It is always nice to turn up a page in a newspaper where a promotion for a recording occurs by the company that will turn out the 78 rpm record. The artwork behind some of these ads is quite good, and I thought about sharing this one for Clarence Williams Washboard Band, for the Vocalion race series, picked from the April 23, 1927 edition of The Pittsburgh Courier.
| Blind Lemon Jefferson | |
|---|---|
The only known photograph of “Blind” Lemon Jefferson (circa 1926)
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lemon Henry Jefferson |
| Also known as | Deacon L. J. Bates |
| Born | September 24, 1893 |
| Origin | Coutchman, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | December 19, 1929(aged 36) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | Blues |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, guitarist |
| Years active | 1926–1929 |
“Blind” Lemon Jefferson (Lemon Henry Jefferson; September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929) was an American blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920’s, and has been titled “Father of the Texas Blues“.
Jefferson’s singing and self-accompaniment were distinctive as a result of his high-pitched voice and originality on the guitar Although his recordings sold well, he was not so influential on some younger blues singers of his generation, who could not imitate him as they could other commercially successful artists. Later blues and rock and roll musicians attempted to imitate both his songs and his musical style.
Lemon Henry Jefferson was born blind near Coutchman, Texas in Freestone County, near present-day Wortham, Texas, one of eight children born to sharecroppers Alex and Clarissa Jefferson. Disputes regarding his exact birth date derive from contradictory census records and draft registration records. By 1900, the family was farming southeast of Streetman, Texas, and Lemon Jefferson’s birth date is indicated as September 1893 in the 1900 census. The 1910 census, taken in May before his birthday, further confirms his year of birth as 1893, and indicated the family was farming northwest of Wortham, near Lemon Jefferson’s birthplace.
In his 1917 draft registration, Jefferson gave his birth date as October 26, 1894, further stating that he then lived in Dallas, Texas and had been blind since birth. In the 1920 Census, he is recorded as having returned to Freestone County and was living with his half-brother, Kit Banks, on a farm between Wortham and Streetman.
Jefferson began playing the guitar in his early teens, and soon after he began performing at picnics and parties. He became a street musician, playing in East Texas towns, in front of barbershops and on street corners. According to his cousin, Alec Jefferson, quoted in the notes for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides:
They were rough. Men were hustling women and selling bootleg and Lemon was singing for them all night… he’d start singing about eight and go on until four in the morning… mostly it would be just him sitting there and playing and singing all night.
By the early 1910’s, Jefferson began traveling frequently to Dallas, where he met and played with fellow blues musician Lead Belly. In Dallas, Jefferson was one of the earliest and most prominent figures in the blues movement developing in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas. Jefferson likely moved to Deep Ellum in a more permanent fashion by 1917, where he met Aaron Thibeaux Walker, also known as T-Bone Walker. Jefferson taught Walker the basics of blues guitar, in exchange for Walker’s occasional services as a guide. By the early 1920’s, Jefferson was earning enough money for his musical performances to support a wife, and possibly a child. However, firm evidence for both his marriage and any offspring is unavailable.
Prior to Jefferson, very few artists had recorded solo voice and blues guitar, the first of which was vocalist Sara Martin and guitarist Sylvester Weaver. Jefferson’s music is uninhibited and represented the classic sounds of everyday life from a honky-tonk to a country picnic to street corner blues to work in the burgeoning oil fields, a further reflection of his interest in mechanical objects and processes.
Jefferson did what very few had ever done – he became a successful solo guitarist and male vocalist in the commercial recording world. Unlike many artists who were “discovered” and recorded in their normal venues, in December 1925 or January 1926, he was taken to Chicago, Illinois, to record his first tracks. Uncharacteristically, Jefferson’s first two recordings from this session were gospel songs (“I Want to be like Jesus in my Heart” and “All I Want is that Pure Religion”), released under the name Deacon L. J. Bates. This led to a second recording session in March 1926. His first releases under his own name, “Booster Blues” and “Dry Southern Blues”, were hits; this led to the release of the other two songs from that session, “Got the Blues” and “Long Lonesome Blues,” which became a runaway success, with sales in six figures. He recorded about 100 tracks between 1926 and 1929; 43 records were issued, all but one for Paramount Records. Unfortunately, Paramount Records’ studio techniques and quality were bad, and the resulting recordings sound no better than if they had been recorded in a hotel room. In fact, in May 1926, Paramount had Jefferson re-record his hits “Got the Blues” and “Long Lonesome Blues” in the superior facilities at Marsh Laboratories, and subsequent releases used that version. Both versions appear on compilation albums and may be compared.
Label of a Blind Lemon Jefferson Paramount record from 1926
It was largely due to the popularity of artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and contemporaries such as Blind Blake and Ma Rainey that Paramount became the leading recording company for the blues in the 1920s. Jefferson’s earnings reputedly enabled him to buy a car and employ chauffeurs (although there is debate over the reliability of this as well); he was given a Ford car “worth over $700” by Mayo Williams, Paramount’s connection with the black community. This was a frequently seen compensation for recording rights in that market. Jefferson is known to have done an unusual amount of traveling for the time in the American South, which is reflected in the difficulty of pigeonholing his music into one regional category.
Jefferson’s “old-fashioned” sound and confident musicianship made him easy to market. His skillful guitar playing and impressive vocal ranges opened the door for a new generation of male solo blues performers such as Furry Lewis, Charlie Patton, and Barbecue Bob. He sticks to no musical conventions, varying his riffs and rhythm and singing complex and expressive lyrics in a manner exceptional at the time for a “simple country blues singer.” According to North Carolina musician Walter Davis, Jefferson played on the streets inJohnson City, Tennessee, during the early 1920’s at which time Davis and fellow entertainer Clarence Greene learned the art of blues guitar.
Jefferson was reputedly unhappy with his royalties (although Williams said that Jefferson had a bank account containing as much as $1500). In 1927, when Williams moved to OKeh Records, he took Jefferson with him, and OKeh quickly recorded and released Jefferson’s “Matchbox Blues” backed with “Black Snake Moan,” which was to be his only OKeh recording, probably because of contractual obligations with Paramount. Jefferson’s two songs released on Okeh have considerably better sound quality than on his Paramount records at the time. When he had returned to Paramount a few months later, “Matchbox Blues” had already become such a hit that Paramount re-recorded and released two new versions, under producer Arthur Laibly. In 1927, Jefferson recorded another of his now classic songs, the haunting “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” (once again using the pseudonym Deacon L. J. Bates) along with two other uncharacteristically spiritual songs, “He Arose from the Dead” and “Where Shall I Be”. Of the three, “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” was so successful that it was re-recorded and re-released in 1928.
(Courtesy Wikipedia)
Columbia records promotes blues singer Clara Smith latest recording of “Whip It To A Jelly” in this race series advertisement from The Afro-American newspaper, Baltimore, Maryland. This was taken from the August 28, 1926 edition .
Victor Race Records recording artist, Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra concert announcement from August 1930.
The blues of Martha Copeland singing “Sorrow Valley Blues” are announced in this 1927 advertisement for Columbia Race Records, as seen in the June 4th edition of The Afro-American, Baltimore, Maryland.
The Carl Company of Schenectady, New York, in conjunction with Victor Records, attempted to make known that they had their latest blues recording artists out on six new 19000 series records, in the July 9, 1923 edition of the Schenectady Gazette.
In 1923 Columbia Records was still using its regular A 3000 series records to record both white and black performers alike. It is for that reason we find this advertisement for blues singer Clara Smith showing her recording of “Down South Blues” on number A-3961. The record itself was produced in July, 1923, and it would not be until October , 1923 when the first race 13000-D record would be made by Bessie Smith. This advertisement appeared in the October 26, 1923 edition of The Afro-American, Baltimore, Maryland.
From the October 26th, 1923 edition of the Afro-American newspaper, Baltimore, Maryland, comes this beautiful advertisement about Ida Cox singing “Any Woman’s Blues”, on the Paramount Record label.
| W. C. Handy | |
|---|---|
In July 1941, by Carl Van Vechten
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | William Christopher Handy |
| Also known as | The Father of Blues |
| Born | November 16, 1873 Florence, Alabama, U.S. |
| Origin | Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | March 28, 1958 (aged 84) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Blues, Jazz |
| Occupations | Composer, songwriter, musician,bandleader, author |
| Instruments | Piano, cornet, trumpet, guitar,vocals |
| Years active | 1893–1948 |
William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the “Father of the Blues”.
Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to one of the dominant national forces in American music.
Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers.
