". . . a superior introduction to
that pivotal jazz decade."
-Playboy
Louis Armstrong
Earl "Fatha" Hines * Bix Beiderbecke
Fletcher Henderson James P. Johnson
* JackTeagarden Bessie Smith Eddie Lang.
Don Redman Fats Waller The Chicagoans
These are the jazz greats presented, ". . . not just personally and his-
torically, but with careful attention to the music itself . . ."Ebony
"Human qualities are examined with warmth and clarity, as is the
socio-musical background of each musician ... an honest and sensi-
tive approach . . ." The New York Post
The 1920s witnessed a spirit of comradeship among jazz musicians,
a powerful spirit that overcame the barriers of public apathy toward
honest jazz, callousness in the music business, racial prejudice, and
two economic depressions. Richard Hadlock examines the individual
recordings of each important jazz musician of the time, giving us
sensible analyses of style, devoid of the usual myths, cliches, and
oversenti mentality. Out-of-print books and collector's records are
listed for those who would like to dig deeper into what is I
"the Jazz Age." The Jazz I
RICHARD HA,
aminer and a
tributortoDow
100726
COLLIER BOOKS 866 THIRD AVENUE, NEW YORK.N.Y. 10022
THE MACMILLAN JAZZ MASTERS SERIES
Martin Williams, General Editor
JAZZ M ASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE THIRTIES
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE FORTIES
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE FIFTIES
JAZZ MASTERS IN TRANSITION 1957-69
JAZZ MASTERS OF NEW ORLEANS
./ I // MASTERS
OF THE
TWENTIES
by Richard Hadlock
COLLIER BOOKS
A Diuiston of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
NEW YORK
COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS
LONDON
Excerpt from Jazt: Its Evolution and Essence by Andre Hodeir, Trans-
lated by David Noakes, copyright 1956 by the Grove Press, Used by
Excerpt from Redly the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, copy-
right 1946 by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the
Harold Matson Company.
Exceipt from Tom Davin's "Conversation with James P, Johnson" in Jazz
Panorama, edited by Martin Williams, copyright 1964, The Macmfllau
"Jail House Blues" by Bessie Smith and Clarence Williams, copyright
MXMXXIH by Pickwick Music Corporation, New York, N.Y. Copyright
renewed MCML and assigned to Pickwick Music Corporation, 322 West
48th Street, New York, New York. Used by permission, All rights reserved.
Excerpts from Jazz; Hot and Hybrid by Winthrop Sargeant (E, P. Dutton,
1946}. Used by permission of the author,
Copyright 2985 by Richard Hadlock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or transmitted \n any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the Publisher.
Macmiftm Vvblishing Co., Inc.
866 Third Avenue, New Yorfc, W,Y. 10022
Library of Congress Catakg Card Number:
Jazz Masters of the Twenties is published in a
hardcover edition by Uacmilkn fublishing
Co., Inc
First Collier Books Edition 1974
CONTENTS
Introduction 9
LOUIS ARMSTRONG JTOm IQZj tO IQgl 13
EARL HINES 50
BIX BEIDERBECKE 76
THE CHICAGOANS 106
FATS WALLER and JAMES P. JOHNSON 145
JACK TEAGARDEN 172
FLETCHER HENDERSON and DON REDMAN 1Q4
BESSIE SMITH 219
EDDIE LANG 239
JAZZ MASTERS O JP THE
INTRODUCTION
A FEW WOBDS are in order on what this book is and what it is not,
along with some general remarks about jazz in the twenties.
Ihe book deals with the music of a select group of gifted jazz
musicians who played in the twenties. It is not a treatise on the
social, economic, or psychological conditions surrounding jazz at
the time, although there are fleeting glimpses of some of these
outside pressures. Many books already describe in detail the non-
musical vagaries of the twenties, and I have elected to bypass
those aspects of the period in an attempt to trace the musical
changes this decade brought to jazz in America.
It should be remembered, however, that the musicians dealt
with here were subjected variously to many stresses and inequities
brought about by Prohibition, avarice and callousness in the
music business, race prejudice, two economic depressions, and
public apathy toward honest jazz. Few of these men were able to
earn livings as jazzmen exclusively during the twenties, although
their gifts for improvisation were frequently exploited by leaders
and promoters.
Despite public indifference to its aims, jazz underwent exten-
sive change and development between 1920 and 1930. At the be-
ginning of the decade, the handful of jazz records produced was
devoted largely to an agitated novelty music, dominated by vau-
devillians, trick-effect artists, and musicians looking for profitable
trends. Except for the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (and even
this group relied partly on musical eccentricity for its success),
virtually no significant jazzmen recorded until 1923. (An obscure
1922 Kid Dry date is of little importance in the larger picture.)
But by 1929, most of the period's major contributors, embracing a
wide variety of artistically valid styles, were making records, not-
withstanding the fact that much of their product had to be mar-
keted as dance, novelty, or 'race" music.
In the twenties, most of those who listened at all regarded jazz
as merely an energetic background for dancers; the few who
sought more profound values in the music tended to accept Paul
10 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Whiteman's concert productions (Rhapsody in Blue, etc.) as the
only jazz worth taking seriously. Again, magazines ran long pieces
on jazz without having much idea what it was all about. One,
called The Dance, bubbled over the music with articles such as
"Beyond Jazz" and "Blame It on Jazz" around 1927, but the writ-
ers turned out to be concerned only with the Charleston and the
fox trot, not with the musical worth of individual improvisations.
In reviewing current "dance" records, the same magazine lumped
together releases by Sam Lanin, Miff Mole, Fred Waring, Jelly
Roll Morton, Ben Bemie, and the Dixieland Jug Blowers, without
much regard for purpose, originality, or profundity.
This mass misunderstanding, occurring in even large segments
of the music and entertainment worlds, resulted in the develop-
ment of a spirit of "underground" comradeship among jazz musi-
cians. It was a spirit that permitted a free exchange of ideas across
traditionally forbidding economic, racial, musical, and geographic
barriers, but it also bred clannishness and the tendency to set up a
closed society-within-a-society. Some musicians never recovered
from this period of disengagement from the world around them.
Six Beiderbecke is the classic example. Beiderbecke was actually
not widely known outside musician circles in his own lifetime.
Paul Whiteman's most celebrated soloist in 1928 was not Bix, but
nonjazz trumpeter Henry Busse, who drew $350 a week, or $150
more than Beiderbecke. Most jazz musicians, including many who
were to achieve international fame a few years later, despaired of
finding recognition in the twenties.
When immersed in the story of these jazzmen, then, it is useful
to remember that their world occupied an almost unacknowl-
edged corner of the entertainment industry throughout the
so-called Jazz Age. -Much of the best jazz of the decade was doubt-
less played in private sessions after regular jobs. That any worth-
while jazz at all was recorded and preserved is a wonder, owing in
part to the dedication and determination of the musicians and in
part to the help of a few recording executives sympathetic to jazz.
The choice of musicians to represent the decade is basically my
own. However, it will be noted that some important names are
conspicuously absent: Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, King
Oliver, Baby Dodds, and Sidney Bechet are examples. The reason
for these omissions is that additional volumes in the series of
INTRODUCTION 11
which this book is a part will cover New Orleans jazzmen and
jazzmen important during the thirties, some of whom happened
to be active and influential also in the twenties. I have, however,
made numerous references to several of these men throughout the
book.
I have regarded each man's music in two ways. First, I've
looked at the individual's work for its own value how the music
grew, at what point it reached its apex, and, if necessary, why it
declined. Second, a good deal of emphasis is placed upon each
subject's historical function as a bridge from what came before
him to what grew in part out of his own ideas. Indeed, the jazz
masters described in this book were selected to some extent on the
basis of their influence over other musicians,
In the nine chapters, then, will be found more than just the bi-
ographies of nine key jazz figures of the twenties. The chapter
about Bessie Smith, for example, also touches on the valuable con-
tributions of Ma Rainey and Ethel Waters. The story of Fletcher
Henderson cannot be divorced from the early career of Don Red-
man. To understand the positions of Jack Teagarden and Fats
Waller in jazz history, it is desirable to know something of Miff
Mole and James P. Johnson,
The Chicagoans almost always have been treated as a group,
and it struck me as logical to do so again. The story revolves
around those whom I felt to be the most creative in their ap-
proach to jazz. These eight individualists (Goodman, Stacy, Sulli-
van, Teschemacher, Freeman, Krapa, Tough, and, though not a
true Chicagoan, Russell) had a land of collective effect on jazz,
but it was a significant effect nonetheless. (Goodman, of course,
exerted a wide personal influence over several areas of jazz as
well, but his largest contributions were made in the thirties. )
The book is not comprehensive in its coverage of all these play-
ers. The Armstrong chapter, for example, picks up the trumpet
player upon his departure from King Oliver's band and leaves him
in the early thirties. So long and all-pervasive is this man's career
that distinct segments of it turn up in separate volumes of the
series.
Most of these biographies carry through the entire lives of the
subjects, although the focus is always on the twenties. This leads
to at least one unfortunate implication. It may seem that, say, the
12 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Chicagoans were at their individual creative peaks in the twen-
ties. Actually, they were at their best in the thirties and forties,
although their initial (and most important) collective impact was
made in the twenties. For that reason, their recorded music (ex-
cepting Goodman's) is followed down to recent times. The ap-
proach is similar for Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, and Fats Waller,
but I have given in less detail the events after 1930.
This is not a set of bio-discographies, It happens, though, that
records are the only real evidence of just what any musician was
playing at a given time, Therefore, I have relied largely upon re-
corded performances in describing and judging each subject's
music, It should be remembered that records are only a guide and
may not always present a complete picture of jazz at a particular
period, This is especially true of the twenties, a decade that was
not really very interested in jazz for its own sake.
The lists of books and LP records following each chapter are
not meant to be complete biblio-discographies. They are, in the
main, currently available reference material, but I have also in-
cluded a number of out-of-print books and hard-to-find records
for those who would like to dig deeper into the subject through
libraries or stores dealing in collectors' records.
I am indebted to the following persons, who gave time and/or
material assistance to me in connection with this book: Jimmy
Archey, Louis Armstrong, Charles Beiderbecke, Hany Brooks,
Paul A. Brown, Garvin Bushell, Ralph Collins, Edd Dickerman
Eddie Duran, Roy Eldridge, Phil Elwood, Phil Evans, Pops Fos-
ter, Bud Freeman, Russell Glynn, Marty Grosz, Ruth Hadlock,
Tony Hagert, Al Hall, Jim Hall, Horace Henderson, Earl Hines,
Virginia Hodes, Darnell Howard, Lonnie Johnson, Peck Kelley'
Charles Undsley, Jackie Mabley, Paul Miller, Grover Mitchell,'
Red Nichols, Jerome Pasquall, Norman Pierce, Leon Radsliff,
Kenneth Rexroth, Rocky Rockenstein, Joe Rushton, Pee Wee Rus-
sell, Arflmr Schutt, George Shearing, Muggsy Spanier John
Steiner, Jack Stratford, Joe Sullivan, Ralph Sutton, Jack Teagar-
d^ Norma Teagarden, Joe Venuti, Martin Williams, Mary Lou
Williams, and EstellaYancey.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG
FROM 1924 TO 1931
JULIAN "CANNONBALL" ADDERLEY, an outstanding jazz saxophonist
yet unborn when Louis Armstrong was beginning to receive inter-
national acclaim in the twenties, once asked an older musician
friend for the real facts about Armstrong. "I know Louis was good
and got all the fame," began Adderley, "but who was really the
tap man on trumpet in the old days?"
The answer was swift and unequivocal: "Louis Armstrong was
head and shoulders above them all."
To a young musician of the late fifties like Adderley, Armstrong
the pacesetting trumpeter seemed more legend than fact, for
Louis had long since settled into a routinized presentation of his
talents that offered only fleeting hints of his earlier creative
powers.
The physical aspects of Armstrong's playing equipment have,
however, withstood the years remarkably well. It was his good
fortune to be bom with an almost perfect physiological trumpet-
playing mechanism, and it was mostly in the twenties that Louis
put it to best use. From the beginning, the trumpeter enjoyed the
physical assets of ideal lip size, extraordinarily relaxed and open
throat muscles, a broad and powerful diaphragm, good strong
teeth, and a robust, sinewy frame. Large lips allowed him maxi-
mum compression for high notes without losing the use of soft
flesh for tone quality. Louis* open throat and loose vocal cords
were in his favor because the increased tension of high-note play-
ing did not constrict these passages, and as a result, his tone re-
mained full and clear in the highest register. His diaphragm fur-
nished the push for the air that produced the Armstrong trumpet
sound, and his fine physical condition accounted for the remark-
able Armstrong stamina that continues to amaze his colleagues to
this day. In short, Louis Armstrong was (and is) a natural trum-
pet player in every physical way. Happily, he also possessed a fine
musical mind.
14 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
This was tie man whom Joe Oliver sent "down home* for in
1922. Louis, already considered the best trumpeter in New Or-
leans, had timorously turned down an offer from Fletcher Hen-
derson the year before, but Oliver was an old friend and mentor
who played the familiar New Orleans style. Louis felt secure
enough to accept, and he promptly left for Chicago. He spent two
important years with King Oliver s popular band making rec-
ords, touring, playing shows, and learning a great deal about
music and life in the world outside New Orleans.
Actually, Armstrong had traveled away from home before, in
Mississippi riverboat orchestras. These bands, though, were made
up largely of New Orleans musicians, and the effect was that of
working in a floating New Orleans ballroom. Armstrong learned
more reading on the boats than he had in previous hometown
jobs, which had consisted largely in playing for picnics, marching
in parades, and entertaining in noisy cabarets or second-class
dance halls. The trumpeter had worked often for Kid Ory, sitting
in the trumpet chair held by Joe Oliver until 1918. Louis was more
than content to follow in Olivers footsteps and, of course, felt
honored when he received the call from Chicago.
"I guess Joe decided to have two [cornets] because he figured I
could blend with him, because he liked me and wanted me to be
with him," Louis recalled in 1950. "He probably wouldn't have
sent for anyone else. ... He must have remembered the way I
played, the things we'd talked about. I must have proved it to him
some way before he left [New Orleans] in 1918."
Armstrong, fresh out of the waifs' home at 14, had met Oliver
and had spent nearly four years studying his style. On the basis of
this experience, Oliver decided he could use the youngster in
1922. Joe got more than he had bargained for.
The young second trumpeter developed a quick ear for har-
mony in the semi-improvising Oliver ensemble. He learned, too
the value of discretion and restraint in an organization dedicated
to building a Itand sound rather than a showcase for individual
soloists. From Oliver himself, Louis picked up valuable secrets of
rhythmic phrasing, of good blues playing, and of establishing a
sure, driving lead melody line.
*He s the one that stopped me playin' all those variations what
they caH bebop today," Louis recalled in 1949. - 7ou get yourself
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 193! 15
a lead [melody] and you stick to it/ Papa Joe told me, and I al-
ways do."
The Oliver band was an ideal school of higher learning for the
already advanced Armstrong, as it provided for him a logical
bridge from the conservative New Orleans outlook to the more
advanced musical ideas of the bustling entertainment world of
Chicago. By the time Louis left Oliver in the summer of 1924, he
had married pianist Lil Hardin, a non-New Orleanian and per-
haps the most sophisticated member of Oliver's band, and had
begun to lose his provincial New Orleans ways,
As the old New Orleans gang (clarinetist Johnny Dodds, drum-
mer Baby Dodds, trombonist Honore Dutrey) departed from the
Oliver band, to be replaced by more-schooled players, such as
clarinetist Buster Bailey, Louis began to broaden his interests,
musical and otherwise, He developed his range, tone, articulation,
and reading ability to new levels. Shortly after leaving Oliver, he
studied embouchure with a German teacher in Chicago. (Other
New Orleans jazzmen, such as Jimmy Noone and Tommy Lad-
nier, also studied with Chicago teachers in an attempt to refine
their "down home" playing styles, )
Lil Armstrong was as aggressive as her husband was conserva-
tive, and it was largely her prodding that finally forced Louis to
seek a more suitable setting for his rapidly expanding abilities. He
was more than ready for a job playing first trumpet.
T[ never did try to overblow Joe at any time when I played with
him," Armstrong recalled many years after. "It wasn't any show-
off thing Lie a youngster probably would do today. He still
played whatever part he had played, and I always played pretty*
under him. Until I left Joe, I never did tear out. Finally, I thought
it was about time to move along, and he thought so, too. He
couldn't keep me any longer. But things were always very good
between us that never did cease."
One of Armstrong's last recordings with the Oliver band,
Krooked Blues, demonstrates how ready for independence Louis
was, even in late 1923. Under the leader's attractive muted lead
can be heard a distant, full-toned cornet playing a "pretty" coun-
termelody. The second cornetist seems to be attempting ideas of
more interest than those of Oliver himself.
After an unsuccessful application to join- Sammy Stewart's
l6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Iiighly rated band, Louis went with ODie Powers at the Dream-
land 35 a first trumpet player. It was a significant initial step in the
right direction. With Lil supplying encouragement, Louis gained
confidence and a sense of showmanship quickly. He stayed with
Powers about three months, until September, 1924, when Fletcher
Henderson offered him the third chair in his new three-man trum-
pet section. Henderson's was considered by many to be the best
band in the country at that time, and Louis, who had not yet
gained full confidence, accepted somewhat diffidently. He re-
ceived only $55 a week $20 less than he had earned with Oliver
a few months before but this was to be an important final phase
of Louis' basic training. In Henderson's eleven-man organization,
he found high ensemble discipline and contact with a wide va-
riety of musical materials that extended well beyond even the am-
bitious arrangements Louis had played in riverboat orchestras
several years earlier.
The 24-year-old trumpeter was uncomfortable at first, but he
unwound within a couple of weeks, especially after his old friend
from the Oliver band, Buster Bailey, joined the reed section. (It
was Armstrong who had recommended Bailey to Henderson.)
Fletcher began to feature Louis as a soloist and vocalist after only
three weeks. It was a demanding job always working on new ar-
rangements; playing opposite leading dance orchestras of the
period, such as Vincent Lopez and Sam Lanin; and keeping up
with other superior instrumentalists in the band, such as tenor
saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, trombonist Charlie Green, and
alto saxophonist Don Redman but Louis saw it through and
emerged a much improved musician for his experience.
Henderson was headquartered in New York, and this meant ex-
posure to a wholly new set of influences for Armstrong. Chicago
had imported so many New Orleans jazzmen that it was almost
like home for them, but New York had its own traditions and its
own jazz stars. As Louis exchanged information with instrumen-
talists like Red Nichols and Miff Mole, he was as impressed by
their technical command and polish as they were by his extraor-
dinary power and blues feeling. Armstrong also admired the
straight section work of trumpeters who played in opposing bands
at New York's Roseland Ballroom.
"Vincent Lopez came in there as guest one time," Louis has
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! IfJ
recalled. "B. A. Rolfe was with him, and he would play a tune
called Shadowland an octave higher than it was written. I ob-
served that, and it inspired me to make When You're Smiling.
[Louis recorded this tune in 1929.] The way I look at it, that's
tiie way a trumpet should play. If something's supposed to be
phyed high, you play it that way, or you play it in whatever
register it should be. But I don't dig that skating around a note
just because it's high."
Louis had further praise for Vic D'Ippolito, first trumpeter with
Sam Lanin's dance band, who "just naturally didn't play as high
as B. A. Rolfe, but when it was time to hit the high notes, he hit
'em."
Henderson allowed Louis' natural showmanship to blossom at
this time as well. Thursday nights at the Roseland were set aside
for visiting acts, and Louis joined the parade of singers and
dancers with his raw-throated vocals and showstopping trumpet
solos. A great favorite on such occasions was Everybody Loves
My Baby, which Henderson soon recorded, complete with "scat"
(meaningless syllables) vocal breaks by Louis. It was his first re-
cording as a singer, but it went largely unnoticed at the time.
Armstrong was still not known outside a small circle of musi-
cians in 1925, but he was always successful with patrons as an en-
tertainer who could sing, mug, dance, and play incredibly good
cornet. On one occasion, he appeared as a special guest at Har-
lem's Savoy Ballroom and brought the house down. It was dra-
matic evidence to the still-humble New Orleans youth that he had
something of real value as an entertainer and that people re-
sponded to him alone, regardless of what setting he worked
within.
Louis' musical position at this juncture can be ascertained by
the Henderson recordings on which he soloed. Fletcher's arrange-
ments of Words, Copenhagen, Shanghai Shuffle, When You Do
What You Do, How Come You Do Me Like You Do?, Why
Couldn't It Be Poor Little MeP, and Mandy, Make Up Your Mind
are superior period pieces but period pieces nonetheless that
suddenly become transformed into stirring jazz vehicles when
Armstrong solos. Even the exceptional tenor saxophone solos by
young Coleman Hawkins sound stilted and bloodless alongside
Armstrong's authoritative statements.
l8 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
There were several factors leading to Louis' preeminence in the
Henderson band. One was his deep identification with the blues,
which allowed him to turn the most cloying popular tune into a
heartfelt and moving musical declaration. Another was his sing-
ing approach to the horn, stemming from common New Orleans
musical practices and his own vocal experiences. Regardless of
tempo, Louis always completed each phrase and carried each sus-
tained tone out to its fullest value, creating the illusion of unhur-
ried ease even in the most turbulent arrangement. New York mu-
sicians aimed for just the opposite effect; they clipped their notes
short and skipped from one choppy phrase to another in an at-
tempt to play ever "hotter" solos. Ironically, it is Louis who still
sounds *hot w on these vintage recordings, while most of the New
York jazzmen appear painfully dated and about as hot as yester-
day s dishwater.
Still another factor that set Armstrong apart from his Hender-
son colleagues was his superb sense of time and syncopation. On
ShanghaiShuffle, for example, he plays eight bars of his solo on
one note, but there is no sense of repetition or boredom; rather,
this one note becomes a vibrant thematic unit because Louis se-
lected the ideal spots to place it for maximum rhythmic impact. It
was a deceptively simple-sounding device that the trumpeter was
to use to good effect many times in later years.
Finally, Louis stood out because he possessed the already men-
tioned physical attributes for playing more trumpet than anyone
eke in jazz had been able to before. These attributes, combined
with his New Orleans spirit, were regarded as natural phenomena
by other musicians. In addition, he was a competent third-chair
section man who could handle difficult Henderson parts ("After
he made one mistake," said Henderson drummer Kaiser Marshall
years later, Tie didn't make it again") and a reliable sideman who
took his music seriously, was easy to get along with, appeared on
time, and saved his money. Henderson was thoroughly pleased
with young Armstrong.
While working in New York in 1924 and 1925, Louis collabo-
rated with pianist Clarence Williams and clarinetist-saxophonist
Sidney Bechet on a set of remarkable recordings in the New Or-
leans small-band style. Bechet, a fellow New Orleanian, was
probably the only jazzman in New York at the time who could
LOUIS ARMSTRONG EROM 1Q24 TO 193! 1Q
match Armstrong's brilliance in every way. When the two men
improvised together, each prodding the other to more daring
flights, they usually finished in a dead heat. The best of the series
is Cake Walkirf Babies, recorded for the Okeh label in early 1925.
Like many of Louis' recordings of the period, this one documents
his large debt to Joe Oliver, particularly in the passages where
Louis leads the collectively improvising ensemble.
Despite Armstrong's authority and inventiveness on most of
the Clarence Williams dates, it was the more experienced Bechet
who initially set the pace and tone of each performance. A re-
cording hie Tm a Little Blackbird is virtually Sidney's show. Yet
Armstrong was the perfect foil for the amazing Bechet talent, for
Sidney responded positively to Louis' proper New Orleans ensem-
ble manners. Looking back on these sessions and an unsuccessful
1940 re-creation of them, Bechet commented in his book Treat It
Gentle:
That's why anyone who knows about jazz music can feel those
[1940] records weren't what they should have been. You can have
every tub on its own bottom all right, but that don't make real music.
What I know is, those other records we'd made back in the 'twenties
were talked about much more than those we made at this session in
'forty. The 2:19 "Blues, we'd put that out again, and Down in Horiky
Tonk Town. But there was nothing missing from those first ones;
they were something you could listen to and not have to do any
waiting for the music to arrive, because it was arriving. They had
that feeling right there. In the old days there wasn't no one so anx-
ious to take someone else's run. We were working together. Each per-
son, he was the other person's music: You, could feel that really
running through the band, making itself up and coming out so new
and strong. We played as a group then.
Louis Armstrong was far removed from the lessons of Joe Oliver
by 1940.
Other classic performances recorded by Bechet and Armstrong
in the mid-twenties were Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This
Mornin, Mandy, Make Up Jour Mind, Coal Cart Blues, Texas
Moaner Blues, Papa De-Da-Da, Santa Glaus Blues, and another
version of Cake Walkin' Babies for the Gennett label. It is inter-
esting to note that the first session in this Clarence Williams series
was recorded at the time Louis joined Henderson and the last
20 JAZZ MASTERS OF TEDS TWENTIES
just before he left to return to Chicago. On the final Bechet-Arm-
strong date in October, 1925, the soprano saxophonist was no
longer able to determine the musical direction of each perform-
ance, for Louis had increased his stature in the preceding year
and was now the dominant force in the group.
He had begun, too, to move away from Oliver and to reach into
his own bag of ideas. Less -and less did he utilize the plunger
mute, an old Oliver trademark. Louis' breaks were now more in-
volved, and his ensemble lead lines were becoming distinctly
his own rather than those of "Papa Joe." On one occasion, Louis
even played in a New York "Dixieland" framework not unlike that
of the Memphis Five on Terrible Blues and Santa Claus Blues,
recorded with Buster Bailey and Lil Armstrong under the name of
the Red Onion Jazz Babies.
If Louis proved musically and commercially successful under
the widely differing circumstances of the Henderson and Williams
recording sessions, he demonstrated an even more moving and
salable side of his musical personality in a series of New York re-
cordings with leading blues singers of the day. A solid market for
urban female blues shouters had recently grown to large propor-
tions, and Louis, as an associate of pianist Henderson (a veteran
blues accompanist), found his earthy blues playing much in de-
mand. Some dates included Henderson and members of his band,
while others were handled by Clarence Williams, but what made
most of these sessions special events were Armstrong's moving
countermelodies melodies much like those he had often played
beneath Joe Oliver's singing lead comet a year before.
Louis* blues performances seemed to vary with his mood and
the spirit of the individual singer with whom he worked. On
Trixie Smith's Railroad Blues, he returns to an almost pure Joe
Oliver style, but The Worlds Jazz Crazy, recorded the same day,
finds Armstrong playing Armstrong, if on an elemental level.
Again, behind Ma Rainey's great dark voice, Louis reverts to
Oliver and the plunger mute on Countin' the Blues but matches
tie stately singer in a more personal way on See, See Rider. (A
small Henderson group, including clarinetist Bailey, worked this
date with Rainey and Armstrong, but their abortive attempts to
play convincing blues serves only to underline the superiority of
Louis' contributions.)
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 21
The most dramatic matching of talents on record during this
period was that of Armstrong and Bessie Smith, whose monu-
mental voice reduced all ordinary players on her recordings to
mere background kibitzers. Bessie's mixed training in Southern
country blues singing and Northern showmanship paralleled
Louis' own experience, and the musical exchanges between these
two major performers are of considerable interest. The first date,
held only a few months after Armstrong's arrival in New York,
was marked by a good deal of straightforward Oliver-like comet
playing. Cold in Hand Blues, Reckless Blues, and You've Been a
Good Old Wagon features fundamental understated plunger-
muted cornet counterstatements that might easily have been the
work of Oliver at his best complete to wa-wa-mute effects. On
Good Old Wagon, Armstrong even attempts the highly personal
Oliver "cry," although the result is not especially convincing, and
Louis seldom, if ever, attempted this again. (Incidentally, Clyde
McCoy's Oliver-inspired Sugar Blues might demonstrate how far
this "crying" device can be carried in unmusical directions.) In
Bessie's version of St. Louis Blues, Louis seems more inclined to
play his own way, with mixed results. His own expansive style sets
up a highly competitive force that tends to intrude upon rather
than complement the whole vocal performance. The cometist
obeys the rules, all right (play when the singer breathes, answer
her statements with logical phrases, provide a provocative lead-in
note as a springboard for the singer's next statement); the prob-
lem is simply that Armstrong commands so much attention him-
self that the listener might momentarily lose touch with the conti-
nuity of the blues song as interpreted by Bessie Smith.
Bessie undoubtedly noted this tendency herself, for she seldom
used Armstrong after that Two more dates in May, 1925, produc-
ing four titles, ended their association on records. On this occa-
sion, Louis had left Oliver still further behind and was operating
more completely within his own style. He is very much the solo-
ist on Careless Love Blues, even to running notes into Bessie's
words and attempting ideas not necessarily related to the song
material as Bessie understood it. The final title may have ex-
pressed Bessie's feeling about the collaboration I Ain't Gonna
Pky No Second Fiddle.
While in New York, Louis also recorded with singers Clara
22 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Smith, Sippie WaDace, Alberta Hunter, Maggie Jones, and others.
On Maggie Jones's Screamin the Blues and Good Time Flat
Blues, he again demonstrates his ambiguous musical posture of
the time. The first title shows Louis in a highly cooperative blues-
accompanist frame of mind, while the second, Good Time Flat,
serves only as a stepping-off place for Armstrong the virtuoso
cornetist. In this instance, his backing is busy, self-contained, and
more musically advanced than the setting calls for. However, the
recording is of value precisely because it is a fine example of early
Armstrong bravura playing, and Miss Jones indeed is playing
'"second fiddle."
Louis spent the summer of 1925 touring with Henderson, who
had lined up a long string of one-night engagements in New Eng-
land and Pennsylvania. This tour brought the sound of Arm-
strongs horn to many musicians in small cities who had never
heard him before, beginning the spiral of influence that eventually
affected every jazz trumpeter in the country and beyond. Hender-
son frequently met other reputable bands in music "battles," and
these contests again did much to bring Louis to the attention of
musicians and, naturally, of the dancing public as well. It was
during this period, too, that Louis discovered the commercial
value of his natural broad range on the horn. He began catering
to demands for higher notes by performing stunts, such as blow-
ing more than 250 high C's in a row and topping them off with a
highF.
Lil Armstrong felt that her husband belonged with her in Chi-
cago, so she talked the owner of the Dreamland, Bill Bottoms,
into offering Louis $75 a week to play for him. At the same time,
Okeh Records offered a recording contract for a series of small-
band dates to be conducted in the older New Orleans style. Chi-
cago had the men Louis wanted for these dates, and the job with
Lil was secure, so Louis gave his notice to Henderson. Young
Rex Stewart of Elmer Snowden's band was selected as Louis' re-
placement, but Rex balked at even attempting to fill his idol's
chair. It was several months before he finally worked up the cour-
age to join Fletcher.
By the time Louis left Henderson, the band had become the
finest "hof band in the country, and Fletcher's arrangements,
deeply influenced by Armstrong's phrasing, were moving rapidly
LOUIS ARMSTRONG IHOM 1924 TO 1Q31 23
toward a modern four-to-the-bar swing idiom. The ensemble
performances were no longer stilted and static, but rather free-
flowing and as impelling as the improvised solos. A special
attraction was Sugar Foot Stomp, which Fletcher borrowed from
Oliver (who called it Dippermouth Blues) and used as a show-
case for Armstrong. Louis' recording of Sugar Foot Stomp with
the Henderson band makes it clear that his break with Oliver was
now complete. Though his melodic lines adhere to the classic
Oliver version, Louis discarded the plunger mute and swung into
his solo with a distinctly modern 4/4 manner of phrasing.
A couple of final New York recording sessions left no doubt that
Louis was fully prepared for his own important upcoming Okeh
dates. With singer Eva Taylor, he made You Cant Shush Katie,
contributing a magnificent solo that briefly changes the musical
level of the recording from dull to inspired. Days before leaving
New York, Louis recorded with James P. Johnson, Don Redman,
and others in a session that included another I Ain't Gonna Play
No Second Fiddle. This appears to be Armstrong's first recorded
effort on the trumpet, for in place of his characteristic rounded
cornet tone, there is the penetrating, edgy sound of the longer in-
strument. If it is indeed a new and different horn, it seems admi-
rably suited to Armstrong; his playing on these casual November,
1925, recordings ranks with his finest early work and perhaps
due to the incisive trumpet tone is enhanced by an even more
authoritative air than had prevailed on earlier recordings.
Immediately upon his return to Chicago, Louis plunged into an
around-the-clock schedule of record dates and club work, Veteran
New Orleans trombonist Kid Ory had come in from California (at
Louis' request) to make records and to work with the Armstrongs
at the Dreamland. Soon Erskine Tate, a popular orchestra con-
ductor who specialized in movie theater work, convinced Louis he
could play for him and still have time to handle the Dreamland
job later in the evening. Working (on trumpet) with Tate
brought a new audience to Armstrong an audience of young
people, conservative middle-class fans, and musicians who
couldn't afford the Prohibition prices of after-hours nightclubs.
Okeh Records knew it had a valuable property in this amazing
young trumpeter and put Armstrong to work again as a blues ac-
companist. In the first year of his contract with the label, Louis
24 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
recorded more sides with blues singers than with his own Hot
Five. The blues sessions were deliberately earthy and calculated
to appeal essentially to Southern migrants living in the North. A
few of the blues songs had genuine folk roots, but many were
hastily contrived pieces designed to delight listeners who craved
uninhibited lyrics. To Louis, it was all blues, and his performances
rode on his own creative moods rather than on the quality of the
song materials. On Chippie Hill's Trouble in Mind, for example,
Louis seems to lose interest somewhere along the way and even
misses a couple of obvious cues. But Chippie s Pratt City Blues,
recorded later in 1926, has superb mature Armstrong. On Pratt
City, Louis accompanies tastefully and works in his own modern
ideas as well, making full use of his speed and range rather than
hewing to simple, folksy counterstatements. By this time, he
seemed virtually unable to be other than what he really was a
blossoming virtuoso trumpet player. Louis' best-selling blues rec-
ords were turned out with singers Hociel Thomas, Sippie Wallace,
and, of course, Bertha "Chippie" Hill.
In the course of his stint at the Dreamland, Louis put the finish-
ing touches on his musicianship, his creative outlook, and his rep-
utation as the best jazz trumpet player in the land. The declining
though still friendly Joe "King" Oliver knew better than to chal-
lenge Armstrong, but others tried it from time to time. Freddy
Keppard, once top trumpeter in New Orleans, attempted to cut
down the younger lion, without success. Johnny Dunn, an East-
erner, also met defeat in a contest at the Dreamland. Louis' de-
scription of the encounter reveals something, too, about the land
of thoroughgoing musician he had become:
"I was playing an act at the Dreamland in Chicago one time,
and I was playing something in seven sharps for the act so help
mel Well, Johnny Dunn was the big thing in New York then, with
that five he was playing. He was tearing up New York, playing the
Palace and everything. (Of course, a lot of those people who went
for him, they hadn't even heard of Joe Oliver.) He came out to
Chicago with one of those big shows, and he came up on the band-
stand where I was playing and says, 'Give me some of that/ I gave
him that trumpet, and every valve he touched was wrong. Those
sharps just about ate him up. So he gave me back my horn, di-
rectly, and finally when I looked around, he done just eased away."
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 1Q31 2$
The first recordings by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five were
cut for Okeh in November, 1925, a few days after Louis' return
to Chicago. Lil and trombonist Ory, who shared the Dreamland
bandstand with Louis, had no trouble fitting into the group. Clar-
inetist Johnny Dodds and banjoist Johnny St. Cyr were fellow
Oliver alumni and New Orleanians who understood exactly what
the musical situation demanded. There were almost no adjust-
ments to be made and not even much need for rehearsals. Each
member of the group contributed ideas or melodies a few days or
hours before each session, then simply walked into the studio and
played. Drawing on a common fund of experience and attitudes,
these five musicians, who never operated as a going group outside
the Okeh studios, turned out a series of records of remarkable
consistency and high average musical quality.
Although the Hot Five recordings do not present an accurate
picture of Armstrong's musical activities between late 1925 and
late 1927, they do reflect his musical growth during that period.
There are many Louis Armstrongs on the various Hot Five ses-
sions, almost all of them worth attention.
Despite the appeal of the rather dated New Orleans Dixieland
format (Louis at first bowed to tradition and played cornet on
these occasions), the winning blues styles of the individual play-
ers, and Armstrong's own brilliant horn, it was probably the lead-
er's gruff vocals that accounted for the commercial success of
these records. Okeh furnished dealers with pictures of the coraet-
ist to be given away with the records, and this, too, helped sales.
