Solid!
The encyclopedia of big band, lounge, classic jazz and space-age sounds.
George Hall
Theme Songs
- Love Letters in the Sand (early)
- Every Minute of the Hour (later)
George Hall
Orchestra leader George Hall worked the New York hotel circuit during the golden age of jazz. During the 1920s he toured the Ambassador Hotel chain and spent three years in the Arcadia Ballroom before settling at the Taft Hotel in 1931, where he remained throughout most of the decade.
Hall recorded for the ARC label in the 1920s. In the 1930s he recorded for the Bluebird, Vocalion, Okeh and Variety labels. The orchestra was also heard regularly on radio. Loretta Lee was vocalist in the early 1930s. She left the group in 1935, and Sonny Schuyler briefly took over on vocals before Dolly Dawn joined. Dawn quickly became the orchestra's big attraction. The chubby, young, diminutive singer gave life to the group's arrangements with her rather large voice.
In 1940, after leaving the Taft, Hall decided to revamp the orchestra's sound. The result was a much better and more modern group, but by 1941 he had grown tired of the orchestra. In a ceremony at Roseland Ballroom he turned the group over to Dawn. It then became known as Dolly Dawn and the Dawn Patrol. Dawn continued leading the group until disbanding it in 1943.