English: W. C. Handy, age 19. Photo courtesy of University of North Alabama, Collier Library. Photographer unknown. Русский: Уильям Кристофер Хэнди в возрасте 19 лет (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
W.C. Handy at age 19
Handy was born in Florence, Alabama. His father was thepastor of a small church in Guntersville, another small town in northeast central Alabama. Handy wrote in his 1941 autobiography, Father of the Blues, that he was born in the log cabin built by his grandfather William Wise Handy, who became an African Methodist Episcopal(AME) minister after emancipation. The log cabin of Handy’s birth has been saved and preserved in downtown Florence.
Growing up he apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking andplastering.
Handy was a deeply religious man, whose influences in his musical style were found in the church music he sang and played as a youth, and in the natural world. He later cited the sounds of nature, such as “whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises”, the sounds of Cypress Creek washing on the fringes of the woodland, and “the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art” as inspiration.
Handy’s father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil. Without his parents’ permission, Handy bought his first guitar, which he had seen in a local shop window and secretly saved for by picking berries, nuts and making lye soap. Upon seeing the guitar, his father asked him, “What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home?” Ordering Handy to “Take it back where it came from”, his father quickly enrolled him in organ lessons. Handy’s days as an organ student were short lived, and he moved on to learn the cornet. Handy joined a local band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a fellow band member and spent every free minute practicing it.
He worked on a “shovel brigade” at the McNabb furnace, and described the music made by the workers as they beat shovels, altering the tone while thrusting and withdrawing the metal part against the iron buggies to pass the time while waiting for the overfilled furnace to digest its ore. “With a dozen men participating, the effect was sometimes remarkable…It was better to us than the music of a martial drum corps, and our rhythms were far more complicated.” He wrote, “Southern Negroes sang about everything…They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect…” He would later reflect that, “In this way, and from these materials, they set the mood for what we now call blues”
In September 1892, Handy traveled to Birmingham to take a teaching exam, which he passed easily, and gained a teaching job in the city. Learning that it paid poorly, he quit the position and found industrial work at a pipe works plant in nearby Bessemer.
During his off-time, he organized a small string orchestra and taught musicians how to read notes. Later, Handy organized the Lauzetta Quartet. When the group read about the upcoming World’s Fair in Chicago, they decided to attend. To pay their way, group members performed at odd jobs along the way. They arrived in Chicago only to learn that the World’s Fair had been postponed for a year. Next they headed to St. Louis but found working conditions very bad.
After the quartet disbanded, Handy went to Evansville, Indiana, where he helped introduce the blues. He played cornet in the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. In Evansville, Handy joined a successful band that performed throughout the neighboring cities and states. His musical endeavors were varied: he sang first tenor in a minstrel show, worked as a band director, choral director, cornetist andtrumpeter.
At age 23, Handy became band master of Mahara’s Colored Minstrels. In their three-year tour, they traveled to Chicago, throughoutTexas and Oklahoma, through Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, and on to Cuba. Handy earned a salary of $6 per week. Returning from Cuba, the band traveled north through Alabama, and stopped to perform in Huntsville. Weary of life on the road, he and his wife Elizabeth decided to stay with relatives in his nearby hometown of Florence.
In 1896 while performing at a barbecue in Henderson, Kentucky, Handy met Elizabeth Price. They married shortly afterward on July 19, 1896. She had Lucille, the first of their six children, on June 29, 1900 after they had settled in Florence, Alabama, his hometown. Henderson’s W.C. Handy Music Bar B Q and Blues Festival is held annually in June. There is also a 10 day, 200 event W.C. Handy Music Festival in Handy’s hometown of Florence, Alabama annually the last week of July. http://www.wchandymusicfestival.org
W.C. Handy, ca. 1900, Director of the Alabama Agriculture & Mechanical College Band
Around that time, William Hooper Councill, President of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (AAMC) (today named Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University) in Normal, Alabama, recruited Handy to teach music at the college. Handy became a faculty member in September 1900 and taught through much of 1902.
His enthusiasm for the distinctive style of uniquely American music, then often considered inferior to European classical music, was part of his development. He was disheartened to discover that the college emphasized teaching European music considered to be “classical”. Handy felt he was underpaid and could make more money touring with a minstrel group.
In 1902 Handy traveled throughout Mississippi, where he listened to the various black popular musical styles. The state was mostly rural, and music was part of the culture, especially of the Mississippi Delta cotton plantation areas. Musicians usually played the guitar, banjo and to a much lesser extent, the piano. Handy’s remarkable memory enabled him to recall and transcribe the music heard in his travels.
After a dispute with AAMC President Councill, Handy resigned his teaching position to rejoin the Mahara Minstrels and tour theMidwest and Pacific Northwest. In 1903 he became the director of a black band organized by the Knights of Pythias, located inClarksdale, Mississippi. Handy and his family lived there for six years. In 1903 while waiting for a train in Tutwiler in the Mississippi Delta, Handy had the following experience:
“A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept… As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars….The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.”
About 1905 while playing a dance in Cleveland, Mississippi, Handy was given a note asking for “our native music”. He played an old-time Southern melody, but was asked if a local colored band could play a few numbers. Three young men with a battered guitar, mandolin, and a worn-out bass took the stage.
“They struck up one of those over and over strains that seem to have no beginning and certainly no ending at all. The strumming attained a disturbing monotony, but on and on it went, a kind of stuff associated with [sugar] cane rows and levee camps. Thump-thump-thump went their feet on the floor. It was not really annoying or unpleasant. Perhaps “haunting” is the better word.”
Handy noted square dancing by Mississippi blacks with “one of their own calling the figures, and crooning all of his calls in the key of G.” He remembered this when deciding on the key for “St Louis Blues”.
“It was the memory of that old gent who called figures for the Kentucky breakdown—the one who everlastingly pitched his tones in the key of G and moaned the calls like a presiding elder preaching at a revival meeting. Ah, there was my key – I’d do the song in G.”
In describing “blind singers and footloose bards” around Clarksdale, Handy wrote, “[S]urrounded by crowds of country folks, they would pour their hearts out in song … They earned their living by selling their own songs – “ballets,” as they called them—and I’m ready to say in their behalf that seldom did their creations lack imagination.”
In 1909 Handy and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they started playing at clubs on Beale Street. The genesis of his “Memphis Blues” was as a campaign tune written for Edward Crump, a successful Memphis mayoral candidate in 1909 (and future“boss”). Handy later rewrote the tune and changed its name from “Mr. Crump” to “Memphis Blues.”
Handy’s first popular success, “Memphis Blues”. Recorded by Victor Military Band, July 15, 1914.
The 1912 publication of his “Memphis Blues” sheet music introduced his style of 12-bar blues; it was credited as the inspiration for the foxtrot dance step by Vernon and Irene Castle, a New York–based dance team. Some consider it to be the first blues song. Handy sold the rights to the song for US$100. By 1914, when Handy was 40, he had established his musical style, his popularity increased significantly, and he composed prolifically.
Handy wrote about using folk songs:
“The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect… by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key was major…, and I carried this device into my melody as well… This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot.”
W. C. Handy with his 1918 Memphis Orchestra: Handy is center rear, holding trumpet.
“The three-line structure I employed in my lyric was suggested by a song I heard Phil Jones sing in Evansville … While I took the three-line stanza as a model for my lyric, I found its repetition too monotonous … Consequently I adopted the style of making a statement, repeating the statement in the second line, and then telling in the third line why the statement was made.”
Regarding the “three-chord basic harmonic structure” of the blues, Handy wrote the “(tonic, subdominant, dominant seventh) was that already used by Negro roustabouts, honky-tonkpiano players, wanderers and others of the underprivileged but undaunted class”. He noted,
“In the folk blues the singer fills up occasional gaps with words like ‘Oh, lawdy’ or ‘Oh, baby’ and the like. This meant that in writing a melody to be sung in the blues manner one would have to provide gaps or waits.”
Writing about the first time “St Louis Blues” was played (1914), Handy said,
“The one-step and other dances had been done to the tempo of Memphis Blues … When St Louis Blues was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels.”
His published musical works were groundbreaking because of his ethnicity, and he was among the first blacks to achieve economic success because of publishing. In 1912, Handy met Harry H. Pace at the Solvent Savings Bank in Memphis. Pace was valedictorian of his graduating class at Atlanta University and student of W. E. B. Du Bois. By the time of their meeting, Pace had already demonstrated a strong understanding of business. He earned his reputation by recreating failing businesses. Handy liked him, and Pace later became manager of Pace and Handy Sheet Music.
While in New York City, Handy wrote:
“I was under the impression that these Negro musicians would jump at the chance to patronize one of their own publishers. They didn’t… The Negro musicians simply played the hits of the day…They followed the parade. Many white bands and orchestra leaders, on the other hand, were on the alert for novelties. They were therefore the ones most ready to introduce our numbers.” But, “Negro vaudeville artists…wanted songs that would not conflict with white acts on the bill. The result was that these performers became our most effective pluggers.”