It also helped Armstrong's reputation.
Louis was little more than a "novelty" singer in 1926, but his
public loved his shouts and garbled lyrics. Only later did he be-
come a sensitive jazz singer and a significant influence over others
in this field. The introduction of the electric microphone around
1926 helped to bring Louis' voice down to a decibel rating suit-
able for good music, but it was some time before the important
quality of tenderness came into his vocal work.
The group's first date was a rewarding one. The initial tune, My
Heart, is Lil's, and it is a thoroughly charming melodic-harmonic
vehicle. Louis seems in a sunny mood and plays with an easy kind
of swing rather rarely heard on records in 1925. On the second
tide, Yes, Tm in the Barrel, the 25-year-old cornetist pays another
26 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
tribute to Joe Oliver with some traditional plunger work. The
third selection, Gut Bucket Blues, is a common blues, with sales
appeal added by way of spoken introductions of the individual
players.
In February, 1926, the Hot Five turned out seven outstanding
recordings, one of which Heebie Jeebiesiput Louis in the best-
seller category. The novel touch that sold the performance was an
apparently impromptu scat vocal by Armstrong. It is unlikely
that, as the story goes, this event took place without plan because
Armstrong happened to drop his copy of the song's lyric. It occurs
in the second vocal chorus; had Louis planned a straight reading,
there would have been no reason to do it twice. Scat singing was
not new, but Heebies Jeebies became a hit
The other six titles recorded that month were: Georgia Grind,
an entertaining minor performance; Oriental Strut, a St. Cyr tune
that Louis carries almost single-handedly; Muskat Rambk, an old
theme credited to Ory and featuring splendid New Orleans lead
cornet; LiTs Jour Next, carrying intimations of the majestic style
Armstrong developed more fully later; Cornet Chop Suey, a tour
de force exposition of Louis' ever-expanding musical imagination.
Cornet Chop Suey was the first of many recordings that were to
be Armstrong showpieces from start to finish. The supporting
players are of little importance; they seem merely to be along for
the ride as Louis introduces his composition, states the verse, then
tears into the principal tiheme and its variations. Constructing his
solo (and his entire performance is really one long solo) with
seemingly simple eighth- and quarter-note patterns, the cornetist
dispkys a superb sense of melodic balance and restraint. Each
note falls into place with almost discomforting rightness and in-
evitability, yet with a bubbling spontaneity that could come only
from on-the-spot improvisation. Cornet Chop Suey combines die
finest expression of the simple New Orleans outlook with the most
advanced 1925 concepts of swing phrasing, many of which
stemmed from Armstrong himself, of course. In addition to its im-
portance as a piece of music, it was a triumph for Louis as a tacti-
cal solution to his Hot Five dilemma: how to remain a true New
Orleans musician while upholding his position in the advance
guard of young trumpet players.
New Orleans jazzmen have always been sensitive to ensemble
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! 2/
effects, and it is likely that Ory and Dodds, while in awe of Arm-
strong's abilities, were not always pleased with his soaring di-
gressions. One need but listen to the stirring ensemble passages of
the New Orleans Wanderers and Bootblacks, recording groups al-
most identical to Armstrong's, save for George Mitchell playing a
"proper" New Orleans-style lead cornet, to discover how much of
the all-out New Orleans ensemble spirit was missing from the Hot
Five dates. Interestingly, the Wanderers-Bootblacks sessions took
place at the time of the Hot Five's greatest popularity.
The Hot Five ensemble work was good enough for most listen-
ers, however, and Louis gained still more prestige in the world of
show business. He became the prime drawing card in the Tate
orchestra at the Vendome Theater. After the inevitable overture,
the trumpeter would jump out of the pit and onto the stage to per-
form a special number such as Heebie Jeebies, recreating his scat
vocal through a megaphone. Some patrons attended the theater
to hear Armstrong and left without even finding out what film
was being shown.
Early in 1926, Lil and her group decided to demand more
money from the Dreamland. It was refused, and the band quit.
Louis' problem was not one of finding work (he continued to play
with Tate), but rather of which offers to accept. He considered
rejoining Oliver, who now fronted an enlarged band with three
saxophones, but that would have meant going back to the second
cornet chair and to the built-in restrictions of Oliver's modified
New Orleans style. Kid Ory, for whom Oliver had once worked in
New Orleans, had no reservations about joining Joe's band, but he
represented the older generation of Louisiana jazzmen. Finally,
partly owing to the urging of Earl Hines to "come over to us
young guys," Louis joined Carroll Dickerson's Sunset Cafe or-
chestra. There he worked with well-trained musicians like pianist
Hines, saxophonist Stump Evans, bassist Pete Briggs, and trum-
peter Shirley Clay. To lend a touch of home, there were also New
Orleanians Honor6 Dutrey on trombone and Tubby Hall at the
drums.
The Sunset was one of Chicago's most popular clubs, and in
the course of his year-and-a-half stay there, Louis made secure his
position as the world's leading jazz trumpeter. His records were
selling briskly, tourists paid well to see him perform, and musi-
28 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
cians flocked to the Sunset to study his style. Like other Chicago
clubs, the Sunset served then illegal liquors openly and was never
raided. A floor show, complete with dancers and a chorus fine,
was the main attraction, Armstrong, of course, was regarded as an
entertainer as well as a sideman in tibe band. Young jazzmen like
Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Frank Teschemacher, and Bud Freeman,
whom proprietor Joe Glaser permitted to skip the door charge, es-
pecially enjoyed the moments of pure music that came with the
dancing between shows or in occasional Armstrong features.
Eventually Glaser, whose eye was on the dollar, saw Armstrong
as a potentially more successful leader than Dickerson and offered
Louis the job. The trumpeter accepted and turned over responsi-
bility for the band to Earl Hines. (Armstrong, in fact, has man-
aged to avoid such duties throughout his career, preferring to dele-
gate them to better organizers so that he might concentrate on his
own playing.) As Louis Armstrong and His Stompers, the band
(Dickerson sidemen Briggs, Dutrey, and Hall also stayed on) be-
came a front-rank Chicago attraction during 1927.
"Besides the band, we had twelve chorus girls, twelve show
girls, and big-name acts," Glaser has recalled. "The place sat
about six hundred people, and we had a high-class trade not like
some of the other joints the best people. There were lines for
every show, and, mind you, we charged admission just to get in
from a dollar twenty to two-fifty or so, depending on how busi-
ness was."
Fronting a show band, playing eight or nine hours a night, at-
tempting to juggle a failing marriage and a budding romance,
Louis somehow continued to find time for varied recording
assignments. He had used the trumpet more often on records the
year before, most impressively on a pair of titles by the Erskine
Tate orchestra. With this highly disciplined unit, Louis adopted a
fast, showy style quite unlike his Hot Five comet approach. Tate's
Stomp Off, Let's Go and Static Strut are wild, virtuoso perform-
ances that probably came closer to the Armstrong theater and
dub patrons knew than all the rest of Louis' recorded work in
1926. It does not follow, however, that the Hot Five sessions were
musically invalid. On tie contrary, the rigid rules of New Orleans
playing probably put a useful brake on Armstrong's natural incli-
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924, TO 1931 2Q
nation to exploit his abilities exhibitionistically. Although he had
begun to sound almost ill at ease with the less brilliant-sounding
cornet (there were many poorly articulated notes on the Hot Five
sessions), he worked creatively within the offhand gutbucket at-
mosphere of the Hot Five dates.
In 1926, the quintet turned out more than a dozen sides, A few
are marred by roughhewn commercialism (Don't Forget to Mess
Around, Tm Gonna Gitcha, Droppin Shucks, Big Fat Ma), but
most are enormously appealing compounds of magnificent cornet
solos, New Orleans playing, competent collective improvisation,
and a pinch of country hokum. King of the Zulus is, like Cornet
Chop Suey, an extended Armstrong solo of striking emotional
depth that leaves Louis' colleagues far behind. Who's It? features
a novel slide-whistle chorus by Armstrong, some fumbling Johnny
Dodds (the clarinetist tried to turn every tune into a blues), and a
superb, flamboyant cornet finale. Sweet Little Papa, which seems
to borrow from the melodic structure of Cornet Chop Suey, intro-
duced several arranged passages to tie independent phrases to-
gether, a practice that became more usual with each successive
session.
Records like Jazz Lips reveal that by late 1926, Louis had com-
pletely outgrown his old New Orleans friends, Only Johnny
Dodds stood a chance of coming close to Louis' sheer drive and
power, but even he was a poor second. Jazz Lips is, like most of
the Hot Five performances, marked by simplicity and restraint;
yet there is a flippant ease coupled with, paradoxically, an in-
creased degree of tension that represents a new phase for Louis.
To a few New Orleans old-timers, it may have stood for a further
departure from the mother style, but to young jazzmen, Jazz Lips
carried exciting implications of a new kind of improvisatory
freedom,
Louis was in top form the day he made Jazz Lips, and the same
session produced some outstanding ensemble playing in Sunset
Caf6 Stomp, an elegant blues called Skid-Dat-De-Dat, in which
the trumpeter makes bad notes into good ones by way of some
very agile thinking, and a catchy tune named Big Butter and Egg
Man from the West, which features one of Armstrong's very best
solos of this period. The Big Butter and Egg Man chorus, which
gO JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
was widely copied by other musicians in subsequent years, is ec-
statically described by critic Andre Hodeir in Jazz: Its Evolution
and Essence:
In this record, Armstrong manages to transfigure completely a
theme whose vulgarity might well have overwhelmed him; and yet
his chorus is only a paraphrase. The theme is not forgotten for a
moment; it can always be found there, just as it was originally con-
ceived by its little-known composer, Venable. Taking off melodically
from the principal note of the first phrase, the soloist begins with
a triple call that disguises, behind its apparent symmetry, subtle
differences in rhythm and expressive intensity. This entry by itself
is a masterpiece; it is impossible to imagine anything more sober
and balanced. During the next eight bars, the paraphrase spreads
out, becoming freer and livelier. ^Armstrong continues to cling to
the essential notes of the theme, 'but he leaves more of its contour
to the imagination. At times he gives it an inner animation by
means of intelligent syncopated repetitions, as in the case of the
first note of the bridge. From measures 20 to 23, the melody bends
in a chromatic descent that converges toward the theme while at
the same time giving a felicitous interpretation of the underlying
harmonic progression. This brings us to the culminating point of the
work. Striding over the traditional pause of measures 24-25,
Armstrong connects the bridge to the final section by using a short,
admirably inventive phrase. Its rhythmic construction of dotted
eighths and sixteenths forms a contrast with the more static context
in which it is placed, and in both conception and execution it is a
miracle of swing. During this brief moment, Louis seems to have
foreseen what modem conceptions of rhythm would be like. In
phrasing, accentuation, and the way the short note is increasingly
curtailed until finally it is merely suggested (measure 25), how
far removed all this is from New Orleans rhythm!
A few days later, the Hot Five recorded two more titles. Irish
Black Bottom is a weak commercial song damaged by Dry's
wrong notes, LiTs unbending keyboard style, and an uninspired
Armstrong vocal; You Made Me Love You (not the later popular
song) is, on the other hand, a brilliant performance featuring
Dodds at his slashing, bluesy best and Armstrong in peak form.
Although the Hot Five made more recordings in later months,
Jou Made Me Love Yow signaled the end of this period for Arm-
strong; hereafter, his full-blown improvised masterworks were to
LOUIS ABMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 193! 3!
set a blistering pace for those who ventured to accompany him,
relegating almost all of his associates, including Dodds, to posi-
tions as mere pawns in Armstrong's musical games.
In April, 1927, Louis recorded a batch of tunes for the compet-
ing Vocalion label. Four were unusual quartet sessions with wash-
board player Jimmy Bertrand in which Armstrong attempted to
hold back his command, power, and inventiveness. This was
probably done to avoid detection by the Okeh people, but it also
served to prove that Louis was a highly flexible player and could,
if he wished to, still play a simple New Orleans lead.
More stimulating was a series made with Johnny Dodds and, in
his initial appearance on records with Louis, Earl Hines. Again
the New Orleans spirit prevailed, despite the time given over to
solo playing. Louis' thirty-two-bar solo on Wild Man Blues,
though subdued, is nonetheless a fine example of sustained me-
lodic improvisation at slow tempo. Using a fundamental embel-
lishment approach to the melody, the trumpeter maintains con-
tinuity and holds the listener's interest with notes and phrases
that cross bar lines, as well as with anticipations up to two beats
ahead of upcoming melodic statements. Melrose Brothers, pub-
lishers of Wild Man Blues, transcribed the solo and published it
as part of their commercial orchestration of the tune. To make
matters easier for average dance-band trumpeters, Louis' single
excursion into the upper register ( above concert F on the top line
of the staff) was lowered a full octave in the stock arrangement.
Because Armstrong and Hines were kept under wraps, the
Dodds recordings only suggested the possibilities that could grow
out of this association. It was to be more than a year before the
pianist and trumpeter could record some of their specialities
The full sound of seven men on the Dodds session may have
jogged Okeh into permitting Armstrong to use a similar instru-
mentation. However it came about, Louis turned out eleven
classic recordings in less than a month after his date with Dodds.
He used the regular Hot Five plus tuba player Pete Briggs of the
Dickerson band and his old New Orleans friend, drummer Baby
Dodds, Not surprisingly, the group cut a new Wild Man Blues on
the very first day. The other ten tunes are not, in themselves, es-
pecially distinguished; two had been featured on the prior Dodds
02 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
session (Melancholy, Weary Blues}, and the rest were blueslike
Armstrong originals (Keyhole Blues, That's When Til Come Back
to You, Potato Head Blues, S.O.L, Blues, and Gully Low Blues)
or simple structures already familiar to the participants (Twelfth
Street Rag, Willie the Weeper, Alligator Crawl).
With a full rhythm section driving him, Armstrong now pulled
out most of the stops, although his essentially New Orleans band
continued to exert a slightly sobering influence over him. The sec-
ond Wild Man Blues is, of course, a more expansive affair, full of
fast runs and high-note ornamentations, but the basic approach is
not unlike the earlier version. (Superior electrical recording qual-
ity on these Okeh records made all of Louis' work sound much
better than it had before, incidentally.) On the second Melan-
choly, Armstrong improves the attractive written melody without
really changing it very much. Twelfth Street Bag, a difficult com-
position to pky seriously, emerges as a slow stomp, which Johnny
Dodds characteristically plays as a blues and which Louis finally
transforms into a moving concerto.
S.O.L. Blues and Gully Low Blues are the same tune with al-
tered lyrics. It is of interest to observe here that Armstrong's solo
improvisations are improved in the latter version. The first four
bars of each solo are identical, suggesting a carefully worked out
advance sketch, but Gully Low makes more intelligent use of dra-
matic pauses, allowing deeper penetration into the lower register
for contrast to the sustained high A-flat that introduces each two-
bar phrase. Incidentally, S.O.L. Blues, recorded the day before,
was not issued until collectors became interested in it many years
later.
Keyhok Blues is a superb blues with a charming scat vocal by
Armstrong and some deeply felt trumpet playing. As in many of
his best recordings, Louis jumps into improvised situations here
iiat require great skill and inventiveness to resolve gracefully.
This penchant for trying the impossible and somehow escaping
with honor fascinated other jazzmen as much as did the technical
aspects of Louis* playing. After Armstrong, there was much more
individual experimentation of this land in jazz.
The Hot Seven sessions were one more step removed from New
Orleans jazz than the Hot Five records had been, Drummer Baby
Dodds, a conservative New Orleanian, once recalled the impres-
LOUIS ABMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! 33
sion these dates made upon him: "With Louis' recording outfit,
we used four beats to the measure. That was different from the
older days in New Orleans, when we always used two. King Oli-
ver used two also. And Louis used a tuba instead of a string bass.
I had started playing with a bass viol and always felt closer to it
than to a tuba."
One of Armstrong's enduringly classic solos in his Hot Seven
series is Potato Head Blues. Using basic phrases made of simple
eighth- and quarter-note patterns, a few dotted eighths, and
some triplets, Louis organizes his musical thoughts in a truly re-
markable way. His solo is a triumph of subtle syncopation and
rhythmic enlightenment; strong accents on weak beats and whole
phrases placed against rather than on the pulse create delightful
tension. This tension is then suddenly released with an incisive on-
the-beat figure, which in rum leads into more tension-building
devices. Thus does Armstrong build the emotional pitch of the
solo over a full chorus.
While listening to such well-conceived musical essays, one has
the feeling that Louis might have gone on building for several
more choruses had he not been restricted by the three-minute
limit on recorded performances at that time. The trumpeter un-
doubtedly played longer solos in his nightclub and ballroom ap-
pearances, and he did, indeed, frequently record logical solos of
two or more choruses a couple of years after making Potato Head
Blues.
With this new lot of electrically recorded Armstrong perform-
ances, the attention of jazzmen everywhere was directed to Chi-
cago and the next Okeh releases. Bix Beiderbecke was turning out
his finest recorded work for the same label at the same time, and
there were en(Jless discussions as to who was the greater hornman.
One musician who was active in both Chicago and New York
about this time, saxophonist Jerome Pasquall, put it this way in a
taped interview:
"Bix was at the Roseland while I was with Smack [Fletcher
Henderson]. He was a wonderful cornetist with a marvelous ear
and had many, many followers. There was a big dispute around
then whether Bix or Louis was greater. Well, nowadays [1953]
almost everybody agrees that Louis is tops, though I imagine there
are still a lot of diehards who say Bix is King. When Bix played, it
g4 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
was almost perfect, everything dean and neat, as though he didnt
want to make any mistakes; whereas Louis was playing so much
that he would occasionally drop a blue note, but, my Lord, the
things he was doing, Bix wouldn't even have attempted."
There was, of course, one large difference between the two
heroes after 1927: Bix began to disintegrate, while Louis grew bet-
ter and betterby 1931, Beiderbecke was dead, Armstrong at the
peak of his powers.
Not only records and in-person appearances were responsible
for the spread of Armstrong's influence in 1927; Melrose Brothers,
a jazz-minded music-publishing house, added to the cumulative
impact by incorporating more of Louis' ideas in its orchestrations.
The publishers also issued a book of 50 Hot Choruses for Cornet
by Louis that sold widely throughout the country. These choruses
were recorded by Melrose, transcribed, and published in such a
way as to permit any horn player to insert an Armstrong solo in his
part of an orchestratioa It's anybody's guess how many fledgling
jazzmen struggled through Louis' beautifully conceived thirty-
two-bar solo on Someday Sweetheart, with its dramatic climax on
trumpet high D, or what number of competent sidemen fell apart
in the middle of Louis' superb version of Some of These Days (in
concert G), but it may be assumed that many musicians learned
from this remarkable collection. From it, too, comes the realiza-
tion that Louis Armstrong drew from a seemingly bottomless well
of ideas; on or off records, the trumpeter played at a remarkably
consistent creative level. Few of his fifty solos recorded for Mel-
rose were less than excellent, and several ranked with his very
best work Unfortunately, the recordings from which they were
transcribed have vanished
Of special interest is a single recording made between two Hot
Seven sessions in May, 1927. It is Chicago Breakdown (a Melrose
property also included in 50 Hot Choruses), the only surviving re-
corded document of the Sunset Cafe band. Included on this date
were Boyd Atkins and Stump Evans (saxes), Honore Dutrey, and
Earl Hines. The ten-piece band suited Louis' big tone very well,
and in Hines there was a player who could parry and thrust on
Armstrong s own musical level. It was a stimulating session and a
harbinger of recordings to come, but this single side was not
issued at the time.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1Q31 35
In the summer of 1927, Louis' band met Fletcher Henderson's
in a contest at the Sunset Cafe. Fletcher tried, without success, to
hire Armstrong back, but by this time the trumpeter was earning
more money and fame than even Henderson could offer. Iron-
ically, at the end of summer, Joe Glaser decided it was time to
change his show, and the Stompers were out. Armstrong had
switched his theater work from Tate at the Vendome to Clarence
Jones at the Metropolitan, but it was not enough for him to play
only a few hours in a pit band each night. He thrived on playing in
nightclub shows.
Louis, Earl, Ldl, and drummer Zutty Singleton (an old New Or-
leans friend who had been playing at the Cafe de Paris during the
summer) hatched a scheme to present their own show in their
own club. Lil rented a ballroom called Warwick Hall, and ihc
new partners called their room the Usonia. They planned a
Thanksgiving opening, but the new and elaborate Savoy Ball-
room opened nearby at the same time, and the Usonia went al-
most unnoticed By December, the Hot Six (Armstrong, Hines,
Singleton, George Jones, Charlie Lawson, and William Hall) were
without work and unsure of the future, despite their leader's enor-
mous popularity. Louis, Earl, and Zutty were close companions
and frequently attended parties or jam sessions together during
this slack period. They continued to be much in demand at in-
formal social and musical gatherings.
Carroll Dickerson, by now fronting the band at the new Savoy
Ballroom, invited Louis and Zutty to join him, and in April, 1928,
the two jazzmen became part of the show that had, a few months
earlier, put them out of business. Hines went his own way, join-
ing Jimmy Noone about the same time. The three friends main-
tained tibeir close ties, however, as can be heard in a series of su-
perlative Okeh recordings made under Armstrong's name late
that year.
Show business is intrinsically a risky, up-and-down life, and m
looking back at Armstrong's high tide of success in 1927, it seems
likely that his popularity at the Sunset was of the ephemeral va-
riety so common to musical revues. During tibis peak, the trum-
peter's Hot Seven recordings reflected his own will to a greater
extent than any he had made before. With the collapse of tie
Sunset engagement, Louis returned to (or possibly was told to re-
36 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
turn to) the Hot Five formula. By this time, however, the old rou-
tines had become anachronistic and less suitable than ever for
Louis' sweeping improvisations. The banjo-piano combination,
good enough for the limited range of preelectrical recordings, now
seems pitifully thin and inadequate as an Armstrong rhythm sec-
tioa Cry s antique dut-dut style and Dodds's lack of harmonic
sophistication also seem to be holding Louis back. Armstrong him-
self, who has long believed in playing his very best regardless of
surrounding circumstances, is as brilliant as ever on these Hot Five
records, from the quaint, New Orleans-style Or ys Creole Trom-
bone to the highly informal Put "Em Down Blues, fee breaks
through the conservative barriers on The Last Time and even has
Dodds abandoning his traditional ensemble parts on Got No Blues,
recorded at a later session. Struttin' with Some Barbecue, recorded
in December, is a radiant experiment in the construction of long
lines without sacrifice of melodic simplicity and rhythmic momen-
tum. Dodds's subdued solo here and the arranged ending of Bar-
becue suggest that even the New Orleans gang was now begin-
ning to sense the decline of the Dixieland approach.
On December 10 and 13, 1927, the Hot Five held its last record-
ing sessions, with guitarist Lonnie Johnson added to fill out the
undernourished rhythm section. The New Orleans ensemble pat-
tern was weakened still further. On these records, Dodds and
Ory fifl out the background harmony unobtrusively and join
Armstrong in elemental riff patterns along lines fairly typical of
the period. The result of these shifts of emphasis is a more in-
spired Armstrong than ever. Four titles were made, all containing
good examples of Louis near the apex of his musical career.
Once in a White, notable for its dazzling cornet solo set against
a syncopated stop-time backdrop, is otherwise rendered the
New Orleans manner, but Savoy Blues is a low-key blues carried
out with riffs and an easy tempo that give Louis lots of room to try
his more advanced ideas, fm Not Rough is a curious mixture of
country blues and an apparent attempt to capitalize on the dou-
bfe-tae device that was helping to sell a ample
raauer ana saoe My Best Gal Turned Me Down by
5cke). Hotter Than That, closely related to Tiger Roe
K a fitting tour de force climax to the extended Hot
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1024 TO 193! 37
Five series of recordings. It contains many of Louis' most com-
monly used phrases, even to a string of repeated high Cs, but it is
an outstanding accomplishment as an ordered progression of lively
ideas that seem to form but a single musical thought. Only the
necessity for breathing appears to have prevented Armstrong, in
performances like Hotter Than That, from executing whole
choruses at a time as long, unbroken single statements.
In mid-iQsS, Louis, Earl Hines, and Zutty Singleton finally got
together on records. They recorded nine selections as Louis Arm-
strong and His Hot Five (actually, it was a sextet; clarinetist
Jimmy Strong, guitarist-banjoist Mancy Cara, and trombonist
Fred Robinson, all from the Carroll Dickerson band, were the
other members). But from the very first note, it was obvious that
this was a group totally unlike the old Hot Five. Now Louis was
permitted to make records in his own name that accurately re-
flected the sort of music he had been playing for a living for some
two years. Armstrong and Hines, dipping into their recent experi-
ences at the Sunset for material and ideas, established new stand-
ards for jazzmen everywhere with these nine performances.
The series began, fittingly, with a piece called Fireworks, a dis-
play number pieced together from Dickerson specialties and
Tiger Rag. It is, like many of the Hines-Armstrong sessions, a kind
of miniature big-band arrangement, complete with pyramid
chords, rapid-fire exchanges among the participants, and complex
ensemble maneuvers. In a tune called Skip the Gutter, Louis and
Earl challenge each other's imagination and agility in "chase" pas-
sages of pure whimsy and antithematic improvisation. Double-
time effects such as had been used on Tm Not Rough had now
become commonplace, and the new Hot Five made the most of
them. Two Deuces is another excursion in advanced jazz playing
that bristles with harmonic alterations, double-time routines, and
all-out improvisations. Don't Jive Me, probably taken from show
material used in Sunset or Savoy productions, tests Armstrong's
musicianship as well as his ability to think fast in a musical game
of high order. The trumpeter and pianist constantly challenge
themselves by starting phrases that cannot possibly fit the ar-
rangement, then squirming out of them just in time to save the
performance. It was breathtafcingly daring music that set a terri-
fying pace for young jazzmen.
38 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
There was another, more far-reaching aspect of Armstrong's
playing that emerged on records at this time. It came as a synthe-
sis of his earlier restrained melodic invention and the advanced
technical displays just described. Now, in 1928, Armstrong was
able to put the best features of both styles to work for him and
evolve a modern melodic approach that would serve as the foun-
dation for jazz trumpet developments in the thirties and forties.
The new Armstrong outlook can be heard on three titles made
with the revised Hot Five Squeeze Me, A Monday Date, and
West End Blues.
Squeeze Me was the first of many Fats Waller balladlike songs
recorded by Louis. It is a thoroughly "modern" performance that
includes a vocal without instrumental support and a high-tension
trumpet break incorporating a fragment of High Society. (This
phrase was later worn thin by modern jazzmen of the forties and
fifties.) It is in Louis* solo phrasing, however, that something then
new and different happens. With solid four-to-the-bar backing,
the trumpeter somehow creates the impression of more space be-
tween pulses and improvises accordingly. His ideas come faster
and in more tightly packed bundles now; rather than conceiving
his solos as single chorus-length ideas, he begins constructing a
chain of four-bar and even two-bar thematic units, each a minia-
ture chorus unto itself but an essential link to the next unit and a
logical part of the whole solo as well. It was a startling effect, even
in its early stages.
Monday Date is a good example of the rhythmic freedom that
came with the addition of a good drummer like Zutty. No longer
required to establish the beat as well as the melody, Louis seems
to float over the tune. His use of quarter-note triplets here was
doubtless rekted to this new rhythmic independence. Again there
is the "unit" rather than the chorus method of solo construction.
West End Blues, perhaps Armstrong's finest recorded perform-
ance of his career, also came from this mid-ig28 Okeh session. It
has everything: big-toned bravura trumpet playing; effective con-
trast of expressive simplicity and instrumental complexity; logical
development of mood and theme from beginning to end; a heart-
wanning, tender scat vocal refrain; a perfect balance of all histori-
cal aspects of the Armstrong musical personality. West End was
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 1Q31 3Q
written by Joe Oliver and Clarence Williams, both of whom were
connected with Armstrong's earlier development.
West End begins with a magnificent trumpet cadenza in 2/4
that builds in intensity as it moves from quarter notes to eighth-
note triplets to sixteenths to sixteenth-note triplets over twelve
bars of brilliant unaccompanied playing. The two blues choruses
Armstrong plays after this (and they are not consecutive) are put
together in exactly the same way as the overturelike cadenza. The
first chorus moves from initial simplicity to a set of ingenious tri-
plet figures. The final chorus picks up the thread again and moves
into dramatic sixteenth-note passages and sixteenth-note triplets
that correspond exactly to the final part of the opening cadenza.
Furthermore, throughout this astonishing set of improvisations,
Louis plays a deeply moving blues that never flags in emotional
pitch. West End Blues, an intuitive improvised composition-
performance created by a zy-year-old trumpet player from New
Orleans, is a milestone in the history of jazz.
In December, 1928, ten more excellent sides were recorded by
Armstrong and Hines. Louis' success at the Savoy prompted Okeh
officials to release these under the name Louis Armstrong and His
Savoy Ballroom Five. The same men participated, but saxophon-
ist-arranger Don Redman was brought in to give die group a big-
ger orchestral sound. It was obviously time for Louis to record
with a big band, but Okeh seemed reluctant to take the step.
The December sessions were, on the whole, even more ad-
vanced than those held six months before. Drummer Singleton
was much improved, and the addition of Redman hastened the
complete departure from the old Hot Five sound. Louis* trumpet
solos, freer than ever, are marked by swift legato passages, thirty-
second-note runs, and audacious ideas that only pianist Hines
comes close to matching. On selections like No One Else But Yo
and Beau Koo Jack, there seems to be no limit to Armstrong's
imagination or to his ability to play as fast as he can think. Again,
the trumpeter was building logically upon his own past, for the
support provided by Redman's arrangements was a natural link to
Louis' experience in Henderson's band, of which Redman was
also a member.
Weather Bird Rag, a tune Louis had played with Joe Oliver, is
40 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
a monumental duet performance by Hines and Armstrong It is,
too a symbol of the trumpeter's complete abandonment of the Ol-
iver style, for this display piece is improvisation for improvisa-
tion s sake, and the New Orleans old guard had little use for that
outlook Still, with all its wild volleying of modern ideas, Weather
Bird retains a strand of melodic continuity and thematic unity.
With his solid New Orleans training, Louis seemed virtually inca-
pable of losing a melody entirely.
Save It, Pretty Mama and Hear Me Talkin 9 to Ja are touched
with a distinct Eastern flavor, due to Redman's arrangements and
Trumbauer-like alto saxophone playing. Louis seems to have
picked up the idea; his work on Hear Me Talkin is as close to Bix
Beiderbecke as Armstrong ever came. Muggks is a fascinating
essay on rhythm, much of it built around a single tonic note, in
which the trumpeter displays his extraordinary sense of time. In
the course of thirty-six bars, Louis explores some thirty different
ways of rhythmically phrasing a single measure of music. Despite
its outward simplicity, Muggks was a new kind of Armstrong
triumph.
Basin Street Blues is an extension of the exceptionally free me-
lodic style noted in Squeeze Me. St. James Infirmary left no
doubts about the desirability of the smooth, even 4/4 rhythm that
was then sweeping Chicago as it already had New York. Finally,
there is a colossal trumpet solo called Tight Like This, which is
actually little more than a series of double-time arpeggiolike em-
bellishments on a minor blues theme. Here is a fine demonstration
of another important facet of the Armstrong talent his sense of
drama. Tight Like This is intelligently built up over sixty-four
measures (four choruses) so gradually and smoothly that the lis-
tener is scarcely aware of the increase in tension and excitement
until the final bars are reached.
In each period of Armstrong's career, there has been a recorded
clue to his next venture, With Oliver, his rare solos were hints of
the virtuoso performer featured with Henderson; from bis New
York stint came the Red Onion Jazz Babies sessions with Lil that
were the forerunners of later Hot Five recordings; and during the
period just discussed, a single Carroll Dickerson record pointed
the way Louis was to go within a year's time. Though Dickerson
appears to have been a competent leader, his full band was not in
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 43,
demand on recordings, and his only record was not even issued,
except in Argentina. It is, however, valuable for the glimpse it
affords of the band in which Louis played at the Savoy in 1928.
The titles are Symphonic Raps and Savoyager's Stomp. Raps is a
forward-looking arrangement studded with unusual harmonies,
whole-tone devices, and bustling solos. One can hear, too, the in-
fluence of Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman scores in this ambi-
tious display piece. It is also related to Fireworks (and, indirectly,
Tiger Rag), which Armstrong's small group recorded only- a few
days before. The big band seemed to have a salutary effect on
Armstrong, whose ear picked up the involved harmonies of Sym-
phonic Raps as easily as it had die more elemental changes of old
New Orleans numbers. Louis' fleet and authoritative solo on this
recording was at least ten years ahead of itself. Savoyager's
Stomp, a dressed-up version of Muskat Ramble, underscored
again how ready Louis was to record with a big (ten-piece) band.
By late 1928, Louis had built his reputation to a new peak He
was earning $200 a week with Dickerson and picking up extra
money from record dates and casual appearances. Melrose Broth-
ers had added Louis Armstrong's 125 Jazz Breaks for Cornet to
their catalog some time earlier, and trumpeters in every city of the
country were attempting to copy his phrases. The Savoy was mak-
ing regular broadcasts that were heacd for hundreds of miles
around Chicago.
Louis was already big time, but he had yet to take on the
toughest and most important show business town of all New
York. The prospects had been good when he appeared there with
Henderson, but that was four years before. What would it be like
now? When the Savoy attendance began to drop a bit and the
club professed a shortage of funds for paying the band, Louis and
the Dickerson band made a collective decision to strike out for
New York. As Armstrong was the drawing card and had some
connections in the East, he would front the band. Dickerson
would remain as musical director. It sounded like a good arrange-
ment, and they started out for New York in the dead of the winter
of 1928-1929.
Over the years, Armstrong's luck has been almost as phenom-
enal as his trumpet playing. Of course, his position as one of the
great figures in jazz and as a gifted entertainer has brought many
42 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
opportunities his way, but his reception in New York can be
considered only sheer plunger's luck. After a few odd jobs such as
one at the Audubon Theater, where the group substituted for
Duke Ellington, the Armstrong-Dickerson band landed in Con-
nie s Inn, one of the three biggest nightclubs in town. The club's
regular band (Leroy Smith's) was hired for an upcoming Broad-
way stage show called Connie's Hot Chocolates, leaving a va-
cancy that Louis and his friends simply walked into.
Connies Inn was even larger and more impressive than the
Savoy in Chicago. The show began at midnight, drawing an after-
theater crowd, and evening clothes were required. A conservative
couple would have had trouble spending less than $40 in a single
night at Connies. Despite the Great Depression, customers
poured in to hear Louis and his audience-proven routines.
Another stroke of luck came with an offer for Louis to join the
Sat Chocolates cast on Broadway. Through the spring of 1930,
the trumpeter-singer-entertainer stopped each show with his ver-
sion of the revue's hit number, Ain't Misbehavin', Within a year of
arriving in the big city, Armstrong was established as a leading
name in show business. Okeh Records responded by giving him
more musical latitude and a larger share of the talent budget. Al-
though Louis* recordings from this point on were almost entirely
big-band dates, there were a couple of small-group sessions. One
was a dismal *Hot Five" affair the last in the line with singer
Victoria Spivey. The other was a fine casual jam session with Joe
Sullivan, Zutty, Eddie Lang, Jack Teagarden, and others, on
which Louis played a splendid blues solo. Pianist Sullivan has re-
called that Louis tossed off this chorus while "standing against the
wall with his eyes closed."
The first New York date produced Mahogany Hatt Stomp, a
big-band New Orleans-style performance of charming simplicity,
and, more importantly, I Can't Give You Anything But Love,
which presented Armstrong for the first time on records as a supe-
rior, sensitive ballad singer. The wide-voiced instrumental backing
by Luis Russell, created solely for the purpose of supporting Arm-
strong, invited Louis to reach out for new melodic and harmonic
ideas on his horn as well. ( He was already familiar with this tune,
incidentally, for he had recorded it with singer Lillie Delk Chris-
tian in Chicago a few months earlier.)
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 43
From the moment he landed in New York, Louis also became
an object of adoration for all New York jazzmen. Some admired
him primarily for his finesse, others for his power and range, still
others for the emotional depth of his work. No one argued any
more about his supremacy. The Dorsey brothers arranged for him
to play on a couple of their recording dates, with generally good
results (an exception is a curious version of To Be in Love, on
which Louis seems to attempt an imitation of Bix Beiderbecke,
without success).
