Biography
Herbert Feuerman entered the world in London, England, on February 3, 1906. Although the youth hoped to pursue medicine, family expectations steered him toward music because his parents, siblings, cousins, and uncles all worked as musicians. After beginning violin studies, he earned a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music. At thirteen he performed in a quintet supplying incidental music at the Playhouse Theatre; at fourteen he joined the orchestra at the Victoria Hotel. His brother John, then pianist with the Savoy Havana Band, arranged an audition that led to Bert’s casting as Sascha, a gypsy violinist, in the Jerome Kern-scored musical Sally. That production opened on September 10, 1921, and completed 383 performances. Thrust into public view and urged to adopt a shorter surname, Bert first tried Fireman before settling on Firman; every family member except his father followed suit. Once the show closed, he joined the Midnight Follies Orchestra at the Metropole Hotel as violinist. After the American saxophonist leading the group fell drunkenly from the stage, sixteen-year-old Bert Firman was appointed director. He soon conducted orchestras at parties hosted by Edward, Prince of Wales. From 1924 through 1928, Firman served as musical director for Zonophone records, a division of the H.M.V. Gramophone Company. He produced more than 750 sides for the label under twenty-one different band names, among them Bert Firman’s Dance Orchestra, the Arcadians Dance Orchestra, the Cabaret Novelty Orchestra, the Carlton Hotel Dance Orchestra, the Devonshire Restaurant Dance Band, the London Orchestra, the Orpheus Dance Band, the Ariel Dance Orchestra, and Eugene Brockman’s Dance Orchestra. Between November 1927 and September 1932 he also recorded a large body of relatively jazzy material with the smaller Rhythmic Eight. Standout Zonophone titles include “Who Takes Care of the Caretaker’s Daughter?” from July 1925, “Clap Hands! Here Comes Charlie” from February 1926, Duke Ellington’s “Jig Walk” from December 1926, and “Stampede,” a hot number then being performed in America by Red Nichols and Miff Mole, from February 1927. Firman continued to draw on genuine jazz repertoire, cutting “Sugar Foot Stomp” and “Milenberg Joys” in May 1927. In January 1928 he made what is thought to be the first English recording of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” In November 1929 he recorded Fats Waller’s “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling.” The Firman ensembles employed many fine musicians, among them Ted Heath, Sylvester Ahola, Chelsea Quealey, Danny Polo, Freddy Gardner, George Melachrino, and, briefly in 1925, American saxophonist Rudy Vallée. In 1929 Firman moved first to New York City to conduct NBC broadcasts, then to Hollywood to arrange and conduct for motion pictures. He later returned to London, formed another band, and traveled to Paris, where he established a regular schedule of appearances at Les Ambassadeurs while spending each summer in Monte Carlo. By 1937 he was again in London, broadcasting for the BBC and Radio Luxembourg. During World War II he enlisted in the Staffordshire Regiment and toured Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine with “Stars in Battledress,” entertaining troops; the unit accompanied the 51st Division into Bremen. After the war Firman resumed performing in Paris. His final engagement as a leader took place at the Bagatelle Club with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli in the ensemble. He then left the music profession entirely, working at the London Metal Exchange until retiring in 1976. Bert Firman died on April 9, 1999. In later years, younger players, with Firman’s own approval, reconstituted the Bert Firman Dance Orchestra using the original arrangements.