Harry Reser - Calling, 1927

Harry Reser, banjo, Piano acc. by Bill Wirges - Calling, Brunswick 1927

NOTE: Harry F. RESER (1896 1965) was an American banjo player and bandleader. Born in Piqua, Ohio, Reser was best known as the leader of The Clicquot Club Eskimos. Reser is regarded as the best banjoist of the 1920s. He played with midwestern dance bands, relocating to Buffalo, New York in 1920. Arriving in Manhattan the following year, he became an in-demand session musician during the early 1920s. In 1925, he found fame as the director for NBC's Clicquot Club Eskimos Orchestra, continuing with that weekly half-hour until 1935. At the same time, he also led other bands using dozens of pseudonyms, among which most popular in America and in Europe was „Six Jumping Jacks" with vocals by Tom Stacks. Reser remained active in music for the rest of his life, leading TV studio orchestras and playing with Broadway theatre orchestras. In 1960 he appeared with Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee and Buster Keaton in "A 70th Birthday Salute to Paul Whiteman" on TV's The Revlon Revue. He wrote several instructional books for the banjo, guitar, and ukulele. In 1965 Reser died of a heart attack in the orchestra pit of the Broadway stage version of Fiddler on the Roof just prior to a performance. He was inducted into the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame in 1999.

Pianist Bill Wirges (born in 1894 in Buffalo, NY) was a member of Reser's band. The band even made some records under the pseudonym of Bill Wirges and His Orchestra.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Banjo
• virtuose
• Harry
• Reser
• jazz
• age
• Roaring
• Twenties
• 1920s
• America
• USA
• New
• York
• flapper
• vintage
• photographs
• 78rpm
• turntable
• shellac
• old
• record
• gramophone

[tango3721]

Hi Grzegorz - this banjo virtuoso is super!

The frame 1:12 is extremely interesting even though I don't know what this woman and her pose - have to do with this super banjo performance!!!

[240252]

Lokk Lana, what that wooman is doing! She is pulling out a flask from her boot! She is a prohibition-era bootlegger and she is so happy thinking, she is just about to walk out to one of the night bars, where she will be drinking "notning but orange juice", ofcourse... and , possibly... listening to the banjo solo played by Harry Reser, seated on a little half dark podium in the corner... Also - what's VERY interesting - see, there is the small swastika sign on the pavement, by ger left shoe.

[heinbanjo12]

Thanks for this great recording. Hein

[240252]

Hello Hein, I knew you'd be one of first to react to his great tune. I think it's simply a masterpiece. At last we have some longer piece with Reser's solo show, for in the orchestral recordings his solos are usually very short. And look at the kind of the dialogue between banjo and piano... What a duett!

[barbcard]

Image @ 0:28 reminds me of family gatherings in front of a large Stromberg-Carlson radio way back when. Yes, banjo music is a great "upper."

[heinbanjo12]

I know you do and you have the future.

Greetings Hein

[rockytenorbanjo]

Hi,

I have the book also. And study and listen many songs as I can but this one was also new for me.

Great Song !!! Thanks !!

Rocky

[genia106]

G,

I just reposted my comment on Lonely Melody for the fifth time! I hope it appears.

This is BANJOLICIOUS!

[HarborGuy]

Wonderful Photos I love the old ones....what a time it mut have been to be alive........

[dzheger]

The sound of the banjo always makes you happy. The vintage photos are charming. Nice overdressed beach visitors. The cakes looks delicious, and those smoking boys -- my o my!

[Masquerade03]

Harry Reser was such a virtuoso musician that his recordings are always at the top. Love the photos too, this time the mixture of two eras, Jazz Age and Age of Innocence. Anyway two periods very atractive in many senses! Thanks.

[heinbanjo12]

Reser made a lot of solo pieces. I have a book with music and a whole CD full of solo pieces. He made so many recordings. But this one was new for me.

He also accompagnied Bessie Smith on the guitar. When he was a band banjoplayer, he was functional, but when he was a soloist inimitable.