A gifted trumpeter named Jabbo Smith was in and out of New
York about this time, and some competition-minded jazzmen
began to regard Smith as a possible contender for Armstrong's
crown. Cornetist Red Nichols remembers a night when the two
met
*Jabbo had a wide range, but his high notes were more falsetto,
not full-blown like Louis'," recalls Nichols. "He played a lot of
notes, but some of them were just faking, while Louis maintained
a high musical level at all times. When they played together, there
just wasn't any comparison."
(Smith did, however, point out the possibilities of an even more
advanced style than Armstrong's. With his impish, many-noted
flights and his harmonic daring, he foreshadowed the later styles
of Red Allen, Charlie Shavers, and Roy Eldridge, although these
trumpeters were primarily inspired by Armstrong. )
Between July, 1929 and early 1932, Louis reached the height of
his creative and physical powers as a trumpet player. This period
is thoroughly documented by a prodigious outpouring of magnifi-
cent recordings. Of some sixty titles cut in less than two years,
nearly every one has remained the classic, definitive version by
which jazz trumpeters (including Armstrong) ever since have had
to measure their own work. Recording the best popular tunes of
the time, Louis was responsible for many of these songs becoming
jazz standards. His were the first recorded jazz interpretations of
Ain't Misbehaving Black and Blue (both from Hot Chocolates),
Rockin* Chair, Body and Soul, Memories of Yo, and dozens of
others. The usual format was trumpet solo (muted) -vocal-
trumpet solo (open), which allowed plenty of room for Louis to
build his ideas. As it turned out, it was also a sound commercial
formula; Armstrong records began to be heard on jukeboxes and
44 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
to move briskly in stores. Louis' good luck was holding up as well
as was his celebrated embouchure.
In September, 1929, he recorded Some of These Days, a su-
perlative example of the art of logical construction in an extended
solo. In this case, the vocal becomes part of Louis' overall melodic
blueprint, serving as a natural bridge from the low-key, insinuat-
ing opening to the jubilant concluding chorus. A final, inevitable
sustained high note finishes off one of the earliest ( and still one of
the best) extended solos in the annals of recorded jazz. Only a
few jazzmen (Lester Young, Jess Stacy, Sidney Bechet, and Sonny
Rollins come to mind) have demonstrated a comparable ability to
increase the dramatic pitch of a long solo without losing either
melodic control or thematic unity in the course of their own crea-
tion.
Judging from his records, Louis' tone acquired still more body
and strength at this time. Sometimes he played with almost no vi-
brato, yet bis sound was warm and intimate. More and more, he
employed a legato manner of phrasing, leaving behind the heavy-
tongued "punching" style so characteristic of hornmen in the
twenties. On almost straight readings of tunes like When You're
Smiting and Song of the Islands, Louis underscores the quality of
majesty in his work with trumpet phrases that seem lifted from
the Golden Era of opera singing, Indeed, on a piano-trumpet duet
recording of Dear Old Southland, Louis gives a veritable trumpet
recital, quite unlike the musical cat-and-mouse game he indulged
in with Earl Hines less than two years before.
In early 1930, Connie's Hot Chocolates wound up its successful
season, Leroy Smith returned to Connie's Inn, and the Dickerson
band, without immediate prospects for work, broke up. In June,
Louis opened at Frank Sebastian's New Cotton Club in Culver
City, California, with Les Rite's orchestra. This was a good band
(trombonist Lawrence Brown and drummer Lionel Hampton
were members), one that could do justice to Armstrong on a se-
ries of records that caught him at the summit of his musical life.
Together they sailed through great performances like Ding Dong
Daddy, a beautifully conceived set of improvisations as logical as
the earlier Some of These Days and as thrilling as Tight Like This.
By now, Louis was playing fast, compressed figures, held together
by inner discipline and outward assurance, that were radically ad-
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! 45
vanced for 1930. The same characteristics turn up in his remark-
able ballad performances with Hite f m in the Market for You,
Confessing If I Could Be with You, Memories of You, and Body
and Soul Sometimes embellishing the straight melody, sometimes
creating new themes of his own, Louis established with these bal-
lads a lush, unsentimental, "singing trumpet" approach that
affected every trumpeter of the thirties and is still widely used
today. By selecting the most harmonically sophisticated songs of
the period (Star Dust, Body and Soul, You're Lucky to Me, Youre
Driving Me Crazy, etc.), Armstrong also set up new criteria for
future jazzmen to apply in their search for challenging raw
material
The culmination of Louis' development as a trumpet player and
jazzman can hardly be pinned down to a specific date, but with
his October, 1930, recording of Sweethearts on Parade Armstrong
took his music about as far as it could go. Here all. the elements of
Louis' extraordinary style seem to come together technique,
taste, tone, advanced harmonic ideas, understatement, rhythmic
enlightenment, bravura declarations, drama, melodic sureness,
balanced construction, and humor. Historically, Sweethearts on
Parade ranks with Ding Dong Daddy and the later (1931) Star
Dust as a preview of the style that brought fame to Roy Eldridge
and set the stage for further explorations by Dizzy GiDespie. (It
should be noted that not all observers share this view. Critic
Charles Edward Smith once wrote in Down Beat that Louis'
Sweethearts on Parade is an example of "Low Jive, synonymous
with plain kidding.")
Following his run at the New Cotton Club, where the trum-
peter had again enjoyed the benefits of regular radio broadcasts,
Louis? went to Chicago in early 1931 to at last form his own band.
He picked up some old friends trombonist Preston Jackson,
drummer Tubby Hall, and New Orleans bassist John Lindsay
and opened at the Showboat Cabaret. From this point on, Louis
spent most of his time on the road. He is still traveling in the
sixties, and he has toured many countries, beginning with his first
European trip in 1932.
Even as his own band took shape, a new emphasis crept into
Armstrong's recorded work. With a few gratifying exceptions, the
new releases stressed his role as entertainer and singer. Gradually,
x6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
the quality of his song materials declined, and there were more
frequent lapses of taste and musical judgment. There was stiH
much wonderful trumpet playing, but the humor became forced
and the band incredibly sloppy. (The band problem was eventu-
ally solved by Louis' turning over the entire matter to Luis
Bussell.)
In 1931, Louis and Lil separated, although their divorce was
not final until 1938, At 31, the trumpeter was still a robust young
man of infinite good will who attracted more friends than he
could handle. The Depression had not harmed him very much,
and he was beginning to realize just how important a musi-
cian he was the serious enthusiasm of European fans and critics
for his work was soon to make a deep impression on Armstrong.
With this solid foundation of contentment, he settled into a rela-
tively predictable groove, where he has remained to this day. Not
that Louis was lazy far from it; he simply could not push beyond
his 1930 level. Eventually, he dropped below it, but he has never
permitted himself to play less than first-rate trumpet.
Armstrong's influence on other jazzmen has been greater than
that of any other single trumpeter in the short history of the
music. The roster of Armstrong-inspired performers reads like an
all-star poll. Even some of those who had been, counted at one
time or another as Bix Beiderbecke disciples Bill Davison,
Bobby Hackett, Rex Stewart, and others cite Armstrong as their
main influence. Trumpet men like Buck Clayton, Muggsy Spanier,
lips Page, Joe Thomas, Wingy Mannone, Red Allen, Taft Jordan,
Bunny Berigan, Joe Newman, Harry James, Billy Butterfield,
Ruby Braff, Cootie Williams, and Roy Eldridge have left no
doubts about their deep regard for Louis. So multifaceted was
Armstrong's huge talent that most of these trumpeters have cre-
ated their own musical identities around but one or two character-
istics of the master's style. Spanier concentrated on Armstrong's
early Oliver-like drive and pure tone; Thomas went after his gift
of understatement and melodic symmetry; James struck out for
Louis' range and technical powers; Williams, when not saddled
with the task of re-creating Bubber Miley solos for Duke Elling-
ton, achieved something like Armstrong's majesty of phrase; Beri-
gan came startlingly close to Louis' emotional warmth and dra-
LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 47
matic eloquence; Eldridge and Allen used Armstrong's most
complex melodic and rythmic figurations as points of departure;
Page came close to Louis' intense blues style, vocally and instru-
mentally.
Not only trumpet men were deeply affected by Armstrong;
There is recorded evidence of his changing the outlooks of count-
less others arranger Fletcher Henderson, saxophonists Coleman
Hawkins and Bud Freeman, trombonists Jack Teagarden and
Lawrence Brown, pianists Earl Hines and Joe Sullivan, and even
vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, to name a few.
In a more general way, Louis brought the art of the jazz solo to
a new creative peak and to an unprecedented prominence before
the listening public. His extended choruses caused jazz musicians
everywhere to direct their thinking along similar lines. Ensemble
playing skills did not decay with this new emphasis upon solo
playing, although collective improvisation by several horns, on its
way out anyway, all but disappeared. On the contrary, the soloists
led the way to more interesting part writing by arrangers and su-
perior ensemble playing by jazz performers. Armstrong's natural
swing and exceptional methods of utilizing syncopation made a
deep impression on, arrangers of the twenties such as Henderson,
Don Redman, Bill Chain's, and Tiny Parham.
Louis took the ballad style that found its earliest expression in
Bix Beiderbecke, imbued it with oratoriolike dignity, and founded
an elegant method of paraphrasing popular songs that has en-
dured. Echoes of Armstrong's finest ballad performances of his
1929-1931 period can be traced in the work of Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie, as well as in that of many of their contempo-
raries.
After 1929, Louis' voice became a fine musical instrument that
affected countless singers, jazz and otherwise. His "jive" vocals led
directly to the styles of many minor (though commercially suc-
cessful) artists, such as Cab Galloway, Louis Prima, the Boswell
Sisters, the Mills Brothers, and Wingy Mannone. His ballad sing-
ing deeply affected a number of superior singers, such as Bing
Crosby, Ethel Waters, Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, and Billie Hot
day. Without Armstrong, the story of jazz singing, up to and in-
cluding Ray Charles, might have been quite different
48 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
The substance of Louis' music cannot be explained, in the final
analysis, by his remarkable physical equipment, his showmanship,
or even his skill with the trumpet. It is the man's mind that has
produced this vast body of marvelous music. Armstrong has al-
ways been utterly serious about his trumpet playing, even in the
frivolous years of the twenties, when many jazzmen assumed their
music couldn't last and proceeded to blow themselves out at an
early age.
*To play it right," Louis stated when he was 50, "you've got to
make music a business and I'm not talking just about the money
now. A lot of cats get in the money, and then, when you look
around, they're not playing anything, they can't play. ... My
band doesn't play for any hour before I get on the stand. When
that band hits the first note, it's Sleepytime, and I'm playing it
And that's the way it's always been. I've watched all that glam-
orous this-that-and-the-other among the musicians, and I've al-
ways said, 'Go ahead, have your ball,' but now it's simmered
down, and only the fittest can survive."
Louis Armstrong has entertained royalty, been called his coun-
try's most effective ambassador, changed the course of America's
music, and become a wealthy man in a wealthy land. For all that,
he remains an inner-directed musician of rare humility and
sensitivity.
His words, like his magic, are worth pondering: "It's my conso-
lation, too, to hit that note the way I like to hear it. I've got to
hear my own honi, and it's got to please me, don't forget that.
That's what a whole lot of youngsters don't seem to pick up on."
Recommended Reading
Armstrong, Louis: Swing That Music, Longmans, New York (1936).
Hodeir, Andre: Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence, Grove New York
(1956).
McCarthy, Albert: Louis Armstrong, Barnes, New York (1961).
Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith: Jazzmen, Harcourt,
Brace, New York (1939).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : Hear Me Tdkin' to Y0, Rine-
hart, New York (1955).
tOTJIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 49
Recommended Listening
Young Louis Armstrong, RIVERSIDE 12-101.
The Perry Bradford Story (one track), CRISPUS-ATTUCKS PB-ioi.
The Fletcher Henderson Story, COLUMBIA C^-ig.
The Bessie Smith Story, VoLi, COLUMBIA CL-855-
The Louis Armstrong Story, Vols. i, 2, 3, 4, COLUMBIA CL-851, CL-
852, CL-853, CL-854-
Jazz Odyssey: The Sound of Chicago, COLUMBIA C$L-32.
Jazz Odyssey: The Sound of New Orleans, COLUMBIA C3L-30.
EARL BINES
No MUSICIAN has exerted more influence over the course of piano
jazz history than has Earl Hines. With Hines, the last ties to rag-
time fell away and a whole new concept of keyboard improvisa-
tion took shape. Earl accomplished all this while operating almost
entirely outside New York City, and no major American pianist,
jazz or otherwise, had done that before, either.
He was bora Earl Kenneth Hines in Duquesne, a small town
now part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, a crane foreman
on the coal docks, maintained a comfortable home, and Earl grew
up amid the usual middle-class trappings of the early twentieth
century, including a parlor organ that his mother played fre-
quently. The instrument intrigued Earl, and occasionally he pre-
tended to accompany his mother on a newspaper "keyboard"
spread out on a chair. The family noted his interest without much
surprise, for Earl's father was a fair trumpet player and his uncle,
Bill Phillips, played all the brass instruments. Earl experimented
briefly with the trumpet, but it didn't take, although he learned to
play a few tunes before giving it up. It was about 1914, when Earl
was 9, that Mrs. Hines traded in the organ for a piano so that her
son could begin serious keyboard studies. His first teacher was
Emma D. Young of McKeesport.
Making swift progress, Earl moved on to other teachers and
more advanced lesson books. He read from Czerny and acquired
a liking for Chopin and Debussy. For six years, Earl was inten-
sively trained in traditional piano techniques, most of which came
quickly and easily to him. Dividing his time between sports and
music, young Hines was. rapidly acquiring the two assets that
were to make him one of the most durable and flexible jazzmen of
all time brimming good health and a thoroughgoing command
of the keyboard.
Hines has often protested that he went into jazz only because
he could make more money faster than in other music. However,
he was exposed to all lands of music during his formative years.
There were his f ather s brass band, the piano rolls of Zez Confry
So
EABL HINES $1
and James P, Johnson, traveling show bands, and, of course, the
classics. Aunt Nellie Phillips, with whom Earl lived in the city,
favored light classics and frequently took her nephew to good
shows or revues at local theaters, including Lew Leslie's Black-
fads and the Noble Sissle-Eubie Blake hit Shuffle Along. These
events were Earl's first contacts with first-rate "rhythm" music,
with which he was completely delighted.
While attending Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, the
pianist formed a trio with a couple of friends who played drums
and banjo. Together they worked out popular songs of the day,
probably in the novelty-ragtime style that flourished just after
World War I. When music jobs at night began to turn up, Earl
accepted them without concern about how the hours might affect
his schoolwork. After two years at Schenley, he dropped out for
good and turned to music on a full-time basis.
A singer from Springfield, Ohio, named Lois B. Deppe was ap-
pearing at the Liederhouse in Pittsburgh about that time and had
become dissatisfied with his accompanying pianist, who could not
read. Earl took the job, bringing his own drummer with him as
part of the contract. Deppe paid his new pianist $15 a week and
board. They remained at the Liederhouse for about a year,
adding instruments to the orchestra as business improved. By the
time Lois B. Deppe and His Serenaders began touring Ohio and
Pennsylvania in the early twenties, Earl found himself in a big
band, struggling to be heard over a row of horn players. He dis-
covered a time-honored way to make the piano stand out in a
large group, simply by playing melody notes as octaves in the
upper range of the keyboard, Allowing the natural ring of the oc-
tave interval to work for him, Earl was able to hold his own with-
out losing the fast, light touch he had cultivated. This move alone
set him apart from many "stomp" pianists, who relied more upon
brute strength than finesse in their efforts to penetrate orchestral
walls of sound.
The unique Hines style was beginning to take shape now.
There were many influences along the way; some came from a
pair of impressive local pianists, Johnny Waters of Toledo and a
big-band pianist named Jim Fellman.
"Very few pianists were using right-hand tenths then," Hines
recalls, "but Johnny Waters could reach twelfths and thirteenths
52 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
and play melodies with the inside three fingers at the same time! I
tried for Johnny with my right and for Jim Fellrnan, who had a
great left, with my other hand."
Pianists like James P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts passed
through Pittsburgh with shows, and Earl was quick to hear the
New York style and to pick up what he could use from it. In work-
ing out his octave style, too, Earl discovered that he could com-
pensate for the inevitable loss of speed by borrowing some ideas
from the dramatic syncopated phrasing of good trumpet players.
He was particularly fond of trumpeters Joe Smith (who toured
with Sissle and Blake) and, a little later, Gus Aiken (who toured
with Ethel Waters and James P. Johnson). By 1922, records by
singers Ethel Waters and Mamie Smith, along with their jazz ac-
companiments, were influencing young musicians like Hines all
over the country. Playing for singers was one of Earl's specialties.
Deppe made a few records for Gennett at Richmond, Indiana,
in the winter of 1923-1924, and Earl, who had joined the musi-
cians' union a few months before, was included on the dates. They
are among the rarest items on the collectors' market. Of the four
band sides, one Congaineis a Hines composition. These re-
cordings helped to promote the Deppe orchestra and its piano
player as well. The entire group even appeared on radio (KDKA)
at that time. Earl sometimes worked casual engagements booked
by Deppe and occasionally put groups of his own together. His
baritone saxophone player on one such occasion was Benny
Carter.
The owner of Pittsburgh's Collins Inn, where Earl had worked
frequently, operated another club, called Elite #2, in Chicago
near Thirty-fifth and State, the heart of the South Side entertain-
ment belt He was unhappy with his local Chicago band and sent
for violinist Vernie Robinson's quartet, complete with drummer,
bassist, and Earl Hines, who happened to be in the group at the
time. Earl arrived at the Elite #2 in 1924 and, after playing a
month for Robinson, took over leadership of the band and stayed
for a year.
There were several good pianists in and around Chicago at that
time, including Jelly Roll Morton and Glover Compton, but the
best of them for Earl^at any rate was Teddy Weatherford,
who had a fast, flamboyant style and an adventurous left hand!
EABL HINES 53
Like a well-trained young boxer, Hines studied Weatherford's
tricks, drew from them what he wanted, and finally conquered the
established pianist in his own territory. Earl's essentially Eastern
approach, rooted in a light but firm touch and impressive tech-
nical command of his instrument, was too much for the Chicago
keyboard men, and the competition melted away. Teddy Weath-
erford left town in 1926 and never returned ( and, his talent spent,
died in India about twenty years later ) ,
Earl moved to the larger and more celebrated Entertainer's
Cafe in 1925, playing opposite Carroll Dickerson's excellent big
band. Within a short time, he joined Dickerson's group, then
began a series of Pantages vaudeville appearances that eventually
took Earl and the band to California and back. They were on the
road for forty-two straight weeks.
The Dickerson band was a carefully drilled outfit that special-
ized in flashy ensemble work and clean musicianship, goals wholly
consistent with Earl's own. "Hot" solos were featured, of course,
by jazzmen like trumpeter Natty Dominique, trombonist Honor6
Dutrey, and saxophonist Cecil Irwin.
When the band landed back in Chicago, Louis Armstrong,
home again after a stint with Fletcher Henderson, was the man
every bandleader wanted. Ersldne Tate had him at that moment,
but Dickerson and King Oliver, his former mentor, were making
offers anyway. Louis was considering rejoining Oliver, but Hines
and his friends argued that he should "go with the young guys"
and not fall back with the "old" New Orleans men. As it turned
out, Hines and Armstrong joined each other's bands and played
two jobs for a while, dashing off after an evening with Tate
to finish out the night with Dickerson. Tate's specialty was movie
theaters, and the work called for a fast, versatile pianist. Teddy
Weatherford had achieved much of his local fame in Tate's or-
ganization at the Vendome Theater, and Earl, too, became more
widely known there. Musicians, though, were more interested in
the sound of the Dickerson band at the Sunset Cafe, for there
Armstrong was featured prominently and the sidemen drummer
Tubby Hall, violinist-reedman Darnell Howard, and Hines were a
few seemed more in tune with the brand of jazz Louis was
As the popularity of Armstrong grew throughout 1926, Hines
54 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
found his own star rising as well. The Sunset's proprietor, Joe
Glaser, decided that Louis was his real drawing card and ar-
ranged to edge Dickerson out altogether. In 1927, the band be-
came Louis Armstrong and His Stompers, and Hines was ap-
pointed musical director. It was about this time, too, that Earl
made his first recordings in Chicago.
In a set of four selections recorded with a group of old-guard
New Orleans stylists and Armstrong, Earl seems somewhat ill at
ease at the piano. Clarinetist Johnny Dodds, making his ini-
tial appearance on records as a leader, establishes such nerv-
ously fast tempos that even Armstrong sounds uncomfortable.
Earls solo contributions are brief and perfunctory, revealing a
conservative left hand, which was either not completely devel-
oped yet or simply inhibited by an attempt to match the mood of
the session, and an equally uninspired right hand, concerned
largely with dashing off simple on-tte-beat melodic fragments in
octaves. Melancholy has the best Hines of the four Dodds titles;
Earl's solo is marked by right-hand tremolos, a Jelly Roll Morton-
like glissando or two, and a positive, declarative keyboard touch.
But if this was a fair representation of Hines in April, 1927, the
pianist must have made some major discoveries in the month that
followed; for in May, Earl recorded Chicago Breakdown, proba-
bly the first good example of his unique artistry to be caught on
wax. (Strangely, the recording was not issued until George Avak-
ian discovered it in Columbia's vaults many years later. )
Chicago Breakdown is of considerable interest on several
counts. The choice of a Jelly Roll Morton composition hints that
Hines and Armstrong might have been more intrigued by the
music and arrangements of Morton (whose finest recordings im-
mediately preceded the Chicago Breakdown date) than is com-
monly supposed. The recording is valuable, too, as an only clue to
the sound of the Dickerson-Armstrong band of 1927 and to the
mutual benefits Earl and Louis derived from playing together
regularly. It is unfortunate that Okeh chose to record Armstrong
mostly with his old New Orleans friends in 1927, for the decision
deprived us of hearing the more modern Sunset Cafe band and its
two star performers during a highly creative period in their pro-
fessional lives.
EABL HINES 55
Earl's brief solo on Chicago Breakdown is a trifle stiff and
stodgy, but many of the now familiar trademarks were already
there the sudden break in the regular bass rhythm; the crisp,
clean treble-octave voicing; and the short, hornlike melodic
phrases. In the ensemble portions, too, Hines cuts through the
band sound in characteristic fashion, although he had not asserted
himself in this way on the more traditional Dodds session a month
before.
Musicians and sophisticated patrons flocked to the Sunset to
hear Armstrong and Hines in 1927, but only Louis landed the rec-
ord dates, which were aimed at a market of displaced South-
erners in lower-income brackets. As an entertainer and a highly
sophisticated modern musician, Hines had no place in these
*down home" recording sessions. Furthermore, the New York
pianists had pretty well cornered the solo recording field, so Earl
failed to record again until May, 1928, several months after he
had left Armstrong as a regular sideman.
The Sunset job finally ran out in the fall of 1927, but Earl and
Louis, together with their closest friend, drummer Zutty Single-
ton, were full of confidence and enthusiasm. The three were regu-
lar visitors to after-hours clubs, open jam sessions, and private
parties, where they always wound up playing and entertaining as
a kind of miniature show. They decided to stick together as long
as possible. The trio worked short jobs together in theater bands
such as Clarence Jones's and occasionally sponsored dances of
their own. In November, Lil Armstrong rented a ballroom called
Warwick Hall and turned it over to the three musicians, who tried
producing an original revue there. The new Savoy Ballroom
opened at the same time just around the corner and wiped them
out. It became painfully clear that outstanding musicianship, even
combined with showmanship, would not automatically draw cus-
tomers. Despite a devoted clan of followers (mostly of the non-
spending variety), the triumvirate was soon at liberty again.
Earl made an exploratory trip to New York about this time, but
nothing came of it When Hines returned to Chicago in early
1928, Louis and Zutty had grown tired of the uncertain life and
joined Carroll Dickerson, who now led the band at the successful
Savoy. Earl, somewhat depressed, looked about for a secure job
56 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
for himself and found a spot, just vacated by Glover Compton,
with Jimmy Noone s five-piece band at the Apex Club. He spent
most of the year there.
The Apex was a favorite hangout for musicians, and in the
course of Earl's stint with Noone, young pianists Joe Sullivan, Jess
Stacy, Casino Simpson, and many others were deeply affected by
his now mature style. Noone was a New Orleans clarinetist and a
bit on the conservative side, but, unlike Johnny Dodds, he was a
master craftsman as weH as a jazz artist, and Jimmy appreciated
the advanced musical ideas put forth by Earl. Happily, Hines's
work at this time has been preserved on records, permitting a clear
picture of the pianist's progress through early 1928.
In May, the Noone quintet (alto saxophonist Joe Poston, ban-
joist Bud Scott, and drummer Johnny Wells were the other mem-
bers) recorded four good performances that effectively combined
elements of New Orleans jazz, popular music of the day, honest
entertainment, and brilliant musicianship into a highly personal
band style. Earl was not yet in the proper setting for his talents,
but the small group gave him a good deal of freedom, notwith-
standing the jailing clang of Bud Scott's banjo. Indeed, on some
selections, one might think it was Hines himself who led the band,
for Earl moves right into the foreground alongside the alto and
clarinet
I Know That You Know, a display piece for Noone, suggests
that Earl was not entirely comfortable with the breakneck pace
established by the leader. The piano solo is neither inspired nor
unusual by Hines standards, although Earl never lags behind
Every Evening is a stylized stomp played in the New Orleans
manner, and heavy-handed stomps were never Earl's forte. How-
ever, his solo breaks away enough to show flashes of the arresting
scuttling bass lines for which he was soon to become famous and
a glimpse of the jagged-right-hand flights which were beginning to
fall into place at this time. More satisfying is Sweet Sue, in which
Earl embellishes the slow, straight melodic lead with a back-
ground chorus that is the high point of the recording. The impact
of this passage comes largely from Hines's trumpetlike phrasing,
complete with "vibrato" at die end of each phrase (achieved by
right-hand tremolos) and natural "breath points" inserted just as
they might be in a trumpet solo. The use of treble octaves is again
EABL fflNES 57
important here, for it gives to Earl's short phrases the brassy au-
thority needed to make them completely convincing. Four or Five
Times has stomp overtones again, but Earl works independently
of the idiom most of the way. There is, however, a slight heavi-
ness in the piano bass line despite efforts by Hines to get under
and lift the performance with his right hand.
Following an additional pair of Noone sides in June and a date
with a dreary new singer named Lillie Delk Christian (Armstrong
and Noone also participated in this one), Earl began a historic
series of Okeh sessions with Louis and members of the Carroll
Dickerson Savoy orchestra. In two hot June days, the old trio
Louis, Earl, and Zutty reunited and, with trombonist Fred Rob-
inson, clarinetist Jimmy Strong, and guitarist Mancy Cara added,
finally recorded the kind of music that had been convulsing other
musicians in Chicago for many months. Armstrong's was the over-
riding voice, but Hines placed such a high second that his name
began to be mentioned along with Louis' whenever musicians got
together.
Many of the musical devices and tricks on these recordings
probably came from the Dickerson band, particularly on pieces
like the elaborate Fireworks, which concludes with choruses bor-
rowed from the perennial showstopper Tiger Rag. The ensemble
effect is more that of a small orchestra than of a New Orleans
band, reflecting the influence of arrangers Bill Challis, Don
Redman, and Fletcher Henderson, among others. For Hines, who
never had much use for old-time jazzmen or "back-room musi-
cians" (as he once called Jelly Roll Morton), these were ideal
small-band settings in which to stretch out and try some of the
ideas he had been developing. One of the best demonstrations of
Hines successfully matching wits with Armstrong occurs on Skip
the Gutter, a relaxed traditional vehicle, where the two musicians
trade two-bar and four-bar ideas without interference from the
rest of the group. It is really a two-man affair all the way, as each
tempts the other to extend himself a little further on successive
breaks. Both handle double-time ideas with an easy, sure sense of
pulse, and the match finishes a draw.
On Sugar Foot Strut, Earl plays with full solo force behind
Louis' vocal instead of filling in with an ordinary accompaniment
part. As in Noone's band, the pianist constantly pushed himself
58 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
toward the front line, only reluctantly dropping back into the
rhythm section when absolutely required to. This tendency can
also be heard on Squeeze Me and on Hines's composition Monday
Date. Now and then, as in Armstrong's monumental West End
Blues, Earl retires to a more conventional supportive role, boost-
ing the trumpet player with rolling bass tremolos and provocative
treble harmonies, but it was not his nature to hang back for long.
Hines was and is a large, aggressive man who enjoyed the
musical challenge of working with the gifted Armstrong but, like
many Eastern-style pianists who came up in a world of ragtime,
elaborate stage shows, and cabaret entertainers, lacked the deep
identification with the blues that marked the work of the best
New Orleans players. When inspired by Armstrong, the pianist
occasionally came close to the idiom, but his later work was al-
most entirely devoid of the earthy, relaxed spirit so fundamental
to successful blues playing. It does not follow, however, that the
blues played no part in the Hines style, for he was perceptive
enough to realize that good jazz phrasing must borrow something
from the blues if it is to avoid academicism.
Now established as a leading pianist, Earl was asked to sit in on
a July, 1928, Carroll Dickerson recording. The result is of special
interest because it is the only recorded document of the excellent
Savoy orchestra of that period. The two selections, Symphonic
Raps and Savoyager's Stomp, are remarkably like big-band exten-
sions of the Hines-Armstrong recordings full of potential har-
monic pitfalls, advanced scoring techniques, and dazzling solos.
Although the current of influence must have flowed in both direc-
tions, these recordings underline the suggestion that part of
Hines's unorthodox bravura style may have stemmed from the ar-
ranged music he played with the Dickerson orchestra.
Earl continued to work with Noone throughout the summer
months of the year. The group's first batch of records had sold
well, and they returned to the studios in August to try six more
selections. Again Hines reverted to a more conservative style than
he had shown on the Armstrong sessions. His attempts at under-
statement (Apex Blues) seem awkward and unnatural, while his
more usual arabesques (Sweet Lorraine) are closer in spirit to
Jelly Roll Morton than to Armstrong. Another Monday Date was
recorded, and, unlike the Armstrong version of two months be-
EABL HINES 59
fore, this one has Earl in an almost frenzied mood. Oddly, this
solo suffers from an overabundance of zeal.
A splendid Hines solo in this final Noone series occurs on King
Joe. Except for some barely audible timekeeping by the drummer,
the rhythm section drops out for Earl's solo, and this simple de-
vice provides the pianist with exactly the kind of freedom he
needs for his extraordinary rhythmic explorations.
In the fall of 1928, Earl began rehearsing with a group of
friends and, apparently with no specific plans for making public
appearances, building a small library of arrangements that all en-
joyed playing. It was a natural thing for Earl to do, for his experi-
ence with Deppe and Armstrong, which had put him in direct
command of two very different big bands, had left the pianist
without much enthusiasm for serving as a sideman. He finally left
Noone and was replaced by Alex Hill and, later, Zinky Cohen,
two qualified Chicago pianists much affected by the Hines style.
By December, Earl had hit his full musical stride. In this single
remarkable month, the pianist from Pittsburgh recorded fourteen
tides with Louis Armstrong, cut twelve piano solos, and, on his
twenty-third birthday, launched his own ten-piece orchestra at a
leading Chicago ballroom.
Of the Armstrong dates, ten are enduring expositions of Louis
and Earl at their creative peak as a team. There could be no un-
certainty now about the status of Hines; each performance
affirmed and reaffirmed that a spectacular and influential stylist
had been developed in South Side Chicago,
On tunes like Beau Koo Jack, Earl approaches his solo as if it
were an extended break, with the rest of the band (again Dicker-
son men, with altoist Don Redman added) obligingly suspending
all other sounds for that moment. In this happy environment, Earl
demonstrated some new ideas. The octave melody phrases were
now frequently replaced by streaking single-note lines, sometimes
arching gracefully over four or eight bars in a continuous pattern
bearing Httle or no resemblance to the pianist's famous "trumpet*
style. In the tradition of all good Eastern pianists, Earl's bass fig-
ures were masterpieces of eccentric design and spontaneous wit
It was this feature of his style that made his rhythm men readily
agree to drop out during the piano solos; a bass player, for exam-
ple, courted disaster if he tried to follow Earl's rhythmic peregri-
60 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
nations. Hines, however, never lost die pulse, even when it was
completely out of sight, and this remarkable ability had much to
do with the success of his music. Broken rhythms were, of course,
older than ragtime, but no pianist before Bail Hines not even
James P, Johnson ever took so many chances in the heat of spon-
taneous improvisation without experiencing many failures. Hines
seemed never to miss.
Fast countennelodies, long lines of sixteenths, thirty-seconds,
and sixteenth-note triplets (many suggesting ideas that were to
come much later with Lester Young and Charlie Parker), har-
monic adventures sometimes actually over Armstrong's head, bril-
liant use of double-time figures to increase tension, intelligent
spacing of pauses for dramatic impact, and a mature sense of mu-
sical architectonics were some of the characteristics of Earl's
work in late 1928 that amounted to a milestone in the annals of
keyboard jazz. Other notable Hines-Armstrong titles are Save It,
Pretty Mama, No, Muggles, Tight Like This, Hear Me Talkin' to
Yfl, and St. James Infirmary. On Basin Street Blues, Earl plays
celeste with his usual positive air.
Hines's ambition to be heard as a front-line instrument was
given free play in one other Armstrong recording. It is a duet
transformation of an old King Oliver tune called Weatherbird Rag,
and the two jazzmen obviously had a merry time testing each
other's strength without the normal restrictions imposed by a con-
ventional jazz band. One need only to contrast this extraordinary
collaboration with a rather hidebound Jelly Roll Morton-King Ol-
iver duet recording of some four years earlier to understand how
far Hines and Armstrong had helped to bring jazz in that short
time.
Earl's solo recordings in 1928 present a curious contradiction:
though even more impressive in strictly pianistic terms than his
Armstrong work, they occasionally suggest a man to whom music
is a kind of advanced game of wits and perhaps little more.
"Music is like baseball," Hines has said. 'The reason we didn't go
for back-room musicians much was that it didn't take anything to
figure it out. If it's not a challenge, there's no fun in it."
Many jazzmen would agree, but perhaps not so many would
want the kind of compliment that a Hines sideman once offered,
EABL fflNES 6l
quite sincerely: "Earl is just like a machine but a machine that
swings!"
There were moments of tenderness, real or posed, for the "ma-
chine that swings," though. His Blues in Thirds is a charming
mood piece, if not a true blues in its depth of emotional expres-
sion. It was recorded first in Chicago as Caution Blues, but Earl's
QRS version, made in New York a couple of weeks later, is the
more sensitive rendition.
When QRS, ordinarily a piano-roll company, asked Hines to
make phonograph records in December, he went immediately to
New York for the date. Entering the studio without music or even
very much idea of what he would do, Earl sat down and played
eight tunes: Blues in Thirds, Panther Rag (obviously Tiger Bag,
already recorded in part as 57 Varieties}, Monday Date, two
other blues, and three originals titled Chicago High Life, Stow-
away, and Just Too Soon. Beneath the elaborate superstructures,
these last three compositions are made up largely of stock pro-
gressions borrowed from songs like Sister Kate, Big Butter and
Egg Man, and other good jam-session favorites.
That Earl hoped to make an impression in his New York record-
ing debut may be deduced from these recordings in two ways:
his tempos are exhibitionistically fast; and in several instances
(Monday Date is one), he paraded his command of the Harlem
"stride" style, perhaps added for the benefit of critical local pian-
ists like Johnson and Waller,
The QRS solos (and those recorded in Chicago as well) are
unique virtuoso performances. Though the Armstrong stamp still
appears on some of Earl's ideas, this group of records marks his
break with the trumpeter as a co-musician and as a continuing in-
fluence. From here 0% eacfe man went his own way.
Actually, too much has been made of the impact of Louis on
EarL It is likely that the trumpeter's manner of phrasing encour-
aged Hines to develop his hornlike treble lines more convincingly,
but there is little evidence of wholesale Borrowing of musical con-
cepts. Armstrong was a master builder, one who constructed a
solo from the ground up; Hines tended, at this time, to think in
four-bar or eight-bar fragments, each a unit unto itself. Louis
moved with the rhythm section, often relaxing just behind the
62 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
pulse; Hines pushed the beat, creating the illusion of accelerating
while keeping perfect time. Most importantly, Armstrong thought
in essentially vocal terms; Hines improvised primarily in abstract
instrumental fashion.
It was while he was in New York that Earl heard from Lucky
Millinder, a sort of middleman between the Chicago underworld
and the local music business, who was looking for a known musi-
cian to head up a band at the Grand Terrace Ballroom. Hines
thought of his rehearsal group, assured Millinder that he was
ready to go, and took the next train for home.
