Bob Causer

To have discographers hint that an individual might not exist, other than as a pseudonym for someone else's recording enterprise, seems to be like standing on the threshold of total obscurity. The name Bob Causer, and sometimes Rob Causer, shows up on quite a few records from the '20s and '30s, some of them the sort of low budget dance band material frequently created by the same old gang of New York studio musicians from the period, hiding behind a list of made-up band names several pages in length. There are recordings by Bob Causer and His Cornellians on the Banner label, for example, often a clue that some guess-who is due. Yet solid evidence has been found of a real live Causer in the big band and jazz combo business, even one that could have rented someone a hotel room.



All roads lead to Ithaca, New York, when tracking Causer, who in one version of the story was a hotel manager who went out and put a band together just because he couldn't find any groups to book into the hotel's ballroom. Working musicians may find this account both impossible and improbable, and indeed details are left out. Although he may have been employed as a hotel manager, Causer obviously must have had a background in music, helpful when he supposedly prowled local Cornell University looking for young musicians to jam in his ballroom. He is listed as the drummer on recording sessions, displaying skills that could not have been concocted in such a short time. Causer also pulled off vocal features, recording "Baby Face"; while haters of vintage big band music might disagree, it is doubtful too many hotel managers with no musical experience could get up and sing a standard in front of an orchestra.



His main group associations are Bob Causer and His Cornellians, which recorded prolifically in the '30s, and somewhat earlier activity involving a group known as Bob Causer`s Big Four, or sometimes just the Big Four. Trombonist Spiegle Willcox Newell began working with Causer in 1922, becoming one of eight members of The Big Four. The ambitious Paul Whiteman discovered the band in the same year and was excited by the octet's musical possibilities. He may have also have been bothered by the accounting discrepencies between the band's name and its number of members, insisting on a change of name to The Collegians.



Whiteman took the group to New York City for both concerts and recording sessions, including three sides for Victor. According to historic accounts, Whiteman was nowhere to be seen during any of these sessions. Nonetheless the group became known as Whiteman's Collegians in 1924. Did Causer limp back to Ithaca, begin managing a hotel, and triumphantly return to action with Bob Causer and the Cornellians? Did the notoriously competitive Whiteman spread rumors that Causer did not exist? Is is true that the Cornellians performed in the hotel ballroom, and only in the hotel ballroom, releasing records simply to promote the hotel? All are serious possibilities, but the presence of much brilliant young talent in the band, including vocalist Russ Morgan and trumpeter Bunny Berigan, is solid fact. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide