Product Code Database
Joshua Alexander " Joe" Loss (22 June 1909 – 6 June 1990) was a British dance band leader and musician who founded his own orchestra.
Loss started band leading in the early 1930s, working at the Astoria Ballroom and soon breaking into variety at the Odeon Haymarket. In 1934, he topped the bill at the Holborn Empire but in the same year moved back to the Astoria Ballroom where he led a twelve piece band. In 1935, Vera Lynn appeared with the Joe Loss Orchestra in her first radio broadcast. (1995). 9780752210650, Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 9780752210650 With broadcasting, recording and annual tours in addition to the resident work the band became highly popular over the next few years. In the 1950s and early 60s, Loss was resident band leader at the Hammersmith Palais and was remembered by a trainee nurse at Hammersmith Hospital as being as kind and gentlemanly when she attended him in hospital as he was in his public persona. His band's signature tune "In the Mood" would often be requested three or more times a night. (2025). 9780951565537, Meadow Books. ISBN 9780951565537
He was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions: in May 1963 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Hammersmith Palais in London, and again in October 1980, when Andrews surprised him at London's Portman Hotel during a star-studded party to celebrate Loss' 50 years in show business. A favourite of the British royal family, Loss' orchestra performed not only at Royal Variety Performances but also at Christmas parties hosted by the royal family, which earned Loss not only the OBE but also the LVO, an honour in the personal gift of the Queen.
Loss' daughter Jennifer Jankel is chair of the Jewish Music Institute in London and was married to the British car designer Robert Jankel.
Loss died on 6 June 1990 and is buried at Bushey Jewish Cemetery in Hertfordshire.
In April 1951, Elizabeth Batey, vocalist with Joe Loss, fell and broke her jaw. Joe was badly in need of a replacement and remembered hearing Rose Brennan on radio during a visit to Ireland. Within days, he had located her and, before a week was out, she was in Manchester rehearsing with the band. She stayed with Loss for fifteen years, before giving up show-business in the mid-1960s. She wrote many of the songs she recorded with Joe Loss under the name Marella, and co-wrote songs with John Harris. Her co-vocalists with the orchestra from 1955 were Ross MacManus (father of Elvis Costello)Don Wicks: The Ballad Years. 1996 and Larry Gretton.
The Joe Loss Orchestra carries on under the musical direction of Todd Miller, who was a vocalist with the band for 19 years before Loss' death. In 1989, Joe Loss became too ill to travel and in 1990 he entrusted the leadership to his longest serving band member, trombonist and player-manager of many decades, Sam Watmough, and Miller. The orchestra has been in constant operation since 1930 and in 2015 it celebrated its 85th anniversary.
Specialist dance band radio stations continue to play his records. Joe Loss also features regularly on the Manx Radio programme Sweet & Swing, presented by Howard Caine.
|
|
