1946
YOUR CONSCIENCE TELLS YOU SO * LUCY ELLIOTT * PARLOPHONE 8568 * UK
Lucy Elliott is the featured singer on this one track only, and I know nothing about her; like many vocalists in Big Bands (Savannah Churchill also sang with Carter's Orchestra around this time) she would have been regarded as part (often a small part) of the orchestra, and not an independent agent, but things were about to change. Like everything else in the west the Big Bands picked up where they had left of before WWII, but, like most things pre war, their days were numbered. Benny Carter was in his late thirties when the recordings on this extended play were made. Previously he had been part of Fletcher Henderson's band at the height of Henderson's fame in 1930 and during the next couple of years he was playing with McKinney's Cotton Pickers and Duke Ellington. Formed in 1932 The Club Harlem Band was the first of his many outfits, and in 1935 he left America for an extensive tour of Europe and Great Britain; spending some time in England as an arranger for Henry Hall's B.B.C. Dance Orchestra. The four tracks on this EP are from the Braun brothers New Jersy De-Luxe label: Rose Room was on # 1028, Your Conscience Tell You So was on # 1041 and Re-Bop Boogie and Mexican Hat Dance were both sides of #1044; he had previously recorded for such labels as Columbia, Vocalion, Okeh, Decca, Bluebird, Capitol and Verve.