In 1917, he and his publishing business moved to New York City, where he had offices in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square. By the end of that year, his most successful songs: “Memphis Blues”, “Beale Street Blues“, and “Saint Louis Blues“, had been published. That year the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the first jazz record, introducing the style to a wide segment of the American public. Handy initially had little fondness for this new “jazz”, but bands dove into his repertoire with enthusiasm, making many of them jazz standards.
Handy encouraged performers such as Al Bernard, “a young white man” with a “soft Southern accent” who “could sing all my Blues”. Handy sent Bernard to Thomas Edison to be recorded, which resulted in “an impressive series of successes for the young artist, successes in which we proudly shared.” Handy also published the original “Shake Rattle and Roll” and “Saxophone Blues”, both written by Bernard. “Two young white ladies from Selma, Alabama (Madelyn Sheppard and Annelu Burns) contributed the songs “Pickaninny Rose” and “O Saroo”, with the music published by Handy’s company. These numbers, plus our blues, gave us a reputation as publishers of Negro music.”
“Ole Miss Rag”, a ragtime composed by W. C. Handy and recorded by Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis in 1917 in New York.
Expecting to make only “another hundred or so” on a third recording of his “Yellow Dog Blues” (originally titled “Yellow Dog Rag”, Handy signed a deal with the Victor company. The Joe Smith recording of this song in 1919 became the best-selling recording of Handy’s music to date.
Handy tried to interest black women singers in his music, but initially was unsuccessful. In 1920 Perry Bradford persuaded Mamie Smith to record two of his non-blues songs, published by Handy, accompanied by a white band: “That Thing Called Love” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”. When Bradford’s “Crazy Blues” became a hit as recorded by Smith, African-American blues singers became increasingly popular. Handy found his business began to decrease because of the competition.
In 1920 Pace amicably dissolved his long-standing partnership with Handy, with whom he also collaborated as lyricist. As Handy wrote: “To add to my woes, my partner withdrew from the business. He disagreed with some of my business methods, but no harsh words were involved. He simply chose this time to sever connection with our firm in order that he might organize Pace Phonograph Company, issuing Black Swan Records and making a serious bid for the Negro market. . . . With Pace went a large number of our employees. . . . Still more confusion and anguish grew out of the fact that people did not generally know that I had no stake in the Black Swan Record Company.”
Although Handy’s partnership with Pace was dissolved, he continued to operate the publishing company as a family-owned business. He published works of other black composers as well as his own, which included more than 150 sacred compositions and folk song arrangements and about 60 blues compositions. In the 1920’s, he founded the Handy Record Company in New York City. Bessie Smith‘s January 14, 1925, Columbia Records recording of “Saint Louis Blues” with Louis Armstrong is considered by many to be one of the finest recordings of the 1920’s. So successful was Handy’s “Saint Louis Blues” that in 1929, he and director Kenneth W. Adams collaborated on a RCA motion picture project of the same name, which was to be shown before the main attraction. Handy suggested blues singer Bessie Smith have the starring role, since she had gained widespread popularity with that tune. The picture was shot in June and was shown in movie houses throughout the United States from 1929 to 1932.
In 1926 Handy authored and edited a work entitled Blues: An Anthology—Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs. It is probably the first work that attempted to record, analyze and describe the blues as an integral part of the U.S. South and the history of the United States.
The genre of the blues was a hallmark of American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s. So great was its influence, and so much was it recognized as Handy’s hallmark, that author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his novel The Great Gatsby that “All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the “Beale Street Blues” while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor.”
Following publication of his autobiography, Handy published a book on African-American musicians entitled Unsung Americans Sing(1944). He wrote a total of five books:
During this time, he lived on Strivers’ Row in Harlem. He became blind following an accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954, when he was eighty. His new bride was his secretary, the former Irma Louise Logan, whom he frequently said had become his eyes.
In 1955, Handy suffered a stroke, following which he began to use a wheelchair. More than eight hundred attended his 84th birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
The grave of W.C. Handy at Woodlawn Cemetery
On March 28, 1958 he died of bronchial pneumonia at Sydenham Hospital in New York City.[26] Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects. He was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.
Handy’s songs do not always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses.
US Postage Stamp 1969
Bronze Statue of W.C. Handy in Handy Park, Beale Street, Memphis
The footstone of W.C. Handy inWoodlawn Cemetery
Here is a cross section of Race Record advertisements that ran between 1922 and 1931 for Paramount, Okeh, Victor, and Vocalion records.
1924 Gennett 78, 5454-A, “Riverboat Shuffle”, by The Wolverine Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke.
| The Wolverines | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Hamilton, Ohio |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Years active | 1923–1931 |
The Wolverines (also Wolverine Orchestra, Wolverines Orchestra, The Original Wolverines) were an American jazz band. They were one of the most successful territory bands of the American Midwest in the 1920s.
When the Stockton Club closed after a New Year’s Eve brawl, the group moved to Cincinnati to play at Doyle’s Dance Studio. They did a three-month stay there and became one of the city’s most popular attractions, and on February 18, 1924, they recorded for the first time at Gennett Records. These were the first recordings Beiderbecke ever played on. Hoagy Carmichael was in the Gennett studio when the Wolverines recorded his tune “Free Wheeling” on May 6, 1924. It was Bix’s idea to rename it “Riverboat Shuffle“. The recording was released as a Gennett 78, 5454-A.
As a live act, they were so popular that the owner of Doyle’s locked their instruments in his club to keep them from skipping town, but the group eventually sneaked out in order to take a job in Bloomington, Indiana. However, when they reached Bloomington, they found their gig had been cancelled. Instead, Bernie Cummins began booking gigs for them at colleges in Ohio and Indiana; they became a popular attraction at Indiana University, and recorded again in May and June 1924. Vic Berton replaced Vic Moore on drums just before their June recording date. However, Berton’s tenure did not last long, and Moore returned to the band before the end of the year.
In September 1924 they booked dates at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City, and recorded for Gennett again in New York in September and October. After finding out that the Roseland engagement was to be cancelled in November, Beiderbecke left the group to play with Jean Goldkette. Jimmy McPartland eventually replaced him, and they recorded yet again for Gennett in December before taking off for a gig in Palm Beach, Florida.
After 1925 the group’s history is less well documented, since the intense interest in the group centers mainly on Beiderbecke’s tenure. Voynow sold the rights to the name “Wolverine Orchestra” to a promoter named Husk O’Hare, who began booking several different ensembles under that name through the end of the decade. One of the bands remained popular in the Midwest and played for radio station WLW, though they only recorded once for Vocalion in 1928.
O’Hare’s Wolverines disbanded in 1931, and Al Gande, the original group’s trombonist, began touring as the New Wolverine Orchestra in 1936. He remained at the helm of this ensemble until his death in a car crash in 1946. Since then many jazz revival groups have performed under the name “Wolverines”.
The Wolverine Orchestra. Bix Beiderbecke is fifth from the left.
| Kid Ory | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Edouard Ory |
| Also known as | Edward Ory |
| Born | December 25, 1886 La Place, Louisiana, United States |
| Died | January 23, 1973 (aged 86) Honolulu, Hawaii, United States |
| Genres | jazz traditional creole |
| Occupations | bandleader, composer, promoter |
| Instruments | trombone and multi-instrumentalist, vocal |
| Years active | 1910-1971 |
| Labels | Columbia, Okeh, Exner, Crescent, Good Time Jazz, Verve |
| Associated acts | Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Ma Rainy, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus |
Edward “Kid” Ory (December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973) was a jazz trombonist and bandleader. He was born in Woodland Plantation near La Place, Louisiana.
Ory was a banjo player during his youth and it is said that his ability to play the banjo helped him develop “tailgate,” a particular style of playing the trombone. In “tailgate” style the trombone plays a rhythmic line underneath the trumpets and cornets.
House on Jackson Avenue, New Orleans, was Ory’s residence in the 1910s
The house on Jackson Avenue in the picture to the right is where Buddy Bolden discovered Ory, playing his first New trombone, instead of the old civil war trombone. Unfortunately his sister said he was too young to play with Bolden.
He had one of the best-known bands in New Orleans in the 1910s, hiring many of the great jazz musicians of the city, including, cornetists Joe “King” Oliver, Mutt Carey, and Louis Armstrong; and clarinetists Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone.
In 1919 he moved to Los Angeles one of a number of New Orleans musicians to do so near that time—and he recorded there in 1921 with a band that included Mutt Carey, clarinetist and pianist Dink Johnson, and string bassist Ed Garland. Garland and Carey were longtime associates who would still be playing with Ory during his 1940s comeback. While in Los Angeles Ory and his band recorded two songs, “Ory’s Creole Trombone” and “Society Blues.” They were the first jazz recordings made on the west coast by an African-American jazz band from New Orleans. His band recorded with the recording company Nordskog and Ory paid them for the pressings and then sold them under his own label of “Kid Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra” at a store in Los Angeles called Spikes Brothers Music Store. In 1925, Ory moved to Chicago, where he was very active, working and recording with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton,Joe “King” Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and many others. He mentored Benny Goodman, and later Charles Mingus.
