Abe Lyman - Shake That Thing

Abe Lyman (1897-1957) was a popular bandleader from the 1920s to the 1940s. He made recordings, appeared in films and provided the music for numerous radio shows. Abe learned to play the drums when he was young, and at the age of 14 he had a job as a drummer in a Chicago café. Soon after that, when Abe’s nine-piece band first played at the Sunset in LA, it was a success, but the club closed. For an engagement at the Cocoanut Grove in The Ambassador Hotel on April 1, 1922, Abe added a violinist and saxophonist. The Lyman Orchestra toured Europe in 1929, appearing at the Kit Cat Club and the Palladium in London and at the Moulin Rouge and the Perroquet in Paris. Abe Lyman and his orchestra were featured in a number of early talkies. During the 1930s, the Lyman Orchestra was heard regularly on such shows as Accordiana and Waltz Time. When Lyman was 50 years old, he left the music industry and died at the age of 60. This almost perplexing record which seems stylistically 30 years ahead of its time, was made as early as 1926.