78's - Hi Lee Hi Lo - Savoy Dance Orchestra (Harry Reser)

Recorded in 1923 and was also issued on the Silvertone label for Sears as matrix number 2312. The Savoy Dance Orchestra was a pseudonym used by Harry Reser for one of his many bands. Harry Reser was perhaps the greatest banjoist of the 1920s if not the greatest banjoist of all time. He got his start playing in dance bands in his home state of Ohio and in the Midwest, moved to Buffalo, New York in 1920 and then to New York City in 1921, where he soon became a sought-after session musician. Reser released a series of solo banjo records starting in 1921 which proved that the banjo was not just a rhythm instrument. In 1925, he was picked to become the director and frontman for the Clicquot Club Eskimo Orchestra on the NBC radio network. This weekly half-hour show, sponsored by Clicquot Club ginger ale, made Reser quite well known and was on the air until 1935. During the 1920s and 1930s, he also led MANY bands using an amazing number of pseudonyms (click here for a list). Reser continued to be quite active in music for the rest of his life, touring, leading television studio orchestras, playing in Broadway orchestras, recording and writing several popular banjo, guitar and ukulele instruction books. He died of a heart attack in 1965 while tuning up in the orchestra pit before a performance of the Broadway stage version of "Fiddler On The Roof".