Rita Mario’s Orchestra
27 min. f.s.. Ten girls in a musical program constructed by Miss Mario. The individual numbers went fairly well, and they closed to a big hand responding to an encore and curtain call.
Friscoe
17 min. His selections on the xylophone were a big hit. He plays popular music and catches the pulse of the audience at the very start. Each of his numbers went well and he was forced to give an extra encore.
Henry Santrey and his Jazz Band
That business held up as well as it did the first half, however, was undoubtedly due to the presence of Henry Santrey and his Jazz Band. Santrey and his crew of jazzy-harmonists did 42 minutes. The bunch just wouldn’t let them off, although Santrey did no jockeying for bows or in any way attempted to prolong his stay beyond the regular closing of his act. It’s in a class by itself, this Santrey act, made different because it contains real musicians who can jazz or play any old kind of music, classical or popular, and particularly so through Santrey’s delivery of pop songs. He did so many Tuesday night there was no keeping count. Had he wanted to make a “speech” he could have talked himself blue in the face, but he ducked the “I thank you,” and took it out in bows.
The Nippon Duo
The Nippon Duo opened and amused. The Jap youth at the piano is an excellent player for one of his race. He is something of a wonder, too, with the ukulele, and is a comedian. The act could be improved by speeding the tempo of at least one of the songs sung by the pedal worker by manipulates the barrel.
Jordan and Tyler
Jordan and Tyler, two colored men, followed. They open, one man at the piano, the other, playing a ‘cello, with green flood lights, playing a slow number, with several other slow numbers following this one, played on violins, and they close with a couple of aged popular numbers. The violinist is a cracker-jack player, and is capable of doing better, while the pianist plays with enthusiasm, and the audience being to let their interest go astray. They walked off just as they came on.
Sam Lee
Sam Lee, in Chinese makeup and costume, with a special drop in “one,” plays several popular numbers on a shepherd horn, then plays a novel one-string fiddle and closes, playing a few patriotic numbers on a small xylophone, walking off to almost nothing.
Bert Fitzgibbon
Bert Fitzgibbon introduced his brother, Lew, playing the piano. Bert plays a xylophone besides doing other nutty things. Then they trade instruments. A plugger back stage takes the place of the jack in the box of yore. Went entirely Fitzgibbon, which means going O.K.
The Ovandos
[New Act] Xylophonists, 8 mins; one. Team that appears to be very much of the small time, judging from their manner of working and the selection they play. It is a man and woman duo and a pair of xylophones are placed on the stage for them to work on.
The man does practically all that is done. The routine has a fast number, an operatic selection, and then a few popular numbers of a couple of years ago. For small time they may be all right, but not in fast company in the better houses.
Yvette
Then Yvette practically cleaned up for the bill. Her ruddy locks, inimitable violin playing, combined with her pert personality, won the audience. Her pair of boys who play and sing also scored, especially the one that handles the saxophone. At the conclusion of the act a speech was necessary.
Trovato
Trovato, the eccentric violinist, headlining, departed his usual hit, but even he was not spared by the gallery gods, although he turned their razzing to good purpose with his fiddling imitations. As an act Trovato is a funny proposition, but it is this very puzzling eccentricity, otherwise “showmanship” that impresses. Entering fittingly, very a la “nance,” he earns for himself a cross between a derisive and pitiful giggle (although an audience may not translate their emotions in so many words), but at the same times commands an interest, which, fortified as he is by headline billing, turns the sympathy again in his favor. For the rest, Trovato holds his instrument a la cello and grinds out rag and classic which ofttimes strikes raspingly on the ear, but cannot be dismissed as poor instrumentalization. It is not.