Ben Bernie & His Orchestra - Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight (1930)

"The Old Maestro", Ben Bernie was born as Bernard Anzelevitz on May 30, 1891 in Bayonne, New Jersey into a large family. By the age of 15 he was teaching violin, but this experience apparently diminished his interest in the instrument for a time. He performed in vaudeville, appearing with Phil Baker as "Baker and Bernie" but he met with little success until 1922 when he formed joined first orchestra. Ben Bernie and "The Lads" began recording for Vocalion and were featured in an early DeForest Phonofilm sound short in 1924. Bernie's orchestra began recording for Brunswick in 1925 and his orchestra did the first recording of "Sweet Georgia Brown". Bernie was the co-composer of this jazz standard. He stayed with Brunswick until 1933, moved to Columbia (which was then under the control of the ARC), recorded briefly for Decca in 1936, before finally returning to ARC in 1939 and recorded on their Vocalion and Okeh Label. Bernie was also highly successful on radio beginning a national program on WJZ and the NBC Blue Network in 1930-31. After switching back and forth for several years from NBC to CBS, Bernie finally settled in with NBC. His final program was "The Ben Bernie War Workers' Program" and ran from 1941-43. Ben Bernie was noted for always having a cigar in hand and some speculate this hastened his death in October 1943. To hear more great music such as this, just tune into our 24-hour Internet Radio Station by going to our website at: http://www.americansoundarchive.com & click on the "Listen Live Now" Icon. As always, thanks for watching and listening and please feel free to comment.