It was a good choice by Millinder, for Earl's knowledge of
showmanship, staging, and musical directing put the fast-moving
Grand Terrace show on a par with the revues at the Sunset and
the Savoy. The band was a good one, if a little rough at first, and
included top men like trumpeters George Mitchell and Shirley
Clay, a Miff Mole-inspired trombonist named William Franklin,
ex-Dickerson saxophonist Cecil Irwin, and Lester Boone, a good
jazz tenor saxophone player. For a couple of months, trumpeter
Jabbo Smith also worked with this band. Franklin, Alvis, and Ir-
win contributed original arrangements to the band's book, which
was already expanding rapidly. By early 1929, the Hines band
offered a respectable sound of its own that seemed to lie some-
where between the loose swing of Bennie Moten's Kansas City
band and the advanced ensemble precision of William McKin-
ney's Cotton Pickers. There were, too, overtones of smaller stomp
bands in arrangements like Beau Koo Jack and of the strutting
Harlem style in numbers like Everybody Loves My Baby. These
and several other titles were recorded for Victor in February,
1929, barely two months after the band opened at the Grand
Terrace.
During these early band years, Earl expanded his harmonic
scope, partly through the influence of Cecil Irwin, whose arrange-
ments for the band reflected the saxophonist's formal studies of
harmony and increased interest in "modern" voicing. Ninths, elev-
enths, sixths, and minor sevenths began to appear more frequently
in Hines s piano improvisations, adding new dimensions to his al-
ready complex style. An intriguing example of this new turn is
contained in a February, 1929, solo recording of Glad Bag DoU.
Two separate versions, takes from the same recording session,
EABL HINES 63
have been issued that offer some clues to Earl's transitional posi-
tion at that time. Take i is a straightforward compound of Mor-
ton, Johnson, Waller, and Hines, full of strutting Harlem devices,
that concludes on a major chord with the sixth added for interest
The second take is slower and more thoughtful, ending with a
tense flatted fifth a modern touch, indeed, for 1929, Throughout,
Hines's affection for Waller's frothy stride manner is evident.
Earl's bass lines, alternating chromatic tenths with harmonically
sophisticated oom-pah figures, are a mixture of Waller and his
own ideas as originally developed from Jim Fellman in Pitts-
As he continued to work with a large band, Hines began to rely
more upon his supporting musicians, causing the full semiorches-
tral sound of his piano to undergo subtle changes. The rhythm
section took over many of the functions of the pianist's left hand,
leaving Earl free to experiment further with running-bass coun-
termelodies. Right-hand octaves were still useful in many in-
stances, but more and more single-note improvisations were ap-
pearing in the pianist's solos. (By now, the widespread use of
electric microphones had encouraged pianists everywhere to play
with a faster, lighter touch.) Finally, Earl no longer had to prove
his ability to other jazzmen, for he was acclaimed by musicians
throughout the country and, as a bandleader, could send his
music in any direction he wished without having to force the issue
from the keyboard. This, too, had its effect upon his playing, now
becoming less frantic and more contemplative but no less
venturesome with each passing month.
By 1932, Earl had enlarged his band to twelve men. Cecil
Irwin, Darnell Howard, and Omer Simeon made up the sax sec-
tion; trumpeter Walter Fuller, who also arranged for and sang
with the band, was a major asset; guitarist Lawrence Dixon,
trumpeter-saxophonist George Dixon, bassist Quinn Wilson, trom-
bonist Louis Taylor, and saxophonist Irwin all contributed origi-
nal tunes and arrangements. British composer and arranger Regi-
nald Foresythe formed a close friendship with Hines at this time
and wrote a theme song, Deep Forest, for him. Foresythe's ad-
vanced harmonic concepts again affected the pianist's personal
musical outlook. The Grand Terrace landed a network radio wire
about that time, and regular broadcasts of the band from Chicago
64 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
began to be heard across the nation. It was a happy period for
Earl despite the raging Depression that was crippling most of the
American economy at the time. There was security, little travel,
musical satisfaction, personal celebrity, and the excitement of
planning musical shows around performers such as Ethel Waters
and Bill Robinson. Young players like Teddy Wilson were coming
around to leam from him, and visiting jazzmen from out of town
frequently asked to sit in. For a green bandleader of 27, Earl
Hines was doing rather well.
At this time, Earl turned out a pair of recorded solos, Love Me<
Tonight and Down Among the Sheltering Palms. The second is
an especially notable performance, for it reveals a new level of
maturity in its orderly progression from simple melodic statement
to conservative embellishments to an agitated climax of broken
rhythms and fuguelike cross-melodies. The solo, in short, is built
to stand as a single spiral of variations on a theme, and it repre-
sents an advance from Hines's earlier montage methods.
The band took on a more positive identity in 1933, when
arranger-saxophonist Jimmy Mundy joined up. With Mundy ar-
rangements like Cavernism and Madhouse, the reputation of the
band soared, and musicians began comparing the Hines band
with Fletcher Henderson's superb organization. In this setting,
Earl's playing took on a new warmth that had only occasionally
been revealed before.
Hines continued to strengthen his band from 1933 to 1935.
Trrnnmy Young, a modern trombonist and an entertaining singer,
joined the brass section. Singer Herb Jeffries became a prime at-
traction with recordings like Blue. The best addition of all, how-
ever, was tenor saxophonist Budd Johnson, replacing Cecil Irwin,
who was killed in a car accident. Johnson was a first-class soloist
and a highly skilled, forward-looking arranger. He was also a
good organizer and eventually took over many of Earl's personnel
problems.
In 1934, the band started recording for Decca, a new company
that took over many of the old Brunswick label's established art-
ists, including Hines. Someone at Decca had the singular notion
that the band ought to turn out a string of modernized Dixieland
tunes, so Earl recorded Sweet Georgia Brown, Thafs a Plenty,
Angn/, Mapk Leaf Rag, Copenhagen, and Wolverine Blues. The
EARL HINES 65
balance of the Decca output of 1934 and 1935 was made up of
new versions of old hits: Cavernim, Ro&etta (Hines's best-known
composition), Blue, Bubbling Over, and Julia. The material was
not really suited to a band as good as this one was, but Earl tossed
off a number of impressive solos, particularly those on Copen-
hagen and Wolverine Blues.
The best of the Grand Terrace era was over by 1936. From the
time the Hines band commenced broadcasting some five years be-
fore, more and more months of each year had been devoted to
traveling. Now the band was away from home more often than
not In 1936, Benny Goodman lured arranger Jimmy Mundy
away from Hines, and Fletcher Henderson became the darling of
the Grand Terrace operators. Earl was, in fact, lucky to get even
six weeks at the ballroom between Henderson runs. And there
was no arguing with the Capone-trained backers of the Terrace
it wouldn't have been good for the "health," as contemporary
movie villains were wont to say. The Decca contract lapsed, and
no one bothered to record the band at all that year. Hines stayed
on the road.
Most of the trouble, of course, came from Earl himself. He was
not a good businessman and always seemed to make the right
move at the wrong time. He also was, it must be added, neither
popular among musicians nor skilled in public relations.
Though its .fortunes rose and fell on the waves of mismanage-
ment, the Hines band was still a musically rewarding outfit to
hear. In 1937 ^^ 1 93^> a few more records were released. By
now, Earl had updated his playing again, featuring light, airy
solos over buoyant swing-band arrangements. The crisp, almost
metallic, and very authoritative keyboard touch was still there, as
were the broken rhythms and double-time figures, but a fresh,
graceful quality that hadn't been noticeable before appeared in
some of his work now. The melodic lines were longer and smoother,
with fewer stops and starts, and seemed to ride easily over the
band rather than welling up from within it. The Morton-Johnson
dicta, which held that a good pianist must imitate a full orchestra,
were almost completely put aside. The new piano hero of the pe-
riod was Teddy Wilson, and it is quite possible that Earl borrowed
an idea or two from the fleet and precise Wilson, just as Teddy
had once learned much from him. It is likely, too, that Hines's
66 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
deep regard for the clarinet style of Benny Goodman caused some
modification of his old Armstrong-like "trumpet" lines. Much of
the pianist's work from this time on was closer to clarinet-
saxophone conception than to trumpet ideas. Good examples of
this new phase of Earl's development are Pianology, Rhythm
Sundae, and Fkny Doodle Swing. Honeysuckle Rose, a concur-
rent quartet performance featuring clarinetist Simeon and tenor
saxophonist Johnson, was a happy affair in which Hines and John-
son explored some outside harmonies while remaining inside the
familiar Fats Waller composition.
From 1938 to 1940, Earl's band continued its downward slide.
Though still bound by a one-sided contract with Ed Fox of the
Grand Terrace, most of Hines's time was spent on tour. Budd
Johnson returned to the group after a year or so with Gus
Arnheim, but at one point about half the band, including Walter
Fuller, quit altogether. Earl switched booking offices, but it didn't
seem to help. In an era of successful big bands and unprecedented
public enthusiasm for jazz, the Hines unit, though offering good
music, might as well not have existed. Metronome magazine's
1938 annual readers' poll, in which swing fans voted for the "Best
of All Bands," listed Earl Hines and company in seventy-ninth
place. There wasn't much cause for rejoicing, either, when the
magazine's 1939 poll pulled the band up to the sixty-first spot.
Walter Fuller's departure in 1940 was another blow. (The pop-
ular singer-trumpeter took his own band into the Grand Terrace
but was pulled out by the union some months later when manager
Fox failed to meet the payroll.) Budd Johnson was in and out for
a while, but he finally returned to help Earl shajte a totally new
land of band. The old contract with Fox had been adjudged
worthless by the musicians* union, and Hines decided to give the
band business a fresh try. He already had a new record contract
with Bluebird, a hit record shaping up in Boogie Woogie on the
St. Louis Blues (a commercial and uncharacteristic piano spe-
cialty), another new booking agency, a fresh band put together
by Johnson, and he was soon to have a new singer named Billy
Eckstine. When Billy recorded Jelly Jelly for Earl in December,
1940, the upward swing had already begun, but it was Eckstine
who finally brought Hines the success he had been unable to find
alone.
EABL BONES 67
Just as he was beginning his term with Bluebird, Earl recorded
two long solos for the very young Blue Note label, The Fathers
Getaway ("Father," often pronounced "fatha," being a nickname
Hones had acquired from a radio announcer in the Grand Terrace
days) and Reminiscing at Blue Note. They were his first recorded
unaccompanied solos in seven years. The first is an explosive burst
of energy and ideas into which Earl seems to be trying to cram
everything he had ever learned. There is a segment of pure James
P. Johnson, a sustained tremolo suggesting his Boogie Woogie on
the St. Louis Blues routine, a series of wild rhythmic gyrations
and some melodic broken-field running that seem on the verge of
getting out of hand but never do, and an incredible tangle of
block chords, suspensions, and breaks within breaks. The result is
a kind of amalgam of new and old Hines in a display of virtuosity
that no pianist of 1939, save one, could have matched. (The one,
of course, would be Art Tatum, who himself began as a Hines-
Waller disciple.) Reminiscing at Blue Note is a curious hodge-
podge, full of references to boogie-woogie, pseudomodern har-
monies of the twenties, Harlem piano, and smatterings of Hines
favorites like 7ou Can Depend on Me.
Three solos for Bluebird recorded in 1939 and early 1940 deserve
mention. One is the inevitable Rosetta, which begins conserva-
tively enough but eventually winds up as a tightly compressed
knot of ideas, concluding, it seems, just before the snapping
point. Body and Soul reminds the listener that Earl was still,
though a more modem musician than before, a little too much the
hard-boiled pianist to lose himself completely in a sensitive bal-
lad performance. Child of a Disordered Brain is essentially a solo
in the style of Fats Waller, upon which is superimposed a dizzy-
ing succession of out-of-time breaks and other familiar Hines
devices.
The development of the Hines band from 1941 to 1943 is an
important early chapter in the story of modern jazz and is better
told elsewhere. Suffice it to point out that Budd Johnson gathered
the best modern players he could find, helped to build a distinc-
tive library of advanced arrangements, and acted as a valuable
liaison between Hines and his men; that during this period the
band included outstanding performers like Dizzy Gillespie, Char-
lie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Scoops Carry, Freddy Webster, and
68 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Benny Green; and that Eckstine's departure to form his own band
in 1943 sent Earl's rating down to the bottom of the polls again.
During this period of intimate contact with modern jazz, Earl's
own style moved ahead somewhat on his band recordings but ap-
peared to stand still on solo records. On the Sunny Side of the Street
and Melancholy Baby, for example, are 1941 solos that actually
seem to go back to the stomping and romping of Morton and
Waller, although Hines flourishes are present, too, Yet Earl's short
solo on his 1941 band recording of Yow Dont Know What Love Is
is built on a hard, firm line that was thoroughly modern for its
time. The exploratory urge and the fondness for musical puzzles
that distinguished the musical character of the budding jazzmen
in the early forties were exactly the drives that propelled Hines. It
is unfortunate that the sound of Earl's greatest band ( 1943) wa
never preserved, owing to a recording ban called during that year
by the musicians* union.
Earl's next venture grew out of an anomalous ambition he had
nurtured a long time: to front a huge stage orchestra built along
Paul Whiteman lines, complete with a string section. (Strings
with dance bands were in vogue again by the early forties.) He
added a covey of draftproof female violinists and some French
horns to his new seventeen-piece band and featured concert ar-
rangements of selections from Showboat and other old war-
horses. Hie experiment lasted a few troubled months, after which
the strings and horns suddenly vanished. By mid- 1944, Earl was
back to seventeen men, including reedman Scoops Carry, trum-
peter Willie Cook, and tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray.
The recording ban Was over in 1944, ^^ Earl recorded some
twelve-inch sides for Keynote, featured with groups led by Cozy
Cole and Charlie Shavers. Amazingly, they were the first records
Earl had made since 1928 with a group of jazzmen who were not
only reasonably modern in outlook but also near Hines's own mu-
sical level in ability. The Cole releases are especially satisfying, for
Hines was matched with Coleman Hawkins, and both men
seemed to enjoy the experience enormously. Each had passed
through much the same learning processes in the preceding two
decades, and each stood on the threshold of modern jazz in 1944.
Earl was uncommonly relaxed for the date, employing a light but
authoritative touch and even trying his hand at some uncharacter-
EABL BONES 69
istic bits of understatement. The four excellent performances are
Blue Moon, Just One More Chance, Father Cooperates, and a re-
worked Honeysuckle Rose called Through for the Night. With
trumpeter Shavers, Earl recorded another Rosetta, an uncom-
monly slow version of Star Dust, and two other on-the-spot com-
positions. Again one man on the date matched Earl's skill and
artistry drummer Jo Jones. With Jones assisting, Earl's back-
ground chording for front-line soloists is decidedly modern,
totally unlike his work behind Armstrong in 1928.
A session for Apollo during this period found Earl once more in
the company of his peers, in this instance altoist Johnny Hodges,
bassist Oscar Pettiford, and drummer Sidney Catlett. Of six titles,
Life with Father is the best example of Hine's 1944 style.
A set of four 1944 recordings with a trio that again included
bassist Pettiford points up even more clearly what was happening
to Earl at this time. Many of the arresting left-hand figures had
fallen away in favor of light chromatic accents and occasional
harmonic punctuations. The advent of bold, modern string-bass
lines had made this move by Earl not only possible but musically
desirable. In addition, Earl had long been hinting at a more soft
and gentle approach, although his own best work never seemed to
lean very much in that direction, and the modern rhythm section
encouraged him to bring out that side of his musical personality.
*In the twenties," Earl recalls, "much of the music was loud,
two-beat gutbucket stuff. It was like shouting all the time. I pre-
ferred musicians who played soft and beautiful things men like
cometist Joe Smith, who used to stop the crowds cold using a co-
conut shell for a mute. Trombonist Tyree Glenn has some of that
quality today."
Earl once selected Tommy Dorsey as his favorite trombonist,
because Dorsey had "technique, good taste, experience, and a real
knack for organization and selecting song material." These, it
seems, were the qualities Hines now tried to stress in his own
work. It was a more feasible proposition from 1944 on, when the
prerequisites for jazzmen that prevailed in the twenties and early
thirties volume, powerful attack, heavy rhythmic emphasis, and
a "down home" blues feeling had been superseded by a new set
of values harmonic research, long melodic lines, rapid-fire artic-
ulation, and rhythmic experimentation. The only drawback was
70 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
that Hines at 39 was not in a position to build an entirely new
style on the principles of bop, and his middle-of-the-road ap-
proach, while perfectly sound musically, led nowhere commer-
cially. Not wishing to play Dixieland or early forms of swing, but
unable to participate fully in the modern movement of the mid-
forties, Earl relied instead upon his new, softer, less aggressive
mode of expression and entered what might be called his <c bland"
period. He has never entirely emerged from it since.
In 1945, the Hines band was still a rocking one, with jazzmen
like Wardell Gray, Benny Green, and tenor saxophonist Kermit
Scott featured, but Earl kept his own solos to a bare minimum.
When the piano was spotlighted, the result too often amounted to
an undistinguished porridge of pseudo-boogie-woogie and me-
lodic cliches. This strange phase is documented by a handful of
recordings including still another Rosetta on the AHA label.
Earl's last sustained fling at big-band jazz was in 1947. He had
just recovered from a serious automobile accident, his second in
ten years, that had left him temporarily without sight The eco-
nomic picture grew darker, and he finally gave up, after nineteen
stormy years as a leader, and accepted Louis Armstrong's offer to
join his new All-Star sextet. It was not a good musical solution to
Earl's dilemma, but the pay was good and the headaches few. He
stayed nearly four years.
Two decades had brought many changes, and the Hines-
Armstrong team was no longer the formidable musical GestaU it
had been in 1928. Louis had, if anything, retreated from his once-
modern position and arrived at a kind of theatrical New Orleans
style, while Earl had moved on from his early modern approach
to a musical posture consistent with later developments in the
forties. Furthermore, Hines had long since grown accustomed to
the limelight and could not be content as a sideman even an All-
Star sideman.
Not surprisingly, Earl's best recordings during these Armstrong
years were made with others. A number of dates in 1948 and 1949,
some with trumpeter Buck Clayton and clarinetist Barney Bigard
(also an All-Star), found Earl in good form and occasionally up to
his old creative level. One called Keyboard Kapers is first-rate
Hines from beginning to end. Another mixed batch recorded
without Armstrong while on tour in Paris is less impressive, but
EABL BONES 71
Earl repeatedly breaks through the prevailing air of indifference
to offer some bracing ideas.
A set of solos for Columbia in 1950 features mainly the bland
side of Hines's contradictory musical personality, but there are
absorbing moments when Earl reveals what he could still do
when the mood struck him. In his new Rosetta, for example, he
constructs, over simple bass patterns, a long, single-note melodic
line that could easily be the work of a modern horn player. Hines
was still, when the spirit moved him, a unique and impressive
talent.
The inevitable departure from Armstrong in late 1951 triggered
some uncharacteristically hostile remarks from the trumpeter (re-
ported in Down Beat at the time): "Hines and his ego, ego, egol
If he wanted to go, the hell with him. He's good, sure, but we
don't need him. . . . Earl Hines and his big ideas. Well, we can
get along without Mr. Hines.*
Earl lost no time in putting an excellent semimodern band to-
gether, but he soon found himself a victim of his own poor busi-
ness methods again. Leonard Feather, reviewing the group in
Down Beat, sensed the problem: "It's not surprising that Fatha
Hines has one of the brightest little bands in the country. The
only surprise is that he's been working so sporadically and that so
few people seem to know about the group. (One possible reason:
D'Oro Records keeps his releases top secret.)"
Featuring versatile jazzmen like trumpeter Jonah Jones, former
sideman Benny Green, bassist Tommy Potter, drummer Art
Blakey (later replaced by Osie Johnson), and reedman Aaron
Sachs, this little band represented Earl's last bid for a place in the
contemporary music scene. When it failed, the pianist seemed
ready to try anything to earn his living, He worked for a while
with a small unit featuring Dickie Wells, but that petered out as
well. In September, 1955, Earl turned up at the Hangover Club in
San Francisco with a pickup Dixieland band that included his old
Chicago colleague Darnell Howard and New York trombonist
Jimmy Archey. He learned an approprate list of traditional tunes,
discovered how to hold back improper "modern" chords to an
even greater extent than had been necessary in Armstrong's AH-
Stars, and settled down to a long, if musically unrewarding, sojourn
at the Western saloon.
72 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
For several years, the pianist covered up his Dixieland activities
by recording and traveling with more modern trios and quartets,
but in 1960 he finally went on the road with his traditional band
and immediately found wide acceptance in Eastern nightclubs.
Weary of resisting the unavoidable, Earl began rehearsing his lit-
tle traditional band so that at least some part of each performance
would reflect his penchant for organization and showmanship,
Hines remained, as he must, very much the leader of his own
band.
Shortly after settling in the West, Earl recorded two albums for
Fantasy, one devoted to Fats Waller specialties and another con-
taining twelve unaccompanied solos. The second set suggests that
Hines's powers were undiminished; he soars effortlessly through a
superb version of Piano Man, a blues named for the late Art
Tatum, some new thoughts on Monday Date, and others. How-
ever, the records did not sell well, favorable reviews notwith-
standing.
Along with a couple of uneventful sessions, including one con-
ducted during a 1957 Paris visit, Earl recorded at least one out-
standing performance during the next couple of years. This was
Brussels 9 Hustle, a blues put together by Hines and some San
Francisco musician friends for a Felsted recording. It is a hearty
and imaginative affair, not at all like his playing in a Dixieland
context Brussels 9 Hustle reassured those who cared that Earl was
still vitally concerned with musicand rather modern music at
that when he wanted to be,
A 1958 Benny Carter-Hines collaboration, with bassist Leroy
Vinnegar and Shelly Manne added, should have provided the
ideal showcase for Earl's finest work, and indeed there are many
good moments in the twelve performances they recorded, but
Carter's unbending alto and Hines's cool piano failed to inspire
each other. It was, however, a noble experiment (by Contem-
porary Records) and a rare instance of intelligent handling of die
enormous Hines talent
Earl's next trip to the studios occurred a year later, when MGM
tried once more to sell the natural and timeless Hines style rooted
in the music of the mid-forties. An engagingly handsome quartet
treatment of Willow Weep for Me and a happy SteaUn' Apples
EABL HIKES 73
place this date among Earl's best later efforts, but it was followed
by a long silence a silence broken only in 1961 by a new re-
corded collection of Earl's Dixieland band numbers: from his
1927 recordings with Johnny Dodds, Earl had traveled nearly full
circle.
In early 1963, Hines dismissed his traditional group and for a
while tried operating his own nightclub in Oakland, California.
From time to time, he toyed with a big band, worked with a semi-
commercial swing sextet, and even experimented with a trio con-
sisting of piano, organ, and tenor saxophone, Though reluctant to
leave his well-appointed middle-class home and family in Oak-
land, he found his greatest success on trips to the East. A long
overdue jazz piano recital at New York's Little Theater in 1964
enthralled critics and led to new record dates, as well as to an
engagement at Birdland, a club generally reserved for modern
musicians. In strapping health and still a persuasive improviser,
Hines appears ready to carry on his search for musical and finan-
cial fulfillment for many more years.
Hines's influence over other pianists has been so extensive that
it is difficult to assess it clearly. Broken-bass rhythms, treble
octaves, frequent use of tenths in both hands, and even trumpet-
like melodic ideas were not new or original with Hines; it was
how he combined them into a refreshing new style that made such
a deep impression on other pianists. Unlike most of the barrel-
house keyboard men before him, Earl captured the spirit and
substance of jazz without sacrificing classical finesse. He used, for
example, all the foot pedals for shading, tone control, and height-
ening the dramatic value of certain passages. His arched fingers,
long enough to cover a tenth but seldom more than that, struck
the keys in the crisp, forceful manner of a concert pianist. Earl's
tremolos were never the sloppy affairs that one heard from blues
and boogie-woogie specialists; each note sounded strong, clear,
and evenly spaced. And there were no phony diatonic runs or
other shortcuts to flashiness; Earl conceived and pkyed every
note.
Hines's solos differed from those of, say, Jelly Roll Morton in
one fundamental way: Morton and other early pianists attempted
to emulate the sound of an orchestra; Earl wanted to achieve the
74 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE
sound of a horn soloist over supporting rhythmic and harmonic
figures. The older view Mowed logically from ragtime and New
Orleans preferences for ensemble playing. (King Oliver once
scolded pianist Lai Hardin for making fancy runs by reminding
her that "we have a clarinetist in the band.") Earl's attitude made
perfect sense in the h'ght of new trends toward solo exposition
ushered in largely by Louis Armstrong.
It was the Hines theory that appealed to young pianists in the
late twenties and early thirties. Jess Stacy rejected the violent
broken-bass figures, but he made extensive use of Earl's hornlike
treble phrasing in octaves. Joe Sullivan elaborated on the power-
ful on-the-beat attack that marked much of Earl's work and bor-
rowed some of his jagged-bass-line concepts as well. Teddy Wil-
son arrived at his own influential style by way of Hines's octave
work in the right hand, his handling of chromatic tenths in the
bass, and his advanced harmonic inversions and alterations. Art
Tatum picked up and extended some of Earl's most spectacular
tricks overlapping counterrhythms, breathtaking suspensions,
fiery double-time figures, and startling changes of pace and direc-
tion. Hundreds of others learned from Hines, many of whom tried
to copy his style outright
Though Earl's playing was agitated and "hot* (in the best
sense), it was seldom earthy, Stacy and Sullivan avoided this trap
by combining the blues message with their Hines-derived styles;
Wilson and Tatum, like Hines, evinced little interest in the blues
and remained "cool," though highly effective, jazzmen. Through
these two channels, Earl affected virtually every jazz pianist who
came after him until the arrival of Bud Powell and Thelonious
Monk in the f orties,
Because Hines is still an outstanding pianist and a robust, rest-
less man, those who admire his music are hopeful that he will yet
achieve rightful recognition for just what he is an unclassifiable
improviser, a primary contributor to the art of jazz piano playing,
and a performer still capable of sustaining intensity and excite-
ment as few jazzmen can. Only in Europe, especially in England
(where Earl appeared with Jack Teagarden in 1957), has Hines
found widespread enthusiasm for his work. It is a pity the country
that pknted the flower will not permit it to reach full bloom in its
own soil
EABL HINES 75
Recommended Reading
Feather, Leonard: Inside Be-Bop, Robbins, New York (1949)-
Gleason, Ralph J. (ed.): Jam Session, Putnam's, New York (1958).
McCarthy, Albert, and Max Jones (eds.): Piano Jazz #2, Jazz Music
Books, London (i945)-
Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith: Jazzmen, Harcourt,
Brace, New York (1939)-
Shapiro, Nat and Nat Hentoff (eds.): The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958)-
Recommended Listening
The Louis Armstrong Story, Vol. 2 (one track), COLUMBIA CL-852.
The Louis Armstrong Story, Vol. 3, COLUMBIA CL-853.
Earl Nines: QRS Sobs, ATLANTIC LP 120.
The Art of Jazz Piano (three tracks), EPIC 3295.
Guide to Jazz (one track), RCA VICTOR LPM-1393-
Great Jazz Pianists (one track), CAMDEN 328.
Earl Hines: Oh, Father!, EPIC 3223.
Earl Hines, Mercury MG 25018.
Earl Hines: Plays Fats Waller, FANTASY 3217.
Earl Hines: Solos, FANTASY 3238.
Earl Hines: Eatfs Pearls, MGM E 3832.
Earls Back Room, FELSTED 7002.
Earl Hines: A Monday Date, RIVERSIDE 398.
The Grand Terrace Band: Earl Hines, RCA VICTOR LPV-512.
BIX BEIDERBECKE
Bix BEIDEBBECKE seemed born to play jazz. Possessed of a spirit of
quiet rebellion, endowed with a sharp sense of humor as well as a
fantastic musical ear, he was psychologically constituted to seek
the handiest medium of self-expression as early in Me as possible
and he discovered jazz as naturally as a baby discovers its
mother. In his 28 years, Bix burned up most of his energies trying
to satisfy his urge to make music and spent much of his adult life
attempting to reconcile his musical individualism with the de-
mands of America's entertainment industry in the twenties. He
was doing pretty well on both counts until his physical stamina
gave out in late 1928.
Apparently, health was no problem during Bix s childhood in
Davenport, Iowa, for he is remembered as a solid and active little
boy who enjoyed sports almost as much as music. His extraordi-
nary musical ear was something of a local natural wonder, re-
membered by those who knew him long after he had left Tyler
Elementary School. Alice Robinson, Bix's kindergarten teacher
around 1908, never forgot the boy with the big brown eyes who
could go to the piano after singing with the class and, with one
finger, pick out the same tunes on the keyboard.
"Bix loved to stand by the piano," reminisced Miss Robinson in
1953, "and play with the class pianist, imitating on the high notes
whatever she was playing. He was a dreamy little fellow and was
happy finding his own niche rather than joining the larger group."
Bix's older brother, Charles, recalls hearing the piano almost
continuously in the years that followed. When the family had all
they could stand, Mrs. Beiderbecke, a pianist herself, sent Bix out
to play. He played hard, too, at baseball, ice skating, and espe-
cially tennis, but music was always first.
In a sense, Bix was practicing jazz before he knew what it was.
Mildred Colby, his sixth-grade teacher at Tyler, observed that
young Beiderbecke participated in classroom part singing in a
rather special way, adding second or third parts by ear even when
no written parts were furnished.
76
BIX BETOERBECBE 77
It was his remarkable ear, in fact, that ultimately led to serious
problems for Bix. Piano lessons never worked out very well, for he
easily memorized the lessons instead of reading them, thereby dis-
rupting the conservative teaching plan of his instructor. Today
there might be teachers who would know how to handle such a
gifted student. Because music came to him without effort, Bix ap-
parently developed an early indifference, to formal studies that
eventually harmed him in his prof essional life. He also revealed a
tendency toward laziness and frequently traveled whatever path
offered the least resistance. In school, he customarily ignored his
studies until exams came around, barely scraping through at the
last moment The pattern did not change appreciably in later
years: Bix got by on a vast natural talent for music and a quick,
searching mind, adding to these assets as little hard work as
possible.
It was while he was in high school that Bix acquired a cornet
and, at about the same time, heard the Original Dixieland Jazz
Band on records. Both events were major ,steps toward the crea-
tion of a musical personality that was to have far-reaching effects
on jazz. Bix never lost his fondness for the tunes associated with
the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and he kayed with the comet
to the end, although most cornetists switched to the sharper-
edged sound of the trumpet in the middle and late twenties. In-
deed, there was something rather inflexible about this man a
land of unconscious perverseness that had both positive and
negative sides. There was a single-minded dedication to perfect-
ing his own concept of jazz but, working against him, a defiance
of authority and accepted behavior that finally prevented Bix
from attaining the artistic satisfaction that should have been his.
(It has been suggested by some that Bixs strong ties to his
mother, combined with the sternness of his father, were revealing
clues here, but that is a separate subject.)
Bix's high-school days were full of music, spirited horseplay,
and bad grades, and here he set the adolescent way of life he was
to follow for the next decade. There were lots of jam sessions, sit-
ting in with bands of every persuasion, and endless hours of listen-
ing. Bix was sent to Lake Forest Academy, near Chicago, in an
effort to salvage his sagging high-school career. There he was put
back a year, given an opportunity to play more often, and, finally,
78 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
dismissed from the school in 1922 for failing to meet academic re-
quirements before ending his spring term.
During his stay at Lake Forest, Bix and a drummer named Cy
Welge formed the Cy-Bix Orchestra, accepting engagements in
nearby towns as well as playing for school functions. The young
cornetist was already a popular and influential figure among stu-
dents and a widening circle of musical friends from Milwaukee to
Chicago. He made himself known, too, to the New Orleans
Rhythm Kings at Chicago's Friar's Inn. Much has been written
and many arguments kindled about individual influences on Bix
Beiderbecke's style, but the New Orleans Rhythm Kings seem to
have had a kind of collective effect on his musical thinking. The
group that Bix and some fellow NORK admirers formed in late
1923 borrowed in many ways from the New Orleans unit. Other
bands and individuals had left their mark, too, including local
Davenport groups (and possibly the fleeting example of an ob-
scure itinerant New Orleans cornetist named Emmet Hardy),
assorted bands on the Mississippi boats that visited the Tri-Cities
(Rock Island, Moline, and Davenport), King Oliver s band (with
Louis Armstrong), maybe Louis Panico, and, of course, the Origi-
nal Dixieland Jazz Band, particularly its clarinetist, Larry Shields.
Most jazzmen learn from many musicians, jazz or otherwise, but a
style as distinctive as Beiderbecke's is the creative product of one
man's musical mind rather than a montage of borrowed character-
istics. In any event, the question of influence, while intriguing, is
not of primary interest What matters most about Bix Beiderbecke
is his own music and, secondarily, how his music affected those
who came after him.
After Lake Forest, Bix gained experience and confidence in a
wide variety of short engagements, including one that took him to
New York (where he heard the by now dated Original Dixieland
Jazz Band in person), and a lake-boat job working for one Bill
Grimm. The most musically satisfying of these seems to have been
a series of fraternity jobs with several friends who shared his en-
thusiasm for the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Whatever Bix had
to offer at that point, the college lads, including a worshipful
young Hoagy Cannichael, loved it. This group evolved into the
Wolverines in late 1923, by way of a couple of good regular jobs
in Cincinnati. Ohio. The men who worked with Bix in the Wolver-
BIX BEEDERBECKE 79
ines were George Johnson (tenor sax), Jimmy HartweD (clari-
net), Dick Voynow (piano), Bob Gillette (banjo), Min Leibrook
(tuba), Vic Moore (drums), and, for a while, Al Gandee
(trombone).
It wasn't an all-star band, but the Wolverine Orchestra had a
total impact as impressive as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings
themselves. The group strived for an ensemble blend, and the
brilliance of Beiderbecke's lead cornet gave the entire unit a sip-
prising amount of class, as well as rhythmic force and melodic
content. Success in the Midwest led to an opportunity to record
for a Midwestern record firm, Gennett, in Richmond, Indiana,
The first date, in February, 1924, was used up recording four
tunes from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band repertory: Fidgety
Feet, Lazy Daddy, Sensation Rag, and Jazz Me Blues. Two were
rejected, and the first and last were released on a single record,
thereby launching Bix Beiderbecke on six and a half prolific years
of recording work that now stands as the only reliable evidence of
his enormous talent. The endless anecdotes, the volumes of misin-
formation (even today, professional jazz writers sometimes refer
to Bix as Leon Bismarck Beiderbecke, although he was christened
Leon Bix), the fuzzy fantasies dealing with his idiosyncrasies all
these grow rather tiresome with the passing years, cherished
mainly by the diminishing body of aging men to whom Bix was a
living, breathing man with a magic touch on the cornet and piano,
Whatever the "real" Bix was, he lives today, for most listeners,
only through his recordings, which begin with Fidgety Feet and
Jazz Me Blues on the 1924 Gennett record.
As near as we can tell from the crudely recorded sounds of
Fidgety Feet, Bix had already, on his very first record, eclipsed his
early hero, Original Dixieland Jazz Band cornetist Nick La Rocca.
The Wolverine performance is relaxed, in the manner of the New
Orleans Rhythm Kings, and the pulse is in 4/4 time rather than in
the jerky 2/4 "cut" time that mars the ODJB recordings. Bix's
rhythmic sense is sure, but his tone is undeveloped (he was not
quite 21 at the time of this recording), his vibrato tense, and his
melodic inventiveness only suggested. Jazz Me Blues, however,
has Bix in better form, contributing an ordered solo that seems
more inspired by clarinetists Larry Shields of the ODJB and Leon
Roppolo of the NORK than by other trumpet players. Bix's early
8o JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
interest in harmonic alterations in melodic lines, undoubtedly
stemming from his passion for keyboard improvisations, suggests
that clarinetists, weaving inner harmonic-melodic parts, may have
held more fascination for him than cornetists, many of whom,
like La Rocca, were limited to simple rhythmic variations on
straight melodies. In any event, Jazz Me Blues is the first of many
recorded performances in which Bix moves with the fleetness,
grace, subtlety, and harmonic sophistication that had previously
been heard in some reedmen but seldom in brass players. (New
Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson had a similar outlook, but there
is no evidence of Bix and Bunk coming in contact with each
other.)
