Jimmy Lequime: (Please contact me if you have more details on Jimmy Lequime.)
Jimmy Lequime was a Canadian jazz trumpet player and band leader. He is credited with recording India’s very first Jazz record.
In April 1926 Bowlly landed in Calcutta, he went to the Grand Hotel where the Lequime's Grand Hotel Orchestra were playing. The band was a gathering of musicians from Canada, Philippines, Austria, Mozambique, the US and Russia. He talked himself into playing banjo with the band. Here he recorded his very first record. Soho Blues and House Where the Shutters Are Green. Bowlly only plays banjo as the band already had a vocalist, Pete Harmon who also played sax. Also in the band and soon to be a friend for life, was the Great Russian pianist Monia Liter.
Jimmy Lequime (trumpet), Nick Ampier (trombone), Pete Harmon (soprano/alto sax), Claude "Sax" MacGuire (clarinet, soprano/alto sax), Joe Speelman (ten. sax), Vic Halek (ten. sax, violin), Monia Litter (piano, arranger), Al Bowlly (banjo), Bill Houghton (percussion). Calcutta, c April 1926