Jack Payne & The BBC Dance Orch - Drink brothers drink (1931) (Columbia CB 251 mtx CA 11323) (78rpm)

 

Jack Payne (John Wesley Vivian Payne) (22 August 1899 – 4 December 1969) was a British dance music bandleader who established his reputation during the British dance band era of the 1930s. In July 1930, a reviewer from The Gramophone magazine wrote that "Jack Payne's Band is public property. It is paid out of the wireless licence fees which you and I supply...As such its one duty is to please the masses. It has to be good musically, it has to entertain, it needn't worry about anything advanced in the way of style, and the last thing it need be is rhythmically hot. I think we must all agree that it does its job well, and that anything it may at times lack in modern rhythmic stylishness is amply compensated by other qualities more important from the public's viewpoint, such as musical ability and versatility".

After leaving the BBC in 1932, when he was succeeded by Henry Hall, he returned to playing hotel venues and switched labels to Imperial, followed by Rex from 1934. Payne took his band on nationwide tours and made a film Say it with Music (1932), followed four years later by Sunshine Ahead. Payne had three successful waltzes – "Blue Pacific Moonlight", "Underneath the Spanish Stars" and "Pagan Serenade", which he composed and later published in the 1930s. Payne did some jazz recording, including working with Garland Wilson. He toured South Africa and France in the 1930s, but also concentrated his efforts on running a theatrical agency.

Jack Payne & The BBC Dance Orch - Drink brothers drink