During the Great Depression Ory retired from music and would not play again until 1943. From 1944 to about 1961 he led one of the top New Orleans style bands of the period. In addition to Mutt Carey and Ed Garland, trumpeters Alvin Alcorn and Teddy Buckner; clarinetists Darnell Howard, Jimmie Noone, Albert Nicholas, Barney Bigard, and George Probert; pianists Buster Wilson, Cedric Haywood, and Don Ewell; and drummer Minor Hall were among his sidemen during this period. All but Probert, Buckner, and Ewell were originally from New Orleans.
The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making popular 1941-1942 radio broadcasts—among them a number of slots on the Orson Welles Almanac broadcast and a jazz history series sponsored by Standard Oil—as well as by making recordings. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ory and his group appeared at the Beverly Cavern in Los Angeles.
Ory retired from music in 1966 and spent his last years in
Here is a discography of 46 phonograph recordings by “Ladd’s Black Aces” :
Note: There may be other spellings of the artist’s name, and you may find other recordings by “Ladd’s Black Aces” listed under other musical groupings.
See also Ladds Black Ac and Ladd’s Black Aces W Mandy Lee.
This is information from THE ONLINE DISCOGRAPHICAL PROJECT, the mashup is by JGReidy at Honkingduck
The New Orleans Owls in 1922
The New Orleans Owls (active 1922-29) were an early jazz band from New Orleans that descended from The Invincibles String band and recorded 18 sides for Gennett and 23 sides for Columbia from 1925 to 1927 on 78 rpm Gramophone record. They are reportedly the first group to record by the electric system operating from a mobile recording van. They played principally for the dancers in the ballroom of theRoosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. The replaced Abbie Brunies’ Halfway House Orchestra at the Halfway House dancehall in the late 1920s.
Members included Bill Padron (very much in the Paul Mares school) (ct), Benjie White (cl, as, leader), Lester Smith (ts), Mose Farrar (p), Rene Gelpi (bjo, g), Dan LeBlanc (tu), Earl Crumb (d), Frank Netto (tb), Pinky Vidacovitch (cl, as) and Sigfre Christensen (p). Their records are not as collectible as those of similar bands like the New Orleans Rhythm Kings or the Friar’s Society Orchestra, but will still fetch a hundred dollars or more at auction if they are in excellent condition.
| Adrian Rollini | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Adrian Rollini with Allen Haulon (guitar) circa 1946-48. |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Adrian Francis Rollini |
| Born | June 28, 1903 |
| Origin | New York, New York, USA |
| Died | May 15, 1956 (53) Homestead, Florida, USA |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupations | Bass saxophonist, Bandleader |
| Instruments | Bass Saxophone, Piano,Vibraphone, Chimes |
| Years active | 1922–1955 |
| Associated acts | California Ramblers, Little Ramblers, Goofus Five, Adrian Rollini and his Orchestra, Adrian Rollini Quintette, The Adrian Rollini Trio, Adrian and his Tap Room Gang |
Adrian Francis Rollini (June 28, 1903 – May 15, 1956) was a multi-instrumentalist best known for his jazz music. He played the bass saxophone, piano, xylophone, and many other instruments. Rollini is also known for introducing the goofus in jazz music.[1] As leader, his major recordings included “You’ve Got Everything” (1933), “Savage Serenade” (1933) and “Got The Jitters (1934) on Banner, Perfect, Melotone, Romeo, Oriole, “A Thousand Good Nights” (1934) on Vocalion, “Davenport Blues” (1934) on Decca, “Nothing But Notes”, “Tap Room Swing”, “Jitters”, “Riverboat Shuffle” (1934) on Decca, and “Small Fry” (1938) on Columbia.
Rollini continued with music and by age 14 he was leading his own group composed of neighborhood boys, in which he doubled onpiano and xylophone. His interest in music was far greater than his interest in school, and Rollini left high school in his third year. Adrian also cut several piano rolls for the Aeolian company on their Mel-O-Dee label, and the Republic brand in Philadelphia – these rolls are quite rare and very few of these have survived. He gigged around and finally made his break when he was 16, and began playing in Arthur Hand’s California Ramblers. Rollini was equally skilled at piano, drums, xylophone, and bass saxophone, which gained him the respect of Hand, who transferred the band to Rollini when he later retired from the music field.
How Rollini came to play the bass saxophone is somewhat of a mystery. Some argue that the Ramblers’ manager, Ed Kirkeby suggested the instrument to Rollini as a possible tuba double. Others say that it was suggested to him by the banjo player, who saw one in a music store. In either case, Adrian, who could tackle just about anything that came his way, would go on to become the star player of the instrument, a true maestro. His brother Arthur recalls in his book “Thirty Years with the Big Bands” that he just came home with it one day and went to work and within two weeks he was recording on it.
He cut many sides under the California Ramblers and formed two subgroups—The Little Ramblers (starting in 1924) and the Goofus Five (most prominently 1926-1927). It was during his work with these groups that he developed his distinctive style of saxophone playing. Rollini’s swing and impetus are quite evident; “Clementine (From New Orleans)”, “Vo-Do-Do-De-O Blues”, and “And Then I Forget” are among some of the best recordings that not only typify the era but showcase the prominence and power that Rollini brought to the table. During this time, he managed to lay down hundreds of sessions with names like Annette Hanshaw, Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike), Joe Venuti and his Blue Four, The University Six, Miff Mole, and Red Nichols to name a few. Some of his best work appears on the sides he cut with Bix Biederbecke (scattered throughout the 1920s, Rollini’s great bass sax solos were on scores of records, and were usually outstanding.) He also recorded and worked with Roger Wolfe Kahn, Frank Trumbauer, and Red Nichols.
1927 was a landmark year for jazz and Rollini, as not only did he participate in numerous sides, but he also got the job heading up the talent roster for the opening of the Club New Yorker. It was a short-lived organization, a who’s-who of 1920s jazz, including Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, Frank Signorelli and Frank Trumbauer. Sadly, salary demands began to rise, and the club had its own shortcomings, which proved a bad combination in the end, and the arrangement only lasted for some 3 weeks.it was not long until other talent would be seeking his name. From across the pond, a young England-based band leader by the name of Fred Elizalde was leading a band in London at the Savoy Ballroom, and he was looking for the best American jazzmen to spice up his already hot sound. He found Rollini, as well as Chelsea Quealey, Bobby Davis, Tommy Felline andJack Russin. Rollini submitted his resignation to the Ramblers (where he was replaced by bass saxist Spencer Clark and later by bassist-tubist Ward Lay), and agreed to join Elizalde, along with fellow-Ramblers Quealey, Felline, Russin, and (later) Davis, in 1927, and stayed until September 1928.
Once he returned to America he also began to write, working with Robbins Music Corporation—some of his compositions would include “Preparation”, “On Edge”, “Nonchalance”, “Lightly and Politely”, “Gliding Ghost”, and “Au Revoir”.
He continued to work, recording with such artists as Bert Lown, Lee Morse, The Dorsey Brothers, Ben Selvin and Jack Teagarden on into the depression and the 30s. However, the 1930s saw a shift in musical idea—away from the “hot”, two-beat feel and towards a more staid, conservative sound, and Rollini adapted. In 1932-’33 he was part of a short-lived experiment with the Bert Lown band using two bass saxophones, Spencer Clark in the rhythm section and Rollini himself as fourth sax in the reed team. In 1933 as well he formed the Adrian Rollini Orchestra (a studio group assembled for recording), which appeared on Perfect, Vocalion, Melotone, Banner, and Romeo labels. While Rollini did manage to assemble some great talent (for example Bunny Berigan, Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden), these records were clearly more commercial in comparison to his earlier work. There are a few examples that have solo work, but on the whole the records were highly commercial and tame in comparison. (A number of these sides has Rollini on bass sax only to switch to vibraphone during the song.) At this time Rollini also appeared as vibraphonist with Richard Himber‘s radio orchestra, playing a strictly secondary role in the large, string-oriented ensemble.
