Good thread Peter.

My mother had her own big band in the late 30s and through much of the war years. It was called "Dottie and The Debs" (ugh...but those were different times) and featured Ma on accordion and frilly sequinned gowns.

I don't know much about the band personally, because I was too stupid to ask her questions about it and neither she or my Dad talked much about their musical careers (before becoming a pharmacist, he was a jazz clarinetist).

I've got lots of old posters and promo sheets and a few newspaper clippings, so I know they were pretty popular. She even had a radio show on CKEY. I DID once ask if she'd ever recorded and she reminded me of the recording ban ordered by the union. By the way it was bandleader Percy Faith who "broke the faith" and recorded anyway.

I would love to have the opportunity to ask her about discrimination in those days, but my guess is that it would have been worse for the gals in her band, since she being an "accordion chick" which was a popular novelty act , probably got lots of work. Somehow I doubt that the women in her band were taken very seriously by the male jazzers of the time. But I might be wrong.

Gotta run. Peter T's coming for his lesson!

Rick