100 Greatest American Light Orchestras, Volume 1

It is highly unlikely that any other country ever produced as many large orchestras as did the United States of America. For many years virtually every US city of any size had its own symphony orchestra – and from the 1940s through to the ’60s, the number of established major light orchestras ultimately exceeded one hundred. Some were subsidiaries of regular ‘classical’ orchestras – these were often dubbed ‘Pops’ orchestras – whilst others were associated with the motion picture industry, or assembled specifically for studio recording sessions. This, the first of four CDs, presents twenty-five of them and offers a tantalising mixture of well-known names, as well as some less familiar ones.