His other groups would include the Adrian Rollini Quintette, The Adrian Rollini Trio (primarily late 1930s) and Adrian and his Tap Room Gang which was based in the Hotel Presidentat 234 West 48th Street in New York City. Rollini reportedly managed the club inside of the hotel for a short while as well as leading the orchestra. He also had the Whitby Grill on West 45th St. Both of these were indicative of his inseparability of professional and social life. His clientele in each club were for the most part musicians on a holiday. Rollini could also be found on the radio working with artists like Kate Smith. As if he didn’t have enough going for him he turned once again to another phase of musical venture, and opened a store for sale and repair of musical instruments, known as White Way Musical Products which was located at 1587 Broadway. It had long been his belief that the artist playing the instrument knows more about it than the maker concerned only with the mechanics. The shop was a hot spot for autograph hounds who trolled the shop in search of famous band leaders. He was also making excursions between the Georgian Room and the Piccadilly Circus Bar, both in the Piccadilly Hotel. He also began recording for Master and Muzak.
During this time, a gradual shift occurs in Adrian’s focus from the bass sax to the vibraphone. This is not so much that Rollini was giving up on the bass saxophone or his abilities, as that popular tastes had rendered the instrument unmarketable after the hot jazz era of the 20s. Rollini recorded on bass sax for the last time in 1938. He continued to be active with vibraphone and chimes, but sadly, when he gave up his role as a bass saxophonist, his role in jazz went with it.
He went on to play hotels, as well as arranging and writing songs behind the scenes, collaborating with such names as Vaughan Monroe but he never did any big recording once the big band era really got underway- his trio pretty much represents the last of his great work. After these, he faded from the scene, appearing here and there and participating in jam sessions. He can be seen in a 1938 short entitled “For Auld lang Syne” starring James Cagney, as well as “Himber Harmonics” (1938) where he appears with the trio, and “Melody Masters: Swing Style” (1939). He also did a brief tour in the late 1940s in which he came to the Majestic Theater in downtown Dallas, as well as other cities.
In his spare time Rollini considered himself a “waterbug,” and proud of it. He owned a 21-foot Chris Craft speedboat and a Chris Craft cruiser, sleeping four. After an exhaustive career he made his last recording with his trio in the early 50s, and then turned his attention fully to the hotel business. He later relocated to Florida, and opened the Eden Roc Hotel in September 1955. He also ran the Driftwood Inn at Tavernier Key. Rollini loved sport-fishing, and his Driftwood offered deep-sea fishing charters. After Rollini’s death, it appears his wife Dixie left Florida. The remains of the old Driftwood Inn were completely destroyed in a hurricane that rocked the Florida keys in 1960.
He died May 15, 1956, at the age of 52. Jazz collector and scholar Brian Rust presented a memorial program in BBC Light program’s “World of Jazz” on June 8. Rollini’s death for a long time was somewhat of a mystery. In a brief article from England’s Melody Maker, it says Adrian’s brother, Arthur is “trying to solve the mystery surrounding Adrian’s death. He was sent to the hospital following a severe trauma to his ankle (apparently from an auto-related accident) in the parking lot of the Green Turtle Inn at the Islamorada Key). According to the Melody Maker he was found lying in a blood-splattered car, and one of his feet was almost severed. The article also says he died of a heart attack and lung collapse. The hospital he was sent to was the James Archer Smith Hospital in Homestead, Florida. He died after an 18-day stay in the hospital. According to the recent book, Jazz and Death: Medical Profiles of Jazz Greats, the author, M.D. Frederick J. Spencer (also a coroner) went back and analyzed Rollini’s death along with many other jazz greats, and discovered Rollini truly died of mercury poisoning. While in his 18-day stay, he had developed a resistance to feeding and so a glass tube had been inserted into his stomach. The tube was weighted with mercury and somehow the tube broke, exposing Rollini to mercury poisoning. He was survived by his wife, Dorothy (Dixie).
In 1998, Adrian Rollini was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
| Bennie Moten | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Born | November 13, 1894 |
| Origin | Kansas City, Missouri, USA |
| Died | April 2, 1935 (aged 40) |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupations | Piano, Bandleader |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Associated acts | Count Basie, Walter Page |
Bennie Moten (November 13, 1894 – April 2, 1935) was a noted American jazz pianist and band leader born in Kansas City, Missouri.
He led the Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the regional, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of the 1930s Big Bands.
His first recordings were made (for OKeh Records) in 1923, and were rather typical interpretations of the New Orleans style of King Oliver and others. They also showed the influence of the Ragtime that was still popular in the area. These OKeh sides (recorded 1923-1925) are some of the more valuable acoustic jazz 78’s of the era and continue to be treasured records in many serious jazz collections.
They signed with Victor Records in 1926, and were influenced by the more sophisticated style of Fletcher Henderson, but more often than not featured a hard stomp beat that was extremely popular in Kansas City. Moten remained one of Victor’s most popular orchestras through 1930. The song Kansas City Shuffle was recorded during this time. (The band recorded prolifically and many of their records were issued in Victor’s regular series, therefore not specifically marketed to the Black community.)
By 1928 Moten’s piano was showing some Boogie Woogie influences, but the real revolution came in 1929 when he recruited Count Basie, Walter Page and Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page. Walter Page’s walking bass lines gave the music an entirely new feel compared to the 2/4 tuba of his predecessor Vernon Page, coloured by Basie‘s understated, syncopated piano fills. Another boon to the band was adding Jimmy Rushing as their primary vocalist.
Their final session (10 recordings made at Victor’s Camden, NJ studios on December 13, 1932, during a time when the band was suffering significant financial hardship) showed the early stages of what became known as the “Basie sound”; four years before Basie would record under his own name. By this time Ben Webster and Jimmy Rushing had joined Moten’s band, but Moten himself does not play on these sessions. These sides (mostly arranged by Eddie Durham) include a number of tunes that later became swing classics:
After Moten’s death in 1935 after an unsuccessful tonsillectomy, Basie took many of the leading musicians from the band to form his own orchestra.
Moten’s popular 1928 recording of “South” (V-38021) stayed in Victor’s catalog over the years (reissued as 24893 in 1935 as Victor phased out any remaining V-38000 series that were still in the catalog) and became a big jukebox hit in the late 1940s (by then, reissued as 44-0004). It remained in print (as a vinyl 45) until RCA stopping making vinyl records!
From the Essex Free Press (Essex, ON), 5 Apr 1929
McKinney’s Cotton Pickers at the Lakeview Pavilion, April 6th, 1929. This might explain the Canadian issues of their records in part.
Ben Pollack and His Californians, Chicago, 1926: (L-R) Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Gil Rodin, Harry Green, Ben Pollack, Fud Livingston, Al Harris, Harry Goodman, Vic Breidis and Lou Kast(l)er.
| Ben Pollack | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Ben Pollack |
| Born | June 22, 1903 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | June 7, 1971 (aged 67) Palm Springs, California |
| Occupations | drummer, bandleader |
| Years active | 1924-1971 |
| Associated acts | Frank Sinatra |
Ben Pollack (June 22, 1903 – June 7, 1971) was an American drummer and bandleader from the mid-1920s through the swing era. His eye for talent led him to either discover or employ, at one time or another, musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland and Harry James. This ability earned him the nickname “Father of Swing”.
In 1926, Pollack recorded for Victor. Many of his records were good sellers. From about 1928, with involvement with Irving Mills, members of Pollack’s band moonlighted at Plaza-ARC and recorded a vast quantity of hot dance and out-and-out jazz for their dime store labels (Banner, Perfect, Domino, Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo, and others using colorful names like Mills’ Merry Makers, Goody’s Good Timers, Kentucky Grasshoppers, Mills’ Musical Clowns, The Lumberjacks, Dixie Daises, The Caroliners, The Whoopee Makers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Dixie Jazz Band, Jimmy Bracken’s Toe Ticklers, and many others). Most of these records are usually listed in discographical books (like Brian Rust‘s Jazz Records) as by Irving Mills. The rare Jack Teagarden’s Music book lists them properly as being a “Ben Pollack Unit”. Combining Pollack’s regular recordings with these side groups made Pollack one of the more prolific bands of the 1920s and 1930s.
The band played in Chicago, mainly, and moved to New York City around the fall of 1928, having obtained McPartland and Teagarden around that time. This outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows, and having an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel. Pollack’s band also was involved in extensive recording activity at that time, using a variety of pseudonyms in the studios. The orchestra also made a Vitaphone short subject sound film (which has been recently restored). Pollack, in the meantime, had fancied himself as more of a bandleader-singer type instead of a drummer. To this end, he signed Ray Bauduc to handle the drumming chores.
Soon afterward, things began to become difficult for Ben Pollack. The Stock Market Crash of 1929, and subsequent effects on the music industry as a whole, had a negative effect on all bands at that time, and Pollack’s was no exception. Work was scarce, and the band had several periods of inactivity, in spite of Pollack’s best efforts in obtaining work. Changes in personnel were also inevitable. Benny Goodman and Jimmy McPartland left the band in the summer of 1929, either fired or quit, depending on whose story is to be believed. They were replaced by Matty Matlock on clarinet and Jack Teagarden’s brother, Charlie, on trumpet. Eddie Miller was also signed as a tenor saxophonist in 1930.
