Tempo King

By 1936, Extra fat Waller was fast becoming among the Victor label’s most profitable jazz performers, and his incredible popularity engendered several Extra fat Waller imitators. Vocalion designated that function to Putney Dandridge, and Decca prompted Bob Howard to change his own work in order to resemble Waller’s, as the people at Victor boldly (and relatively tactlessly) create a Waller sound-alike music group billed as Tempo Ruler & His Kings of Tempo. This work crossed the range between motivated emulation and conspicuous imitation, using the vocalist slavishly aping Waller’s every vocal utterance, and Queenie Ada Rubin likely to great measures to use a piano as though Waller himself had been seated on the instrument. From August 1936, Tempo King’s Kings of Tempo recorded 55 game titles, initial for Victor’s Bluebird subsidiary, after that switching to Vocalion in June 1937 and trimming their last edges in December of this year. The music group is chiefly kept in mind for the involvement of clarinetist Joe Marsala, his trumpet-wielding sibling Marty Marsala, and guitarist Eddie Condon. Additional users had been bassists Mort Stuhlmaker and George Yorke, and drummer Stan Ruler. After Waller’s unexpected loss of life in 1943, Victor appointed Pat Plants as the label’s recognized Waller imitator. At that time, Tempo Ruler was a quickly fading memory space. Timeless reissued 23 game titles in 1991. Speculation proceeds regarding the identification of Tempo Ruler. Condon, who published thoroughly on his activities in jazz, remaining no clues. Probably it had been Stan Ruler, a drummer who sang through a kazoo as an associate from the California Ramblers through the prior decade. He suffered tempos, as well as the surname matches, but that is just conjecture and it’s really quite possible the fact that mystery won’t be resolved. A little bit of incidental proof involves a scorching jazz band contacting itself the Tempo Kings, evidently composed of associates of Ross Gorman’s Earl Carroll Vanities Orchestra. The Tempo Kings, which sported vocals by Frank Bessinger and included Miff Mole, Dick McDonough, and Arthur Schutt, cut several edges for Pathe in January 1926. Whereas the information issued a decade later beneath the name of Tempo Ruler are nearer to those of Willie Bryant, a chatty personality who emitted channels of jazz vernacular before a swing music group packed with excellent soloists.