For anyone interested in the byways of social history it is very interesting to play these four CDs in chronological order. They span a period of almost a quarter of a century, from 1932 (the earliest piece by Gibbons) to 1955 (the latest by Ros). The political turmoil of the 1930s, the vast upheaval of the Second World War and the social realignments which followed brought profound changes in popular culture, yet scarcely a ripple disturbs the settled gentility of this music. Roy Fox, “The Whispering Cornettist”, and Carroll Gibbons were both Americans who settled in London, leading orchestras that played for dancing in various West End clubs and hotels. The lilting melodies, the light fluting voices of the singers, the slightly fussy orchestrations, all instantly evoke a world of Lagondas and Green Goddess cocktails. That is why they have been the subject of endless pastiche by film and television composers. They have a fragile charm, if taken in smallish doses, but only the vocalist Hildegarde, who sings seven numbers with Gibbons, stands out.
From the post-war years 1946-7 comes the light music of Peter Yorke, consisting of popular medleys just over six minutes long (two sides of a ten-inch 78) and lollipops like By the Sleepy Lagoon. In those austere days it seemed to be the BBC’s policy to pour soothing stuff like this by the hour over an increasingly irritable population. Why anybody should have felt the need to supplement this copious flow by buying more of it on gramophone records is a mystery to me. But the records now have at least documentary value.
Finally we come to Edmundo Ros and his jolly Latin-American dance music. Many of these pieces, like No Can Do and Her Bathing Suit Never Got Wet, are still maddeningly catchy, but they lack bite. '