I'm Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover + Shalimar (1927) Jack Hylton with Claude Ivy

I’M LOOKING OVER A FOUR LEAF CLOVER { 0:00 }
SHALIMAR { 2:31 }
Jack Hylton and his orchestra: Claude Ivy at the organ of the Kensington Kinema
HMV B5267 (5 May 1927)

The Kensington Kinema opened on 3 January 1926, with claims to being the, then, largest cinema in England. It seated 2370, accommodated about equally in a vast cantilevered balcony and a large stalls area. With talkies yet to come, it had a Hill, Norman & Beard concert organ (not a Christie theatre organ as sometimes reported). The rectangular-plan interior was in severe classical Roman style with a coffered, barrel-vaulted ceiling from which hung six large art nouveau chandeliers. It resembled a huge Roman basilica; even to the two large urns on pedestals at either side of the proscenium. Without the acoustic absorption provided by the audience, the reverberation time was long. And this is how it was for Hylton and Ivy’s session on 5 May 1927.

Long reverberation times suit Gregorian chant and similarly slow-paced music; but the notes and musical phrasing, particularly the band’s, in FOUR LEAF CLOVER progress so rapidly that their lingering sounds vie with each other and produce a cacophony. The slower pace, lingering notes and languid phrasing of SHALIMAR work better: there being time for enough decay in one sound for the next one not to compete with it. Reflecting public taste (from cinema-going) around this time, no self-respecting record company would fail to have cinema organ records in its catalogue: e.g. Vocalion/Broadcast at the much-used Stoll Picture Theatre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuhORy3Pqy4 .

Around 1919/1920, Claude Ivy was the pianist at the Queen’s Hall Roof cabaret, and was also senior song-demonstrator at a Wardour Street music publishers, where Jack Hylton was a £2 per week junior. It was Ivy who persuaded the cabaret owner, Herbert Henri, to employ Hylton as the relief pianist. That was Hylton’s big break. When listening to the Paul Whiteman band on imported Victors, Hylton realised that they were playing from musical scores; unlike the cabaret band! Henri bought Hylton a gramophone so he could study the recordings and write out the parts. Henri inadvertently gave Hylton his biggest break by refusing to pay him more than the other bandsmen, despite him handling the scoring as well as his piano-playing. Instead, as a cost-free concession, Henri agreed that Hylton’s name could go on the record labels of the Queen’s Dance Orchestra. So the Hylton brand was born; and his name is on this record label whilst Claude Ivy is uncredited. Does that say something about Hylton?

In 1940 the Kensington Kinema was renamed the Majestic Cinema (allegedly to confuse any German parachutists) and requisitioned as a government storage depot: the fate of many cinemas, some even became munitions factories. It changed owners and became the Odeon Kensington in 1944. The vast auditorium was sub-divided into three ‘screens’ in 1976; a fourth carved out in 1980; and two more in 1991. Doomed by sitting on prime real estate, its demolition came in 2016. The façade on the High Street has been retained in the redevelopment.

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