With recordings, other musicians suddenly became very aware
of the gifted cornetist with the Wolverines, Red Nichols, a skilled
cornetist with a fair reputation of his own at the time, recorded
Six's Jazz Me Blues solo note for note in a commercial dance-band
arrangement. The Benson Orchestra of Chicago, recording for the
Victor label, picked up material from the Wolverines. Bix was be-
coming a local sensation and a nationally known "hot" player^ at
least within the jazz fraternity.
College students, too, were impressed by the band's first rec-
ords, and, with the help of Hoagy Carmichael, the Wolverines
pulled out of Cincinnati and went back to weekend campus work,
filling out the balance of each week in an Indianapolis nightclub,
Trombonist Gandee stayed in Ohio and was not replaced. During
August, 1924, the band played in Gary, Indiana, on a job booked
by drummer Vic Berton, who split rhythm-section duties with Vic
Moore.
Berton's kid brother Ralph, who spent that August in ecstatic
worshiping range of Bix, wrote thirty-four years later (Harper's,
November, 1958) of the moonshine, marijuana, and music that
seem to be part of every Beiderbecke story, but also remembered
the celebrated comet sound, Tike shooting bullets at a bell," and
Bix s dissatisfaction with his own recordings, which did not do
him justice. Other writers have tried to describe Beiderbecke's
sound with varying degrees of success. Eddie Condon, an early
admirer and colleague of Bix, claimed it was Tike a girl saying
yes,* and Hoagy Carmichael talked of a mallet hitting a chime.
BIX BEEDERBECKE 8l
was as "sharp as a rifle crack." Berton was probably right; the rec-
ords suggest a firm attack and a fine round tone, but hardly the
sound these musicians talk about
In May and June, seven more selections were successfully re-
corded, including Carmichaers Riverboat Shuffle; two from the
ODJB and NORK books, Tiger Rag and Royal Garden Blues; a
new tune furnished by bandleader Charley Davis, Copenhagen;
and three ordinary songs called Oh, Baby, Susie, and I Need
Some Pettin. Throughout, Bix shows sharp improvement in his
playing and confidence over the February session and reveals a
predilection for blues phrasing that may have been a result of his
enthusiasm at that time for King Oliver's band. (According to one
observer, Bix was one of the few musicians welcome to sit in with
Oliver's band at any time.) Riverboat Shuffle and Copenhagen,
both of which have Gillette playing guitar instead of banjo, are
excellent examples of how well Bix could incorporate blues
phrases into nonblues material. I Need Some Pettin' may be the
closest Bix ever came to the spirit of King Oliver and Louis Arm-
strong. Again the blues is there in his performance, and there are
broken-chord figures that tell much of Bix's regard for Armstrong,
Though some of the figures in Tiger Rag sound like reworked
NORK ideas, the group's rhythmic drive, loose-jointed abandon,
and astonishing modernity are best represented by this recording.
Bix plays tricks with the lead, darting in and out of strict time,
insinuating other compositions as yet unwritten, and prods the en-
tire band from start to finish. His solo is full of brilliant bursts that
foreshadow the music he was to produce in later years. While re-
maining close to a forceful simplicity of style, Bix now begins to
utilize short scale passages, unusual neighboring tones (a raised
ninth here, a flatted fifth there) as strong melodic rather than
passing notes, and intriguing rhythmic accents, causing unsynco-
pated passages to sound syncopated.
Royal Garden Blues is again a strong blues-based performance
(this time the structure matches the mood), and the configuration
of Bixs solo bears a striking resemblance to his work on Tiger
Rag, which was recorded the same day. As before, Bix seemed to
be thinking along saxophone-clarinet lines rather than in brass
terms. His long, lazy phrases are not unlike Roppolo's.
Some idea of how it felt to play alongside Bix at this point in his
8a JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
career can be had by way of Mezz Mezzrow: "Playing with Bix
was one of the great experiences in my Kf e. The minute he started
to blow, I jumped . . . into the harmony pattern like I was born
to it, and never left the track for a moment. It was like slipping
into a suit made to order for you by a fine tailor, silk-lined all
through*
The Wolverines were on the periphery of the big time now.
Their next engagement, following the happy summer in Gary, was
as relief band at the Cinderella Ballroom in the heart of Manhat-
tan. This was, though they could hardly have known it at the time,
the beginning it the end of the Wolverines. Bix was the inspira-
tion of the band, but he was becoming too good to stay with
them. Within a month of his arrival in New York, he gave his no-
tice and prepared to return to the Midwest, where he probably
felt more at home. New York, then as now, could be a highly in-
different city, full of hustle and offering little sympathy to
"dreamy little fellows." It must have been clear even to the other
Wolverines that Bix was ready to graduate. He" did, however,
record again with the group in New York, turning out four more
titles for Gennett Sensation, Lazy Daddy, Tia Juana, and Big
Boy.
The first two selections were remakes of the rejects from the
band's initial recording session in February. George Brunis, a for-
mer New Orleans Rhythm King, enlarged the ensemble and con-
tributed some humorous kazoo work, but the date was not a strik-
ing success. The New York studios give us a better representation
of the Beiderbecke tone, however, which shows steady improve-
ment but as yet is not die perfectly controlled, finely polished
sound that can be heard on later recordings. Sensation has pro-
vocative moments in which Bix dabbles with thirteenths, ninths,
and unusual passing tones and anticipates chord changes (that
amazing ear at work again), but the larger part of his contribu-
tion here is pedestrian Beiderbecke. Lazy Daddy, available in
two takes, is full of whimsy and strange passages in which Bix
sounds aggressive and bashful at the same time, but it is not a
significant Wolverine recording.
Tia Juana does not seem as bad as tenor saxophonist Johnson
implied in later years ("the less said the better ') and, indeed, re-
veals Johnson as one of the few early tenor men to produce a good
BIX BEIDERBECKE 83
sound on his instrument. Bix again sounds much like Armstrong in
places, shows more command and power than before, and ends
Tfa ]wna with a characteristic cornet break that implies one of
his favorite devices from this time on the whole-tone scale.
Big Boy is notable for several reasons: it is the final Wolverine
recording, a new level of maturity in Bixs comet playing is
reached, and there is a glimpse of the Beiderbecke piano. Tales of
Bix's private piano improvisations are frequently superlative-
laden written accounts or smug I-heard-the-truth narrations sug-
gestive of religious experiences. This brief solo is hardly of that
order. Working within the framework of a popular tune and an
ordinary rhythm section, Bix appears to have been a limited pian-
ist (the modulation in Big Boy, from E-flat to the easier key of F
before the piano solo, was obviously for his benefit) witih a clumsy
left hand. It is difficult to tell which of Bix's left-hand chord clus-
ters are "advanced" harmonic thinking and which are mistakes,
but one can understand the discomfort that some listeners felt
while listening to the restless probing of Bix at the piano. Judging
from this recording, the substance in Bix's keyboard improvisa-
tions would seem to be in his effective use of harmonic dis-
sonances in the right hand.
Ralph Berton is one of several who have attempted to describe
the effect of Bix's piano:
I can say only that it more than once moved this listener to baf-
fled tears, that its subtlety and variety were seemingly infinite, that
the way it modulated between Debussy-esque nuance and the
dirtiest cathouse stomp had an impact I had never experienced be-
fore and never have since.
The reason why none of this was ever captured on records is
simple enough. Bix was unhappy even about recording on trumpet
[cornet, of course]; on piano, he found it impossible, On trumpet,
though he was perpetually dissatisfied, he did at least consider him-
self a professional justified in accepting wages for work done; on
piano he regarded himself as such a wretched fumbler that it was
only rarely that he would play at all except in private. As far as I
know, the few piano recordings of Bix that exist he was more or less
trapped into.
Bix's keyboard work in Big Boy is, at least, forceful and rhyth-
mically true, but it is of less melodic interest than his cornet play-
84 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
ing on the same recording. And he had now achieved the authori-
tative Beiderbecke ring that dazzled musicians wherever he went
There was another Gennett date in New York before Bix
headed West. Three of the Wolverines Beiderbecke, Moore, and
Leibrook Joined trombonist Miff Mole, pianist Rube Bloom, and
C-melody saxophonist Frank Trumbauer to record Flock o' Blues
and Tm Glad. Both performances are in the rather subdued and
precise jazz style that was probably characteristic of several New
York bands in 1924. (The three non-Wolverines were from Ray
Millers semi- ft hot" orchestra of that time.) The prevailing musical
outlook on the date seemed to be away from die blues (despite
Bloom's title on the first side) and toward a calculated series of
musical tricks within a jazz setting. Bix does not appear to be as
involved as he was in the Wolverine recordings.
Bk Beiderbecke has seldom been painted as an intellectual
man, but perhaps the portraits are not really accurate. His father,
a successful Iowa businessman, and his mother, who had received
musical awards in her childhood, were typical of die American
middle class that turns out most of die country's college students.
Bix, too lazy and too caught up in music to attempt serious higher
studies, nevertheless belonged with die college crowd. His rela-
tionship with Hoagy Carmichael and, for a brief period, with
Hoagy's intellectual friend Bill Moenkhaus may have been as
close as Bix came to revealing himself to anyone. ("Nobody could
get close to Bix," said pianist Joe Sullivan recently.) Moenkhaus
decided to try Bix one day by reading his typical piece of sopho-
moric surrealism called *The Wheatena Test":
1. Spell Wheatena in four different directions.
2. "What horse when it rained.
3. Define freight luner, and amelia,
4. Tell all you know about vetter.
5. Tell afl you know about the defeat of New Mexico.
6. Write a short diary about skates. Leave out page three.
According to Carmichael, Bix thought it over and replied
simply, ~l ain not a swan." His friends were delighted. Most of the
professional musicians that Bk knew, except the college-trained
Wolverines, were either pranksters (Joe Venuti, Wingy Mannone,
Don Murray) or confirmed anti-intellectual types who saw music
BIX BEIDERBECKE 85
primarily as emotional release (Mezzrow, Art Hodes, Condon).
Probably none of them would have understood Moenkhaus, as Bix
did instantly. Those who could talk from all sides ( drummer Dave
Tough was one) were rare, and this may have been part of the
reason for Bix's loneliness.
While Moenkhaus and Bix hit it off immediately, some fellow
musicians, such as Wingy Mannone, never did penetrate the pro-
tective fog that Bix kept around him. TBix was a genius, and we
just didn't understand him, I guess," remembers Mannone. "He
was always talking music, telling us, Xet's play this chord/ or
Xet's figure out some three-way harmony for the trumpets after
die job tonight' It seemed to us he didn't want us to enjoy our
life."
Eddie Condon tells of an unexpected conversation with Bix that
took place during a time when Condon was brushing up on his
schooling: tt< By die way/ I said, 'who is Proust? 5 He hit a chord,
listened to it, and then said, casually, *A French writer who lived
in a cork-lined room. His stuff is no good in translation/ 1 leaned
over the piano. *How the hell did you find that out?* I demanded
He gave me the seven-veils look. 1 get around/ he said."
Other acquaintances have commented on Bix's ability to com-
municate verbally when the setting was right. TBix had a great
brain," recalled Trumbauer a few years ago. THe could talk about
any subject, not just music."
His stay in New York seems to have increased Bix's interest in
formal music, too. His fondness for impressionistic composers and
orchestrators exerted a large influence on his harmonic concepts in
jazz until his death. Joe Sullivan, who had a good deal of classical
training himself, remembers Bix introducing him to the work of
Eastwood Lane, and others have spoken of his love of Stravinsky,
Debussy, and Edward MacDowell. The harmonic devices em-
ployed by these composers, although old stuff to classical
musicians and even to advanced ragtimers like Scott Joplin
were strange and new to most jazzmen. Beiderbecke, who could
play the blues and the "modern" harmonies, was a real phe-
nomenon*
As 1925 came in, Bix must have had mixed feelings about his
lif e. He was too advanced for the Wolverines but not yet a skilled
enough reader for bandleaders like Charlie Straight (who fired
86 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
him after four weeks) and Jean Goldkette. (Bix cut a test record
for Goldkette in late 1924 that was not considered acceptable.)
Playing jazz had come to him without work or even much formal
practice, but composition and orchestration were not that simple.
He was both an artist and a speakeasy entertainer, both a middle-
class mama's boy and a nomadic bum, both a star performer and a
jobless horn player.
Goldkette furnished some work for Bix around Detroit with
jazz groups made up of his key "hot" men Tommy Dorsey, clari-
netist Don Murray, banjoist Howdy Quicksell, and others. Some of
these men accompanied Bix to Richmond for a January record
date, and one of the selections turned out that day, Toddlin*
Blues, another Original Dixieland Jazz Band number, sounds
dated and is of no special interest, save for Bix's flowing clarinet-
like style. Davenport Blues is another matter. In this, Bix's first
known composition, many of the best and most characteristic
Beiderbecke flourishes can be heard throughout some one hun-
dred measures of brilliant improvising. There is the ingenious use
of accents, in one instance placed on every fourth note in a
twelve-note figure made up of four triplets. There is the whole-
tone scale ascending from the flatted fifth of the underlying chord
There are the wide interval slaps, in which almost any harmonic
alteration may occur, such as in the figure where Bix attacks an F
diminished chord and comes out with something resembling a G-
Airteenth with a flatted ninth. But all these delightful events
occur with no disruption in the smooth, orderly flow of melody
and with no slackening of rhythmic thrust. With this record, Bix
left his formative period as a jazzman, requiring now only a fi-
nal polishing to reach his creative apex.
In February, 1925, Bix attended the University of Iowa in an
effort to bring his formal training in music up to his intuitive grasp
of improvisation, but he was unable to cope with college regula-
tions and departed eighteen days after enrolling. Had he lived
thirty years later, there would have been schools to accommodate
his desire for an all-music curriculum. Stopping briefly in Daven-
port for piano lessons ( again to no avail ) , Bix returned to Chicago
and spent the spring and summer playing odd jobs and short en-
gagements, including a couple of weeks with Ollie Powers at the
Paradise Inn, a week with Frank Quartel at the Riviera Theater,
BIX BEIDEEBECKE 87
and doubtless occasional single nights with Goldkette groups in
and around Detroit.
In the fall, Bix joined a major Goldkette unit (there were many,
from small ones with Mezz Mezzrow to large and elegant bands
like McKinne/s Cotton Pickers) stationed in St. Louis under the
leadership of Frank Trumbauer. Nourished by his compatible
group of players, coddled by Trumbauer's almost paternal inter-
est in his music, and never too far from home should the going get
rough, Bix thrived and grew into a much improved musician.
Trumbauer, probably learning from Bix at the same time,
nudged the cornetist along until he was able to handle a section
part with a fair degree of confidence, During this period, too, Bix
played a great deal of piano and took a still deeper interest in
pieces like Lane's Adirondack Sketches. It was a good winter for
Bix, playing in a band with men like Pee Wee Russell and Trum-
bauer, participating in jam sessions, experimenting at the piano,
and sitting in with members of Charlie Creath's excellent orches-
tra. Creath's bassist, Pops Foster, who recalls playing casual jobs
as well as jam sessions with Bix in St. Louis, regarded Beiderbecke
as a better pianist than cornetist.
Obviously, a kind of workshop atmosphere marked the stay in
St Louis and led to some interesting results, but unfortunately
this organization never recorded. The ban9's pianist, Louis Feld-
man, has been quoted (in Bugles for Beiderbecke) to the effect
that Bix and Pee Wee were so far ahead of their time that even
some of the musicians in the band didn't appreciate what they
were doing.
Russell himself has confirmed this in Hear Me TaUdn 9 to Jo:
*We used to have little head arrangements, written by some of the
men in the band. We would do little things once in a while so
drastic, or rather so musically advanced, that when we had a
damn nice thing going the manager would come up and say,
What in God's name are you doing?* I remember on I Ain't Got
Nobody we had an arrangement with five-part harmony for the
three saxes and the two brass. And the writing went down
chromatically on a whole-tone-scale basis. It was unheard of in
those days. Bix was instrumental in things like that."
In the summer of 1926, Trumbauer took a slightly different
Goldkette unit to Hudson Lake, Indiana, and Bix and Pee Wee
88 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
went along. From all reports, everyone had a marvelous time and
the music was good. By fall, Bix and Trumbauer were ready to
join and tour with the first-string Goldkette band, which was by
now seething with jazzmen ready to blow at the slightest provoca-
tion. Ray Ludwig and Fuzzy Farrar (who is supposed to have in-
structed Bix somewhat) were the other trumpeters; trombonist
Bill Rank, reedmen Don Murray and Trumbauer, bassist Steve
Brown, and Bix were the principal "hot" men. There was another
important member of the troupe, too, named Bill Challis. His ar-
rangements for Jean Goldkette were often as advanced and jazz-
oriented as were the contemporary scores of Don Redman,
Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington. His and Bix Beider-
becke's talents appeared together on record for the first time in
October, 1926, with a tune called Idolizing.
After his 1924 recording failure with Goldkette, Bix seemed to
be taking a cautious stand in his initial appearance on the Victor
label. The band was clearly a superior one, sparked by Steve
Brown's booming bass and Eddie Lang's incisive guitar. (Lang
and violinst Joe Venuti were frequently added to the orchestra for
recording purposes.) Challis contributed a clean, balanced ar-
rangement calling for 4/4 rhythm rather than the jittery 2/4 of so
many popular orchestras of the day. The band began to swing.
In all, only a dozen or so Goldkette titles were released that
could interest an admirer of Bix Beiderbecke, but among them are
some superb examples of the now fully matured cornetist. Hap-
pily, these were electrically recorded, permitting us to really hear
Bix's exquisite tone for the first time.
That Challis was enchanted by Bix's work was evident from the
start Time and again he wrote out trumpet section parts based
on Beiderbecke phrases and assigned Bix to a loose lead, leaving
space for a bit of improvisation. Except for the collaboration of
Miles Davis and Gil Evans thirty years later and the constant ex-
ample of Duke Ellington, it is doubtful that any skilled arranger
has ever taken more care in writing for a single jazz instrumental-
ist than Bill Challis displayed in his best work for Goldkette and,
later, for Paul Whiteman.
Bix can be heard leading his section and, in fact, lending his
character to the entire band on Sunday, Hoosier Sweetheart, and
M y Pretty Girl In other instances, Bix was allowed to improvise
BIX BEDDEBBECKE 80
in and around the entire arrangement, filling holes, amplifying the
brass or the reeds at will, and inventing countermelodies as the
band moved toward the final measure. It was a remarkable as-
signment, one that probably no other cornetist could have han-
dled properly. Examples of this can be heard on I'm Looking
Over a Four Leaf Clover, Fm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now,
Slow River, In My Merry Oldsmobile, and Clementine,
The only Goldkette recording that really offered Bix a solid solo
was Clementine. On this, his last appearance on record with the
band, Bix makes relatively simple but powerful musical state-
ments over rich sustained chords that were presumably worked
out between Chain's and Beiderbecke.
By far the most valuable legacy left as a result of Bix's two years
with Jean Goldkette bands is a set of sparkling performances re-
corded with Trumbauer in February and May, 1927, representing
Bix at the peak of his creative powers. The groundwork for
these successful Okeh records was laid in St. Louis during the
many hours Bix and Trumbauer spent together working out head
arrangements and unusual harmonic progressions.
For his first date, Trumbauer came up with a pair of classic per-
formances. Singin 9 the Blues left an impression on virtually every
saxophone and trumpet player and, with the exception of Louis
Armstrong's West End Blues, has probably been more widely
copied than any jazz performance recorded in the twenties. With
this record, a legitimate jazz ballad style was announced a
method whereby attractive songs could be played sweetly without
losing authentic jazz feeling and without sacrificing virility. Prior
to Singin 9 the Blues, "pretty" tunes were either cloyingly senti-
mental or cranked up to an awkward jogging pace. Jazzmen gen-
erally played the blues or blues songs when slow tunes were
called for. Bix Beiderbecke, with the help of the electric micro-
phone (which permitted an intimate performance by singers and
instrumentalists, on the stage or in the recording studio, for the
first time), changed the pattern almost single-handedly. Trum-
bauer, who at best was a bright reflection of Beiderbecke, contrib-
uted substantially by proving that the ballad idea wasn't a one-
man phenomenon but a workable way for anyone to play certain
song material.
It is reasonable to assume that Bix s concept of playing a ballad
go JAZZ MASTTERS OF THE TWENTIES
in moderate 4/4 tempo came, at least in part, from his passion for
romantic and impressionistic melodies in formal music. His ear for
harmony, too, meant that Bix could hear enough alternate chords
within each measure of a popular song to sustain his improvisa-
tions at a slow pace. Singin* the Blues may not seem very slow by
today's ballad standards, but in 1927 it was about as slow as any-
one dared to be without strings and "sweet" arrangements.
As usual in his finest work, Bix's solo on Smgin' the Blues is
architectonically sound and as ordered as a written composition.
It was, in fact, included in later orchestrations as originally
played, and at least two cornetists, Rex Stewart and Bobby Hack-
ett, recorded the Beiderbecke solo in later years, Bennie Moten's
1929 recording of Rite Tite is also full of references to Trum-
bauef s Singin' the Blues solo.
Clarinet Marmalade, in an arrangement sketched by Bill
Challis, reached back once more to the Original Dixieland Jazz
Band library. It is played at a fast clip and is one of Bix's very best
recordings. It showed him to be, too, one of the most agile horn
players on the scene in 1927. Few men could execute clean, precise,
fully formed notes while improvising at this pace, and probably
only one or two (Armstrong and Jabbo Smith come to mind)
would have been able to conceive original ideas rather than
cliches while carrying it off. Bix's Clarinet Marmalade is, too, a
triumph in terms of logical overall structure, melodic symmetry,
and rhythmic drive, a most extraordinary jazz recording.
The performance, which builds in intensity with each phrase,
puts to work many of the personal devices that Bix had been toy-
ing with for some time. An emphasis on sevenths, ninths, and thir-
teenths in the melodic line lends color and surprise to the work
There are several examples of Bix's interest in scales as substitutes
for arpeggios, a notion that was about three decades ahead of
1927. Using the diatonic scale freely, Bix suggests harmonic exten-
sions reaching into the eleventh and thirteenth intervals of the
tonic tone, and this practice, like the use of the whole-tone scale,
implies a movement away from tonality and conventional chord
playing. Bix's melodic inventions in this work are all the more in-
triguing because he places each note into his patterns with intui-
tive care. His use of scales, for example, is not simply an easy way
BIX BEDDDERBECKE gi
to sound flashy, as witb lesser players, but a purposeful musical
maneuver,
The roots of Bix's Clarinet Marmalade, incidentally, can be dis-
cerned quite plainly in two earlier recordings of the tune, one by
the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and another by the New Or-
leans Rythm Kings. For all his advanced concepts, Bix's playing
here is a kind of atavistic compendium of the work of cornetists
La Rocca and Mares and clarinetists Shields and Roppolo.
The second and third Trumbauer recording dates are of equal
interest. On these occasions, Ostrich Walk (another nod to the
ODJB), Riverboat Shuffle, Tm Comiri Virginia, Way Down Yon-
der in New Orkans, and For No Reason at AU in C were
produced.
Ostrich Walk, like Clarinet Marmalade, has Bix in full stride,
combining, in his paradoxical way, ten-year-old material with
prophetic intimations of music to come after his own lifetime.
Bop, or modern jazz, was also built on time-tested popular song
patterns. It may be unrealistic to expect a revolution in both jazz
instrumental procedure and underlying harmonic structures simul-
taneously. By employing already familiar materials, Bix, for one,
was able to become more adventurous in his comet improvisa-
tions. (He did, however, seek new structural forms through his
keyboard experiments.)
With the help again of Bill Chaflis, Ostrich Walk moved swiftly
and effortlessly through some breathtaking ensemble playing to a
brilliant cornet passage in concert A-flat and into a driving final
chorus in E-flat. The entire performance sparkles with wit and
whimsy and is one of Bix s happiest records. However, there is
also a mildly disturbing element in Ostrich Walk. Creeping into
Six's work was a slightly stilted manner, a trifle too much empha-
sis on staccato articulation, suggesting that he might have been in
need of a few weeks of playing the blues, at this point, to recover
his former balance of expressive techniques. (For historical per-
spective, we might remember that Louis Armstrong recorded his
classic Potato Head Blues in the same month that these Trum-
bauer sessions were held. )
Tm Comiri Virginia displays Bix in his best ballad form and, in
this instance, somewhat more in touch with the blues, with a
Q2 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
chorus that is perfectly formed and shows no lapses in taste or
imagination. On Way Down Yonder in New Orleans, Bix con-
tributes a restrained but appealing ballad chorus. There is a hint
of awkwardness, though, and one has the feeling that Bix may
have been taking the easy way out again by playing figures al-
ready worked out and pretested for effectiveness.
Riverboat Shuffle provides an interesting contrast with the Wol-
verine version three years earlier. There is no doubt about Bix's
growth and increased authority. He easily gallops away from
Trumbauer here, working up to a final flare on cornet high C that
he probably could not have brought off in earlier times. But amid
the excitement and invention, there is a trace of the self-caricatur-
ization that was to -damage his work in the months to come.
For No Reason at All in C is a trio performance with Trum-
bauer, guitarist Eddie Lang, and Bix on piano. The tide supports
those acquaintances (Jack Teagarden, for one) who remember
Beiderbecke as a pianist who was comfortable only when he was
playing in C and F. Bix seems less clumsy at the keyboard here
than he did on Big Boy, if more conventional in his approach. The
touch is firm and the sound pleasing, but there is no evidence here
of a pianist to be even remotely compared with the outstanding
keyboard men of the day Fats Waller and Earl Hines, for
example.
In August, 1927, Bix and Trumbauer turned out a pair of re-
cordings based on Three Blind Mice (with a Challis arrange-
ment) and Blue River. The former is full of tricks, and the ar-
rangement becomes the focal point rather than the improvised
solos. Bix discloses one of his mechanical problems on this one. In
his desire to achieve an uninterrupted flow of ideas, he waits too
long and is unable to finish his phrase, for lack of breath. This is
worth mentioning only because it points up a weakness in Bix's
concept of melody as applied to a wind instrument. Bix did not
sing his choruses, he composed them. Armstrong, whose work of
the period remains even less dated than Bix's, accomplished both
at once, which is an important factor in his greatness.
Blue River tells us the same thing in a different way. Bix plays
well behind the vocal but shows no regard for the singer's breath
points. (It must be admitted that the singer, Seger Ellis, hardly
deserved serious attention.) Instead, he simply "solos" in the
BIX BEIDERBECKE QQ
background, in marked contrast to the sensitive blues accompani-
ments played by King Oliver and Louis Armstrong in the mid-
twenties.
In a Mist, Bix's best-known composition, was released about
this time. It is solo piano, well played, and reveals as much about
Bixs aspirations as any single record he made. Having started
work on this piece several years earlier, Bix was constantly mak-
ing changes or adding to it as new ideas came to him, The very
act of recording it probably helped to freeze some of its features
into place, but the ultimate printed version, put together by Bill
Chain's, is not the same as the recorded example. One can easily
guess another of the paradoxes in Bix's life the dilemma of want-
ing to compose pieces that would endure, despite a lack of the
technical equipment needed to compose on paper and notwith-
standing a natural inclination to improvise something new each
time he sat at the piano. In a Mist is a charming piece, full of
characteristic broken chords, provocative passing tones, whole-
tone tidbits, and romantic but not sentimental melodic fragments.
As in previous piano solos by Bix, the left hand remains at an ele-
mental level, filling in with parallel fifths and tonic chords while
the right hand does most of the work. The four-bar coda sounds
derived from the codas that Challis and others wrote for Gold-
kette and Whiteman.
ChalKs wrote down three other piano compositions before Bix
died: Candlelights, Flashes, and In the Dark. The first is a kind of
extension of In a Mist; "Flashes, the weakest of the group, is an
exercise in broken chords ranging over nearly five octaves of the
keyboard- In the Dark is a simple melodic piece of considerable
charm, featuring long eighth-note lines reminiscent of Bix's cornet
improvisations. All four are in C and are quite properly presented
by their publisher, Bobbins Music, as Bix Beiderbecke's Modern
Piano Suite.
Bix's final piano recording was Wnngin' and Ttoistin', cut in
September, 1927, with Trumbauer and Lang. It would be interest-
ing to hear Bix's piano with some other rhythmic support, which
might have freed him from the task of keeping time, as he must
here; but the way it stands, this record is litde more than a pleas-
ant curiosity.
Two other "modern" recordings are worth mentioning. One is
94 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Humpfy Dumpty, written by the talented airanger Fud Living-
ston, which contains an eight-bar gem by Bix in which the cornet-
ist relates to the tonic scale of the composition rather than to the
chord underlying his figures. The implications of this tactic are
significant and extraordinary for 1927. The other experimental
number is Krazy Rat, utilizing fast and uncommon chord changes
that Bix rides over with confidence and aplomb. His sixteen-bar
solo stresses once more the reliability of that remarkable ear,
which allowed him to anticipate an upcoming chord and, before
reaching the harmonic root that would resolve his phrase, be off
on an anticipation of the next chord. It is this practice that creates
in much of Bix's work a sense of floating and searching, in lines
that almost seem to begin and end in some other song. Fortu-
nately, Bix's unerring good taste brings him back to solid har-
monic ground often enough and long enough for the listener to
maintain his bearings and to prepare for the next flight.
The Greystone Ballroom in Detroit was home base for Gold-
kette. It featured his own bands and groups in his stables, such as
McKinney's Cotton Pickers. It is said that Bix and trumpeter John
Nesbitt of the Cotton Pickers occasionally swapped chairs, and
the two bands probably borrowed a number of musical ideas from
each other. Matching Goldkette's Chain's was the Cotton Pickers*
arranger, Don Redman, who also directed and rehearsed the
band. Thus surrounded by top musicians, good arrangers, and
close friends, leading a life of record dates, dances, musical exper-
imentation, and jam sessions, earning both good money and a
wide reputation, Bix was enjoying what must have been the most
rewarding months of his lif e. True, he was a spoiled child, the pet
of the band, but he was getting better and better at reading his
parts in the section and was earning his keep as a widely known
and most extraordinary jazzman.
By this time, Bix had become, at 24, firmly set in a mode of life
that was decidedly unwholesome. He had a musical protector in
Trumbauer, but no one bothered to steer Bix into desirable social
patterns, and it is not likely lhat he would have responded had
anyone attempted it Irregular hours, random diet, and too much
alcohol were beginning to tear him down. Conventional relation-
ships with the opposite sex were, as far as one can tell, not impor-
tant enough to occupy Bix's thoughts for very long at a time.
BIX BEIDERBECKE Q5
Here was a special girl named Vera Cox back in Davenport, but
she had become tired of waiting and married someone else. He
was, like many intelligent men who are preoccupied with their
life's work, absentminded and .sometimes removed from all that
went on about him. Even among jazz musicians, a notoriously in-
dividualistic lot, Bix was regarded as a rather odd duck.
Goldkette's band finally collapsed in September, 1927, under
the weight of an inflated payroll and poor prospects for the com-
ing year, but Paul Whiteman stepped in to rescue Trumbauer,
ChaDis, Steve Brown, and Bix by offering them permanent posi-
tions in his lumbering organization of thirty-odd performers. Ac-
tually, there was an interim period of several weeks with Adrian
Roflini at the New Yorker Club, but this band (which made a
single record for Okeh) was not a success.
Just before joining Whiteman that fall, Bix recorded six selec-
tions under his own name (Bix and His Gang) for Okeh. The first
three titles, once again connected with the records of the Original
Dixieland Jazz Band, were A* the Jazz Band Ball, Royal Garden
Blues, and Jazz Me Blues. The second three, more in keeping with
Bix's current musical world, were Goose Pimples, Sorry, and Since
My Best Gal Turned Me Down. The men appearing with Bix on
these records were selected from Rollini's short-lived band, which
in turn was made up largely of Goldkette alumni: trombonist Bill
Rank, clarinetist Don Murray, drummer Chauncy Morehouse, pi-
anist Frank Signorelli, and Rollini himself on bass saxophone. The
musical results were new testimony to Bix's old paradoxical atti-
tude toward jazz. While other jazzmen of consequence in the
twenties were moving away from the Dixieland idea, Bix, whose
instincts placed him musically ahead of almost all his contempo-
raries, chose to play in just that outmoded idiom for his own rec-
ord dates. By so doing, however, he established the basic princi-
ples for playing Dixieland in a new way that have endured to this
day. Drawing upon standard ODJB-NORK repertory and popu-
lar songs of the day, adding sophisticated harmonies and the 4/4
rhythm of swing, featuring a relaxed, even whimsical, cornet lead,
and highlighting each member of the ensemble in solo passages,
these Beiderbecke recordings served as prototypes for hundreds
of Dixieland bands some good and some not to follow in the
next thirty years.
g6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Jazz Me Blues and Royal Garden Blues, both previously re-
corded by Bix with the Wolverines, are indices of the extent of the
cometist's development, Bix was even more his own man. Jazz Me
Blues has the same relaxed air as the 1924 performance, but there
are new ideas, new harmonies, and greatly increased authority.
Then, too, there is the constant probing of upper harmonic inter-
vals that marks all of Bix's best work and yet is so unobtrusive
that it is more felt than heard. Jazz Band Ball, for example,
sounds like an uninvolved, hard-hitting selection, but the cornet
line is bristling with accented sixths, ninths, thirteenths, ingenious
scalelike figures, and unusual passing tones.
Bix's own recordings have an abandon and freedom that Trum-
bauer s do not; and for many, these six 1927 selections represent
Bix at his very best. Sorry is a superb performance all the way, full
of most of tie typical Beiderbecke touches already discussed.
Goose Pimpks, a rhythmically disguised blues, offers some of the
most relaxed and forceful (these two qualities do go together) Bix
on record. Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down is impressive, too,
but the f eeling that Bix has typecast himself begins to grow with
this recording, his last before joining Whiteman. The clipped
eighth notes, the triplet runs, the high-note flare all are effective
enough, but suddenly they begin to resemble a proved formula
rather than spontaneous excitement. The same cloud hangs over
the otherwise excellent Trumbauer-Beiderbecke record cut that
day, Cryin All Day and A Good Man Is Hard to Find ( both obvi-
ous attempts to re-create the success of Singin the Blues).
Rollini deserves special credit for his work throughout these
sessions. His ability to swing on the cumbersome bass saxophone
is in itself noteworthy, but he was also a jazzman of exceptional
ability and taste and probably came closer than any other man
except Pee Wee Russell to understanding, absorbing, and playing
the Beiderbecke way without loss of his own identity.
Whiteman paid high wages to obtain the men he wanted. In
the case of Bix Beiderbecke, he was buying a useful commodity, a
man who could improvise on any given piece of music and lend
an authentically "hot" sound to the band whenever the effect was
called for. The price to Whiteman was $200 a week, plus putting
up with occasional unexplained lapses and tolerating a third chair
man who couldn't read very well. For Bix, it was lots of money, an
BIX BETDEKBECKE 97
opportunity to improve his reading, and intimate contact with
light concert music, which had always interested him. It seemed a
fair exchange. There would still be recording sessions under his
and Trumbauer's names on which to let off steam.
But, as it turned out, Bix stopped growing as a jazzman as of
the time he joined Whiteman. It wasn't especially Whiteman's
fault; Bix had played in commercial bands before, and this was a
good one. A factor may have been Trumbauer's change of direc-
tion into more commercial recordings at that same time. Probably
the largest reason, though, was Bix himself. He was drinking more
(who ever heard of a drinking man consuming less with each
passing year?), and it was becoming an effort simply to stay at his
own high level, let alone worry about further development.
Whiteman's music, too, was demanding and required attention to
more than merely one's ability to improvise. The job was Bixs se-
verest test as a real professional musician, and he was, as in
childhood, earning barely passing grades. Concerts and, later,
radio shows, unlike records or fraternity dances, demanded accu-
racy on the first try. It is a little amazing, in retrospect, that Bix
lasted as long as he did almost two years with the orchestra.
Bix was still, after joining Whiteman, a superb jazz cornetist.
Perhaps his failure to develop further in jazz was simply because
he had already reached his highest plateau and, as all jazzmen
must sooner or later do, leveled off at or near that point. It is more
likely, though, that Bix would have entered a significant new crea-
tive phase after 1927 if more time and health had been his.
The first Whiteman release on which Bix could be heard was
encouraging, although it had little real jazz to offer. It was a
twelve-inch record (Bix always wanted to make longer records),
friend Hoagy Carmichael was featured, singing his own Bix-like
Washboard Blues, the arrangement was by Chaffis, and there was
a brief explosion of Beiderbecke between vocal passages. Best of
all, the whole performance had a sense of humor, one of the pre-
requisites of a jazz band. Other Whiteman items of the period
have Bix in varying quantities, from four to sixteen bars at a time.
