on the Vocalion label. In October 1922, Fisher opened his Club Royalé, located on Washington Boulevard in Culver City, where the relatively remote location (though close to Hollywood, Beverly Hills and other celebrity areas) allowed for “freer” operations during Prohibition, and Burtnett was highlighted in an advertisement for the club.
By fall 1923, Burtnett, who resided with his wife at the newly opened Biltmore Hotel in the Angel City, rejoined Hickman and the latter’s orchestra regularly performed on the relatively new medium of radio. This began with the Times reporting in its 4 October 1923 edition that,
Radioland’s newest feature, the broadcasting of music by Art Hickman’s Orchestra by line telephony from the Biltmore Hotel, has brought a hearty response from listeners-in.
Last night marked the second syncopation broadcasting by KHJ, The Times [station]. The dance music was put on the air after the regular studio program. The first occasion on which listeners-in heard the famous orchestra was Monday night during the Biltmore dedicatory dinner.
Radio fans by the score have asserted that the reception of the Hickman ensemble [which included a dozen members including a Latino bass player, Juan Ramos] is so clear that they can distinguish every instrument.
The orchestra will play nightly in the Biltmore supper room and will be broadcast by remote control several nights each week. Considerable expense is involved to the Biltmore and The Times in making this feature available to the radio public. Line telephony connections and a portable input panel were installed by the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Burtnett then moved up to be the Hickman orchestra director by summer 1924 and the Birkel Company advertised in the Express of 24 July regarding “the adoption of Conn Instruments by this popular orchestra, which is considered by many to be one of the finest in America,” while reprinting a handwritten note from Burtnett to the Indiana manufacturer that all but one member of the ensemble played Conn instruments. The ad also observed that “The New Victor Record of ‘Mandalay,” the season’s Biggest Hit,” was penned by Burtnett and recorded for the record company by the orchestra.
A few months later, the composer/music director/pianist went off on his own to form “Earl Burtnett’s Biltmore Orchestra” while Hickman, who died in 1930 from a spleen condition, continued with his concert ensemble at the hotel. In fact, KHJ often had the latter perform at a supper time half-hour slot, while Burtnett had a late night hour from 10 to 11 p.m.
It seems likely that the significant exposure on radio helped Burtnett build an audience, which included record buyers as phonograph players became more sophisticated. The Times of 17 July 1924 ran an advertisement from The May Company, recent purchasers of the long-standing Hamburger’s Department Store, promoting the “First California Record Played By California Orchestras!” It was proudly promoted that,
The first Victor record to be manufactured in California by the Victor people [was] in their new Oakland factory. [It was] Recorded by two of our own orchestras. “Mandalay,” played by Art Hickman’s Orchestra, conducted by Earl Burtnett, who incidentally, composed “Mandalay.” On the other side, “String Beans” by the famous Vincent Rose and his Montmarte Orchestra [from the Café Montmartre in Hollywood]. Two snappy fox trots. 75c.
This takes us to the highlighted object in the Homestead’s collection for this post, a Columbia Records 78rpm disc, using the “Viva-tonal Recording” and “Electrical Process” developed by the company, of the fox trot, “Doll Dance” on the “A-side” and “If I Hadn’t You” on the reverse. The latter was composed by the team of lyricist Neville Fleeson and composer Harry Von Tilzer, who collaborated on a number of occasions, including a 1920 hit, “I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time.” The Burtnett version, recorded on 9 March 1927, is mostly instrumental with the chorus sung by Louis Kraft.
The former was written by Nacio (Ignacio) Herb Brown (1896-1964), who is best known for writing the score, including the title tune, for the 1952 classic film, Singin’ in the Rain, though Brown wrote that song for The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and others were penned from 1929 to 1939 with lyricist Arthur Freed. Brown was born in Deming, New Mexico, his mother being Cora Hopkins, a musician who taught him piano, though his father, Ignacio, Sr., was from California and had a German father and a Latina mother. The elder Brown also had a musical background, as an article in the Placer Herald of 20 April 1872 reported on a concert in Auburn, between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, in which the elder Brown performed, including in a duet that “caused the audience to shout their approbation most furiously” and demanded an encore.
The Browns migrated to Los Angeles in the first years of the 20th century and Ignacio, Sr. worked as a desk sergeant at the county jail before his death in 1914. Nacio, a graduate of Manual Arts High School, was a collector when he registered for the World War I draft and, in the 1920 census, he declared his occupation as “haberdasher,” or a dealer in men’s clothing, though he also dabbled in real estate. Shortly afterward, he appeared in Angel City press accounts for his songwriting prowess, as the Express of 19 November 1921 reported that,
Nacio Herb Brown of the Big Four Music Company has published his latest song hit, “When Buddha Smuiles, and the records and rolls of these will be out in a few weeks. Some of this free lance writer’s other numbers as “Coral Sea,” “Make Me,” “Take Me In Your Arms,” and “Love’s Way.”
