Wally Mack and His Orchestra were a Hamilton, Ontario dance band who could play anything from waltzes and polkas to country tunes and tangos. Mack started out on classical violin as a child, moving on to trumpet and musical arrangement and composition while still in his teens. Ten years before the album I'm posting today (Cosmopolitan Dance Party) was released, Mack formed his first band and set to writing many of the songs and doing many of the arrangements himself. Unfortunately, since there's no release date on the album and almost no information about the band to be found on the internet, I'm not sure when that was, exactly (although there's a joke about the Ford Edsel on "Hey Liley, Liley Lo," so I'm guessing the early '60s).

I did manage to track down one former member of the band; current Hamilton city councillor Bob Bratina. Bratina passed along the sad news that Wally, a successful businessman who also ran the Jockey Club Tavern and Oakwood Place, two of Hamilton's top music venues at one point, had a stroke some time ago and is in poor health these days.

Cosmopolitan Dance Party was recorded for RCA/Camden by producer Marcel LeBlanc (who also produced Me and My Fiddle by Ned Landry) and engineer Bill Giles. In addition to Wally Mack (who played trumpet), on this album the Orchestra (pictured below) consisted of Frank Carroll (bass, vocals), George Musolf (piano), Nick Evanoff (drums), Romeo Kusmirski (second trumpet) and clarinetists Andy Fur, Joe Poczynek and Benny Capponi. "We'll Build A Bungalow," "Hey Liley, Liley Lo" and "Tavern In The Town" are all up-tempo polka numbers with a strong country music influence, and feature manic (yet swinging) rhythms, clever wordplay (especially on "Bungalow") and spirited vocals by lead singer Carroll and other members of the band backing him up. "Crusader," a Mack original, is a slower number, more specifically a type of Polish dance named an oberek that showcases the work of the Orchestra's clarinetists.

We'll Build A Bungalow
Hey Liley, Liley Lo
Tavern In The Town
Crusader