Johnny Green & His Orchestra - Two Cigarets In The Dark

Johnny Green (1908-1989) was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor. His most famous song was one of his earliest, Body and Soul. Green was accepted by Harvard at the age of 15, entering the University in 1924. Between semesters, bandleader Guy Lombardo heard his Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra and hired him to create dance arrangements for his nationally famous orchestra. Green was educated in music, history, economics, and government before returning to pursue a master's degree in the field of English literature. His instruments were the piano and the saxophone, although he abandoned the latter after college. Nathaniel Shilkret and Paul Whiteman commissioned Green to write larger works for orchestra, such as Nightclub, premiered by Whiteman at Carnegie Hall in 1933 with Green on solo piano. During the early '30s he also wrote music for numerous films at Paramount's Astoria Studios; conducted in East Coast theatres; and toured vaudeville as musical director. Green spent much of 1933 in London, where he contributed songs to both Mr. Whittington, a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan at the London Hippodrome, and to Big Business, the first musical comedy ever written especially for BBC Radio. On Green's return to the U.S.A. early in 1934, William Paley, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System and an investor in New York's St Regis Hotel, encouraged him to form what became known as Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra. He continued conducting on radio and in theatres into the 1940s, also leading a dance band for the short-lived Royale Records label in 1939-40, until he decided to move permanently to Hollywood and work in the film business. This great recording was made in 1934. Vocal by George Bauler.