Hutch (Leslie Hutchinson) is synonymous with the songs of Cole Porter and we are proud to present his almost complete oeuvre here (a Cole Porter medley is to be found on another Past Perfect album - Elegance). Cole Porter and Hutch enjoyed a special friendship - they both lived in Paris awhile during the 1920s - and Hutch later recalled that he played double piano with Cole Porter and he taught me how to play his songs as he wanted them sung.
Born on 7 March 1900 on the West Indian island of Grenada, Leslie Arthur Julien Hutchinson seized the opportunity of sailing to New York at the age of sixteen and escaped from his somewhat humdrum existence. Arriving, as he recollected with a few dollars and a lot of ambition, employment proved hard to come by, so he offered his services as a pianist at private parties to supplement his income. Slowly he managed to build up a reputation and earn a living in music as an accompanist and later as a member of a band led by Elmer Snowden. But an unnerving racial incident involving the band members and the Ku Klux Klan was enough to make Hutch decide to leave America.
Life in Paris suited Hutch down to the ground. He blossomed, his confidence grew and he began appearing at the top nightclubs, becoming the rage of the boulevards and the talk of private soirees. In 1926 he visited London for the first time, at the invitation of Lady Mountbatten and Lady Gibbons, to perform at a huge private party at Carlton House. Hutch sang and played Cole Porters Two Little Babes In The Wood and was, in his own words, discovered.
Leading impresario C B Cochran engaged Hutch to play in the orchestra pit for his forthcoming Rodgers and Hart revue One Dam Thing After Another. This previewed in Manchester from March 1927, opening at the London Pavilion on May 20th. Hutch was fortunate in accompanying the new twenty year old star Jessie Matthews in her big hit number My Heart Stood Still. While crossing the theatre stage one night after a performance, Jessie heard Hutch singing and playing for his own amusement. Totally captivated, she went over to the piano and spent four hours convincing a far from sure Hutch to try his hand at the West End cabaret scene. The rest, as they say, is history - and Hutch always credited Jessie as being the catalyst who kick-started his career.
Between 1928 and 1930 Hutch played in four more revues - Noel Cowards This Year Of Grace, Good News, Cole Porters Wake Up And Dream and Cochrans 1930 Revue. Alongside all of this were his burgeoning nightclub appearances and performances at debutante dances. Recordings were made for Brunswick in late 1927 and early 1928 and, rather tantalizingly, some unissued sides for HMV in 1928 where Hutch was partnered by Carroll Gibbons and visiting American, Noble Sissle. Parlophone signed him up, and he began a fruitful and prolific liaison with this label from December 1928 until 1940 when he switched within the EMI group to the HMV label. There he remained until September 1948.
From Cole Porters Wake Up And Dream we have four numbers, preceded by a non-vocal selection from the show where Hutch is accompanied by an unnamed concert orchestra. This scarce recording may have benefited from a little more rehearsal or further takes, but it is included because of its historical interest and for the sake of completeness. Lets Do It (which had first been introduced in the American revue Paris the previous year) immediately became a staple ingredient of Hutchs repertoire for the forty years remaining to him. The late jazz singer Beryl Bryden recalled sharing the floor-show with Hutch in the 1950s at the elegant West-End niterie The Blue Angel. She recollected that Every night he seemed to find some new verses for Cole Porters Lets Do It and enraptured an often young and well-dressed audience. Fifteen different Cole Porter songs, from revues, musicals and films feature on this collection. Begin The