Les Elgart – Strike Up the Band (Remastered 2023) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:30 minutes | 908 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hindsight Records

Les Elgart began playing the trumpet as a teenager; by the age of 20 he was performing as a professional musician. He came to New York in the early 1940s and played in the bands of Raymond Scott, Charlie Spivak and Harry James as well as occasionally in the band of his brother Larry, who played alto saxophone. In 1945 they founded the short-lived Les & Larry Elgart Ensemble for which Nelson Riddle, Ralph Flanagan and Bill Finegan wrote arrangements. Due to the recording ban imposed by the musicians’ union, the band broke up in 1946. In 1952, the two brothers worked together again, performing at the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York and recording a number of EPs and albums with their orchestra for Columbia Records; their best-known titles included “Heart of My Heart”, “Sophisticated Swing” and the “Bandstand Boogie”, which Dick Clark used as the theme song for American Bandstand. Later in the 1950s, as the orchestra’s success waned, Les Elgart stopped performing but continued to record. In 1963, further recordings were made with his brother in collaboration with arrangers such as Charles Albertine and Bobby Scott, whose material tended more towards easy listening. Les Elgart separated from his brother for good in the 1960s and moved to Texas. He worked in the music business until his death from a heart attack and occasionally put together orchestras.

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