Dorsey Brothers Orchestra - Singin' In The Rain (1929) video free download

Singin' In The Rain

Words by Arthur Freed, Music by Nacio Herb Brown

Dorsey Brothers Orchestra

Vocal refrain by Irving Kaufman

Recorded July 12, 1929

Okeh 41272

Leo McConville, Manny Klein - trumpets / Tommy Dorsey - trombone / Jimmy Dorsey - clarinet, alto sax / Larry Abbott - alto sax / Lucien Smith - tenor sax, cello, violin / Arthur Schutt - piano / Eddie Lang - guitar / Hank Stern - tuba / Stan King - drums / Irving Kaufman - vocal

Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey first teamed up together on records as the Dorsey Brothers in 1928 but the groups they led through 1933 were strictly studio affairs, featuring classic jazz and hot dance music along with some ballads. In 1934, they decided to put together a regular orchestra and by 1935, with Bob Crosby (and later Bob Eberle) taking the vocals and Glenn Miller providing many of the arrangements, the group was on the brink of success in the early swing era. But they couldn't get along with each other, and in 1935, after a terrible argument that caused Tommy to walk out, the Dorsey Brothers Band broke up.

The song "Singin' in the Rain" and other Freed-Brown songs would be used in repeatedly in many MGM pictures, starting with Hollywood Revue of 1929. Arthur Freed became a leading producer of musicals at MGM, putting together a talented group known as the Freed Unit after it made The Wizard of Oz in 1938. When MGM purchased the entire backlist or "catalog" of songs from Freed and Brown in March 1949, the song "Singin' in the Rain" became the property of MGM and Freed proposed featuring his song in a backstage-type musical film remake of the 1928 Excess Baggage that was set in vaudeville era. Freed hired Betty Comden and Adolph Green in May 1950 to write the story for the film. Comden and Green had been the writers for On the Town that starred Gene Kelly in 1943. They decided to set the story in Hollywood precisely during the transition to sound when the Freed-Brown songs were originally written. Singin' in the Rain was profitable for MGM in 1952, and has been ranked as one of the greatest musical films of all time. It was featured prominently in MGM's three "That's Entertainment" films of 1974, 1976, 1994, and was widely shown on television.