TagHoratio Nicholls

Jay Wilbur, Solo Recordings

“I’m Just in the Mood Tonight” (1929)

“I’m Just in the Mood Tonight.” Words by Edgar Leslie, music by Horatio Nicholls (pseudonym of Lawrence Wright) (1929). Recorded in London c. September 1929 by Elsie Carlisle under the musical direction of Jay Wilbur. Dominion A-180 mx. 1447-2.

Elsie Carlisle – “I’m Just in the Mood Tonight” (1929)

Elsie Carlisle recorded twenty songs for Dominion between the end of 1928 and the spring of 1930. There is an almost perfectly inverse relationship, I would argue, between the quality of the music Dominion attempted to capture and the actual sound of its discs, both when the music was new but especially now, nearly a century later. A low-budget operation with minimal ambition, Dominion seems to have been content to receive “Sounds: OK” reviews from Melody Maker, and its shellac is abnormally subject to wear. It is therefore a real pleasure to find a fairly well-preserved Dominion like this copy of “I’ll Get By” and “I’m Just in the Mood Tonight.”

“I’m Just in the Mood Tonight” has lyrics by the noteworthy American songwriter Edgar Leslie (known better, perhaps, for his work on “Dirty Hands, Dirty Face” and “Midnight Blue”), who was living for a time in England and collaborating with Lawrence Wright, a major music publisher who also composed under the pseudonym Horatio Nicholls. As in a number of her other Dominion recordings, Carlisle here impersonates a playful and perhaps dangerously sexy flapper. She handles Edgar Leslie’s suggestive wordplay deftly. She introduced Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love?” on stage in the same year, so she must have been in very great demand at this time.

Also worth contextualizing in terms of her long career is the fact that Carlisle was working under Jay Wilbur, the musical director at Dominion. He would play a role in her recordings all the way until 1942. In “I’m Just in the Mood Tonight” we hear some of his studio instrumentalists, whom I am not quite ready to try to identify, although no doubt someone will recognize the guitarist from the admirable solo.

Other British recordings of “I’m Just in the Mood Tonight” were made in 1929 by Randolph Sutton, Helen Trix, The Piccadilly Players (dir. Al Starita; v. Eddie Brandt, Les Allen, and one other), Bidgood’s Broadcasters (v. Eddie Pola, Eddie Brandt, and Les Allen), Jay Wilbur and His Orchestra (v. Tom Barratt), The Rhythmic Eight, and Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (v. Sam Browne and two others).

Nat Star, Ray Starita, Rudy Starita

“Rock Your Cares Away” (1932)

“Rock Your Cares Away.” Words and music by Leonard Blitz (as Leo Towers), Harry Sugarman (as Harry Leon), Lawrence Wright (as Horatio Nicholls) (1932). Recorded in London on November 5, 1932 by Rudy Starita and His Ambassadors with vocalist Elsie Carlisle. 4 in 1 – 17 mx. X-218-2.

Personnel: probably Nat Star-cl-as dir. / Nat Gonella-t / t / tb / cl-as / cl-ts / vn / p / bj-g / bb-sb / Rudy Starita-d-vib-x

Elsie Carlisle – “Rock Your Cares Away” (1932)

It is a little difficult to taxonomize this recording of “Rock Your Cares Away” by bandleader. It is clearly Ray Starita’s band, as is indicated on the label of the Sterno recording made at the same session (Sterno and 4 in 1 were both products of the British Homophone Company), but Ray had not returned from a vacation to America the previous summer and so could not have directed the music. The 4 in 1 record from the session mentions not Ray, but his brother Rudy Starita, the percussionist who did eventually take over control of the band from his brother. And yet Rust and Forbes think it likely that this particular session was led by Nat Star, who was generally in charge of dance music at Homophone1.

Whoever directed it, the result was a memorable piece of lively dance band music. The lyrics of “Rock Your Cares Away” exhort us to cast away gloom, live in the moment, and “…rock [our] cares away / In a cradle of dreams.” The Star/Starita 4 in 1 version is uptempo; Elsie Carlisle’s vocal refrain, while brief, is memorable for its ebullience. Her enthusiastic delivery is infectious and evocative of a carefree mental state, and she gets across the song’s message through raw energy rather than mere earnestness.

“Rock Your Cares Away” was also recorded in 1932 by Billy Cotton and His Band (v. Cyril Grantham), Ray Noble and His New Mayfair Orchestra (v. Al Bowlly), Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (v. Pat O’Malley), and Ambrose and His Orchestra (with an unidentified vocalist).

  1. Brian Rust and Sandy Forbes. British Dance Bands on Record, 1911 to 1945, and Supplement. Bungay, Suffolk: Richard Clay, Ltd., 1989, 1021-1022. ↩︎
Embassy Rhythm Eight, Solo Recordings

“Whisper Sweet” (1935)

“Whisper Sweet.” Words and music by James P. Johnson, Jo Trent, and Horatio Nicholls (a.k.a. Lawrence Wright). Recorded by Elsie Carlisle, probably with the Embassy Rhythm Eight, on February 1, 1935. Decca F-5436 mx. GB-6925-2.

“Whisper Sweet” – Elsie Carlisle
Transfer by Clive Hooley (YouTube)

The names James P. Johnson and Horatio Nicholls (a pseudonym of composer, music publisher, and impresario Lawrence Wright) are well known, that of Jo Trent considerably less so, and the origin of their song “Whisper Sweet” is comparatively obscure. Legendary stride pianist James P. Johnson composed many classic jazz tunes, including the original “Charleston.” Jo Trent was a lyricist who worked with many of the great composers, including Johnson; in 1931, for example, the two of them collaborated on the songs “Fooling Around with Love,” “Hanging Around Yo’ Door,” and “Hot Harlem,” but Trent appears to have avoided the spotlight; it has even been uncertain whether he was a man or a woman (he was the former, it seems:  Joseph H. Trent).  Lawrence Wright used his own name when publishing and sometimes even writing music, but he used the pseudonym Horatio Nicholls solely on compositions. There is sheet music for “Whisper Sweet” featuring a photograph of Eve Becke that credits Jo Trent and James P. Johnson as having written the words and music, with no mention of “Nicholls” at all (although the music was published by Lawrence Wright and bears that trademark). It might be asked if Lawrence Wright made some contribution to the arrangement that Elsie Carlisle sang. For what it is worth, I can find no fundamental difference between the arrangement that Elsie used and the one used by Bob Howard the next day in New York.

As with the flip side “Dancing with My Shadow,” it is assumed that Elsie’s accompanists for “Whisper Sweet” were the Embassy Rhythm Eight, as the matrices of Decca F-5436 and two recordings that the Rhythm Eight did on February 1 and 5 form an interlacing sequence. “Whisper Sweet” is considerably livelier than “Dancing with My Shadow,” and its theme more upbeat. Elsie’s simple, sweet interpretation is suited to the dreamy lyrics, which focus primarily on the subtle outward signs of the beginning of romantic attraction.

The day after Elsie Carlisle recorded “Whisper Sweet,” Bob Howard and His Orchestra did a version in New York. Later in January there were London recordings by Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans (with singer Brian Lawrance) and by Pat Hyde. In April Valaida Snow sang it for Parlophone, again in London. Sometime that year Eve Becke must have both broadcasted and recorded it, something which is asserted by the cover of the Lawrence Wright sheet music, but I have not identified an actual disc.