Background
Tabor was born in Whitechapel in the East End of London to Jewish parents who had fled the pogroms of Vilnius, then in Russia.
conductor bandleader jazz musician
Tabor was born in Whitechapel in the East End of London to Jewish parents who had fled the pogroms of Vilnius, then in Russia.
Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
He spent the years of World War I staying with relatives of his mother in Boston, Massachusetts, where he came under the influence of the newly emerging jazz music, forming first a trio and then his own band that played in hotels in and around Boston. On his return from the United States he played in many bands in England from the 1920s until the 1950s, and from 1928 was the Music Director of the Hammersmith and Birmingham Palais. It was during The Blitz in 1940 that he allegedly first composed and his band first played the "Hokey Cokey".
Despite this claim, versions of the song can be found from 1826, 1891, and 1892, all before Tabor was born.