Sound Beat

Try to go all the way through this one without whistling.

Sweet Georgia Brown is a jazz favorite, recorded here by Brother Bones and his Shadows for Tempo in 1949. But to fans of basketball and buckets of confetti the world over, it means one thing: The Harlem Globetrotters. Currently celebrating their eighty-fourth year of existence, the Globetrotters are one-part exhibition basketball, one part circus. The high-flying, dipsy-doo-ing Globetrotters and their long-suffering opponents have entertained an estimated 100 million fans in over ninety countries.

As for Brother Bones, he got his name playing…you guessed it: The bones. They’re large rib and leg animal bones to be precise, though they’re also made of wood or synthetics.

The Globetrotters aren’t all fun and games…in 2000 they lost to Michigan State, the reigning NCAA champions, by only two baskets.

Click here for a thorough Globetrotters history.

Sammy Kaye was not only one of the most popular bandleaders of the big band era, he was also one of the shrewdest marketers. There was the catchy tag “Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye!”, and his audience participation gimmick “So You Want to be a Band Leader?”

Song cue:

Over the land, over the sea, up in the air the fighting Yankees all agree!

There is a gal, oh what a gal, and for the love of her the boys are fighting for democracy.

It’s Lu, Lu, Lalapaluza Lu….

Of course, nothing beat free press. The following comes directly from a Billboard Magazine article, published on…May 9 1942.

“…One can always expect something unusual – and good-when Sammy tries something different on the waxes. Here again he rings the bell. Drake Hoffman and Jerry Livingston have come up with one of those easy-to-rhyme verses which champions Lalapaluza Lu as the girlfriend of the armed forces.”

Sound Beat is produced at the Belfer Audio Archive, Syracuse University Libraries.