The Ingenues
- Soundtrack
Beginning in 1925, The Ingenues, an American dance and stage band comprised of 18 to 22 female musicians, headlined for almost ten years, performing to sold-out concert halls and theatres around the globe. With stage sets, costumes, technicians and more than 100 instruments, the group earned the nickname "The Girl Paul Whitemans of Syncopation."
The group evolved from smaller groups led by Beth Vance (born Bessie Frances Israel, 1901-1962), who had been part of several traveling orchestras since she was a teenager. Bess (who would marry in 1922 and use the name Beth Vance) played the Chautauqua circuit under the auspices of the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua company, performing in circuses, county fairs and vaudeville houses. Her groups (The Harmony Belles, Beth Vance & Her Co-eds) ranged in size but started to grow around 1924. Concurrently the Russian-born violinist Harry Waiman (1891-1953) directed a 7-piece group called Harry Wayman and His 'Debutantes' (1928), traveling thousands of miles throughout the Midwest.
By November 1925 Beth Vance's orchestra had grown to 17 members, including veterans of other all-girl bands, and was renamed The Ingenues. A boy tenor, Johnnie Looze and Charleston dancer Helen Dobbin (former member of Doris Humphrey's Dancers), were added attractions. Violin and harp soloists were added, along with two pianos. In February 1926, during their engagement at Pittsburgh's Grand Theatre, The Ingenues orchestra was broadcast on pioneer radio station KDKA. With few exceptions, the orchestra members were born in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Nebraska.
By the end of 1926 the Ingenues acquired a manager and producer Edward Gorman Sherman (1880-1940), who would elevate the group from regional popularity to Broadway and international fame. Ingenues founder Beth Vance was replaced by Marie Novak (1905-1980), who had been the pianist for the Hummingbirds Orchestra in Minneapolis. Around this time the Ingenues grew with former members of Harry Waiman's Debutantes and Bobbie Grice's Parisian Redheads. Vaudeville tours took the Ingenues to dozens of theatres from coast to coast, both in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Sherman's marketing expertise led to wild civic interest in every town, often resulting in front page stories in newspapers and performances for charities. The critics unanimously praised the Ingenues, which led to an engagement at New York's most prestigious vaudeville house, Keith's Palace Theatre, beginning June 13, 1927.
According to Marie Novak, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. attended their show three times that first week and prevailed upon them to appear for four weeks with a further offer of a year's contract in his upcoming Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. Previewing in Boston on August 1, 1927, the 21st Ziegfeld Follies boasted all new songs by Irving Berlin sets by Joseph Urban, dances by Sammy Lee, costumes by John W. Harkrider, ballets by Albertina Rasch, and the stars Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Cliff Edwards and Claire Luce. The show opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York on August 6, 1927, and the Ingenues were featured in opulent numbers, including "Shaking the Blues Away" (with the "Banjo Ingenues"), and the sensational "Melody Land" first act finale that featured the entire Ingenues Orchestra along with two-piano team Edgar Fairchild & Ralph Rainger, the Albertina Rasch Girls, and 12 female pianists framing the entire scene. Other numbers included "Ooh, Maybe It's You" (with 10 saxophones) "It's Up to the Band" and "Tickling the Ivories" featuring the Ingenues accordions. Smaller ensembles from the Ingenues (strings, harp) were employed in other scenes, keeping the musicians occupied for 167 Broadway performances, when the show closed January 7, 1928. Shortly after the closing of the show the Ingenues set out on a world tour, including an engagement at Los Angeles Metropolitan Theatre, sharing the bill with the Fanchon and Marco Girls. During their time in Los Angeles they were recruited to Warner Bros. to make two 9-minute shorts for the Vitaphone, The Band Beautiful (1928) and The Syncopating Sweeties (1928), both released nationwide by the summer. Talking pictures were still a novelty when these films were made, and the film captures a sparkling musical moment in entertainment history.
Between 1929 and 1932 the full-sized Ingenues orchestra would tour the world, along with their set builders, electricians and a few mothers. Their appearances in any country would cause much excitement, and they spent many months aboard ships and trains, along with their hundreds of instruments, props and sets. The Ingenues were headliners in Honolulu, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. In one Australian city, the president of the Federation of Music delivered a curtain speech showering the Ingenues with praise and thanking them for inspiring young musicians and creating a new interest in the field of popular music. Their ships took them to Bombay, Cairo, Paris, Monte Carlo, Berlin, Hamburg, London, Tunis, Rome, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo and Buenos Ares.
