[78-L] Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service ( ENSA)

[Alan Bunting]

>I've never heard of ORBS. This might be an interesting presentation for 
>an ARSC Conference.

>I've never heard of a jumble sale either. Must be a British term. Never 
>heard that word used on either Dr. Who or Torchwood.

>joe salerno


I'll leave jumble sales to someone else but here's a piece from The Gramophone of December 1943 about ORBS.

Listings of many of them may be found here:

http://www.mgthomas.co.uk/dancebands/IndexPages/ORBS%20issues.htm

Many ORBS recordings featuring Sidney Torch, George Melachrino, Sir Vivian Dunn and others have been issued on Guild Music's "The Lost Transcriptions Volumes 1 and 2", and Volume 3 with yet more is scheduled for the end of the year.

Alan Bunting
　

GRAMOPHONE STARS IN UNIFORM
They are still Recording Programmes to their Comrades Overseas
by SAM HEPPNER
THE catalogues nowadays are sadly depicted. Does this mean that the gramophone factories and all the large recording studios scattered about the vicinities of St. John's Wood, Brixton and Hayes are idle, derelict husks ? Not at all. Fhey are busier now than ever they were in peace time, for in this " global " conflict (to quote Mr. Wilikie) many types of skill and many forms of specialised technique which, you might suppose, are completely alien to the whole business of war, have their part to play. The gramophone has long been regarded as an instrument of recreation and a means of escape from the world of violence ; but it now demonstrates its powers of serving the cause. 
Apart from all the technical activities that go on under the forbidding and uninformative label of "secret work," the gramophone companies are now mainly occupied with what is known as Service Recording. This represents a scheme for supplying radio entertainment to the Forces in all theatres of war. The Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service, as it is called, has been in operation for the last eighteen months or so and, in that time, it has sent hundreds and hundreds of recorded programmes to forty different centres where they are re-diffused from the local transmitters. Programmes of all sorts - symphony concerts, variety, features, string quartets, musical comedy, dance bands, talks, etc. From the West Indies to Bombay, from Iceland down to Madagascar, its places where the troops seldom get a flesh and blood concert party and manage to tune into the B.B.C. only in those rare cases where a short-wave set is available, "Services Calling" programmes may
 be heard. All these programmes are written, devised and produced by Service personnel - officers and men with the special talents required for the job. Each of the three Services has its own Radio Production Unit which is designed to utilise the talents of the many famous recording and broadcasting figures who are now in uniform. Now that the gramophone companies are restricted by the Board of Trade from producing more than a very limited number of new recordings each month, you may be wondering what has become of all those popular artists whose names used to grace the monthly catalogues. The answer, in many cases, is that they are still recording - but for their comrades overseas, and in the course of military duty. Any listener with the Forces overseas is liable to hear a programme of music by Signalman George Posford, conducted by Pilot Officer Sidney Torch, sung by Regimental Sergeant Major George Melachrino and introduced by Leading Aircraftsman
 Alvar Liddell 
You may well imagine what a joy it is to good musicians to be detailed for recording duties at the London studios. Put yourself in the shoes, say, of Pte. Frederick Riddle, who, after weeks of tedious fatigues, packs his beloved viola and turns up at H.M.V. at 0800 hours the next morning. Imagine the pleasure of Staff Sergeant Eugene Phd (Ordnance Corps) who, having finished a rigorous battle-course, spends a couple of days in the studios leading a little string combination of khaki-clad musicians. The services of Frederick Grinke, now in the R.A F., are also used from time to time.
From patrolling the streets in a large peaked cap, crowned with the formidable scarlet of the Military Police, George Melachrino has now risen to the dizzy position of Regimental Sergeant Major. Last year, when the services combined their resources to produce a tip-top recorded version of the " Cinderella " pantomime, George Melachrino did an excellent job of arranging the music and conducting the orchestra. . . . This year the Services have just recorded " Dick Whittington," to be broadcast overseas on Christmas Day, and with a cast of civilian stars that included Tommy Handley, Lupino Lane, Dorothy Carless, Gabrielle Brune, Eddie Gray and Dennis Noble, the musical settings have again been brilliantly arranged by the R.S.M. 
Those nimble piano duettists, Arthur Young and Reginald Foresythe, are also in the services: Young is a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps while Foresythe is an R.A.F. officer. Harry Jacobson, Gordon Little and Ronnie Hill are naval officers. Trumpet virtuoso Nat Gonella is serving with the Pioneer Corps overseas, though while in England he contributed to the scheme. 
One branch of Overseas Broadcasting is called the Services Library. This consists of a large and continually extending collection of musical items from which the local station officials can build their own programmes, according to whatever time they may have at their disposal. This offers plenty of scope to serving organists like Captain Sydney Gustard, Captain Phil Park, Pilot Officer Sidney Torch and Pte. Donald Thorne. Needless to say, there are regular broadcasts of all the established Guards bands - the Coldstrearns, the Grenadiers, the Welsh Guards and so forth, and Service dance bands like the R.A.F. Squadronnaires and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps "Blue Rockets" figure prominently in the schedule. 
The Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Scheme grows daily—as good musicians and artists are drafted into the Services, as the number of re-diffusion stations throughout the battle areas increases. And, of course as Allied progress continues. Very soon after the Axis forces had been rounded up in the Tunisian tip, "Services Calling" programmes were being transmitted from Algiers, Tunis and Constantine, and there is little doubt that, by the time this article is published, British and American forces in Sicily and Southern Italy will be tuning into the Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service. 
One series of rather special interest is the "Services Concert Hall" which, in a sense, evokes memories of the B.B.C. 
"Café Colette" in that listeners can never be quite sure whether such a place really exists. To be sure, the effect is convincing enough, but actually the "Services Concert Hall" is the large orchestral studio at H.M.V., completely bereft of all service personnel besides the musicians. Applause and crowd noises are ingeniously dubbed from effects records before and after each item which is generally of the popular symphonic type, informally introduced by "your friend in the audience", Major Christopher Stone, D.S.O., M.C. The platform is occupied in turn by the Band of the Royal Marines (Portsmouth Division) conducted by Captain Vivian Dunn, the Orchestra in Khaki and the R.A.F. Symphony Orchestra.
A word too must be said of "Music While You Work." Besides producing this programme for the B.B.C., Mr. Wynford Reynolds occupies himself largely at the Decca Studios where he records orchestral music solely for re-diffusion in factories. For, let it be remembered, "Music While You Work" is not merely an attempt to present light music under a fancy title, but a means of speeding up production which enjoys the serious approval of industrial psychologists.