Jimmy Durante

I found this LP on Brunswick label today at the antiques centre in Frodsham for a quid. Too lazy to take a photo or scan the cover I have found one similar on the internet.
It has some nice tunes on it and makes me appreciate how good a pianist old "Schnozzle" was. They don't make 'em like this anymore which is a shame. Some old chestnuts including songs that Jimmy wrote himself.

Wikipedia says -

"Durante was born in Brooklyn, the third of four children born to Italian-Americans Mitch Durante (1855-1929) and Margaret (née Lentino) Durante (1858-1936). A product of working-class New York, Durante dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist, working the city circuit and earning the nickname "Ragtime Jimmy," before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, the Original New Orleans Jazz Band. Durante was the only member of the group who did not hail from New Orleans. His routine of breaking into a song to deliver a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line became a Durante trademark. In 1920, the group was renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band.

Durante became a vaudeville star and radio attraction by the mid-1920s, with a music and comedy trio called Clayton, Jackson and Durante. Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, probably Durante's closest friends, often reunited with Durante professionally. Jackson and Durante appeared in the Cole Porter musical The New Yorkers which opened on Broadway on December 8, 1930.

By 1934, he had a major record hit, his own novelty composition Inka Dinka Doo and it became his theme song for practically the rest of his life. A year later, Durante starred on Broadway in the Billy Rose stage musical Jumbo, in which a police officer stopped him while leading a live elephant and asked him, "What are you doing with that elephant?" Durante's reply, "What elephant?", was a regular show-stopper. Durante also appeared on Broadway in Show Girl (1929), Strike Me Pink (1934), and Red, Hot and Blue (1936).

He began appearing in motion pictures at about the same time, beginning with a comedy series pairing him with silent film legend Buster Keaton and continuing with such offerings as The Wet Parade (1932), Broadway to Hollywood (1933), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942, playing "Banjo", a character based on Harpo Marx), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962, based on the 1935 musical) and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)."

Discover more about Jimmy Durante HERE


Jimmy Durante - Start Off Each Day With A Song

Jimmy Durante - Mad Bird Melody

Jimmy Durante - I Want A Girl ( just like the girl that married dear old Dad )

Jimmy Durante - Inka Dinka Doo

Jimmy Durante - You Made Me Love You

Jimmy Durante - Carolina In The Morning