The Little Ramblers

From the second half of the 1930's some of the famous Big Bands in the USA featured small groups from their ranks at concerts and on record. The bands of Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, and Paul Whiteman had their "Clambake Seven", "Gramercy Five", and "Swing Wing" respectively, to name a few. The idea however, was not new. In the early 1920's a small contingent from the well-known dance orchestra the "California Ramblers", began recording for several American record companies. Although the main orchestra played engagements, mostly in summer, in Atlantic City and New York, it was actually a recording band, its members being mostly employed in other bands or as free-lance musicians.

Click Here To OrderThe California Ramblers made hundreds of records in the 1920's sometimes under their own name but often, for contractual reasons, under pseudonyms such as "The Golden Gate Orchestra". Their smaller offspring, usually a five to eight piece combination, recorded under a wide variety of names such as The Goofus Five, The Vagabonds, The University Six, The Five Birmingham Babies and, on the Columbia label, as The Little Ramblers, thereby not disguising the relation with the parent orchestra. The nucleus of the group was its strong rhythm-section consisting of Irving Brodsky (piano), Tommy Felline (banjo) and the by then already famous pioneer of the bass-saxophone Adrian Rollini. Born in 1904, Rollini had mastered that rather unlikely instrument in the early 1920's as well as, not without humor, two musical oddities from the other side of the scale: the "Goofus" and the "Hot Fountain Pen", respectively a harmonica-like device with keys, usually shaped like a small saxophone; and a small high-pitched clarinet. From 1922 to 1927 and, after a spell in England and Europe, Rollini was the backbone of both the California Ramblers and the small groups and his presence on records is always evident and unmistakable. In the 1930's and 40's he did mainly radio and studio work, usually as pianist and vibraphonist and remained a successful musician. He died in 1965.

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