Some have been made available in alternate takes, affording fasci-
nating glimpses into the Beiderbecke musical mind at work. Be-
cause the arrangements surrounding Bixs solos remained the
same, it is of special interest to observe how the cometist varied
98 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
his ideas with each successive take. Changes, for example, has a
good but relatively conservative sixteen-bar solo on the second
master, or take. But on the third master, the one that was chosen
for issue in 1927, Bix reaches into the harmonic entrails of
Changes and develops a splendid short solo that alternates be-
tween melodic statements suspended on sixth, ninth, and eleventh
intervals and simple but colorful blueslike exclamations,
On Mary, Bix again plays reservedly for the first take but works
up to a highly expressive eight-bar solo by the time take 4 comes
around. His lead work in the section also puts a fine veneer on an
otherwise uninteresting Matty Malneck arrangement. Lonely
Melody has Bix in better form on take 3 than take i, especially in
his manipulation of rhythmic accents and syncopation. Interest-
ingly, the two solos are the same in general structure, differing
mainly in terms of internal detail. (Both Whiteman and pianist
Irving Riskin have since pointed out in Metronome, November,
1938 that Bix would often develop a solo until he had what he
wanted and thereafter play it essentially the same way each
time.)
The arrangement of San was an attempt to capture the essence
of small-band Bix in written form. Challis did an impressive job
for his time, but Bix does not solo, and the whole performance
has dark implications, reminding one of Mezz Mezzrow's feelings
about the effect that formal music was having on Bix:
"Once, back in Chicago, a bunch of us went over to the Wurlit-
zer store, and there in the window we saw our whole philosophy
on display ... a kind of animated-doll symphony orchestra set up
there, run by some hidden electrical clockwork. 'Wonderful!' Dave
Tough said when he caught sight of that window exhibit. There it
is that' s the answer/ We all laughed like hell. But when we tried
to tell Bix about it later, our story only got a feeble grin out of him.
There had always been a touch of the militaristic, the highly dis-
ciplined and always-under-control, in his horn technique, and it was
showing up stronger in his attitude toward music all the time, till
he couldn't see what was so funny in that puppet orchestra with its
mechanical-doll conductor."
Bix was still very much of and for jazz, however, and his im-
provisations of this period, unlike Mezzrow's, have endured as
some of the best jazz produced in the twenties. Despite pompous
BIX BEDDERBECKE 99
scores, all was not mechanical recitation of cliches in Whiteman's
orchestra. There are lighthearted recorded moments when Bix,
Trumbauer, and Bing Crosby virtually take command of the en-
tire performance, as in There Ain't No Sweet Man That's Worth
the Salt of My Tears, and transform Whiteman's musical
leviathan into a rollicking jazz band for several minutes. At times,
it seems almost as if it were Bix's band, as in the long opening solo
in from Monday On particularly in the fourth take, which Bix
lifts right off the ground by charging in on a sustained, shouting
highC.
But these were the occasional high points. Sometimes Bix's aims
were blocked by the elephantine stirrings behind him. On Sugar,
for example, he attempts a kind of shuffle rhythm, in the manner
of clarinetist Frank Teschemacher (who had recorded the same
tune a couple of months earlier), but there is no response or sup-
port from the unwieldy rhythm section, and the solo does not
really come off. On some tunes (Lovable is one), Bix seems to give
up> merely tossing out a smooth and uneventful solo in the pleas-
ing manner of Red Nichols.
Though he may have wished for more opportunities to play
jazz, Bix was gaining on his reading problem as the months went
by with Whiteman. Jack Teagarden remembers Bix telling him
that he enjoyed the big orchestra because it represented valuable
experience to him, especially in sight reading. That he managed to
survive at all without a thorough grounding in legitimate tech-
niques is further testimony to the efficacy of the remarkable
Beiderbecke ear. TBix would hear something once" recalls Tea-
garden, "and he had it. It beats me how he could pick up intricate
modulations and tricky arrangements on just one hearing."
Trumbauer s recordings after the switch to Whiteman are
mostly dismal commercial affairs. At first (There'll Come a Time
and Mississippi Mud, cut in January, 1928)3 Bix was permitted to
romp with some freedom, but the jazz content dropped sharply
after that, and soon Trumbauer was recording inferior stuff like
Our Bungalow of Dreams and Dusky Stevedore. On these rec-
ords, as well as Whiteman's of the period, Bix frequently plays a
muted horn, despite his long-standing preference for the un-
muffled sound of the open cornet. When he played into a metal
derby, the resulting timbre was much like a saxophone. This prob-
100 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
ably pleased Bix, for he had, as we have seen, frequently bor-
rowed from reedmen in putting together his personal style. (A
number of reed players, in turn, were deeply affected by Bix, in-
cluding Pee Wee Russell, Frank Teschemacher, Adrian Rollini,
and Benny Goodman. Listen to Goodman's alto on his 1928 re-
cording of Blue.) Good examples of Bixs "saxophone" approach
with Whiteman s band are Louisiana and a pair of 1929 record-
ings, Sweet Sue and China Boy.
In mid-1928 Whiteman had two of the best first and second
trumpet men around in Charlie Margulis and Harry Goldfield,
and Bix must have felt the pressure of playing third to such musi-
cians. Yet when a comet soloist was called for in the Whiteman
recording of George Gershwin's Concerto in F, Bix was assigned
the part. His moody, muted opening statement, sounding curi-
ously like Miles Davis in the late fifties, comes off without hitch or
hesitation.
Bix recorded several more titles on his own, including Thou
Swell, Somebody Stole My Gal, Of Man River, Wa-Da-Da,
Rhythm King, and Louisiana, but they are not up to the level of
his earlier sessions with Adrian Rollini. The leader tries desper-
ately to swing his Whiteman colleagues (Whiteman apparently
saw to it that he recorded only with them), but they remain rigid
and uninspired. Even Bix plays stiffly and without real enthusiasm
on these dates. Ironically, his short solos with the full Whiteman
orchestra sound less contrived than his contributions to his own
final small-band recordings made at the same time.
When Bix's health faltered in late 1928, Paul Whiteman sent
him on leave (with pay) to pull himself together. He came back
in better shape in February, 1929, but by now the pace was even
faster regular radio broadcasts had been added to the busy
schedule and Bix was not taking care of himself any better than
he ever had.
During this difficult period with Whiteman, though, Bix turned
out at least one first-class recorded solo. In May, the band cut
China Boy, an old favorite of most jazzmen at that time, and in
sixteen bars Bix steps in from his private musical world, creates an
engaging new melody, makes use of sixths, ninths, and augmented
chords that were never there in the first place, changes the mood
and quality of the entire arrangement for the better, and quickly
BIX BEIDERBECKE 101
vanishes into the musical ferment that follows. It is a cool, modern
solo, a little like the way Lester Young played ten years later.
But these flashes were rare now. Bix finally left the band in Oc-
tober and went home to Davenport to spend the winter. And even
at home he could not escape the thoughtless friends who wanted
to promote and be part of the already forming Beiderbecke
legend. In a sense," said Pee Wee Russell years later (Hear Me
Talkin to Y0), "Bix was killed by his friends. Bix couldn't say no
to anybody."
It was nearly over now, although Bix kept going well into 1931.
By curious coincidence, the American economy collapsed at the
same moment in history that Bix did, and the nation was in no
mood to spend large amounts of money on music any more. Bix
was something of a celebrity in Davenport (characteristically, he
sat in with every last local band whenever he visited his home-
town, in order to avoid hurting any feelings), but when he got
back to New York in 1930, he was just one of the many jobless
jazzmen set adrift by a wave of economy moves among top band-
leaders. There was no place now, with Whiteman or anyone else,
for a Bix Beiderbecke.
A couple of record sessions with Hoagy Carmichael were
thrown together, but Bix was no more than a specter of his old
self. Although he had returned from Davenport in fairly good
physical condition, the long rest probably did temporary damage
to his embouchure, which had never been considered very strong
anyway, and that may have been part of the trouble at the Car*
michael date.
Bix even recorded three titles under his own name for Victor,
but that same inability to say no resulted in abortive commercial
products, complete to glandless vocal refrains. One suspects, too,
that the magic was gone from the Beiderbecke tone, for Bix
played almost entirely with mutes on his last recordings, possibly
hoping to prevent the decay from showing too much. As if to put
an exclamation point at the end of his recording career, though,
Bix's final burst on Carmichaers Bessie Couldn't Help It is wide
open (the tone is worse) and, though far below his peak of three
years before, is full of enthusiasm and hope for the future. He
was, after all, still a young man of 27.
Once again, Bix went home to Davenport and strug
102 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
through another winter of odd jobs, heavy drinking, and poor
health. He returned to New York in 1931 and found some radio
work, but he was unable to stay in good enough condition to per-
form well after a few months. He tried to join the Casa Loma
band, but that didn't work out either. Now he was reduced to cas-
ual work, a night here with the Dorsey Brothers (sometimes sit-
ting next to young Bunny Berigan), a night there with Benny
Goodman or someone else.
Even in his last confused days, Bix stuck to his music. He
played piano, worked with Challis to get his compositions printed
and published, and talked music with friends at Plunkett's speak-
easy. (Bassist Joe Tarto preserved an unusual six-measure coda,
concluding on an unresolved major seventh, that Bix composed at
the bar one day. ) He had dreams of taking a jazz band to Europe,
recording jazz with a concert orchestra, and perhaps even of
going on the wagon someday.
The end came in August, when Bix developed "lobar pneumo-
nia" (according to his New York death certificate) and had no
strength left to fight it off.
Beiderbecke's contributions to jazz were major in four distinct
ways. For one, he was the first real modernist in jazz, both in his
attitude toward music and in the way he went about playing. In-
troducing the use of flatted fifths, sixths, ninths, elevenths, thir-
teenths, whole-tone scales, and augmented chord harmonies in
improvised single-note melodic lines, Bix opened the way for all
innovators who came after him. An entire body of music, largely
inspired by his improvisations, sprang up around men like Red
Nichols, Miff Mole, Eddie Lang, Vic Berton, and Fud Livingston,
and this music in turn had considerable effect on players like
Teddy Wilson (who recalls the Nichols records as his favorites in
the late twenties), baritone saxophonist Harry Carney (strongly
influenced by Adrian Rollinfs bass saxophone work), Benny
Goodman, Jack Teagarden, and countless others. Through Frank
Trumbauer and Pee Wee Russell, Bix's music reached jazzmen of
the thirties such as Lester Young and Bobby Hackett. According
to the pioneer modern trumpeter Benny Harris, Teddy Wilson
was an important early influence on modern jazzmen because of
his tasteful and precise use of unusual extended harmonies, and
BIX BEJDEHBECKE 103
cornetist Hackett was also much admired by Dizzy Gillespie and
by Harris himself for his easy command of ninths, elevenths, thir-
teenths, and so on, in his -solo lines. Tenor saxophonist Young, who
cited Trumbauer as an early influence, is, of course, generally ac-
knowledged as a key figure in the early development of modern
jazz.
Bix's imaginative use of rhythmic accents on weak beats, while
not original with him, was also influential. Finally, the Beider-
becke piano pieces, which still sound fresh today, have been re-
discovered by jazzmen every decade or so for the past thirty
The second major contribution Bix made was his method of
playing in what is best described as a "ballad" style. The whimsi-
cal, probing ballad playing of Pee Wee Russell, Bobby Hackett,
Bud Freeman, Bunny Berigan, probably Lester Young, and many
others (Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond, and Miles Davis are con-
temporary extensions of this tradition) grows directly out of the
easy, contemplative approach of Bix and Trumbauer. The melodic
and harmonic flavor found in a number of Hoagy Carmichael
compositions, too, undoubtedly stems from the songwriter's long
association with Bix.
Bix helped to revitalize the dying art of Dixieland playing,
which had, by the mid-twenties, reached an impasse in sterile
groups like the Memphis Five, the Indiana Five, and so on. The
young Chicagoans of the period turned to Louis Armstrong and
Bix and evolved a virile Dixieland-swing style that continued to
be vigorous and exciting for more than fifteen years. Some of
these players were Eddie Condon, Joe Sullivan, Frank Tesche-
macher, Bud Freeman, Rod Cless, Dave Tough, Jess Stacy,
George Wettling, Jimmy McPartland, and Pee Wee Russell. Fol-
lowing Bix's example, they carried on material from the Original
Dixieland Jazz Band library (Jazz Band Ball, Jazz Me Blues, Sen-
sation, Tiger Rag, Clarinet Marmalade, fidgety feet, etc.) as
well as many tunes associated with Bix (Rwerboat Shuffle, Co-
penhagen, You Took Advantage of Me, Singirf the Blues, Tm
Comin Virginia, etc.). The New Orleans Rhythm Kings and King
Oliver s band were other sources of inspiration for this group, but
Bix was a kind of personal hero to most of the Chicagoans. The
104 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
early Commodore recordings of the late thirties, directed by Con-
don and featuring many of the men mentioned above, are full of
Six's music.
Finally, there is the less important matter of direct stylistic in-
fluence. It has been said that in the late twenties, most trumpet
players sounded like either Bix or Armstrong. Many, like Bill
Davison, went through a Beiderbecke and an Armstrong phase
before arriving at their own styles. Some tried to combine both
from the start. The obvious examples of direct Bix leanings are
Red Nichols, Jimmy McPartland, Andy Secrest (who replaced Bix
in Whiteman's band), Doc Evans, and Bobby Hackett (with
much Armstrong added). Less obvious are the styles of jazzmen
Pee Wee Russell, Brad Cowans, Joe Rushton, Rex Stewart, Yank
Lawson, and Bud Freeman.
The saga of Bix Beiderbecke is not any more tragic, in personal
terms, than the stories of -dozens of jazzmen who lived through
the twenties. Romance aside, Bix died mostly from pneumonia.
Of course, pneumonia caught him when it did partly because
Bix's consuming passion for music blinded him to the essentials of
a healthful life. And there we see the basic ingredients for real
tragedy.
Recommended Reading
Carmichael, Hoagland Howard: The Stardust Road, Rinehart, New
York (1946).
Condon, Albert Edwin, and Thomas Sugrue: We Called It Music,
Holt, New York (1947).
Condon, Albert Edwin, and Richard Gehman: Eddie Condon's Treas-
ury of Jazz, Dial, New York (1956).
De Toledano, Ralph (ei): Frontiers of Jazz, Durrell, New York
(i947)-
Evans, Phil, and William Myatt: A Bio-Discography of Bix Beider-
becke, scheduled for future publication.
Green, Benny: The Reluctant Art, Horizon (1963).
James, Burnett: Kings of Jazz: Bix Beiderbecke, Barnes, New York
(1961).
Mannone, Wingy, and Paul Vandervoort: Trumpet on the Wing,
Doubleday, New York (1948).
BIX BEIDERBECKE 105
Mezzrow, Milton, and Bernard Wolfe: Redly the Elites, Randoa
House, New York (i94 6 )-
Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith: Jazzmen, Harcourt,
Brace, New York (1939).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : Hear Me Talkin' to Y0, Rine-
hart, New York (1955)-
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958).
Venables, R. G. V., and Clifford Jones: Bix, Clifford Jones, WiUesden,
England (1945).
Wareing, Charles H., and George Garlick: Bugles for Beiderbecke,
Sidgwick & Jackson, London (1958).
Recommended Listening
Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines, RTVEESIDE RLP 12-123.
On the Road Jazz, RIVERSIDE RLP 12-127.
Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra, "X" LVA-soi/ (deleted).
The Bix Beiderbecke Story, Vols. i, 2, 3, COLTJMBIA. CL-844, CL-845,
CL-846.
Thesaurus of Classic Jazz (four records), COLTJMBIA. C4L-i8. .
Paul Whitemans Orchestra, "X" LVA-3040 (deleted*).
The Bix Beiderbecke Legend, RCA VICTOR LPM-2323.
Hoagy Carmichael: Old Rockin' Chair, RCA VICTOR LPT-3072 (de-
leted).
Ealph Sutton: Bix Beiderbecke Suite, COMMODORE FL 30,001.
Bud Freeman: Wolverine Jazz, DECCA DL-5213 (deleted).
THE CHICAGOANS
THE CHICAGO STORY is, if one wants it to be, part of the na-
tion's romantic image of the Roaring Twenties, complete with
nip flasks, illicit gin mills, Midwestern provincialism, dynamic
migration patterns, organized crime, and some new rumblings
of social protest Though these aspects of the decade may lurk
in the background, the history of the Chicagoans has to do
with their music and how it grew, and that's quite a story by itself.
There were many Chicagoans in jazz, but they are usually dis-
cussed as a group, for most of Chicago's young jazzmen of the
twenties who became important were part of a loosely knit single
gang, the core of which was an almost fanatic, exclusive inner
clique. These men listened, practiced, worked, recorded, drank,
and finally found fame together. They regarded themselves as a
land of musical family devoted to the task of nurturing in each
member a valid form of personal expression, a family bound to-
gether by an overwhelming mutual desire to make music just as
exciting, but not the same as, that which the men from New Or-
leans played. Some were highly successful, a few gave up the
quest, and others were simply not endowed with enough talent;
but their average level of achievement was high and had an influ-
ence on later jazz developments.
Any man with a horn who stopped in Chicago for a while was
eligible to be a "Chicagoan" if he listened to the right bands and
really believed in jazz as a way of life. There was a nomadic, one-
handed trumpeter from New Orleans called Wingy Mannone and
there was a well-trained clarinetist from Arkansas named Volly de
Faut A good clarinet player from Iowa whose name was Rod
Gess became accepted as a "Chicagoan," as did a first-rate pianist
from Missouri named Jess Stacy. Even after the hard-core Chica-
goans Lad moved to New York in the late twenties, they went on
Tecmiting new members for the club, some of whom had seldom
been west of New Jersey.
The first wave of well-known Chicago jazzmen included
drummer Earl Wiley, who worked the Mississippi riverboats and
106
THE CHICAGOANS 107
traveled to New Orleans prior to 1920, and Ben Pollack, a highly
skilled drummer who landed a job with a direct-from-the-source
band, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, and in turn became an im-
portant influence on Chicagoans only slightly younger than Pol-
lack himself. Mezz Mezzrow, a kind of combination jazz preacher,
clarinetist, and, later, marijuana dealer, was another enthusiast-
musician who discovered New Orleans jazz in Chicago through
performers like Tony Jackson, Freddie Keppard, and Sidney
Bechet during and just after World War I.
By 1920, a 14-year-old boy named Muggsy Spanier was per-
mitted to sit in the shadows of the Dreamland Cafe's balcony to
listen to cornetist King Oliver's New Orleans band. When Spanier
began to play creditable cornet a little later, it was Oliver's force-
ful, bluesy style he went after and came close to capturing. About
that time, cornetist Paul Mares came up from New Orleans and
put together the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, who played the
same sort of music with perhaps less drive than the Oliver band
and the new group became another model for the Chicagoans.
Other kids were finding out about the South Side dance halls
and coming to listen. Those who couldn't arrange to get in free
usually sat outside, catching whatever sounds drifted out the win-
dows and doors. By 1923, when Louis Armstrong was appearing
with Oliver at the Lincoln Gardens, there would be fifty or more
young musicians down front trying to remember every note the
two cornetists played. Among the most avid listeners were young
apprentice jazzmen like drummers Dave Tough and George Wett-
ling, who were there mostly to learn about Baby Dodds. Every
college musician in the area knew about and visited the places
where the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and King Oliver played,
and commercial band leaders frequently dropped in looking for
musical novelties to add to their boob.
Some students at Chicago's Austin High School, most of whom
had had some musical training, heard a few recordings by the
New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922 and decided to form a band
around that style. They had listened to the latest records by
popular musicians like Isham Jones, Paul Whiteman, Paul Biese,
Ted Lewis, and even the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, but it was
the Rhythm Kings who finally struck the right chord. Their activi-
ties centered about the home of Jimmy and Dick McPartland,
108 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
who wound up taking over tibe cornet and banjo functions in the
new band. Frank Teschemacher had played a little violin, so he
eventually became the clarinetist. Bud Freeman, who had at-
tended Austin briefly and quit to take a job at Sears Roebuck, ob-
tained a tenor saxophone after an early bout with the C-melody
saxophone (an instrument now passe). Other friends filled out
the initial unit. Drummer Tough, from the well-heeled Oak Park
district, joined the gang and eventually brought a trombonist,
Floyd O'Brien, into the fold.
Other teen-age players were popping up around Chicago. Pian-
ist Joe Sullivan, who at 17 had had twelve years of classical key-
board training, began to play popular music in a nonunion gang-
ster hangout in the bohemian sector. It turned out that the club
had also hired an authentic jug band from the South, and the
group was for Sullivan whose listening experience had been
confined to theater pianists and records by Art Hickman or Paul
Whiteman a first contact with something resembling honest
jazz.
In 1922, a precocious West Side boy of 13 named Benny Good-
man was playing clarinet remarkably weH after only three years
of instruction. His sources of inspiration were shifting and improv-
ing rapidly, from Ted Lewis and Bailey's Lucky Seven (a New
York recording band) to Leon Roppolo (clarinetist with the New
Orleans Rhythm Kings) and Jimmy Noone. Goodman studied
alongside Buster Bailey (an experienced Memphis jazzman seven
years Benny's senior) under Franz Schoepp, an outstanding
teacher and symphony man who at one time counted Jimmy
Noone among his pupils.
The inner circle at Austin High, including bassist Jim Lannigan
(then courting the McPartiand boys' sister, Ethel) and pianist
Dave North, were rehearsing tirelessly to achieve the sound of the
New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The McPardands, as sons of a music
teacher, had a slight advantage and led the way. Teschemacher
was also learning fast, but Freeman, without earlier musical train-
ing, lagged behind. The Austinites, whose ages in 1923 ranged
from 16 (Jimmy McPardand) to 21 (Lannigan), were something
less than men of the world at this point. '"We were too young to
get into Friar's Inn, so the only way we could hear the Rhythm
Kings was to go down and stand in the doorway and listen," Mo
THE CHICAGOANS 10Q
Pardand has recalled. ""It was great when someone opened the
door and we could hear it louder." Dave Tough knew his way
around Chicago, however, and had come in contact with other
young musicians who were finding their way into the New Or-
leans style clarinetist Don Murray, cornetist Six Beiderbecke,
pianist Dick Voynow, and drummer Bob Conselman were a few.
More resourceful than his Austin pals, Dave imposed upon
slightly older musicians like Volly de Faut to accompany him to
South Side clubs where he could hear Baby Dodds, King Oliver,
and Louis Armstrong. Through Tough, the Austin crowd began to
open its ears to more than just the sounds of the New Orleans
Rhythm Kings.
1923 and 1924 were eventful years for the Chicagoans. A new
band grew out of a series of Northwestern University fraternity
jobs involving clarinetist Jimmy Hartwell, drummer Vic Moore,
and saxophonist George Johnson. Pianist Voynow and cornetist
Beiderbecke brought a touch of class to the group, and they
called themselves the Wolverines. They decided to stick together,
made some records, and the sound of Beiderbecke's cornet be-
came a new major influence on the kids back in Chicago. At the
same time, King Oliver's band began turning out recordings on
which Louis Armstrong and clarinetist Johnny Dodds could be
heard The McPartland-Freeman-Teschemacher-Tough axis was
making fine progress as the Blue Friars (named for the Friar's
Inn, of course) and began to be talked about by musicians on the
South Side. Professionals called them the "wild West Side mob,"
but alert listeners could tell they were coming into a worthwhile
style of their own. Teschemacher was still playing violin a lot of
the time, especially when talented guests like Benny Goodman sat
in.
Goodman played off and on with the "wild West Side mob" at
high-school gym dances or in sessions at public park recreation
areas and worked an amusement park job in the summer of 1923
with Jimmy McPartiand, but he found that he could make better
money with real professional bands. He joined the union the same
day that Dave Tough did.
T got along better than they [the Austin gang] did because I
could read right from the start and played correct clarinet," Benny
remembered some years later. That word "correct" is the key to a
110 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
philosophical dichotomy that set Goodman and some others on a
course quite different from that traveled by the West Side mob,
although their final musical goals were not entirely dissimilar.
Goodman, like his fellow music student Buster Bailey, was pri-
marily a clarinetist, and jazz was his favorite mode of expression.
For Teschemacher and Freeman, and to a lesser extent their com-
rades, becoming a jazzman was the important point, and the in-
strument was simply whatever chance had dropped into their
hands. It was a distinction that became more subtle as the per-
formers improved, but it was still there. Curiously enough, Good-
man's attitude toward his instrument was much closer to the out-
look of the New Orleans clarinetists and several older Chicagoans
who came under their direct influence than it was to the West
Side gang's musical position. Chicagoans Darnell Howard and
Omer Simeon, for example, picked up the clear-toned, flowing
New Orleans style, without leaving home, from Lorenzo Tio, Jr.
(Simeon was born in New Orleans but began playing in Chi-
cago.) The Tios (junior and senior) had already taught New Or-
leans reedmen Jimmy Noone, Albert Nicholas, and Barney
Bigard Most of these Tio-trained musicians later regarded
Goodman as, at the very least, their equal. It was a judgment not
so readily bestowed upon Teschemacher and others in the young
Chicago gang.
Chicagoans like Teschemacher, Freeman, Tough, Mezzrow,
and Sullivan were probably the first self-conscious students of jazz
to appear. For them, the music was not merely a functional aspect
of the entertainment world but a challenging art that required
deep thought and study. They tried to weed out what they re-
garded as trivial or tasteless (die side of King Oliver that involved
imitations of a baby crying or Clifford King's barnyard squeals on
the clarinet) and to listen instead to the musicians who were
totally involved with the art of jazz (Beiderbecke, Earl Hines,
Armstrong).
About this time Tough was also participating in poetry and jazz
sessions at a Chicago bohemian hangout called the Green Mask.
Among his intellectual friends there were poets Kenneth Rexroth,
Langston Hughes, and Maxwell Bodenheim, as well as an odd as-
sortment of musicians, entertainers (comic Joe Frisco was one),
and artists. A few other Chicago jazzmen may have shared
THE CHICAGOANS 111
Tough's enthusiasm for such gathering places, but most of the
Austin High gang was not concerned with much of anything out-
side music in those early days of discovery.
It was about 1924 when 20-year-old pianist Jess Stacy hit
town, after a long apprenticeship on Mississippi riverboats with
Tony Catalano's band, Stacy had come under the New Orleans
jazz spell in much the same way the Chicagoans had, except that
Jess worked more from first hand experience than from record-
ings. He had spent the winter months in ballrooms along the river,
such as the Coliseum in Davenport, where he was charmed by the
playing of Bix Beiderbecke. He had heard Louis Armstrong and
Baby Dodds on the boats when they put in at Cape Girardeau,
Missouri, where Jess was born. Like Bud Freeman, he had started
out wanting to play drums; and like Joe Sullivan, he had put in
long years of formal study and classical training. Like Muggsy
Spanier, but unlike the West Side mob, Stacy was in 1924 a thor-
oughgoing professional. As soon as he arrived in Chicago, he
belonged,
Chicago was a vital music center in the mid-twenties, and al-
most any musician who could carry a tune and go through the
motions of "getting hot" found work of some kind. For the young
players, nearby summer resorts were a favorite outlet. Youthful
patrons, informal surroundings, and an impudent spirit that came
from constant defiance of Prohibition laws added up to a good
setting for a troupe of iconoclastic kid musicians. The Blue Friars
found work at Lost Lake. Benny Goodman picked up odds and
ends, including a lake-boat job with Bix Beiderbecke, an engage-
ment at Waverly Beach in Neenah, Wisconsin, and other casuals
in and out of Chicago. Joe Sullivan worked the lakes in Wisconsin
or Indiana, sometimes with drummer George Wettiing, and was
beginning to move away from popular novelty tunes (Get Out
and Get Under, San, Abba Dabba Honeymoon, etc.) toward jazz-
based material ( Panama, Farewell Blues, etc. ) .
By 1924, most of the Chicagoans had left school (the law then
allowed one to quit at 14) and had begun playing music in ear-
nest. Goodman, whom Tough had talked into attending Lewis In-
stitute because classes began at 11:30 A.M., dropped out to take a
steady job at Guyon's Paradise with Jules Herbeveaux. Joe Sulli-
van had played a few dances at Lewis Institute with some of the
112 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
boys, but continued at Lakeview High School, finally leaving
after his second year there. The Blue Friars couldn't have cared
less about school, for they were beginning to attract attention as
an organized unit.
Here were several important people to know in Chicago at
that time. They were the men who operated booking offices and
found work for individual musicians or entire bands. Charlie
"Murphy" Podolsky was a prominent figure in this field, through
whom the Chicagoans obtained many of their jobs and thereby
met men of similar musical interests from other quarters of the
area.
In fete 1924, Jimmy McPartland was called to replace Bix
Beiderbecke with the Wolverines in New York, leaving the Blue
Friars leaderless and somewhat adrift for about a year. They
spent much of that time listening, theorizing, discussing, and
arguing about jazz. Tough, the youngest, was die intellectual in
the gang and was constantly turning over, questioning, and evalu-
ating everything he heard. Teschemacher had improved so rap-
idly that the others often looked to him as their musical leader
and guide. Freeman was still attempting to catch up to the rest,
hampered by a lack of fundamental training and the inherent
problems of trying to produce an acceptable tone on a saxophone
and mouthpiece manufactured before instrument companies
learned how to make them very well. Eddie Condon, a one-eared
banjo player and promoter who ran into the gang about this time,
remembers that Freeman's horn appeared green with corrosion
and sounded the way it looked.
A South Side youngster of about 15 heard the gang in a movie
theater job about this time. He was Gene Krupa, an intense fellow
who had taken up saxophone briefly but had finally settled on
drums, and he admired Dave Tough's Dodds-inspired playing.
Krupa had worked summer jobs, too, including one at Wisconsin
Beach with a group called the Frivolians. In 1924, he was prepar-
ing for priesthood, but it never worked out. Like most of the Chi-
cagoans, he became utterly and hopelessly fascinated with play-
ing jazz and with the endless struggle to master his chosen
instrument
Discounting records by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (a hy-
brid group of Chicagoans and New Orleanians), the first Chi-
THE CHICAGOANS 113
cagoan jazz recordings of any consequence were turned out by
the Bucktown Five in early 1924. Muggsy Spanier sparked this
session with a jumping, biting cornet lead that was right out of
Oliver; Volly de Faut, who followed Roppolo on clarinet with the
Rhythm Kings and later recorded with Jelly Roll Morton, demon-
strated why his graceful, flowing style was highly respected in the
Midwest Spanier went beyond Paul Mares (also an Oliver man)
to demonstrate that the lead voice, as he felt it, should be neither
behind nor in front of the beat but right on top of it. The result
was electric, something like running downhill and trying to keep
up with yourself. The Spanier thrust, although seldom enhanced
by a flow of original' ideas, was a significant factor in the forma-
tion of an independent Chicago style.
The Bucktown Five records were, however, all but eclipsed
within a couple of months by a brace of Wolverine recordings,
featuring the brilliant ensemble and solo work of Bix Beiderbecke.
The Wolverines were, of course, a going band rather than a studio
pickup group, and their records showed it Everywhere musicians
began copying Bix s solos and the original riffs of the group. It
was, in fact, McPartiand's note-for-note knowlege of these records
that landed him the job as Beiderbecke's replacement later in
1924. Cornetist Bill Davison, who recorded with the Chubb-Stein-
berg orchestra in the same year, also borrowed much from Bix.
As the Wolverines struggled along after Beiderbecke's depar-
ture, McPartland gradually replaced each member with one of his
old Austin friends. Now reunited, the gang found work through
booking agent Husk O'Hare, who even put them on radio station
WHT as O'Hare's Red Dragons.
A couple of new reed players appeared on the scene in this
1925-1926 period. One was Rod Cless, whom the gang met on a
job in Des Moines, Iowa. The other was Pee Wee Russell, an ex-
perienced clarinetist-saxophonist whose musical views have
caused many to regard him a front-rank Chicagoan, although he
was not noticed much in jazz circles in the city before 1925 and
never did put in a lot of time there.
Russell was brought up in Oklahoma, heard and liked clarinet-
ist Larry Shields on Original Dixieland Jazz Band records, and
was attracted to in-person performances by New Orleans clarinet-
ist "Yellow" Nunez. He studied violin, piano, and drums before
114 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
getting to the clarinet. Russell played on an Arkansas River pleas-
ure boat and with the band at Western Military Academy in 1920
and 1921 at Alton, Illinois, not far from the St. Louis area where
he was born. For a while, Pee Wee attended the University of
Missouri, but he spent most of his time listening to jazz on the
Mississippi boats, admiring the band of Charlie Creath (a good
cornetist with a haunting, aged-in-wood tone), and hanging out
with the small but eager jazz gang around St Louis. There he met
New Orleans players like Armstrong, Baby Dodds, bassist Pops
Foster, and drummer Zutty Singleton. Saxophonist Frank Trum-
bauer, playing with Ted Jansen's band, was already a local hero,
and youngsters like trombonists Vernon Brown and Sonny Lee,
bassist Bob Casey, and clarinetist Artie Gruner were to St Louis
what the Austin gang and their friends were to Chicago. From
time to time, wandering jazzmen like Wingy Mannone and Fud
Livingston turned up in St. Louis, too.
Russell, unlike the Chicagoans, was a loner. By 1922, he was
knocking about the Southwestern states, playing jobs in Phoe-
nix, Arizona, El Paso, Texas, across the line in Mexico, and in
Houston, where there was a stint with the celebrated band of pi-
anist Peck Kelley, which, in 1924, included clarinetist Leon Rop-
polo and trombonist Jack Teagarden. Russell returned to St.
Louis and Herb Berger's band. Later, in 1926, the clarinetist
played in another celebrated but unrecorded group, a Jean Gold-
kerte unit fronted by Trumbauer at the Arcadia Ballroom in St.
Louis. It is said that Pee Wee was so enthused about working
alongside Bix Beiderbecke in this band that he refused to be fired
and continued to play without pay after receiving his notice. He
also tried, without success, to get Peck Kelley into the St. Louis
orchestra. Russell absorbed all he heard and played as he pleased,
working out the details of style by himself rather than through the
group-therapy approach favored by the Austin boys, Happily,
both methods worked out rather well for the men involved.
Back in Chicago, the well-schooled players were finding good
jobs in 1924 and 1925, and the seat-of-the-pants improvisers were
taking what was left. Benny Goodman played the Midway Gar-
dens with pianist Elmer Schoebel (another former New Orleans
Rhythm King who had never been to New Orleans). Then Art
Kassel took over the band, which included, in addition to Good-
THE CHECAGOANS 11$
man and Schoebel, former Rhythm King Steve Brown (who was
from New Orleans) on bass, Danny Polo on reeds, and a Mares-
Oliver cornet disciple (who sounded something like Spanier)
named Murphy Steinberg.
Spanier and de Faut, the Bucktown fivers, were at the White
City Ballroom with Sig Meyers, and Joe Sullivan was grinding
out vaudeville assignments with Elmo Mack and his Purple Derby
Orchestra. Trumpeter Al Turk and saxophonist Wayne King were
working steadily, Jess Stacy was playing with Joe Kayser at the
Arcadia Ballroom. The Teschemacher-Freeman-Tough entente
had become, in 1925, Husk O'Hare's Wolverines, In 1926, they
had a couple of good jobs at the White City Ballroom, about a
block from the Midway Gardens, and drew admiration from
Beiderbecke, Armstrong, and drummer Zutty Singleton (who had
recently arrived from St Louis). This kind of praise was, of
course, highly valued.
The Chicagoans were, by and large, a cocky and self-impressed
group. Teschemacher was moody and serious, McPartland brash
and outgoing, Tough cynical and questioning, Freeman impulsive
and ingenuous, but all were convinced that they had something
no one else had, and each member of the gang bristled with en-
thusiasm. It was, however, inevitable that die band would break
up. Each man needed a wider exposure to varying musical cli-
mates and a chance to develop his own identity. Whether it was
the result of a conscious recognition of this need or not, the first
move was made by Teschemacher, who joined Floyd Towne's
band, first at the Triangle Cafe and then at the Midway Gardens
in 1926, This group was an outgrowth of Sig Meyers* band and
included trombonist Floyd O'Brien, George Wettling, Danny Al-
tier on alto, Towne on tenor, Muggsy Spanier, and eventually Jess
Stacy on piano. It wasn't too far from musical home for Tesche-
macher, after all.
Benny Goodman found a promising spot in August, 1925, when
he answered Ben Pollack's call to join his new band in California.
