LINO PATRUNO & THE GANG - Limehouse Blues - I'll See You In My Dreams

with Michael Supnick (trombone), Lino Patruno (guitar)

Zurich(Switzerland), May 31,2001
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Shadwell to the west and the Isle of Dogs to the east.

The area achieved notoriety for opium dens in the late 19th century, often featuring in pulp fiction works by Sax Rohmer and others. Like much of the East End it remained a focus for immigration, but after the devastation of the Second World War many of the Chinese community relocated to Soho

The area inspired Douglas Furber (lyricist) and Phillip Braham (composer) in 1921 to write the popular jazz standard Limehouse Blues[8], which was introduced by Jack Buchanan and Gertrude Lawrence in the musical revue "A to Z". Much later, it was reprised in the ballet "Limehouse Blues" featuring Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer in the musical film Ziegfeld Follies (1946). In both instances the actors were heavily disguised as Chinese. Limehouse Blues was also the name of a 1934 film, starring George Raft. Thomas Burke wrote Limehouse Nights (1916), a collection of stories centered around life in the poverty-stricken Limehouse district of London. Many of Burke's books feature the Chinese character Quong Lee as narrator.

Other notable performances on film include those by Hoagy Carmichael in To Have and Have Not (1946) and by Borrah Minevich and His Harmonica Rascals in One in a Million (1936). The area also appeared in Anna Mae Wong's 1929 film Piccadilly, where as the toughly alluring Shosho, Ms. Wong was said to embody the Limehouse Chinatown mystique.

http://www.linopatruno.it
http://www.jazzmeblues.it
http://www.cambiamusica.it
http://www.michaelsupnick.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ensemble band
• supnick
• patruno
• beiderbecke