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

[David Lennick]

So, like our "flea market" where anyone can rent a table and sell off..whatever?

dl

On 7/25/2011 1:22 PM, Hans en Corrie wrote:
> Thanks Alan,
>
> Both sites were known to me .............. Interesting, those British
> 'V-Discs".
> http://keepswinging.blogspot.com
> BTW: Jumble sale is in my dictionary and it seems a correct word for a kind
> of junk market ..............
>
> Hans
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] Namens Alan Bunting
> Verzonden: maandag 25 juli 2011 19:04
> Aan: 78-L Mail List
> Onderwerp: Re: [78-L] Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service ( ENSA)
>
>> 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¡ªas 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.
> "Caf¨¦ 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.