During the summer of 1929, while in South America they made their only commercial recordings, which were released on the Columbia label in Brazil and never available in the U.S. It is thought that some recordings were made on the stage of Teatros Santana is São Paulo.
Between world tours they continued to headline in vaudeville in the U.S. and Canada, under the auspices of the Publix and RKO Theatre circuits and William Morris Agency, but always under the direction of E.G. Sherman. One member sent her mother a postcard of the electric chair in Sing Sing Penitentiary (Ossining, New York) describing a performance for 1,000 prisoners.
The Ingenues' last major tours were made in 1931 and 1932, after which their appearances faded away like all vaudeville acts. To compound matters, their manager, E.G. Sherman, was seriously injured in an auto accident while travelling to an important Chicago engagement. He was hospitalized for several months. In 1934 a 10-piece Ingenues, again produced by Sherman, played in Muncie, Indiana. A new crop of all-girl orchestras popped up in the 1930s that included Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears, Phil Spitalny's and His Musical Queens, and Dona Drake and Her Orchestra. Conversely, another band was Ramona and Her Men of Music. The new female bands were conventional bands playing popular songs for dancing, with the leader acting as the glamorous and sexy center of attention.
No longer headliners, they appeared on the same bill as Harry Rose, Hal Le Roy, Mel Klee and other veterans of vaudeville's heyday.
By mid-1936, the orchestra electrician, Ray Fabing (1896-1975), who was also married to Ingenue member Alyce Pleis (1908-1990), directed a few engagements in the mid-west as "Ray Fabing's Hollywood Ingenues." Apparently they tried unsuccessfully entering the competitive world of swing music, and were featured (with many new faces) in a musical film short entitled Maids & Music (1938) with Ray Fabing playing a band leader. One of the last engagements was at a Mount Morris High School in Freeport, Illinois. In 1938, for a short while the Ingenues were directed by Count Berni-Vici, who had produced an all-girl vaudeville orchestra in the late 1920s.
The group evolved from smaller groups led by Beth Vance (born Bessie Frances Israel, 1901-1962), who had been part of several traveling orchestras since she was a teenager. Bess (who would marry in 1922 and use the name Beth Vance) played the Chautauqua circuit under the auspices of the Redpath-Horner Chautauqua company, performing in circuses, county fairs and vaudeville houses. Her groups (The Harmony Belles, Beth Vance & Her Co-eds) ranged in size but started to grow around 1924. Concurrently the Russian-born violinist Harry Waiman (1891-1953) directed a 7-piece group called Harry Wayman and His 'Debutantes' (1928), traveling thousands of miles throughout the Midwest.
By November 1925 Beth Vance's orchestra had grown to 17 members, including veterans of other all-girl bands, and was renamed The Ingenues. A boy tenor, Johnnie Looze and Charleston dancer Helen Dobbin (former member of Doris Humphrey's Dancers), were added attractions. Violin and harp soloists were added, along with two pianos. In February 1926, during their engagement at Pittsburgh's Grand Theatre, The Ingenues orchestra was broadcast on pioneer radio station KDKA. With few exceptions, the orchestra members were born in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Nebraska.
By the end of 1926 the Ingenues acquired a manager and producer Edward Gorman Sherman (1880-1940), who would elevate the group from regional popularity to Broadway and international fame. Ingenues founder Beth Vance was replaced by Marie Novak (1905-1980), who had been the pianist for the Hummingbirds Orchestra in Minneapolis. Around this time the Ingenues grew with former members of Harry Waiman's Debutantes and Bobbie Grice's Parisian Redheads. Vaudeville tours took the Ingenues to dozens of theatres from coast to coast, both in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Sherman's marketing expertise led to wild civic interest in every town, often resulting in front page stories in newspapers and performances for charities. The critics unanimously praised the Ingenues, which led to an engagement at New York's most prestigious vaudeville house, Keith's Palace Theatre, beginning June 13, 1927.
