Roarin' 20s: Nat Shilkret's Orch. - Only a Rose, 1926

International Novelty Orchestra (Nat Shilkret's band) - Only a Rose, Fox Trot from the Musical Play "The Vagabond King" (Rudolf Friml - Brian Hooker), Victor 1926

NOTE: The Vagabond King is a 1925 operetta by Rudolf Friml -- the Czech composer and pianist, who after musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, moved to the United States as accompanist to a world-famous Chech violin virtuose Jan Kubelik. In the US he started a successful career as composer of songs, operettas and piano pieces. His best-known works are Rose-Marie and The Vagabond King, each of which enjoyed success on Broadway and in London and were adapted for film. The Vagabong King is based upon Justin Huntly McCarthy's 1901 romantic novel and play If I Were King. The story is a fictionalized episode in the life of the 15th-century poet and thief François Villon, centering on his wooing of Katherine De Vaucelles (the cousin of King Louis XI), and relating how he becomes "king for a day" and defends France against the invading forces of the Duke of Burgundy.

The original production opened at the Casino Theatre in September 1925. It starred Dennis King as Villon and Carolyn Thomson as Katherine and ran for a very successful 511 performances. It received unanimously enthusiastic reviews. The operetta then had a successful run in London in 1927 at the Winter Garden Theatre, running for 480 performances, and toured extensively. A 1930 musical film with the same title was filmed in two-color Technicolor, with Dennis King and Jeanette MacDonald. It was long thought lost, but was recovered and restored in 1998. Several non-Friml songs were added in this version. The film was remade in 1956 in regular Technicolor and VistaVision. It starred Kathryn Grayson, Oreste Kirkop, Rita Moreno. Only a few songs were from the original, but new Friml numbers were added. This remake was not a success.

International Novelty Orchestra was one of the label nicks used by the renowned dance orchestra led by Nat Shilkret -- the musical director of the Victor Company in the years 1926-31.