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Probable personnel: Monia Lita or Harold Hood (piano), Nat (trumpet and vocals), Pat Smuts (saxes), Bob Dryden (drums), Jimmy Mesene (guitar and vocals) and Tiny Winters (bass).

Nat Gonella's Georgians c1937 Nat kept the same band personnel for a number of years Jimmy was with the band from January 1935 to July 1939. They made many, many records details...

The picture below is of Emily Isobel Gilbert, Jimmy Mesene's first wife, with their son James who was four years old when the photo was taken in 1937...

The drawing above of Jimmy was done in 1932 and has the signature Roberts. (It has been reduced in size). At this time Jimmy was with Percival Mackey's orchestra in Leicester Square, central London. He had already recorded with Percy Chandler and in 1933 joined Joe Loss. The wording in the two scrolls in the picture sounds like song titles - "Must it end this way" and "That's my way of loving you" - but Jimmy does not appear to have recorded them - maybe he wrote them!

	Jimmy's christening cup confirms his date of birth as March 6th,1908...
The photograph (above left) was taken in September, 1945. The front row from left to right is Jimmy's younger sister Penelope (Poppy), Jimmy's mother Dorothy and Jimmy's second wife Hilda. Jimmy himself is top left... (All the pictures on this page have come from the collection of Jimmy's son James Messini) More pictures:xxxxxxxxxxGallery - 1xxxxxxxxxxGallery - 2

Please have a look around the site and see whether you have any information that we might like to add: Front page... Biographical notes and recollections... Book excerpts... Memory Lane excerpts... Known pen names... Songs written by... Discography - alphabetically... Discography - chronologically... What Jimmy means to me... Contact us...

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