According to Marie Novak, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. attended their show three times that first week and prevailed upon them to appear for four weeks with a further offer of a year's contract in his upcoming Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. Previewing in Boston on August 1, 1927, the 21st Ziegfeld Follies boasted all new songs by Irving Berlin sets by Joseph Urban, dances by Sammy Lee, costumes by John W. Harkrider, ballets by Albertina Rasch, and the stars Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Cliff Edwards and Claire Luce. The show opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York on August 6, 1927, and the Ingenues were featured in opulent numbers, including "Shaking the Blues Away" (with the "Banjo Ingenues"), and the sensational "Melody Land" first act finale that featured the entire Ingenues Orchestra along with two-piano team Edgar Fairchild & Ralph Rainger, the Albertina Rasch Girls, and 12 female pianists framing the entire scene. Other numbers included "Ooh, Maybe It's You" (with 10 saxophones) "It's Up to the Band" and "Tickling the Ivories" featuring the Ingenues accordions. Smaller ensembles from the Ingenues (strings, harp) were employed in other scenes, keeping the musicians occupied for 167 Broadway performances, when the show closed January 7, 1928. Shortly after the closing of the show the Ingenues set out on a world tour, including an engagement at Los Angeles Metropolitan Theatre, sharing the bill with the Fanchon and Marco Girls. During their time in Los Angeles they were recruited to Warner Bros. to make two 9-minute shorts for the Vitaphone, The Band Beautiful (1928) and The Syncopating Sweeties (1928), both released nationwide by the summer. Talking pictures were still a novelty when these films were made, and the film captures a sparkling musical moment in entertainment history.
Between 1929 and 1932 the full-sized Ingenues orchestra would tour the world, along with their set builders, electricians and a few mothers. Their appearances in any country would cause much excitement, and they spent many months aboard ships and trains, along with their hundreds of instruments, props and sets. The Ingenues were headliners in Honolulu, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. In one Australian city, the president of the Federation of Music delivered a curtain speech showering the Ingenues with praise and thanking them for inspiring young musicians and creating a new interest in the field of popular music. Their ships took them to Bombay, Cairo, Paris, Monte Carlo, Berlin, Hamburg, London, Tunis, Rome, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo and Buenos Ares.
During the summer of 1929, while in South America they made their only commercial recordings, which were released on the Columbia label in Brazil and never available in the U.S. It is thought that some recordings were made on the stage of Teatros Santana is São Paulo.
Between world tours they continued to headline in vaudeville in the U.S. and Canada, under the auspices of the Publix and RKO Theatre circuits and William Morris Agency, but always under the direction of E.G. Sherman. One member sent her mother a postcard of the electric chair in Sing Sing Penitentiary (Ossining, New York) describing a performance for 1,000 prisoners.
The Ingenues' last major tours were made in 1931 and 1932, after which their appearances faded away like all vaudeville acts. To compound matters, their manager, E.G. Sherman, was seriously injured in an auto accident while travelling to an important Chicago engagement. He was hospitalized for several months. In 1934 a 10-piece Ingenues, again produced by Sherman, played in Muncie, Indiana. A new crop of all-girl orchestras popped up in the 1930s that included Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears, Phil Spitalny's and His Musical Queens, and Dona Drake and Her Orchestra. Conversely, another band was Ramona and Her Men of Music. The new female bands were conventional bands playing popular songs for dancing, with the leader acting as the glamorous and sexy center of attention.
No longer headliners, they appeared on the same bill as Harry Rose, Hal Le Roy, Mel Klee and other veterans of vaudeville's heyday.
By mid-1936, the orchestra electrician, Ray Fabing (1896-1975), who was also married to Ingenue member Alyce Pleis (1908-1990), directed a few engagements in the mid-west as "Ray Fabing's Hollywood Ingenues." Apparently they tried unsuccessfully entering the competitive world of swing music, and were featured (with many new faces) in a musical film short entitled Maids & Music (1938) with Ray Fabing playing a band leader. One of the last engagements was at a Mount Morris High School in Freeport, Illinois. In 1938, for a short while the Ingenues were directed by Count Berni-Vici, who had produced an all-girl vaudeville orchestra in the late 1920s.