Pollack left Victor in late 1929 and subsequently recorded for Hit of the Week (1930), the above listed dime store labels (1930–1931), Victor (1933), Columbia (1933–1934),Brunswick, Vocalion and Variety (1936-37), and Decca (1937–1938).
Pollack made several forays into the U.S. Midwest in the early 1930s, and also made some trips to Canada. During this time, he became involved with the singing career of his girl vocalist, Doris Robbins. As he was also involved with her romantically, he began to de-emphasize his involvement with band matters, much to the consternation of the musicians. Eventually, Ben Pollack and Doris Robbins married.
More changes came for the band in the spring of 1933 when trombone star Jack Teagarden gave his notice during an engagement in Chicago. It was not long after that, possibly a year, when the rest of the musicians decided to leave Pollack, They re-formed soon after as a co-operative band, fronted by Bing Crosby‘s brother, Bob.
Pollack re-formed his band eventually, and had some top-flight talent, including Harry James and Irving Fazola in it, but never really achieved any of the success of his earlier bands, despite the high quality of most of his recordings. These two stars, also, found greater success after they left Pollack. In the early 1940s, Pollack was the organizer for a band led by comedian Chico Marx. He tried his hand organizing a record label, Jewel Records (not the Plaza-ARC or the Shreveport labels), and at other venues, including restaurants on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood and in Palm Springs, California. He also appeared, as himself, in the motion picture The Benny Goodman Story and made a cameo appearance in The Glenn Miller Story.
All through this troubled period, Pollack managed to record excellent records and had an occasional hit, like the 1937 “Peckin'”, which Pollack co-wrote with Harry James, originally issued on Variety VA-556. Ben Pollack also wrote “Deep Jungle”, “Tin Roof Blues” with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, and “Swing Out” with Wingy Manone.
Ben Pollack co-wrote the jazz standard “Tin Roof Blues” in 1923 when he was a member of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings: the band’s trombonist George Brunies is also generally credited as a co-composer. In 1954, Jo Stafford recorded “Make Love to Me“, which used Pollack’s music from “Tin Roof Blues”. “Make Love to Me” was no. 1 for three weeks onBillboard and no. 2 on Cashbox. The song was also recorded by Anne Murray and B. B. King.
In 1992, Ben Pollack was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
In later years, Pollack grew despondent and committed suicide by hanging in Palm Springs in 1971.
| Casa Loma Orchestra | |
|---|---|
 Glen Gray (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Glen Gray |
|
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Orange Blossoms |
| Origin | New York |
| Genres | Swing/Dance Big Band |
| Years active | 1927–1963 |
| Labels | Okeh, Brunswick, Victor,Decca, Capitol |
| Associated acts | Jean Goldkette |
| Past members | |
| Glen Gray Hank Biagini Pee Wee Hunt Frank L. Ryerson Sonny Dunham Clarence Hutchenrider Tony Briglia Kenny Sargent Gene Gifford Spud Murphy Larry Wagner Salvador “Tutti” Camarata Horace Henderson |
|
The Casa Loma Orchestra was a popular American dance band active from 1927 to 1963. From 1929 until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands. It did not tour after 1950 but continued to record as a studio group.
The future members of the band first came together in 1927 as the Orange Blossoms, one of several Detroit-area groups that came out of the Jean Goldkette office. The band had adopted the Casa Loma name by the time of its first recordings in 1929, shortly after it played an eight-month engagement at Casa Loma Hotel in Toronto. The band never actually played the Casa Loma under that name, still appearing as the Orange Blossoms at that time.
In 1930, the Casa Loma Orchestra was officially incorporated in New York as a corporation with the members all stockholders and board members. The band members were hired on the grounds of “musical and congenial” competence and followed strict conduct and financial rules. Members who broke the rules could be summoned before the “board”, have their contract bought out and be ejected from the band.
The band was fronted for the first few years by violinist Hank Biagini, although the eventual leader, saxophonist Glen Gray (1900-1963) was from the very beginning “first among equals.” The complex arrangements called for talented musicians such as trombonist Pee Wee Hunt, trumpeter Frank L. Ryerson, trumpeter Sonny Dunham, clarinetist Clarence Hutchenrider, drummer Tony Briglia and singerKenny Sargent. Arrangements were by Gene Gifford, who also composed much of the band’s book, Spud Murphy, Larry Wagner,Salvador “Tutti” Camarata and Horace Henderson. Gifford’s arrangements were credited in large part to giving the band its sound, but even he fell victim to the band’s strict rules, being bought out in 1935 due to alcohol-related infractions.
Manager Cork O’Keefe was made a Vice President in the corporation and arranged bookings in venues such as Glen Island Casino, which they helped popularize, and the Essex House Hotel, that lead to their radio appearances.
Their mid-1930s appearances on the long-run radio comedy-variety program, the Camel Caravan (introduced with their theme, “Smoke Rings”) increased their popularity. Interestingly enough, Gray chose not to conduct the band in the early years, playing in the saxophone section while violinist Mel Jenssen acted as conductor. In 1937, the band overwhelmingly voted in favor of Glen leading the orchestra, and Gray finally accepted the job.
Hits included “Casa Loma Stomp,” “No Name Jive” and “Maniac’s Ball”. Part of the reason for the band’s decline is that other big bands included in their books hard-swinging numbers emulating the hot Casa Loma style. In the late 1930s Gray took top billing, and by the mid-1940s (as the other original players left) Gray would come to own the band and the Casa Loma name. For a time, during this period, the band featured guitarist Herb Ellis, trumpeter Bobby Hackett, pianist Nick Denucci and cornetist Red Nichols. By 1950, the Casa Loma band had ceased touring, Gray retired to Massachusetts, and the later recordings on Capitol (beginning with Casa Loma in Hi-Fi in 1956 and continuing through the Sounds of the Great Bands series) were done by studio musicians in Hollywood (with several of Gray’s “alumni” occasionally featured). Jazz historian George A. Borgman wrote a book about Glen Gray and the orchestra.
In October 1929, the band debuted on Okeh Records. The following year, they signed with Brunswick where they recorded until 1934. They briefly recorded for Victor in 1933 as “Glen Gray and his Orchestra”, the Casa Loma name being under contract to Brunswick. In late 1934, they followed Jack Kapp to the newly formed Decca Records and stayed there well into the LP era when they signed with Capitol. Most of the Okeh’s and many of the Brunswick’s were out-and-out jazz (albeit very rehearsed) and remain highly collectible.
Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, 1934: George “Gus” Throw (kneeling at left). Others in the front row (Left to Right) are Roc Hillman, Don Matteson, Skeets Herfurt, and Ray McKinley. Standing are Bobby Van Epps, Delmar Kaplan, Tommy Dorsey, Kay Weber, Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Jack Stacey.
The Dorsey Brothers were a studio group fronted by musicians Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. They started recording under their name in 1928 with a series of studio recordings for the OKeh label (they had come to New York in the mid-1920s and were among the most sought-after musicians). Always just a studio group, members (during the 1928-1934 period) included nearly all of the great white jazz musicians playing around New York City:
As a studio recording group, they recorded for;
They also did a few sides for the dime store labels (Banner, Cameo, Domino, Jewel, Oriole, Perfect, etc.) and also a handful of sides during their Brunswick period were issued onVocalion.
They signed to Decca Records in 1934, basically formed a more traditional regular band, and even started performing live until they had their famous falling out in May 1935. Glenn Miller composed two songs for the Dorsey Brothers Band when he was a member in 1934 and 1935, “Annie’s Cousin Fanny” and “Dese Dem Dose“.
In 1935, the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra had two no.1 recordings on Decca Records, “Lullaby of Broadway” with Bob Crosby on vocals, no.1 for two weeks, and “Chasing Shadows”, no.1 for three weeks. Tommy Dorsey would have seventeen number one hits while Jimmy Dorsey would have ten after they formed their own orchestras in 1935.
Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey broke up the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra in 1935 but reunited on March 15, 1945 to record a V-Disc at Liederkranz Hall in New York City. Released in June 1945, V-Disc 451 featured “More Than You Know” backed with “Brotherly Jump”. The songs featured the combined orchestras of Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey. They reunited again in 1947 to film the biopic The Fabulous Dorseys in which they played themselves. In the 1950s, they had their own network TV series. Elvis Presley made his national television debut on their show in 1956.
In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey postage stamp.
(See Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey‘s individual listings for more details).
