Who Were Pickard’s Chinese Syncopators?

I picked up an old 78rpm record recently by Pickard’s Chinese Syncopators called Flower of the Orient, a rather charming Oriental Fox-trot from 1928.  Who were Pickard’s Chinese Syncopators?

Well, it seems they were one of a host of Chinese-themed American vaudeville acts of the 1920s, though at some point they spent some time in London and did record in England too. They weren’t Chinese, there were usually about eight of them, and they were probably mostly Filipino musicians. They were a mandolin band (with some Hawaiian guitars and banjos), which was pretty popular at the time and usually appeared wearing Chinese robes and mandarin hats – after a fashion. They were quite prolific and some of their hits include:

You Told Me To Go

Stay Out of the South

Ali Baba

Gypsy Dreams

China Lily

They made it into the movies too – if only briefly with the 1931 short movie Singapore Sue. This was shot in New York and featured two popular Chinese-American vaudeville acts Joe Wong and Anna Chang. A bunch of white American sailors walk into a Singapore dive bar where Joe and Anna are entertaining. The film would probably be completely forgotten if it weren’t for the fact that the uncredited “Sailor No.1”, who tries to pick up Chang, is Cary Grant – the first time he appeared on film and the first time he used Cary Grant rather than Archie Leach, his original name and which he’d kept when he first went from Bristol to America to try and make a career on Broadway.