Pollack had hopes of building a first-class jazz band that could
also present modern, cleanly executed arrangements instead of
mere jamming on a select list of "jazz" tunes all night He hired
Glenn Miller, a skilled trombonist and arranger, and Joseph "Fud"
Livingston, an imaginative arranger, composer, and reedman.
Il6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Fud had been around Detroit and Chicago for about a year,
working with Jean Goldkette units and broadening his knowledge
of jazz. Although he was born in South Carolina, Livingston fit
the Chicago pattern a deep love for jazz, an aggressive and op-
timistic instrumental style, an interest in widening the expressive
scope of jazz through unusual harmonies (his interest in whole-
tone scales may have come in part from Beiderbecke, who was
jobbing with Goldkette about the same time Fud was), and, one
might add, a colossal thirst for alcohol.
Pollack's idea was a kind of sophisticated extension of the
King Oliver band approach; over a steady, swinging rhythmic
foundation, make the music sound impromptu, but base the
improvisations on a real structure, with interesting scored passages
worked out in advance. The Pollack unit would not be as free as
the unique Oliver band, but it might go beyond it in other re-
spects because its members were good readers as well as skilled
improvisers. It would also borrow a little from the outlook of the
best Goldkette bands. The idea looked good and sounded good,
but Pollack had to make concessions to commercial demands and
finally watered the band down with a couple of violins in order to
keep working. And then, too, Glenn Miller, as arranger, was less
aware of New Orleans music than Pollack and leaned toward the
more salable Roger Wolfe Kahn sound.
Goodman's first released record was a Pollack date in Decem-
ber, 1926, when Benny was 17. His solo on an ordinary popu-
lar tune, He's the Last Word, bubbles with vitality and confi-
dence and contains an explosive staccato burst that may be the
first such Chicagoan musical device on record. Livingston's tenor
also reveals a feeling for the tense "shuffle" style (sharply ac-
cented dotted eighth notes followed by weak sixteenth notes)
that has often been identified with Chicago musicians and prob-
ably came from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Bix, Jimmy
Noone, and Johnny Dodds.
The Austinites didn't approve of the Pollack compromise and
said so. They held out for the all-improvised sound of the smaller
band, although most of them had been working off and on with
bands just as commercial and usually not as good as Pollack's.
The Wolverines, under McPartland, secured one more good
engagement before breaking up. Art Kassel took them, with Bud
THE CHICAGOANS 117
Jacobson in Teschemacher's place, to the Greystone Ballroom in
Detroit (another lively jazz center in the twenties), where they
were delighted to find themselves playing opposite Fletcher Hen-
derson's excellent 1926 band. Freeman was the one most affected
by this circumstance, for it was his first encounter with Coleman
Hawkins, who had already lapped all competition on the tenor
saxophone. It can be assumed that a different Bud Freeman came
away from Detroit after the Greystone job. Even a decade or so
later, Bud remembered the stomping, on-the-beat approach of the
Henderson saxophonist in 1926-1927 as his favorite of several
phases of the Hawkins style that had evolved over the years.
Dave Tough left the group next, then McPartland and Lan-
nigan joined Bill Paley's band, and the others were left to dig up
whatever they could find. Mezz Mezzrow had been sitting in with
the gang now and then and occasionally had enlarged the sax sec-
tion to three men for special jobs. He cut quite a father figure
among the Austin gang, for Mezzrow was seven or eight years
older and seemed very worldly, indeed. He was acquainted with
most of the South Side musicians, with several gangsters, with a
connection for obtaining quality marijuana, with booking agents,
and with the insides of several jails. Teschemacher, Freeman, Sul-
livan, and Gene Krupa were impressed, but Tough, though
friendly, could see through the bluster. Mezzrow favored all-out
emulation of the New Orleans players, and gradually the gang
lined up against him, stressing instead the development of their
own group style. When Eddie Condon moved into the inner cir-
cle, he, too, was unconvinced by Mezzrow's arguments, and the
Chicagoans ventured further away from New Orleans jazz.
As a matter of fact, the New Orleans men themselves were
breaking up their bands and the old improvised marching style.
Armstrong had left Oliver, the Dodds brothers (clarinetist Johnny
and drummer Baby) were playing a more intimate kind of jazz at
Kelly's Stables, Jimmy Noone had a two-reeds-plus-rhythm-sec-
tion group, and Oliver himself had hired a saxophone section.
Only Jelly Roll Morton continued to cling to the earlier fonns.
Mezzrow's attempts to convince Sullivan of the virtues of playing
the Morton style were again unsuccessful, for Sullivan had heard
the young and very modern Earl Hines, who was clearly the man
of the hour among Chicago pianists in 1926-1927. Tough and
Il8 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Krupa still regarded Baby Dodds with enormous respect and af-
fection, but now Zutty Singleton seemed more in step with their
musical thinking.
Bix was at nearby Hudson Lake with Pee Wee Russell in 1926,
and most of the Chicagoans made pilgrimages to the resort to
hear the band, play records, discuss music, and drink. Mezzrow
went, too, but he had begun to feel left out when the gang dis-
cussed nonjazz works by composers like Stravinsky and Eastwood
Lane. Even purist Muggsy Spanier had become interested in for-
mal music, and, of course, Sullivan had had plenty of it in his
background to begin with. Mezz just wanted to play the blues and
was unhappy about this new digression.
Teschemacher was especially fond of Beiderbecke and began
to show it in his playing. Like Russell, who had been deeply
affected by Bix's melodic and harmonic concepts, Tesch intro-
duced a hard, rasping quality into his tone that brought it closer
to the brassy bite of the cornet and carried it away from the more
liquid sound of the conventionally played clarinet. Benny Good-
man and Fud Livingston had also found this an effective means of
adding punch and excitement to their solos. Beyond this charac-
teristic (which Goodman eventually dropped), these four clari-
netists also shared an admiration for Jimmy Noone, who had
changed during the twenties from a delicate contrapuntal ensem-
ble style to a powerful cornet-like lead with graceful embellish-
ments. Thus was created what many call "Chicago style" clarinet.
Rhythm came first for the Chicagoans. They leaned heavily
upon the skills of Tough, Krupa, and Wettling in establishing the
fundamental pulse. Stacy and Sullivan picked up pointers from
various Chicago blues pianists, as well as from Hines, and pushed
the band either by hammering out steady four-beat chords or by
adding an eight-to-the-bar pattern borrowed from the popular
boogie-woogie specialists on Chicago's South Side. The banjo
player was encouraged to maintain a steady four beats to the
measure and refrain from the fancy flourishes common in earlier
jazz bands. The drummer was allowed to fill in empty spaces, and
it required taste and understanding to carry this responsibility.
Tough was the ideal man for the job, but Krupa and Wettling
were quite acceptable.
As for the bass, it was pretty much up to the individual player,
THE CHICAGOANS lig
but no one argued with the Steve Brown approach that Lannigan
used, which alternated from a two-to-the-bar pattern to contra-
puntal triplets and clever off-the-beat accents.
All horns played on the beat or even slightly in front of it. Me-
lodic ideas were important, but they usually came in rhythmic
bursts and clusters. How the player pounced on a note was as im-
portant to the Chicagoans as the pitch of the note itself. Emo-
tional impact was everything. No group of jazzmen had ever at-
tacked music with more vigor and bravado than did this eager
fraternity.
Russell and Stacy, who had formed their musical habits inde-
pendently of the Chicagoans, were not quite so ferociously in-
clined. They had each investigated the subtle art of understate-
ment in their solo work and had come up with excellent results.
Pee Wee's unusual sensitivity at a time when the entire country,
including its jazz musicians, seemed caught up in a "get hot" com-
plex, can be heard on a mid-iga/ Red Nichols recording of Ida.
Here Russell explores the harmonic pockets of the song's structure
in a restrained, almost recalcitrant manner, borrowing from Bix's
ballad approach and adding the unique Russell sense of whimsy
that marks all his best work. His solo created a bit of a stir among
some musicians at the time, but most of the Chicagoans were not
ready for "pretty" jazz yet. They didn't care for cornetist Nichols
either, whom they regarded as a mere Bix imitator and not a very
convincing "hot" player.
Early Stacy on record is rare, but a glimpse of his 1928 style can
be had on a recording by Danny Altier's orchestra, which in-
cluded Spanier, Wettiing, clarinetist Maurie Bercov (who played
much like Teschemacher), and guitarist Ray Biondi. Jess, at 24,
had already formed the mature style for which he became widely
known years later with Benny Goodman's orchestra. His right-
hand figures were more linear than those of Hones or Sullivan, but
the Chicago rolling bass line was there and so were the hornlike
melodic statements so characteristic of the best Chicago pianists
of the period. There was, though, no hammering on the key-
board; Stacy displays superb control and an advanced sense of
dynamics throughout his solo on My Gal Sal and behind the dis-
mal vocal on Fm Sorry Sally.
While most of the Chicago gang wrestled with all these prob-
120 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
lems, Benny Goodman, now back home, was continuing to play
with Pollack whenever there was work or to accept casual engage-
ments whenever the band's luck ran out, which was often. In
1927, he recorded a couple of trio performances with Chicagoans
Bob Conselman on drums and Mel Stitzel on piano (That's a
Plenty and Clarinetitis) that reveal him as a gifted young clarinet-
ist at that time, with an already recognizable style, but a style yet
rooted in the same Dodds-Noone-Beiderbecke idiom within
which Teschemacher worked, The vibrato, phrasing, attack, and
general ebullience were quite similar to Teschemacher's later
work, but the tone was cleaner and clearly Goodman's own.
A favorite hangout for Chicagoans in 1927 was the Three
Deuces, where Sullivan, Freeman, Tough, Krupa, Teschemacher,
Condon, Wettling, and Mezzrow were regulars at frequent jam
sessions held in the dank basement
Goodman, Beiderbecke, and others dropped in whenever possi-
ble and helped to establish the saloon as a kind of recreation cen-
ter and clubhouse for local and visiting jazzmen. The sessions held
there, some still remembered by the participants, marked the ar-
rival of the Chicagoans as jazzmen with their own following of
musicians, tyros who were now attracted to them just as they had
been attracted to New Orleans jazz groups in the first place.
About this time, Dave Tough picked up his drums and went to
France with clarinetist Danny Polo. Dave was a restless man,
unhappy with his environment (Mezzrow recalled in later years
how Tough read the American Mercury from cover to cover,
"especially the section called 'Americana,' where all the blue-
noses, bigots, and two-faced killjoys in this land of the free got a
going over they never forgot") It seemed logical to Tough to go
where other creative Americans were gathering.
Gene Krupa had met most of the Chicagoans through the Ben-
son booking office, and Mezzrow was already preaching Baby
Dodds to the i8-year-old drummer and helping him to fit into the
spot vacated by Tough. Gene's enthusiasm was boundless, and by
late 1927 he was, after Wettling, the Chicagoans' favorite avail-
able drummer. That fall, practically everyone in the gang got a
chance to make records, partly as a result of a selling job by
singer-promoter-comb player Red McKenzie, who had now set-
THE CHICAGOANS 121
fled in Chicago and usurped Mezzrow's big brother role among
the Austinites,
The first date was for Charles Pierce, a local butcher and some-
time alto saxophonist who admired the Chicago jazz gang and
often hired them for his band. Spanier and Teschemacher were
the bright lights of the session, which produced China Boy, the
familiar Chicago war-horse, and a real blues called Bull Frog
Blues. China Boy was arranged for two cornets and three reeds
and is of interest chiefly for Teschemacher's agitated, explosive
solo, which overcomes a series of clinkers (usually a result of
Tesche's pinching and straining in the upper register, causing a
higher note than intended to come out) and ignites an otherwise
rather stodgy band performance. Spanier blows a disappointing
stock chorus on Bull Frog Blues, but Tesche grasps the blues idea
quite well and is close to the Jimmy Noone sound throughout. The
arrangement was probably based on Jelly Roll Morton's Jungle
Blues, recorded three or four months before Bull Frog.
The next record, made the following month, is more satisfac-
tory. Again a straightforward blues was included, called Friars
Point Shuffle, as well as a popular song, then about a decade old,
Darktown Strutters' Ball. The personnel was mostly first-string
Chicagoans: Spanier, Teschemacher, Mezzrow (tenor sax), Sulli-
van, Condon, Lannigan (tuba), Wettling, and Red McKenzie
(vocals). Spanier seems happier on this one, plays a good enough
blues solo, and Tesch sounds even deeper into Noone, except for
a wider vibrato and a nervous, almost frenzied, quality that the
more assured Noone never displayed. Sullivan solos with charac-
teristic vitality, featuring a rolling left-hand bass line and closely
grouped, powerful chord clusters in the right. Lannigan manages
to establish an oscillating rhythm with his tuba by playing a
stream of dotted-eighth- and sixteenth-note patterns. The record
is, in all, a good representation of what was going on among the
more talented Chicagoans in 1927.
Benny Goodman defected from the struggling Pollack band for
a while to play with Isham Jones in 1927, but he soon returned,
and at approximately the same time, Jimmy McPartland joined
the Pollack crew. They got out another record in late 1927,
Waitin for Katie and Memphis Blues. Oddly enough, the blues
122 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
side was poor and Katie was, in the final passages, an excellent
band performance, with almost fully mature Goodman (he was
18} and advanced saxophone section work. On this number, Pol-
lack comes close to the best of Jean Goldkette, a very high level
for 1927, indeed. His ace soloist was Goodman, whose ears and
fingers were ahead of most of his contempories, including the
slightly older Austin gang. "The boys that hung out at the Three
Deuces were terrifically talented guys," Benny wrote in his au-
tobiography, "but most of them didn't read, and we thought
their playing was rough. We didn't pay them much mind, al-
though we liked to jam with them.*
McPartland, who has never shed the Beiderbecke mantle he ac-
quired so early, quite naturally showed great improvement in
1927 over his 1924 Wolverine level (which can be heard on a sin-
gle record cut at that time), though he was never to be more than
a pleasant utility cometist. He participated in another Wolverine
recording session in 1927 with a group that included Maurie
Bercov and Dick Voynow, but nothing much came of it.
Prior to his first record date in late 1927, Krupa worked all over
the Chicago area with bandleaders like Joe Kayser, Leo Shukin,
and Thelma Terry. He studied, at one time or another, with Al
Silverman, Ed Straight (from whom Tough learned his rudi-
ments), and Roy Knapp, striving to become a thoroughly trained
and highly flexible drummer. At the same time, Freeman played
with Herb Carlin's band, followed up casuals through the booking
offices, and worked a movie theater job with Tough and Condon
in a band fronted by Jack Gardner, a good Chicago pianist. Free-
man and Tough were close friends, and when Dave left for
France, Bud let Mezzrow talk him into striking out for Holly-
wood, presumably to make a fortune as an actor. They got as far
as Colorado, then turned around and ran for home.
Joe Sullivan was busy with dance bands like Sig Meyers' or
Louis Panico's and did occasional radio work. And Tesche-
macher, according to Condon, was dropping into the Apex Club
to hear Jimmy Noone at least five times a week. He also continued
to work in Floyd Towne's band at the Midway Gardens with
Spanier, Stacy, Wettling, and trombonist Floyd O'Brien.
More than twenty years later, Artie Shaw, who visited Chicago
with Irving Aaronsons orchestra about 1928, described (in his
THE CHICAGOANS 123
book The Trouble with Cinderella) his reactions to O'Brien and
Teschemacher:
I remember one night or morning, rather, for it started around
four A.M. when a bunch of us, who had decided to have ourselves
a little session, wound up in some dance hall where they were
holding one of the Marathon Dance contests that were always tak-
ing place in those days. Different musicians floated in and out, sat
in for a while, played a few choruses, and then got up to let some
other guy blow. There was a piano player named Jess Stacy, and
another named Joe Sullivan. There was one trombone player, Floyd
O'Brien, who had one of the most peculiar, lazy, deliberately mis-
taken-sounding styles I've ever heard. He would almost, but not
quite, crack a note into little pieces, and each time you thought he
was about to fall apart he'd recover and make something out of
what started out to sound like a fluff till after a while you began
to get the idea that this guy not only wasn't making any mistakes at
all, but had complete control over his horn. He would come so
damn dose to mistakes that you couldn't see how he was going to
get away with it; but he always recovered somehow and this
trick of almost, but never quite, making the mistake, and each
time recovering so that the things he played went off in altogether
unexpected and sometimes quite humorous directions, was what
made his style so peculiar to start with although it's impossible to
give the flavor of it in language. ... I sat next to him [Tesche-
macher] and watched him while he played. We were all slightly
drunk on bad bootleg gin, but it didn't seem to affect his playing
any. He too had this odd style of playing, but in an altogether dif-
ferent way from O'Brien's. Even while he'd be reaching out for
something in his deliberately fumbling way, some phrase you
couldn't quite see the beginning or end of (or, for that matter, the
reason for it in the first place) , there was an assurance about every-
thing he did that made you see that he himself knew where he was
going all the time; and by the time he got there you began to see
it yourself, for in its own grotesque way it made a kind of musical
sense, but something extremely personal and intimate to himself,
something so subtle that it could never possibly have had great com-
municative meaning to anyone but another musician and even then
only to a jazz musician who happened to be pretty damn hep to
what was going on.
A recording session for the Okeh company in December, 1927,
was arranged by Red McKenzie, whose valuable contacts with
124 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
that firm were left over from his earlier commercial successes with
the group he called the Mound City Blue Blowers. As McKenzie
and Condon's Chicagoans, McPartland, Freeman, Teschemacher,
Krupa, Sullivan, Lannigan, and Condon cut four sides that ob-
tained wide distribution throughout the country and made a
favorable impression on Eastern jazzmen, most of whom had not
realized how much the Chicagoans had improved. The biggest
surprise was Krupa, an unknown, whose well-recorded drum
work on these sessions rocked the New York jazz cliques, and
ultimately unseated Vic Berton as their chief percussionist.
Krupa's intense study of Dodds, Singleton, and Tough, along with
his vast natural energy and superb sense of time, placed him, as
of the last days of 1927, in the front rank of jazz drummers.
The tunes recorded were Sugar, China Boy, Nobody's Sweet-
heart, and Liza (not Gershwin's), all in F, which must have been
the gang's favorite key signature. Tesch wrote out a few con-
necting passages to give the ensemble fabric more strength, but
most of the music was freely improvised in a small-band style that
stemmed from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, various Beider-
becke recording groups, the Dodds brothers' combination, Jimmy
Noone, and, inevitably, a number of semicommercial units around
Chicago in which the gang had played over the years. Tesche-
macher's scored interludes were borrowed in part from such
standard dance-band sources, and the clarinetist frequently
sought similar straight parallel-harmony parts in the improvised
ensemble passages rather than a weaving New Orleans contra-
puntal line, as advocated by Mezzrow. He also devised an unusual
introduction to Liza, in 6/4 time.
Freeman, nervous on his first recording, demonstrated that,
while his tone was still rough, he had ideas and a rapidly develop-
ing command of his horn. Sullivan, after Krupa, emerged as the
steadiest and most arresting performer in the group. His powerful
left hand and Hines-like right tied the rhythm section together
and provided much of the lift for which these records are famous.
Teschemacher was in better form for this date than he had been
on earlier recordings, but he was still an uneven player. His solos
ranged from breathtakingly inventive melodic paroxysms, with
notes flying off in unexpected directions like so many fireballs
(China Boy), to stilted, groping phrases that amounted to little
THE CfflCAGOANS 125
more than rough caricatures of Jimmy Noone ( Sugar ) . For all his
faults, though, Tesch had achieved a personal, identifiable, and
highly stimulating mode of expression that soon rubbed off on
dozens of other clarinetists around the country.
Two Chicagoan ensemble devices that intrigued Eastern jazz-
men can be heard on these records. Mezzrow described them
some years later (in his autobiography Really the Blues) as the
"explosion," a sudden flare preceding each repetition of the initial
melodic statement in a conventional song structure, and the al-
ready mentioned *shuffle rhythm," a staccato, heavily accented
eighth-note pattern usually applied to the bridge, or release, of a
song. These and other simple but effective methods of increasing
and releasing tensions came largely from the mind of Dave
Tough, who, more than any other single musician, translated New
Orleans musical ideas into the jazz language of the Chicagoans.
Had he been in town for the occasion, Tough would doubtless
have been the hero of the McKenzie-Condon recordings.
The Chicagoans knew they had left their mark when Red Nich-
ols recorded Nobody's Sweetheart a couple of months later, com-
plete with shuffle rhythms, explosions, and a Chicago-like clarinet
solo by Fud Livingston.
For a few months after the Okeh sessions, there was little
change in the Chicagoans* job situations. Krupa played for Ben-
son orchestras, in Eddie Neibauer s Seattle Harmony Kings, and,
for three months or so, with Mezzrow (Milton Mesirow and His
Purple Crackle Orchestra); Tesch and Jess Stacy were still with
Floyd Towne; Sullivan continued with Louis Panico; Tough was
still seeking culture in France. Benny Goodman, encouraged by
the success of the McKenzie-Condon recordings that featured
his old friend and fellow Pollack sideman McPartland, secured a
one-session Vocalion date using the same instrumentation, Bob
Conselman played drums, but the others were drawn from the
Pollack fold. The titles were A Jazz Holiday and Wolverine Blues,
and the performances were more directly derived from Bix Bei-
derbecke's small-band records of the preceding year than from
either the New Orleans bands or the Austin gang. The session
pointed up a split among the Chicagoans that had been widening
for some time and could now be heard in their music, McPart-
land, Goodman, Freeman, Wettling, and Teschemacher were
126 JAZZ MASTERS OF TEE TWENTIES
drifting away from New Orleans patterns toward a more sophisti-
cated, lighter music that emphasized clean execution, advanced
harmonies, and melodic wit. Their guiding light was the modern
work of Beiderbeclce. Sullivan, Mezzrow, and Spanier were pri-
marily Armstrong-blues men. As Sullivan once expressed it, "I
love Bix like I love my right arm, but I go by way of Louis."
Not that Freeman et al didn't have a deep admiration for Louis
(*Too much Armstrong," Teschemacher once admonished Bud
after one of his tenor solos ); nor did Spanier and the others fail to
appreciate Bix. Each side still indulged in a good deal of hero
worship in both directions, but the split was there.
McKenzie and Condon, figuring they had a winning combina-
tion, landed two more record dates. One record, under the head-
ing of McKenzie and Condon's Boys, was not issued, but the
other, by the Chicago Rhythm Kings, was successfully released in
April, 1928. Three sides, There II Be Some Changes Made, Tve
Found a New Baby, and Baby, Won't You 'Please Come Home?
(the last not issued at the time), feature Teschemacher, Spanier,
Mezzrow, Sullivan, Condon, Lannigan, and Krupa. Mezzrow was
included because Freeman had gone to New York to join Pollack,
who had been impressed by Bud's first records.
The reproduction quality and studio balance of these record-
ings are superior to the December sessions for Okeh, and Spanier
furnishes a solid Armstrong-inspired lead. Krupa, who can be
heard clearly this time, is again the lion of the date. Although
Gene was not the first to use the then difficult-to-record bass
drum on records (Baby Dodds, for one, preceded him), he makes
daringly prominent use of it here, filling out the rhythm section in
a way that had never before been caught on wax. His tom-tom ac-
cents and explosions were, too, unusual and very exciting in 1928,
when electrical recording methods, permitting a more extensive
use of deep-tone drums, were only about two years old. Also to
Krupa's credit was his ability to hold a firm tempo behind Span-
ier's pushing lead, which caused many weaker drummers to ac-
celerate in a misguided attempt to catch up with the cornetist
Spanier has trouble with drummers on this point to this day.
Teschemacher seems more contemplative here than on previous
recordings and is even closer to trumpet phrasing. The effect of
the tenor-clarinet-cornet Chicago front line is, in fact, that of
THE CHICAGOANS 127
three tightly knit parallel melody voices and a distinct depar-
ture from the old New Orleans Dixieland format, which calls for a
trombone bass line, a simple cornet lead, and contrapuntal clari-
net figures. Tesch explored this new idea even further at this
time by working out a fourth tune, Jazz Me Blues, for three reeds
and rhythm. It is, interestingly, the best side of the date, and
Tesch seems more comfortable playing lead over the saxophones
of Mezzrow and Rod Cless than he had before in his wandering
ensemble lines above Spanier's horn. Tesch's Jazz Me Blues is
rather close, too, to the ensemble approach of the trumpetless
band Jimmy Noone fronted at that time.
Fve Found a New Baby and There'll Be Some Changes Made
settled any question that might have remained about the emer-
gence of a new crop of talent from Chicago. These men had cre-
ated a fine, workable method of small-band collective improvisa-
tion that accommodated the newer trends in jazz (solo virtuosity,
a steady four-to-the-bar swing, harmonic explorations beyond
simple triads with added sevenths, an enlarged set of responsi-
bilities for the drummer) while retaining some of the good things
in New Orleans jazz (the blues, a "vocal" approach to personal
expression, unified collective spirit, a driving on-the-beat momen-
tum, intelligent use of understatement). For some Chicagoans,
this formula for small-band swing, with the addition of a relaxed
balkd style, served well for a lifetime; others continued to search
elsewhere for musical fulfillment
The summer of 1928 found many of the Chicagoans in New
York, McKenzie, a natural salesman (he had also arranged for
Jimmy Noone to record his Apex band in Chicago the previous
month), now went to work lining up New York dates for his
brood. There was supposed to be an attractive job with Bee
Palmer, but for various reasons it fell through. The gang spent a
hard summer in a strange city. They found a brief moment of
glory backing a dance team at the Palace, but it vanished when a
Variety reviewer described the gang as the "poorest /-piece or-
chestra on earth," even though a writer for The Billboard sug-
gested that the band was "commendable."
Teschemacher found a temporary job substituting for Gil
Rodin in Ben Pollack's sax section for about three weeks. Then the
Pollack band itself was laid off, leaving McPartland with the curi-
128 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
ous distinction of being out of work with two bands at the same
time. Goodman had no trouble picking up dates with commercial
bands like those of Sam Lanin, Meyer Davis, and Nat Shilkret,
but the other Chicagoans had to share a single hotel room and
tighten their belts. A quartet recording date with Teschemacher,
Condon, Sullivan, and Krupa helped pay the hotel bill. The titles
were Indiana and Oh, Baby, again in the key of F. Tesch is
heard on alto and clarinet, flailing his way through the two sides
without accomplishing very much. His stiff reeds and raucous,
forced tone prove unsuitable in this case. Krapa's druinrning is
overbearing and overrecorded, for he whacks energetically on his
tom-toms, crash cymbal, and bass drum as though a full band
were present. Sullivan, however, reveals steady improvement and
a sensitive touch that could not be heard on previous records.
Freeman, who had turned out a couple of commercial records
with Pollack in April, became disillusioned and sailed away to join
Dave Tough in France. By September, Bud was back in Chicago
again. Tough, too, had not profited very much by his stay in Eu-
rope. Most of the work there was decidedly nonjazz in character,
and by 1928 Dave was working in ships' bands on the Atlantic.
He left one disciple in Paris, though, in Maurice Chaillon, who
replaced Tough in Danny Polo's band. Another French musician
who had heard and been influenced by the McKenzie-Condon re-
cordings was trumpeter Philippe Brun. It was, nevertheless, a
poor environment for a young drummer of Tough's ability; de-
spite the flow of good legal liquor and the "cultured" environ-
ment, he headed for home in early 1929. (Mezzrow, on his way to
see Tough in Paris at that time, passed the drummer going the
other way in mid-ocean. )
New Yorkers Red Nichols and Miff Mole were interested in the
Chicagoans, especially Krupa and Sullivan, and a recording ses-
sion was set up that would combine their talents. McKenzie had
been talking up Jimmy Noone and Chicago music to Nichols, who
seemed ready to give it a try, as long as the date was in Mole's
name anyway. The initial attempt was Shim-Me-Sha-Wabbk and
One Step to Heaven, and the result was one of Nichols* best rec-
ords. With no bassist, Sullivan and Krupa set the pace. Tesch, as
usual, plays flimsy ensemble parts, challenging rather than com-
plementing the cornet lead, but there can be little doubt that he
A GATHERING FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER. LEFT TO RIGHT, FRONT ROW.
TOMMY DORSET, LOUIS ARMSTRONG, GEORGE WETTLING; BACK ROW:
BUD FREEMAN, "POPS" FOSTER, EDDIE CONDON, HENRY "RED" ALLEN
LOUIS ARMSTRONG
BESSIE SMITH
BENNY GOODMAN AND GENE KRUPA
WHINES
BIX BETOERBECKE
FLETCHER HENDERSON
JACKTEACAJRDEN
MABAINEY
DON REDMAN
JAMES P. JOHNSON IN THE LATE FORTIES
FATSWALLERANDHUENDS
THE CHICAGOANS 12Q
and the other Chicagoans lit a fire under Nichols and Mole. Nich-
ols was a top jazzman in New York, and this recording amounted
to a musical test for the newcomers. They outdid themselves and
qualified with room to spare.
Krupa, Sullivan, and Goodman, along with a new friend, Jack
Teagarden, spent\much time in Harlem listening to pianists and
big bands. Earl Mines had suggested they look up Fats Waller,
who was but one of several outstanding pianists in New York. The
music they heard in Harlem deeply affected the Chicagoans, par-
ticularly Sullivan, who absorbed the buoyant, strutting Harlem
piano approach (the eighth-note left-hand "stride* technique fit
nicely into the Chicagoan "shuffle" idea) and combined it with
his blues-cwm-Hines style. The smooth, even swing and the so-
phisticated arrangements of the New Yorkers were a logical next
step for the still rough Chicago gang, and they began the learning
process all over again. Most of them were, after all, in their early
twenties and still quite flexible.
Goodman, who was finally finding some security with Pollack at
the Park Central Hotel, was especially impressed by Duke Elling-
ton's band and in the summer of 1928 recorded a "Harlem" ar-
rangement, complete with Bubber Miley effects by McPartland,
of Jelly Roll Morton's Jungles Blues. At the same session, Benny
made a rare appearance on alto saxophone, playing a charming
Beiderbecke-like solo on Blue, and turned out a thoroughly
Chicago-style performance with Room 1421, the last enhanced by
Pollack's skillful drumming. Pollack was one of the first drummers
to play four beats to the measure on the bass drum and was actu-
ally in a class with Tough and Krupa at this time, but he was too
busy as a bandleader to participate in many all-jazz recordings.
The Chicago style had been all but swallowed up in the main-
stream of jazz developments by late 1928, and Bud Freeman, back
in the hometown, demonstrated some of the new things he had
learned in New York on a single interesting Okeh record. Krupa,
who had also returned to Chicago because his mother was ill,
joined Freeman, Floyd O'Brien, clarinetist Bud Jacobson, and
several other friends, mostly from the band working at the Golden
Pumpkin with Thelma Terry, to make Craze-ology and Can't
Help Lovin' That Man in December. Freeman's tone was by now
lighter and more graceful, his fingers fast and sure, and his con-
130 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
ception quite mature for a saxophonist of 22, Craze-okgy reflects
his New York impressions, for there are "jungle" effects, a kind of
big-band arrangement (even to a saxophone lead) scaled down to
three horns and rhythm, and evidence of an interest on Free-
man's part in the land of tour de force saxophone playing that
Jimmy Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, and Frankie Trumbauer had
popularized in the East.
Krupa, too, had changed while in New York. He now played
crisp rim shots in place of Dodds-like tom-tom thumps, used
sudden explosions more sparingly, and concentrated on achieving
a more even flow of 4/4 rhythm. About this time, too, he became
interested in the work of a Cuba Austin, drummer with Me-
Kinney's Cotton Pickers.
Can't Help Loviri That Man is a ballad performance, high-
lighted by a good straight vocal by Red McKenzie (who later be-
came a direct influence on a number of singers, including Woody
Herman) and a Freeman solo that is almost pure Beiderbecke-
Pee Wee Russell and represents Bud's first of many recorded solos
in that vein. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that the final
ensemble flare, which formerly would have been Krupa's signal to
open fire with tom-toms, found him accenting with afterbeat
cymbals but otherwise maintaining a regular pulse.
By 1929, most of the gang was in New York to stay, except for
Teschemacher, Stacy, and Wetding, who continued to play for
bands like Louis Panico's and Gene Fosdick's in Chicago, Spanier
went with Ray Miller and Ted Lewis, and Goodman was still with
Pollack, but New York had become home base. Max Kaminsky, a
Boston trumpeter who had worked both Beiderbecke and Aim-
strong into his style, settled in Manhattan, as did Pee Wee Russell,
who kept alive playing for bandleaders like Paul Specht and Cass
Hagen. Condon, Sullivan, Mezzrow, and Teagarden spent much
time listening to bands and forming new friendships in Harlem.
In the fall of 1928, they had recorded Makin' Friends, a
fine blues performance featuring Teagarden that again drama-
tized the new spirit of the Chicagoans. Most of them were be-
coming firmly committed to the even rhythm of Ellington,
Henderson, and other good New York bands. The effect this
rhythmic change four uncluttered, evenly accented pulses to
THE CfflCAGOANS 13!
each measure- had on the soloists was of considerable impor-
tance. The men had grown up when two-to-the-bar was in general
use but was interpreted as four by horn players. It amounted to
kying out eight beats in a measure by this new system. Creative
use of syncopation and daring double-time phrases were now
easier to bring about, and more involved harmonies came naturally
as rhythm men broke the monotony of hitting the same chord four
times in succession by thinking of new inversions, alterations, and
passing chords. The 4/4 revolution or rather evolution, for the
Chicagoans and many others had been leading up to it for a long
time was the first giant step toward the higher creative level at
which average jazzmen of the thirties performed.
Dave Tough was back in New York in 1929, but his slight frame
and intemperate outlook had led him to illness and irresponsi-
bility. He recorded some fair sides with Red Nichols and even
toured in an all-Chicago band fronted by the popular cornetist,
but he was not his old self. He eventually returned to Chicago andl
worked on and off there for the next several years, sometimes sub-
stituting for Wettling in Joe Kayser s band and even, at one point,
playing for the Capitol Dancing School. Freeman, who was in and
out of Chicago during the severest Depression years, remained
close to Tough and worked with him whenever possible in places
like Carlin's Ballroom.
One group of 1929 Nichols recordings deserves attention, for
they include Sullivan, Freeman, Tough, Russell, and Teagarden
(a land of honorary member of the Chicago gang, because he,
Eke Russell, fit comfortably into their musical philosophy). The
tunes selected were That Da Da Strain, Basin Street Blues, and a
blues called Last Cent. It was a top-heavy session with four horns
and two rhythm, the more so because Teagarden, Russell, and
Freeman behaved in typical Chicago fashion, ignoring the tra-
ditional functions of their instruments in a Dixieland setting, to
improvise around the melody. The recordings do show the partici-
pants to be close to musical maturity, however, and, for better or
worse, typecast in the roles each had to live down over the years
Russell the poignant clown, Teagarden the blues expert, Free-
man the bumptious buffoon, Sullivan the muscular stomper, and
Tough the forgotten drummer. It was a raw, undisciplined ses-
132 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
sion, perhaps partly in open defiance of the meticulous Nichols,
who always remained an opportunistic outsider to the Chi-
cagoans.
Sullivan had by this time adopted the Harlem left-hand "stride"
device and was developing into one of the best pianists in New
York. With Teagarden, Mezzrow, Condon, and a couple of men
from Charlie Johnson's big band, he had made a pair of excellent
recordings in early 1929, and there was one very special date at
about the same time that featured Joe, Teagarden, Eddie Lang,
and Louis Armstrong -no doubt a satisfying experience for a
young man like Sullivan, who had looked to Armstrong for inspi-
ration from an early age.
Goodman, too, was in demand for recordings, jazz and other-
wise. Leaving Pollack in the fall of 1929, Benny quickly became
part of the New York jazz-studio-recording-free-lance gang that
included the Dorseys, Eddie Lang, Miff Mole, and Glenn Miller.
These men, who usually gathered at a speakeasy on West Fifty-
third Street called Plunketts', fared unusually well during the De-
pression years of 1930 to 1932 because they could read well and
perform according to instruction without delay or fuss. Goodman
appeared on countless recordings during this period, but his best
jazz solos were those he played on several Red Nichols dates. One
of these, China Boy, recorded in 1930, is of special interest be-
cause it also features Sullivan and Krupa, and it is the same tune
that helped bring them into prominence. Goodman, at 21, was
now fully formed as a leading jazzman and was becoming a major
influence on other clarinetists. His rhythmic figurations, impres-
sive technical equipment, and unfailing ear earned for him re-
spect from all quarters studio men, dance-band musicians, the
jazz clique, and "legitimate" players alike.