Dorsey Brothers Orchestra in the studio, 1934: Pictured are (Back row, l-r): Don Mattison, trombone; Ray McKinley, drums; George Thow, trumpet; Glenn Miller, trombone; Bobby Van Epps, piano. (Middle row, l-r): Skeets Herfurt, tenor sax; Jack Stacy, tenor sax; Jimmy Dorsey, alto sax; Delmar Kaplan, bass; Roc Hillman, guitar; Tommy Dorsey, trombone. Seated in front are band vocalists Bob Crosby and Kay Weber.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922. Left to right: Leon Roppolo, Jack Pettis, Elmer Schoebel, Arnold Loyacano, Paul Mares, Frank Snyder, George Brunies.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings (nicknamed NORK) were one of the most influential jazz bands of the early to mid-1920s. The band was a combination of New Orleans and Chicago musicians who helped shape Chicago Jazzand influenced many younger jazz musicians.
“So I says Paul, I says, Abbie don’t want to go to Chicago and I’m kind of leery, I’m afraid”, George recalled. “Paul says, ‘man, give me that wire. I’ll go.’ So Paul went up [to Chicago] and introduced himself to Ragbaby Stevens and Ragbaby liked him… and Paul got the railroad fare from his father and sent me $60”.
George Brunies picked up his trombone and set off to join Mares in Chicago, playing gigs and going to afterhours clubs with Paul Mares.
It was at one such club where the pair met some of their future band mates, drummer Frank Snyder, pianist Elmer Schoebel, and saxophonist Jack Pettis.
The name “New Orleans Rhythm Kings” in fact did not initially refer to this group, but rather to a group under the direction of a vaudeville performer by the name of Bee Palmer. Though Palmer’s group didn’t last, one of the musicians from the group, clarinetist Leon Roppolo, did. Within several months of Palmer’s group breaking up, Roppolo found himself playing on riverboats in Chicago with Elmer Schoebel, Jack Pettis, Frank Snyder, George Brunies, banjoist Louis Black and (possibly) Paul Mares.
Mares, ready to move on from riverboat life, found the group an engagement at a club called the Friars Inn, owned by Mike Fritzel. Bassist Arnold Loyocano joined forces with the growing band and thus began the group’s engagement at the Friar’s Inn that lasted 17 months beginning in 1921. During this time the group performed under the name “The Friar’s Society Orchestra”.
While at the Friar’s Inn, the group attracted the interest not only of fans, but of other musicians. Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who had been sent to school in Chicago by his parents in the hopes of removing any jazz influences, regularly attended New Orleans Rhythm Kings shows. He was often allowed to perform with the band.
The group recorded a series of records for Gennett Records in 1922 and 1923. On two of these sessions, they were joined by pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. (The session with Morton has sometimes been incorrectly called the first mixed-race recording session; actually there were several earlier examples.)
After their engagement at the Friar’s Inn ended, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings were largely scattered and disorganized. Though they would reform periodically, with significant member turnover (Roppolo and Mares were more or less the two ringleaders and constants of the group), to make recordings, the group never played all together again. They all went their separate ways: Paul Mares continued to play music, releasing a record in 1935 and ran the “P&M New Orleans Barbeque” with his wife in the late 1930s Leon Roppolo was (and always had been) mentally unstable and spent the last years of his life in and out of institutions until his early death in 1945, though he managed to keep playing music as best he could. Most of the other members of the NORK also kept successful musical careers after the group dissolved.
In 1922 the group released the first of several records for Gennett Records, which is located in Richmond, Indiana. Gennett Records was famously built next to a railroad track, which was cursed by many frustrated musicians whose recording sessions were disturbed by the rattling trains.
In the first session at Gennett, the Friars Society Orchestra (The name that they released the record under) recorded 8 songs: “Panama”, “Tiger Rag“, “Livery Stable Blues” representing the New Orleans Jazz “standbys” as well as some originals of the group, ” Oriental”, “Discontented Blues”, and “Farewell Blues” as well as a never-released ODJB song called “Eccentric”. Paul Mares scheduled another two-day recording session at Gennett later but the band had recently dissolved somewhat, deciding to all move in different directions following their stint at the Friars Inn. For the session Mares got Brunies, Roppolo, Stitzel, and Pollack together to release a record under the name New Orlean’s Rhythm Kings, the first time the name was really used since the days that it had referred to Bee Palmer’s travelling vaudeville act.
This proved to be a fantastic idea: the New Orleans Rhythm Kings were outstanding in that they played a more serious, crafted music than then-famous white jazz group theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB). While the ODJB advertised their music as a novelty act, the NORK sought to distance themselves from the popular image of jazz as novelty and instead market it as a genuine musical genre.
The third recording session occurred after Mares and Roppolo had spent some time playing in a small band in New York. They returned to Chicago and scheduled another session with Gennett Records as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. This session is particularly notable because of the participation of famed jazz pianist and arranger Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. Morton was a Creole from New Orleans, and though he identified strongly with the white “French” side of being Creole, he was generally viewed by society as black (though he was fairly light-skinned and could sometimes “pass” as Latin-American and therefore was subjected to many of the same social pressures as other blacks of the day. In 1923 the country was still largely racially segregated, which included the jazz bands. White bands were beginning to spring up attempting to imitate the “hot” jazz style that the black musicians played, but rarely did any racial mixing occur in a professional setting (In a non-professional setting, however it was becoming more and more common). Jelly Roll Morton’s participation in recording with the all white New Orleans Rhythm Kings was history in the making: it is an early example of mixed race recordings.
Paul Mares and Leon Roppolo went on to do two more recording sessions in New Orleans under the name “New Orleans Rhythm Kings” in 1925 before the group dissolved altogether and went their separate ways.
A significant period of time after NORK seemed to have faded permanently into the archives of history, several recording studios decided to revive NORK records. The first revival was by Riverside Records, which reissued NORK’s Gennett recordings. The second reissue was from Milestone records. Both of these Reissues were important in keeping the NORK from disappearing completely from the pages of history and reminding the world what an influential band they were. “In the 1990s Milestone released the band’s Gennett sides on compact disc”.
Compositions and arrangements by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings continue to be played by “Traditional Jazz” or “Dixieland” bands all over the world today. Some of their famous compositions and contributions to the jazz repertory include “Bugle Call Rag“, “Milenburg Joys”, “Farewell Blues“, “Angry”, “Baby”, “Discontented Blues”, “She’s Crying For Me”, “Oriental”, “I Never Knew What a Girl Could Do”, “Everybody Loves Somebody Blues”, and “Tin Roof Blues“.
“Make Love to Me“, a 1954 pop song by Jo Stafford, using the New Orleans Rhythm King’s music from the 1923 jazz standard “Tin Roof Blues”, became a no.1 hit. Anne Murray and B. B. King also recorded “Make Love to Me“. Jo Stafford‘s recording of “Make Love to Me” was no.1 for three weeks on the Billboard charts and no.2 on Cashbox.
Though the ODJB and the NORK seem to be the two leading white bands of the day, their musical styles were very different. As opposed to the short, choppy style of the ODJB, NORK played more legato pieces. Leon Roppolo‘s famous clarinet sound was described in one instance as being “Spectral and otherworldly.
In the book “Lost Chords: White Musicians and their Contributions to Jazz”, Richard M. Sudhalter writes: “Three takes of ‘Tin Roof Blues‘ exist, three opportunities to listen to Roppolo’s mind at work, arranging and rearranging the pieces of his elegiac little statement. He begins all three on his high G (concert F), ends all three on the same two-bar resolution. But the differences in between, matters of tone, dynamics, and shading as much as specific notes, are spellbinding.
“This solo, in each of its three variants, contains many ‘bent’ notes, the exact pitches of which resist attempts at formal notation. In certain cases…. A sustained note will have both a “sharp” sign and a “flat” sign above it, indicating a progression from one pitch variation to the other, in the order given.”
Earlier in the same chapter, Sudhalter gives a description of the full band’s sound in their first Gennett recordings:
“The notion of tunefulness implies particular attention t the aesthetics of sound. The tutti passages on “Farewell Blues“, with their echoes of railroad whistles, the carefully arranged interludes and fadeout ending on Schoebel’s unusual “discontented blues”, bespeak rehearsal and behind-the-scenes work aimed at achieving a polished and varied band sound. Nothing on any record by a black band of the early ’20’s is anywhere near as aesthetically venturesome.
At its roots, New Orleans style Jazz (which influenced Chicago Jazz) represented an assimilation of Southern black traditions carried over from their African heritage mixed with white European traditions. The instrumentation was European (trumpets, trombones, etc.) while the melodic ideas and unconventional (at least, in the context of classical music) rhythms and musical forms were born from the Ring Shouts and country blues styles of the black slaves. The very first jazz bands were mostly black and played for black audiences, though the genre progressively got picked up by white audiences too. Many of the musicians were unable to read music but instead relied heavily on head arrangements (learning the arrangement by ear and then committing it to memory) and an ability to improvise. In many other cases the musicians could read music, but white audiences were so captivated by the improvisational ability that they were convinced was inherent in black musicians that the musicians would memorize the arrangement beforehand and appear to improvise to cater to the expectations of white audiences.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings represents a contingent of white jazz bands that began to grow up from 1915 to the early 1920s. These bands, perhaps the best-known of which being the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, attempted to imitate the fast virtuosic style of their black counterparts. “The relatively small inner circles of acute jazz listeners in the 1920s recognized that black musicians played better, more mature, and more confident jazz”.
