As someone who remembers when you wanted a drink in Williamsburg, Brooklyn other than at the Turkey’s Nest, you had to take the L train into Manhattan, it is quite astonishing that there was a time during prohibition-era America where if you wanted a drink in Manhattan, taking a train to Montreal was one of your better options.
Regular listeners to this channel will forgive my occasional forays into non-jazz territory, and today we have what really was more of a novelty song by a popular dance band that would contain what Brian Rust might have called “little of jazz interest”. That said – it is a song about the jazz age in America, and certainly, the relationship between alcohol, speakeasies, and jazz has been well-documented.
Waring’s Pennsylvanians were an early collegiate dance band that was formed at Penn State University. Their prolific recorded output tended to feature popular tunes – often with college themes such as “Freshie”, “Collegiate”, “Collegiana”, “The Yale Blues” and “Collegiate Blues”.
This song reveals a plan to quietly escape the alcohol-free New York City to spend the summer and early fall drinking in Montreal.
“Speak easy, speak easy, I’m leaving town.
I’m going right away – everything up there’s okay.
Take it easy, take it easy – we’ve got a hunch.
You won’t go east, you won’t go west, well, we’ll all go in a bunch!
We’ll be leaving in the summer, and we won’t come back ’till fall.
Goodbye Broadway, hello Montreal!
There’ll be no more orange phosphates –
You can bet your Ingersoll.
Goodbye Broadway, hello Montreal!”
Later in the tune, clinking glasses are heard and punch-drunk voices devolve into a cartoonish scene of faux revelry.
This popular tune was also recorded during March and April of 1928 by Ted Lewis and his Band, Harry Reser’s Jazz Pilots, Arthur Fields and his Assassinators, The Happiness Boys, and Ben Selvin’s Harmonians.
Recorded in New York City on March 29, 1928.
Released as Victor 21333.
Credits
Fred Waring – director, vocals
Nelson Keller, George Culley – trumpet
Jim Gilliland – trombone
Fred Campbell – clarinet, alto sax
Will Morgan – clarinet, alto sax, vocals
Earl Gardner – alto sax
Elton Cockerill – clarinet, tenor sax
Bill Townsend, Francis Foster, Fred Culley – violin
Tom Waring – piano, vocals
Fred Buck – banjo
Ed Radell – tuba
Poley McClintock – drums