"I Can't Stop Babying You"

by Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra

This legendary early radio pioneer, whose trademark phrase "Yowzah Yowzah" stayed in the American lexicon for decades beyond his career, made some great dance music in the mid 20s and this is a good example. It's not jazz, really (Ben's contemporary Abe Lyman, who had a similar style, didn't lead a jazz outfit either), but it's very lively and fun to listen to even eighty years later. This is a late acoustic side, made for Vocalion in November of 1924, of a hit tune that had been written by Ted Fiorito, Joseph Santly, and Gus Kahn just a month or so earlier. It's a great version of this tune, with carefree zest and lots of syncopation. The disc from which this was taken had been played with a bad needle once or twice, so there was lots of crackle in it, and a few different needles were tried before finding one that rode an undamaged part of the groove. Noise reduction was much simpler after this relatively low-noise sample was made, and it is very enjoyable.
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