Despite a significant bias that only black musicians could play “real” jazz, white bands such as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB) emerged and found great success, especially in their recordings. The song Livery Stable Blues by the ODJB in 1917 personified the vaudevillian style that white audiences sought in Jazz: choppy, comedic, almost poking fun at itself. Livery Stable Blues features soloists playing in such a way as to make their instruments sound like barn animals.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, however, brought a new flavor to recorded jazz. Though NORK and ODJB were not by any stretch of the imagination the first white jazz bands (there were many others that played around Chicago and New Orleans), they were some of the first to make recordings and one of the first white jazz bands that made mixed race recordings (Jelly Roll Morton was creole).
| Louisiana Five | |
|---|---|
 Left to right: Anton Lada, Karl Berger, Yellow Nunez, Joe Cawley, Charles Panelli |
|
| Background information | |
| Origin | New Orleans |
| Genres | Dixieland |
| Years active | 1917–1920 |
| Labels | Emerson, Edison, Columbia |
| Members | |
| Anton Lada, Karl Berger, Yellow Nunez, Joe Cawley, Charles Panelli | |
The Louisiana Five was an early dixieland jazz band that was active from 1918-1920. It was among the earliest jazz groups to record extensively.
The Louisiana Five was led by Anton Lada, who played the drums.
The Louisiana Five which is known to posterity was formed in New York City. Lada recruited the other four members, pianist Joe Cawley, trombonist Charlie Panelli (often spelled “Panely” in contemporary material), and banjoist Karl Berger. Clarinetist Alcide “Yellow” Nunez was in New York with Bert Kelly‘s band in 1918 before joining the Louisiana Five.
The band recorded extensively for various companies including Emerson Records, Columbia Records, and Edison Records. They went on to produce such hits as “Clarinet Squawk” and “Slow and Easy.” On one recording session they were joined by multi-instrumentalist Bernard “Doc” Beherendson on cornet.
English: Label of an Emerson Record from 1919. This 10-inch 78 disc features the early jazz band The Louisiana Five, starring clarinetist Alcide Nunez. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A 1919 Emerson disc by the Louisiana Five
A 1919 Medallion Record by the Louisiana Five
The band was popular in the New York City area in 1919, and also made tours of Texas and Oklahoma.
After Nunez left the band, the group made one more pair of recordings in 1920 with a violin replacing the clarinet.
Jazz is an American musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. The style’s West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note.
From its early development until the present, jazz has also incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music. The word jazz began as a West Coast slang term of uncertain derivation and was first used to refer to music inChicago in about 1915; for the origin and history, see Jazz (word).
Jazz has, from its early 20th century inception, spawned a variety of subgenres, from New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz-rock fusion from the 1970s and later developments such asacid jazz.
In the late 18th-century paintingThe Old Plantation, African-Americans dance to banjo and percussion.
By 1808 the Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million Africans to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them. Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843, as were similar gatherings in New England and New York. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included work songs and field hollers. In the African tradition, they had a single-line melody and a call-and-response pattern, but without the European concept of harmony. Rhythms reflected African speech patterns, and the African use of pentatonic scales led to blue notes in blues and jazz.
The blackface Virginia Minstrels in 1843, featuring tambourine, fiddle, banjo and bones.
In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized such music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted African-American cakewalk music, South American, Caribbean and other slave melodies as piano salon music. Another influence came from black slaves who had learned the harmonic style of hymns and incorporated it into their own music asspirituals. The origins of the blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals.Paul Oliver has drawn attention to similarities in instruments, music and social function to the griots of the West Africansavannah.
Emancipation of slaves led to new opportunities for education of freed African-Americans, but strict segregation meant limited employment opportunities. Black musicians provided “low-class” entertainment at dances, minstrel shows, and in vaudeville, and many marching bands formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs and brothels, and ragtime developed.
Ragtime appeared as sheet music with the African American entertainer Ernest Hogan’s hit songs in 1895, and two years later Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo “Rag Time Medley”. Also in 1897, the white composerWilliam H. Krell published his “Mississippi Rag” as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece. The classically-trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his “Original Rags” in the following year, then in 1899 had an international hit with ” Maple Leaf Rag.” He wrote numerous popular rags combining syncopation, banjo figurations and sometimes call-and-response, which led to the ragtime idiom being taken up by classical composers including Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. Blues music was published and popularized by W. C. Handy, whose “Memphis Blues” of 1912 and ” St. Louis Blues” of 1914 both became jazz standards.
The Bolden Band around 1905.
The music of New Orleans had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. Many early jazz performers played in the brothels and bars of red-light district around Basin Street called ” Storyville.” In addition, numerous marching bands played at lavish funerals arranged by the African American community. The instruments used in marching bands and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands of primarily self-taught African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from around 1914 on, Afro-Creole and African American musicians playing in vaudeville shows took jazz to western and northern US cities.
Morton published “Jelly Roll Blues” in 1915, the first jazz work in print.
Afro-Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton began his career in Storyville. From 1904, he toured with vaudeville shows around southern cities, also playing in Chicago and New York. His ” Jelly Roll Blues,” which he composed around 1905, was published in 1915 as the first jazz arrangement in print, introducing more musicians to the New Orleans style. In the northeastern United States, a “hot” style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe’s symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912, and his “Society Orchestra” which in 1913 became the first black group to make Jazz recordings. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson’s development of ” Stride” piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides the rhythm and bassline.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band’s “Livery Stable Blues” released early in 1917 is one of the early jazz records. That year numerous other bands made recordings featuring “jazz” in the title or band name, mostly ragtime or novelty records rather than jazz. In September 1917 W.C. Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis recorded a cover version of “Livery Stable Blues”. In February 1918 James Reese Europe’s “Hellfighters” infantry band took ragtime to Europe during World War I, then on return recorded Dixieland standards including “The Darktown Strutter’s Ball”.
Prohibition in the United States (from 1920 to 1933) banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies becoming lively venues of the ” Jazz Age”, an era when popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs, and show tunes. Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old values in culture and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring 20s. From 1919 Kid Ory’s Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band to make recordings. However, the main centre developing the new ” Hot Jazz” was Chicago, where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson. That year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith, the most famous of the 1920s blues singers.
The King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra photographed in Houston, Texas, January 1921.
Bix Beiderbecke formed The Wolverines in 1924. Also in 1924 Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson dance band as featured soloist for a year, then formed his virtuosic Hot Five band, also popularising scat singing. Jelly Roll Morton recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers.
There was a larger market for jazzy dance music played by white orchestras, such as Jean Goldkette’s orchestra and Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. In 1924 Whiteman commissioned Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which was premièred by Whiteman’s Orchestra. Other influential large ensembles included Fletcher Henderson’s band, Duke Ellington’s band (which opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club in 1927) in New York, andEarl Hines’s Band in Chicago (who opened in The Grand Terrace Cafe there in 1928). All significantly influenced the development of big band-style swing jazz.
The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands, in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders. Key figures in developing the “big” jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Count Basie,Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller.
Trumpeter, bandleader and singerLouis Armstrong, known internationally as the “Ambassador of Jazz,” was a much-imitated innovator of early jazz.
Swing was also dance music and it was broadcast on the radio ‘live’ coast-to-coast nightly across America for many years. Although it was a collective sound, swing also offered individual musicians a chance to ‘solo’ and improvise melodic, thematic solos which could at times be very complex and ‘important’ music. Included among the critically acclaimed leaders who specialized in live radio broadcasts of swing music as well as “Sweet Band” compositions during this era was Shep Fields.
Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax, and white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman hired pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, and guitarist Charlie Christian to join small groups. An early 1940s style known as “jumping the blues” or jump blues used small combos, up-tempo music, and blues chord progressions. Jump blues drew on boogie-woogie from the 1930s. Kansas City Jazz in the 1930s marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s.
Outside of the United States the beginnings of a distinct European style of jazz emerged in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de France which began in 1934. Belgian guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt popularized gypsy jazz, a mix of 1930s Americanswing, French dance hall ” musette” and Eastern European folk with a languid, seductive feel. The main instruments are steel stringed guitar, violin, and double bass. Solos pass from one player to another as the guitar and bass play the role of the rhythm section. Some music researchers hold that it was Philadelphia’s Eddie Lang (guitar) and Joe Venuti (violin) who pioneered the gypsy jazz form , which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on Okeh Records in the late 1920s.
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