Leo Reisman

Dubbed "the String Quartet of Dance Bands" by composer Jerome Kern, the Leo Reisman Orchestra also gained fame as a launching pad for talents including Fred Astaire, Eddy Duchin, Harold Arlen, and Dinah Shore. According to the Big Bands Database, Reisman was born in Boston in 1897 and began violin studies at age ten; within just two years, he was already performing professionally. A series of stints in local hotel bands predated a tenure with the Baltimore Symphony, and in 1919 Reisman formed his own big band, which soon after accepted a residency at New York's Hotel Brunswick...