Puttin' On the Ritz, 1930 - Jan Garber & His Orchestra

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Puttin’ On the Ritz – Jan Garber & His orchestra, Foxtrot fromm „Puttin’ Onn the Ritz” (I.Berlin) with Vocal Chorus, Columbia 1930 (recorded in USA; British pressing)

NOTE: Jan Garber Orchestra - one of the longest–living American 20th century dance bands (its successful career covers five decades, from 1920s into the early 1970s!) plays one of the immortal hits and one of the most intriguing compositions in history of the pop-music. The title derives from the slang expression "to put on the Ritz", meaning to dress fashionably. The expression was inspired by the opulent Ritz Hotel and includes references to the then-popular fad of flashily-dressed but poor black Harlemites parading up and down Lenox Avenue, "Spending ev'ry dime / For a wonderful time". The career of the tune – which was composed by Irving Berlin in 1927 – starts up in 1930 when it was recorded by Harry Richman who performed it in the musical movie „Puttin’ On the Ritz”. Richman's Brunswick version of the song became the number-one selling record in America. Enthralled by this huge success, also Columbia released in the same year a recording of Fred Astaire singing the original lyrics. Several years later in 1946, for the film Blue Skies where the song was again performed by Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin revised the lyrics to apply to affluent whites strutting "up and down Park Avenue". The famous dancing scene with Fred Astaire tapping the tune in series of acrobatic figures with a cane and multiplied by the mirrors belongs to the classics in history of the musical cinematography and makes „Puttin’ On the Ritz” forever associated with the name of Fred Astaire.