In 1926, he wrote “Doll Dance” as a piano instrumental and joined ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Nat Shilkret, the house band leader for Victor, first recorded the tune and when the song was published in sheet music form the front cover had a picture of Doris Eaton, who performed a vocal version at the Hollywood Music Box Revue.
Burtnett recorded the song on 7 March 1927 with the performer credit being to “His Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra” and though some Columbia released it in late May, an ad by the Hancock Music Company in the Pasadena Star-News of 30 March assured readers “WE HAVE IT,” this meaning the sheet music, adding that “Doll Dance” was a “Big Hit of the Music Box Review” and “Composed by Our Inimitable Local Composer,” while played by Burtnett and “His Famous Biltmore Hotel Orchestra.”
Just four days after the recording, the Pasadena paper ran an advertisement from clothier Mullen & Bluett, which hosted a show from 10-11 four nights weekly on KNX radio, owned by Guy Earl’s Los Angeles Express, that featured Burtnett and his ensemble. It was added that “Mr. Burtnett’s repertoire for this week will be chosen from the following selections . . .” and, among the dozen songs listed, were “Doll Dance” and “If I Hadn’t You.”
A Columbia Records ad from the Express of 26 January 1928 highlighted a trio of “Exclusive Columbia Recording Artists” including Ukulele Ike (Cliff Edwards) and his one recording, Vincent Rose with partner Jackie Taylor and the Hollywood Montmartre Orchestra and their sole offering, and Burtnett and his ensemble’s six platters, of which the featured one here was the third chronologically, with three more following. All, as well as the Rose/Taylor record, were of the fox trot variety.
As to the “Doll Dance” composer, the Times of 29 October 1928 reported that,
The future for Brown looked black, so Herb Brown, composer of “The Doll Dance,” “Moonlit Waters,” and other melodies, is changing as name, as soon as legal action can be taken, to Herbrown. Brown is changing his name to identify him among song writers of the same name.
It is notable that he dropped “Nacio,” though whether anyone thought that was a nickname for Ignacio or might cause problems because of its ethnic origin, though photos show that Brown had an olive complexion, dark hair and dark eyes, is not clear. It does not appear that the name change idea got any further than this, however, and he remained known as “Nacio Herb Brown” for the rest of his long career.
With respect to Burtnett, he continued working with the Biltmore orchestra for about five years through the end of the decade, married a third time just prior to the stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression and continued residing at the Biltmore, with his near neighbors including former mayor Meredith P. Snyder and club impresario Baron Long.
In the early Thirties, he and his orchestra had engagements at the Lincoln Tavern in Chicago, the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco and Hollywood’s Club Ballyhoo, but in March 1933 he entered into bankruptcy proceedings, including almost $4,000 in debts to the Biltmore. He played in Houston and other cities in the east before landing in Chicago, where he engaged in a fourth marriage.
After experiencing abdomen-area pain and being told he needed an appendectomy, Burtnett told a doctor that he’d had it removed in 1918 in his hometown and showed a scar to demonstrate the veracity of his account. When, however, his condition worsened, the bandleader finally relented and permitted an operation. By then, however, peritonitis set in and nothing could be done to stave off the inevitable and Burtnett succumbed on 2 January 1937.
While the bandleader and his music have been all but forgotten, as well as Brown’s “Doll Dance,” you can hear the 1927 recording (not to mention seeing the disc spinning on a phonograph player from the era) and relive the dance orchestra sounds of Earl Burtnett and His Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra from the Roaring Twenties almost a century after the track was laid down.
This post stirred up some of my memories. As I recall, hotel orchestras and hotel-owned music bands were a common feature in many parts of the world for almost a century. This trend seems to have faded during the 1970s, gradually replaced by recorded music systems, rock bands, small music trios, and similar arrangements.
I believe this evolution reflects the shift of social entertainment – from hotel-centered ballroom dancing to home-based entertainment such as television watching, record and tape listening, and later DJ-led rock and funk dancing.
If we apply the same perspective to observe the modern entertainment and recreation, we can see how dramatically things continue to change. Traditional television entertainment has now largely gone, while mobile phone platforms, AI-assisted production, and interactive content are rapidly reshaping the rules of the game. There’s no doubt that new forms of entertainment products are constantly emerging one after another.