Scrappy Lambert, Ben Bernie Orchestra - Makin' Whoopee ! (1928) video free download

Harold "Scrappy" Lambert (May 12,1901 - Nov.30,1987)

was an American jazz band vocalist. He appeared on hundreds of recordings from the 1920s to the 1940s.

He attended Rutgers University, where he was a cheerleader and played piano for a jazz group called the "Rutgers Jazz Bandits." He and fellow student Billy Hillpot formed a musical duo, which was discovered in 1926 by Ben Bernie, who signed them to perform with his orchestra. Lambert and Hillpot appeared on many recordings with the orchestra and remained under Bernie's employ until 1928.

Other bandleaders who employed Lambert include Red Nichols, Frank Britton Wenzel, Fred Rich, and Sam Lanin.

In the 1930s, Lambert and Hillpot took their comedy routine to the National Broadcasting Company, then a fledgling radio network.

In 1943, MCA offered him a job overseeing their radio department in Beverly Hills, California. This marked the end of his singing career, and he worked for MCA until 1948.

Scrappy was one of the Smith Brothers and also one of Red Nichols' Five Pennies. He passed away in Riverside, CA.

-------------------------------------------------

Ben Bernie (May 30, 1891, Bayonne, New Jersey - October 23, 1943), born Bernard Anzelevitz, was an American jazz violinist and radio personality, often introduced as The Old Maestro. He was noted for his showmanship and memorable bits of snappy dialogue.

By the age of 15 he was teaching violin, but this experience apparently diminished his interest in the violin for a time. He returned to music doing vaudeville, appearing with Phil Baker as Baker and Bernie, but he met with little success until 1922 when he joined his first orchestra. Later, he had his own band, "The Lads," seen in the early DeForest Phonofilm sound short, Ben Bernie and All the Lads (1924-1925), featuring pianist Oscar Levant. He toured with Maurice Chevalier and also toured in Europe.

Bernie's orchestra recorded throughout the 1920s and 1930s; Vocalion (1922-1925), Brunswick (1925-1933), Columbia (1933), Decca (1936), and ARC (Vocalion and OKeh) (1939-1940). In 1925 Ben Bernie and his orchestra did the first recording of Sweet Georgia Brown. Bernie was the co-composer of this jazz standard, which became the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Scrappy Lambert, Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra - Makin' Whoopee! (1928)