Phil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings

continued

social clubs and lodges throughout the country. More prosperous venues had their own orchestras, while others featured touring “territory bands” that traveled along regular routes. Dance music, sweet and hot, was a big business, and the leaders were true stars. The French-born Jean Goldkette, working out of the Detroit Athletic Club, the Book Cadillac Hotel, and the Graystone Ballroom, had more than twenty bands, and Paul Whiteman lent his name to more than eighty.

Social, economic, and aesthetic changes have assigned this lively entertainment era to history. Here and there, however, dedicated musicians keep it alive. In Ann Arbor, Phil Ogilvie’s Rhythm Kings, known to their friends as PORK, have migrated with the seasons from club to club for almost twelve years, and are now ensconced on Sunday afternoons from 5 to 8 at the Zal Gaz Grotto social club.