The Casa Loma Orchestra was an American dance band active from 1929 to 1963. Until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands. With the decline of the big band business following the end of World War II, it disbanded in 1947. However, from 1957 to 1963, it re-emerged as a recording session band in Hollywood, made up of top-flight studio musicians under the direction of its most notable leader of the past, Glen Gray. The reconstituted band made a limited number appearances live and on television and recorded fifteen LP albums for Capitol Records before Gray died in 1963. The band recorded and released the original version of the jazz and big band standard "Sunrise Serenade" in 1938 with Frankie Carle on piano. History The band assembled in 1927 as the Orange Blossoms, one of several Detroit groups that came out of the Jean Goldkette office. The band adopted the name "Casa Loma" by the time of its first recordings in 1929, shortly after it played an eight-month engagement at Casa Loma in Toronto, which was being operated as a hotel at the time. The band never played at Casa Loma under that name, still appearing as the Orange Blossoms at that time. In 1930, the Casa Loma Orchestra was incorporated in New York with the members becoming owners, shareholders, and board members. The band members were hired on the grounds of "musical and congenial" competence and followed strict conduct and financial rules. Because the band operated as a collective group, as opposed to almost all other bands that had a "leader" for whom everyone worked, the band maintained a stable collection of personnel that varied little. Members who broke the rules could be summoned before the "board", have their contract bought out, and be ejected from the band. The band was led for the first few years by violinist Hank Biagini, although the eventual leader, saxophonist Glen Gray (1900 – 1963) was from the beginning "first among equals." The complex arrangements called for talented musicians such as trombonist Pee Wee Hunt, guitarist S. Jack Blanchette, trumpeter Frank L. Ryerson, trumpeter Sonny Dunham, clarinetist Clarence Hutchenrider, drummer Tony Briglia and singer Kenny Sargent. Arrangements were by Gene Gifford, who also composed much of the band's book, Spud Murphy, Larry Wagner, Salvador "Tutti"