Sullivan and Krupa were boiling with enthusiasm for this
Nichols date, and they demonstrated that their McKenzie-Condon
phase nearly three years earlier was but a rough draft of what
they were to become, Krupa, who had made his first recordings
with Goodman for Nichols more than a year before (Indiana and
Dinah), seemed to stimulate Benny. It was these and later Nich-
ols sessions that led to the profitable association of Krupa and
Goodman in the mid-thirties.
For all the brilliance of Goodman, Sullivan, and Krupa, it was
THE CHICAGOANS 133
Teagarden who stole the show on China Boy and its companion
selections, Peg o* My Heart, and The Sheik of Araby. Curiously,
on Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble, an old Chicago favorite, Krupa's mem-
ories of Mezzrow's sermons seemed to be revived, as he plays
in a "busy" style somewhat in the manner of Baby Dodds.
For Teschemacher and Stacy, there was fairly steady work in
Chicago, but the exciting days of discovery in that city were
pretty much over. Most of Tesch's remaining recordings, made in
a fourteen-month period from late 1928 to early 1930, found him
in the company of second-rate jazzmen, except for his final date
with Bud Freeman and George Wettling. (The clarinetist's last
New York recording in 1928 was with the Dorsey brothers and
Don Redman, on which Teschemacher played a brief, awkward
tenor saxophone solo.) In December, 1928, Tesch recorded Try-
ing to Stop My Crying with Wingy Mannone and Art Hodes (a
talented blues-oriented Chicago pianist), but the chief point of in-
terest is a tag lifted from Stravinsky's Petrouchka that Spanier and
Teschemacher had used from time to time.
An Elmer Schoebel recording of October, 1929, reveals Tesch
and a group of Chicago friends completely caught up in Beider-
becke, even to selecting tunes from the old Wolverine book
Copenhagen and Prince of Wails. By this time, Tesch had cleaned
up his tone, improved his intonation and control, and settled
into a very attractive style that held to a middle road some-
where between Goodman and Russell. Considering this and the
notable improvement Teschemacher displayed a few weeks later
in a recording session with a Chicago group called the Cellar
Boys, particularly on the stirring Wailin' Blues, it might be rea-
sonable to assume that the clarinetist could have developed into
a major jazzman of the thirties, alongside Goodman and Russell.
As it turned out, this was his last appearance in a recording studio.
Teschemacher s final two years, during which he even took up vio-
lin again, were spent mostly in commercial bands like those of
Jan Garber and Benny Meroff, although there was a brief job
with Jess Stacy in a group named Stacy's Aces. The 26-year-old ex-
Austinite was killed in an automobile accident in 1932.
Stacy kept playing around Chicago during the lean years, along
with those Chicagoans who had decided not to try New York yet
Freeman and Sullivan turned up on Chicago jobs occasionally,
134 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
but the hometown boys were now mostly second stringers or
younger men like Bob Zurke and the Marsala brothers (trumpeter
Marty and clarinetist Joe). Jess worked with Paul Mares's jazz
band at the Century of Progress Exposition in 1934 and at a club
called the Subway in 1935, at which point Goodman sent for him
to join his big band.
Dave Tough was around, too, sitting in and picking up occa-
sional work in places like the Liberty Inn, but his drinking prob-
lem had become quite serious. Finally, he made an all-out effort to
redeem himself and, after a fling in Ray Noble's American band,
secured a steady job with Tommy Dorsey in late 1935.
Krupa spent the antijazz years of the Depression in a Red Nich-
ols theater band with Goodman and Sullivan as well as in the or-
chestras of Irving Aaronson, Russ Colombo (again with Goodman
and Sullivan, for Benny put the band together), Mai Hallet,
and Buddy Rogers. It was no surprise when Goodman asked
Krupa to join his new big band in early 1935.
Sullivan passed the years of the early thirties with a succession
of odd jobs, from an engagement at New York's Stork Club with
Red McKenzie's revised Mound City Blue Blowers to a road trip
with Roger Wolfe Kahn. In 1933, he opened as a single on New
York's Fifty-second Street at the Onyx Club, a kind of pioneer es-
tablishment that led to a mushrooming of many more jazz saloons
along the same strip after the repeal of Prohibition. It was at this
time that Sullivan first recorded two of his most famous solos, Gin
Mill Blues and Little Rock Getaway (a theme going back to a
piece from King Oliver's book called Buddy's Habit). After work-
ing with Bing Crosby and serving on staff at KHJ in Los Angeles,
Sullivan joined Bob Crosby's big band in 1936.
Bud Freeman ended the on-again, off-again years of the early
thirties (the Dorsey Brothers, Zez Confry, Joe Venuti, Roger
Wolfe Kahn) by joining Ray Noble's American band in 1935.
Dave Tough was there, too, and, indeed, the two Chicagoans
seemed virtually inseparable throughout the decade. Shortly after
Tough joined Tommy Dorsey, Freeman became a member of the
band's sax section. When Tough went with Benny Goodman in
1938, Freeman followed. One month after Goodman fired Tough
for missing a Waldorf Astoria opening, Freeman left, too.
Tough's recordings with Dorsey's band indicate the powerful
THE CHICAGOANS 135
influence this little man held over his fellow musicians. His drum-
ming, now a kind of mixture of advanced Baby Dodds and con-
temporary Chick Webb, determined the whole character of the
band and lent a dignity to performances that didn't always de-
serve it. His sensitivity, subtlety, and humor formed the perfect
foil for Freeman's whimsical solo work, but he could also provide
a properly stirring backdrop for the majestic trumpeting of Bunny
Berigan, Dorsey's best soloist. Excepting Sid Catlett and Count
Basie's Jo Jones, Tough was without equal on the crash and high-
hat cymbals.
Krupa took a different path. A drummer of drive and profi-
ciency, he began to be carried away with his role as a featured
member of the Goodman orchestra and to play to the crowds
rather than to the music. Never bashful, Krupa carried the showy
Chick Webb approach to its extreme and sometimes turned Good-
man's simple swing style into a montage of frenzied drum solos
with orchestral accompaniment
With Count Basic's Jo Jones setting the big-band pace in 1937-
1938, it became painfully clear that Krupa was damaging the
Goodman ensemble sound. The matter came to a head at Benny's
Carnegie Hall concert in January, 1938. Krupa and Stacy were
featured on Sing, Sing, Sing, a piece almost guaranteed to bring
the audience to the edge of hysteria. Stacy turned in one of the
best solos of his career characteristically subtle, perfectly bal-
anced, reflective, and carefully shaded for maximum aesthetic im-
pact. Krupa, on the other hand, was all clamor and gongs. After
the concert, members of the band went to the Savoy Ballroom to
hear Count Basic's band triumph in a battle with Chick Webb,
the first time Webb had been cut down at the Savoy. It was a
fitting way to mark the new direction in which jazz was turning.
Within two months, Krupa left Goodman, and Tough (with
Bud Freeman in tow) took over the job of putting the rhythm
section back into proper perspective. Dave had by now dropped
most of the New Orleans tricks that could still be heard behind
the Dorsey band and was concentrating on a personal variation of
the Jo Jones approach, which suited Goodman just fine.
The day after Goodman's January concert, the Commodore
Music Shop made its first records with Stacy (continuing and
probing some of the ideas set forth in Sing, Sing, Stng the night
136 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
before), Freeman, Wetding, Pee Wee Russell, Bobby Hackett
(who had re-created a Beiderbecke cornet solo for Goodman's
concert), George Brunis (original trombonist with the New Or-
leans Rhythm Kings), Condon, and bassist Artie Shapiro. It was
Chicago all over again, but with a difference. The Chicagoans
were now established musicians of 1938, no longer dependent
upon Bix, Noone, and Armstrong for ideas. They still used the
collective-improvisation ensemble system, but it came out valid
contemporary music, not a recreation of early forms.
The Commodore recordings brought wider recognition to the
old gang, and they went back to make more. Stacy cut several
solos, Freeman tried some trio pieces, Jack Teagarden sat in on a
few, and a number of friends got into the act Max Kaminsky,
valve trombonist Brad Gowans, Marty and Joe Marsala, Fats
Waller, Miff Mole, and Muggsy Spanier. The joy they felt in play-
ing jazz together again after the long dry spell could be heard on
each release, and the records began to sell quite well
The Chicagoans made many small-band records together after
that Freeman, hopeful with this turn of events, launched an ex-
cellent eight-man band of his own called the Summa Cum Laude
Orchestra. Tough was traveling with Jack Teagarden's big band
in 1939, but he joined the Freeman band shortly before it broke
up in 1940. Russell and Gowans brought some of the flavor and
ideas of the slightly more commercial band Bobby Hackett had
fronted a few months earlier. Freeman's unit developed into one
of the most cohesive small bands of its time.
Spanier, too, put an outstanding small band together during
this period. More tradition-bound than Freeman's, Muggsy's
band combined a contemporary rhythm section with ideas bor-
rowed from Oliver, Armstrong, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings,
and the Midway Gardens band Trombonist Brunis, clarinetist
Cless, and pianist Joe Bushkin were Spanier's principal soloists.
The two groups stood as final friendly arguments for each side
of the Beiderbecke-Armstrong division that had occurred some
ten years before. Spanier played Dippermouth Blues and Big But-
ter and Egg Man along Armstrong lines; Freeman worked up a
library of Wolverine tunes.
After 1940, most of the Chicagoans played in small bands, usu-
ally built on a Dixieland pattern, for no one had yet invented a
THE CHICAGOANS 137
better method of collective improvisation for seven or eight jazz
musicians than this basic system of modified counterpoint. Usu-
ally, though, the solo passages were of more interest than the en-
semble performances, and on the many recordings made by this
group of musicians after 1938 can be heard some of each individ-
ual's very best work. Russell's melodic and harmonic extensions of
Beiderbecke are especially noteworthy and appear on a large
share of the Commodore releases. Freeman's explorations along
similar lines have been preserved on many recordings, including
his provocative trio dates of 1938 and a superb set of 1940 per-
formances featuring Teagarden and Tough. Stacy, too, appears on
some of these as well as on many non-Chicagoan dates. His en-
gaging melodic inventions were featured often with the Goodman
band and in recording sessions with Lionel Hampton, Ziggy
Elman, and Harry James.
Sullivan formed an outstanding swing band about the same
time that Spanier and Freeman were fronting their own units. His
combination, though it included Chicagoan Danny Polo and New
Orleans clarinetist Ed Hall, was a nearly complete break with
Chicago. It was a versatile band, one that could do a proper job
on the blues (Sullivan worked with blues singer Joe Turner) or
slip effortlessly into the contemporary idiom represented by Billie
Holiday, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and Benny Carter, all
of whom Sullivan recorded with at this time.
Krupa formed his own big band after leaving Goodman and
found a fair measure of success, except for a couple of war years,
until 1951. He has seldom appeared with the old Chicago gang,
preferring to work with players whose styles are rooted in the
music of the early and mid-forties. Krupa has returned to a less
flamboyant style in recent years. He continues to influence young
drummers through his teaching as well,
Goodman, the most gifted of the Chicagoans, ceased to be a
creative force in jazz in the early forties and a few years later
seemed to be all but burned out as a jazzman. The story of his
contribution to the music from 1931 (when his recording of Basin
Street Blues and Beak Street Blues stood as a first definition of
the big-band style Benny was seeking) to 1941 is a separate study
beyond the scope of this chapter.
Dave Tough worked with a variety of groups during World
138 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENHES
War II, including Artie Shaw's Navy crew, but he began a
whole new musical life upon joining Woody Herman s remark-
able big band in 1944. At this point, Tough began listening to a
modern young drummer named Max Roach and altered his musi-
cal outlook once more (some recordings with Flip Phillips docu-
ment this change). But his old problem returned, and by 1946 he
was back with the Chicagoans, playing in Eddie Condon's New
York nightclub. Sullivan had returned to the gang, too, and some-
times Freeman dropped by to sit in with his old friends. Bud, like
Tough, had served in the armed forces and had come out of the
war with a few contemporary touches added to his old style.
The Tough-Freeman alliance produced a few more records
about that time, but ended abruptly in 1948, when Dave slipped
in the snow, hit his head, and died. He was 41.
Tough, who always wanted to be a writer, unwittingly com-
posed his own epitaph in this lighthearted passage from one of
his 1937 Metronome drum columns:
Oh, the joy of the wine when it is red! Those lovely summer
nights in the Bois with the swift, inner up-take of the Pernod. It
turning milky in your glass and the taste of the wine, hard, clean,
and tannic, in your mouth, volatile all through you and you
would go to the Birch Tops in tibe Rue Pigalle and hear her sing The
Boy in the Boat, and hope you don't meet Ernest. Those dear, dead
days! With us almost dead too!
A New Vork steak house called Nick's was home for many of
the Chicagoans and their Eastern friends in the forties. They set-
tled in and, with varying combinations, remained for a decade.
(At one point, the band at Nick's used a rotation system in order
to be assured of a trumpet player. Of several leading hornmen, he
who was sober enough to get through all seven sets had the job
that night.)
As the years went by, the Dixieland form had started to wear
tTiin P and Freeman, for one, looked for other possibilities. He stud-
ied with Lennie Tristano and began working with more modem
rhythm sections. Russell, whose health disintegrated in the early
fifties, experienced a musical renaissance after his physical come-
back and in recent years has been experimenting with some mod-
ern jazz ideas. Sullivan and Stacy work sporadically on the West
THE CHICAGOANS 139
Coast, struggling to maintain their former high standards. Good-
man is in a semiretirement, occasionally emerging to offer a few
thin echoes of his old robust style. Of the other Chicagoans, some
are still playing regularly (Hodes, McPartland, Mezzrow, Wet-
tlfng, Spanier), but age and too many years of corrosive speak-
easy gin are making it difficult for others to carry on. Many are
already gone.
Every few years, some eager recording executive attempts to
revive the Chicago style by gathering some of its surviving found-
ers together again. In 1961, an NBC television show was built
around such a reunion, and a recording session was organized by
the Verve label that included Freeman, McPartland, Condon,
Krupa, Sullivan, Russell, and Jack Teagarden. Once more, the old
friends ran down China Boy, Sugar, and others, but most of the
collective magic had long since vanished It was just an assem-
blage of soloists, each with better thMgs on his mind than turning
back time. Russell and Freeman had already grown so weary of
Condon's brand of Dixieland that both regarded this date as
something of a personal affront The musicians merely plodded
through the accepted routines, signed for their money, and fled.
The influence of the Chicagoans on the course of jazz has been
strong and direct in some ways, incidental and roundabout in
others, No jazz clarinetist of the thirties and forties could escape
the Goodman influence, but Benny offered something more than a
new level of technical achievement on his instrument. He was one
of the first jazzmen to improvise on fairly complex song structures
at rapid tempos without f ailing into a series of cliches or resorting
to unmusical tricks. Because Goodman was a superb craftsman al-
most from the beginning, he was able to develop clean musical
ideas and long phrases even at a blistering pace, and his example
helped to open the way for other jazzmen. For players like Teddy
Wilson, Roy Eldridge, Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Chu Berry,
Charlie Christian, and, ultimately, Charlie Parker, Goodman was
not so much a direct influence as perhaps a breaker of new
ground that they were nearly ready to sow.
It is an often overlooked fact that Bud Freeman was a major
tenor saxophone stylist who once represented the "other" way
for those who would not or could not follow the example of
Coleman Hawkins. Freeman's dry tone, often resembling a C-
140 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
melody more than a tenor saxophone, was antirhapsodic and un-
sentimental, and it appealed to budding jazzmen, such as Lester
Young, who could not identify with the heavier, darker sound of
Hawkins. However, with the emergence of Young himself as a
primary jazz voice, beginning around 1937, Freeman's influence
faded rapidly.
Krupa's eminence was not entirely undeserved, although his
boyish good looks and stage manner were large factors in the pub-
lic acclaim for him. Like Goodman, he caused his contemporaries
to pause and consider their own technical equipment. Krupa was
fast, accurate, and, when he wished to be, a master of dynamics
and tonal shading. He also brought to his instrument an unprece-
dented celebrity. For better or worse, the extended drum solo in
jazz grew out of Krupa's display pieces in the Goodman band.
The number of drummers, good and bad, Krupa has influenced
probably runs into the thousands.
Dave Tough, despite an erratic sense of responsibility and a de-
termination to avoid grandstand tactics of the Krupa variety, was
a popular figure and rated high among the best drummers of the
thirties. His was an unspectacular influence, for he simply played
in the most supportive and tasteful way possible at all times.
Tough was a model of restraint combined with positive drive, of
steadiness coupled with spontaneous wit. Only Sid Catlett, Jo
Jones, and Chick Webb could surpass him in all these qualities. A
number of thoughtful modern drummers Mel Lewis, Shelly
Manne, and Ed Shaughnessy are threelearned much from
Tough.
Jess Stacy was perhaps the most underrated Chicagoan of all.
An unassuming and gentle man, Jess looked on from the wings as
Teddy Wilson gathered most of the honors quite justifiably-
through all the most productive Goodman years. But many pian-
ists were listening carefully to both men. Stacy brought a new
kind of warmth to jazz piano, quite different from the "hot," iron-
fisted fury of Sullivan, the cool precision of Wilson, or the awe-
some improvisations of Earl Hines. Like Beiderbecke, Russell,
and trombonist O'Brien, Stacy's gift nestled in the realm of the
artfully understated melodic phrase and the painstakingly meas-
ured tincture of inevitability and surprise.
THE CHICAGOANS 14!
was contributed to The New Republic by Otis Ferguson in 1937.
Ferguson first discusses the pianist as a bandsman:
"What I try to do " Jess says. "Look, I try to meU with the
band.* It is a simple word, but all the meanings are there in it:
nuance, mood, touch, attack, phrasing, harmonic direction, what
not Because it is still in the unspoiled charm of its youth, this
jazz music has never troubled to build a complicated breastwork of
definitions. Jess and the rest have an active knowledge of how a
tune may run, of how the value of a chord may be shifted by its
place in the general pattern (where it rises from and leads to) , by
its attack, duration, the color of its key and measure of its contrast,
the sonority dependent on which of its notes are uppermost.
Ferguson goes on to discuss Jess as a soloist on a 1936 Gene
Krupa-Benny Goodman recording:
From the deep background of the blues and from his own f eeling,
mind and hand, Jess made twelve bars of piano on a record that
John Hammond supervised for English Parfophone, The Blues of
Israel That one is a sport all through, but after a few playings the
piano stands out as much as anything. It has so completely that
old-time pensive mood in the treble, the slurred second and the
dose three-finger chord hanging a mood of nostalgia around such a
simple progression as sol, fa, mi, re: it is given so thorough a support
in tibe constant working bass, whose left hand mingles intimately
with what the right is doing. The song hangs on a trill, doubles the
time for a swinging phrase, and slows to an ending of sustained
chords, beautifully voiced. The analysis is simple, but the effect
runs over into those complexities of the musical spirit that cannot be
rightly described.
Pee Wee Russell, who replaced Teschemacher in the affections
of many Chicagoans after Tesch's death, has always remained
something of a musical entity unto himself. The impact of Beider-
becke can be traced in his work, but beyond that Pee Wee is
unlike any musician who ever lived. His spidery, almost fragile,
melodic inventions are full of unexpected turns and starts that
sometimes leave the listener spent from prolonged anticipation of
disaster. As Russell once explained his adventurous style to jazz
writer Charles Edward Smith, Tf you miss, you miss. If you get
lucky, you get lucky but you take a chance. You've got to get lost
once in a while *
1^2 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Because Russell plays to the music rather than to the house,
some of his staunchest fans are other musicians. His presence in
a jazz band can often be determined by what the men around him
play. If boisterous trombonist George Brunis suddenly becomes
reflective and introspective or if Max Kaminsky launches a solo
that sounds like whimsical Beiderbecke, Russell is probably there.
Even on earlier recordings, such as the 1929 One Hour by the
Mound City Blue Blowers or Condon s 1933 Tennessee Twilight,
it was often Pee Wee who established the mood and the musical
tone of the moment. Bud Freeman, for one, has often played solos
that are undiluted Russell (Condons 1933 Home Cooking is an
example), and when it has happened, Pee Wee has usually been
present.
A number of modern jazzmen have expressed an interest in
Russell, but with the possible exceptions of trombonist Bob
Broolcmeyer and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, there has been
no notable Russell influence on younger players in modern jazz.
Pee Wee made a deep impression on Bobby Hackett, however,
whose influential ballad style, distinguished by explorations into
the upper harmonic reaches of each chord, is admired by musi-
cians of all persuasions.
There can never be another group like the Chicagoans, for they
represent the coming together of two provincial forces the New
Orleans musical fraternity and the Chicago jazz gang and the
sturdy music that resulted from this meeting. While ingrown
cliques will always be with us, it is no longer possible for one self-
contained group of jazzmen to find direct inspiration in the work
of another self-contained group imported nearly intact from a
different part of the country. Today the patterns of change and
influence are national and international in scope, a situation that
was only forecast before the twenties with the first traveling jazz-
men and the first commercial jazz recording. It is a loss, in a way,
because the Chicagoans accomplished what they did by playing
and listening together. The weak members were not rejected but
encouraged, prodded, and helped along until they could stand
alone. On the other hand, this very feature of the Chicago attitude
may be a clue to the vein of melancholy that runs beneath the
blithe music of these men. They were a kind of adolescent gang,
THE CHICAGOANS 143
and some of them never grew up. There is, after all, something
fundamentally sad about an adolescent who is pushing 60. As the
swing era, during which each of the Chicagoans reached the apex
of his creative powers, came to a close, members of the old gang
either withdrew from the competitive arena or huddled
together for protection again this time against the shift to mod-
em jazz. Goodman, Krupa, and Freeman explored the new music
but failed to become part of it Only Tough could have done
that, and he drank himself into the grave without finishing the
job.
So the music of the Chicagoans came and went Their records
tell us how good it was while it lasted.
Recommended Reading
Anderson, Ernest (ed.) : Esquires 1947 Jazz Book, Smith & Dnirell,
New York (1947).
Condon, Albert Edwin, and Thomas Sugrue: We CaUed It Music,
Holt, New York (1947).
Condon, Albert Edwin, and Richard Gehman: Eddie Condons Treas-
ury of Jazz, Dial, New York (1956).
De Toledano, Ralph (ed.): Frontiers of Jazz, Durrell, New York
(1947).
Feather, Leonard: The Encyclopedia of Jazz, Horizon, New York
(1960).
Goodman, Benny, and Irving Kolodin: The Kingdom of Swing, Stack-
pole, Harrisburg, Pa. (1939).
Mannone, Wingy, and Paul Vandervoort: Trumpet on the Wing,
Doubleday, New York (1948).
Mezzrow, Milton, and Bernard Wolfe: Really the Blues, Random
House, New York ( 1946) .
Miller, Paul Eduard (ed.): Esquires 1946 Jazz Book, Barnes, New
York (1946).
Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith: Jazzmen, Harcourt,
Brace, New York (1939).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : Hear Me Talhn' to Y<z, Rine-
hart, New York (1955).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958).
144 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Recommended Listening
Chicago Style Jazz, COLUMBIA CL 632
Chicago Jazz Album, DECCA 8029.
Chicago Jazz, RIVERSIDE 12-107.
Jam Sessions at Commodore, COMMODORE FL 30,006.
Gems of Jazz, Vol. 5, DECCA 8043,
Jazz, Vol. 6, FOLKWAYS FP 65.
Jazz, Vol. 7, FOLKWAYS FP 67.
Jazz, Vol. 9, FOLKWAYS FP 71.
Great Jazz Reeds, CAMDEN 339.
A String of Swingin' Pearls, RCA VICTOR LPM 1373.
The Art of Jazz Piano, EPIC 3295.
Jess Stacy and Others: Chairmen of the Board, MAINSTREAM 56008.
Jess Stacy: Piano Soks, BRUNSWICK 54017.
Joe SuJUvan: New Soks by an Old Master, RIVERSIDE 158,
Benny Goodman, ^27-1934, BRUNSWICK 54010.
The Vintage Goodman, COLUMBIA CL 821.
Benny Goodman: Carnegie Hall Concert, COLUMBIA OSL 160,
Portrait of Pee Wee, COUNTERPOINT CPST 562 (stereo).
Pee Wee Russett Pkys, Dor DLP 3253.
Swingin with Pee Wee, PRESTIGE-SWINGVILLE 2008.
Pee Wee Russell and Coleman Hawkins, CANDID 8020.
Pee Wee Russell: A Legend, MAINSTREAM 56026.
Pee Wee Russell: New Groove, COLUMBIA 01-1985.
Bud Freeman: Wolverine Jazz, DECCA DL 5213.
Bud Freeman and His All-Star Jazz, HARMONY HL 7046.
Bud Freeman and His Summa Cum Laude Trio, DOT DLP 3166.
The Bud Freeman All-Stars, PRESTIGE-SWINGVILLE 2012.
Bud Freeman: Something Tender, UNITED ARTISTS 14033.
Swingin' with Krupa, CAMDEN 340.
Eddie Condon: Ivy League Jazz, DECCA 8282.
Eddie Condon: A Legend, MAINSTREAM 56024.
Max Kaminsky and His Jazz Band, COMMODORE FL 30,013.
Wild Bill Davison; MUd and Wild, COMMODORE FL 30,009.
The Hackett Horn, EPIC 3106.
Muggsy Spanier: The Great 16!, RCA VICTOR LPM 1295.
Dixieland-New Orleans, MAINSTREAM 56003.
Chicago and AIL That Jazz, VERVE V-8441.
The Sound of Chicago, COLUMBIA C3L-32,
FATS WALLER AND
JAMES P. JOHNSON
WHILE THE REST of the country was just beginning to develop its
regional attitudes toward and approaches to jazz during and after
World War I, New York pianists were putting the finishing
touches on a complex and valid jazz language all their own. Key-
board artists like Luckey Roberts, Richard "Abba Labba" Mc-
Lean, and Bob Hawkins had already built a buoyant "shout* style
by adding blues melodies and country dance rhythms to an ur-
bane ragtime bass. New York was the final proving ground for the
best pianists, and top players from other music centers Eubie
Blake of Baltimore was one sooner or later settled there. Most of
these men were also composers, and New York, the hub of Ameri-
ca's music-publishing industry, attracted them for that reason as
well. It was a hotly competitive arena that made no room for mu-
sical weaklings.
To understand how Thomas *Fats w Waller fit into this picture,
it is necessary to turn first to the man who had much to do with
the formation of Waller's approach to playing jazz piano James
P. Johnson. Johnson had arrived in New York in 1908 as a fledg-
ling pianist of 14 with a wide variety of musical tastes. In New
Jersey, he had heard country set or square dances, church hymns,
marches, stomps, blues, popular tunes, folk songs, and barrel-
house ballads. Once in the big city, James also absorbed the
sounds of classic rags performed by front-rank pkyers and the in-
dividual creations of New York's best party pianists. He also lis-
tened attentively to symphonic concert music, superior cabaret
show music, and grand opera. He heard, too, New Orleans pianist
Jelly Roll Morton, who played at Barren Wilkins' in Harlem about
1911. All these sounds went into Johnson's music.
By 1912, when he was 18, James was good enough to pky pro-
fessionally in bars and movie houses as well as for parties, where
the fees were usually paid in food and drink He played popular
songs, showpieces like The Dream (alternately credited to New
M5
146 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
York pianists Jack The Bear" and Jess Pickett and later recorded
by Waller as The Digah's Stomp), Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag,
hits from current musicals, and some numbers of his own. Johnson
aimed at becoming a first-class "tickler," and he was rapidly
acquiring impressive credentials, even by New York standards.
However, unlike some classical-minded ragtimers of the period,
James did not turn away from folk blues material and dance
music. In a series of remarkable interviews with writer Tom
Davin many years later (published by The Jazz Review in 1959),
Johnson described one of his regular jobs around 1913:
The people who came to The Jungles Casino were mostly from
around Charleston, South Carolina, and other places in the South.
Most of them worked for tibe Ward Line as longshoremen or on
ships that called at southern coast ports. There were even some
Gullahs among them.
They picked their partners with care to show off their best steps
and put sets, cotillions and cakewaDcs that would give them a
chance to get off.
The Charleston, which became a popular dance step on its own,
was just a regulation cotillion step without a name. It had many
variations all danced to the rhythm that everybody knows now.
One regular at the Casino, named Dan White, was the best dancer
in the crowd and he introduced the Charleston step as we know it
But there were dozens of other steps used, too.
It was while playing for these southern dancers that I composed
a number of Charlestons eight in all all with the same rhythm.
One of these later became my famous Charleston when it hit Broad-
way,
My Carolina Shout was another type of ragtime arrangement of
a set dance of this period. In fact, a lot of famous jazz compositions
grew out of cotillion musicsuch as The Wildcat Blues. Jelly Roll
Morton told me that his King Porter Stomp and High Society were
taken from cotillion music.
The dances they did at The Jungles Casino were wild and
comicalr-the more pose and the more breaks, the better. These
Charleston people and the other southerners had just come to New
York. They were country people and they felt homesick. When they
got tired of two-steps and schottisches (which they danced with a
lot of spieling), they'd yell: "Let's go back home!" . . . "Let's do
a set!" . . . or "Now, put us in the alley!" I did my Mule Wdk or
Girt Stomp for these country dances.
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 147
Breakdown music was the best for such sets, the more solid and
groovy the better. They'd dance, hollering and screaming until they
were cooked. The dances ran from fifteen to thirty minutes, but
they kept up all night long or until their shoes wore out most of
them after a heavy day's work on the docks.
By 1916, Johnson had taken his place alongside the most ac-
complished jazz and ragtime pianists in the city. His own later ac-
count of his playing at about that time reveals many of the ele-
ments that went into young Tom Waller s style shortly after;
I was starting to develop a good technique. I was born with
absolute pitch and could catch a key that a player was using and
copy it, even Luckey's, I played rags very accurately and bril-
liantly running chromatic octaves and glissandos up and down
with both hands. It made a terrific effect.
I did double glissandos straight and backhand, glissandos in
sixths and double tremolos. These would run other ticklers out of
the place at cutting sessions. They wouldn't play after me. I would
put these tricks in on the breaks and I could think of a trick a min-
ute. I was playing a lot of piano then, traveling around and listen-
ing to every good player I could. I'd steal their breaks and style
and practice them until I had them perfect
From listening to classical piano records and concerts, from
friends of Ernest Green such as Mme. Garret, who was a fine
classical pianist, I would learn concert effects and build them into
blues and rags.
Sometimes I would pky basses a little lighter than the melody
and change harmonies. When playing a heavy stomp, I'd soften
it right down then, I'd make an abrupt change like I heard
Beethoven do in a sonata.
Some people thought it was cheap, but it was effective and
dramatic. With a solid bass Lice a metronome, Yd use chords with
half and quarter changes. Once I used Liszt's Rigoletto Concert
Paraphrase as an introduction to a stomp. Another time, I'd use
pianissimo effects in the groove and let the dancers' feet be heard
scraping on the floor.
During this period, James learned and borrowed from every pi-
anist he admired Eubie Blake, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Sam
Gordon ("a great technician who played an arabesque style that
Art Tatum made famous later"), Fred Bryant (" . . he invented
the backward tenth. I used it and passed it on to Fats Waller
148 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
later. It was the keynote of our style"), Fats Harris ("who looked
Eke Waller did later"), and many others.
By 1917, the 23-year-old pianist was something of a local celeb-
rity. He married and settled into a reasonably prosperous life of
cafe jobs, songwriting, making piano rolls, Broadway stage work,
vaudeville tours on the TOBA (Theater Owners' Booking
Agency) circuit, and, eventually, coaching promising youngsters
like Thomas Wright Waller.
Waller was only 13 in 1917, but he already had seven or eight
years of keyboard training and experience behind him. His father,
who was working his way up to becoming pastor of Harlem's
Abyssinian Baptist Church, approved of Tom's interest in organ
literature and the classics but took a dim view of ragtime. He tried
the boy at the church organ and even at a folding organ in street
sermons but was unable to stop him from "ragging" his hymns,
although Tom had written a hymn of his own called Everything
Thafs Not of Jesus ShaU Go Down. Waller's mother, however, a
pianist and organist herself, encouraged her son's interest in
music, ragtime or no ragtime. In 1915, his father took him to hear
pianist Ignace Paderewski at Carnegie Hall. The boy was deeply
impressed and renewed his efforts to improve his own piano pky-
ing. He studied technique and composition while continuing to
play and perform (he was a natural entertainer) at school or any-
place that had a keyboard instrument By 1918, when he was 14,
Waller quit school and worked at odd jobs outside of music while
waiting for something to turn up.
Tom was lucky. He had been spending much of his time at the
Lincoln Theater, where an organist and a small group led by a
pianist were hired to play during film showings. Because he was
allowed to sit in regularly and to become familiar with the re-
quirements of movie work, the young musician was prepared to
step into either keyboard job as soon as a vacancy occurred. At 15,
Waller became the official organist for the Lincoln Theater. From
that time on, the best New York ticklers, including James P. John-
son, began to notice him.
Harlem was growing fast as a center of musical activities just
after the war. Pianists found work in dozens of small cellars and
dubs from 125th Street to 140th Street. James P. Johnson has told
of pianists gathering at a place called The Rock for cheerful cut-
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 149
ting sessions. Willie "The Lion" Smith and others engaged in
piano battles at Leroy's. From 1920 on, Waller was a member of
the inner circle of pianists who gathered and worked in these
places. His experience at the organ had, however, left him with a
weak left hand. As Johnson was the reigning tickler at the time,
Fats (who had by now eaten his way into the nickname) went to
him for help.
Tats would bang on our piano till all hours of the night,* John-
son s wife has recalled. "Sometimes to two, three, four o'clock in
the morning. I would say to him, *Now, go on home/ or Haven't
you got a home? 9 But he'd come every day, and my husband
would teach."
Many pianists had learned indirectly from Johnson by way of
his piano rolls, but Waller, a native New Yorker, had the advan-
tage of private tutelage and the prerogative of playing alongside
James in public places and private sessions. He carried the John-
son imprint on his music for the rest of his life.
In 1920, Tom's mother died, leaving her devoted son disconso-
late for many months. He plunged into an unwise marriage that
broke up after a short time and eventually caused him endless
trouble over alimony payments. His second marriage, to Anita
Rutherford, turned out well and lasted until Waller's death in
1943. Though still in his teens, Fats had become a favorite enter-
tainer and performer around Harlem by the early twenties. His
natural broad humor and easy disposition delighted even those
observers who couldn't appreciate the qualify of his music. Fats's
ability to amuse people finally became his most valuable com-
mercial asset; without it, he might have ended a "musician's musi-
cian" (usually a synonym for an unrecognized musician), as did
his friend and teacher James P. Johnson,
Fats worked at Leroy's for a while and then went on the road
with vaudeville shows for a couple of seasons. On one rainy night
in Boston (clarinetist Garvin Bushell, who was with Waller at the
time, believes it was New Year's night in 1923), the pianist tried
out some variations on an old song called Boy in the Boat and
named the results Squeeze Me. With words added by Spencer
Williams, it became the first of many successful songs for Fats.
His gift for turning out tunes by the dozen was Waller's second
most valuable commercial asset, although he often sold composi-
150 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
tions outright for only a few dollars. His take from songs like Ain't
Misbehaving Honeysuckle Rose, Keepin Out of Mischief Now,
Blue Turning Gray Over You, and Tm Crazy 'Bout My Baby
helped cover the alimony payments. They also obscured the
image of Waller the organist and pianist Not that Fats objected
to his songwriting role; indeed, he frequently expressed the desire
to spend more time composing. In jazz terms, however, it is
Waller as a keyboard improviser who commands attention.
Because he had a special affection for the organ, Fats returned
to his Lincoln Theater job as often as possible. He learned how to
pky the blues on the giant instrument, for the Lincoln crowd
wanted the old familiar material rather than the modern Tin Pan
Alley songs. Sophisticated musicians called the theater the "Tem-
ple of Ignorance," but its emphasis on earthiness was probably
good for Waller, who lacked James P. Johnson's early contacts
with folk blues. One of his staunchest admirers at the theater was
Bill Basie, a young pianist just Fats's age who yearned to learn
more about die pipe organ. (Basie remains fond of the organ
today and plays one whenever the opportunity arises. ) After com-
ing off the road with Liza and Her Shufflin' Six ("Liza" was Katie
Crippen) one season, Waller sent his friend Basie out as a re-
placement. It was Count's first tour.
The Lincoln was sold about 1923, and Fats moved to the Lafa-
yette, again in charge of the organ. His rhythmic digressions,
sometimes far from the spirit of what was showing on the screen,
were generally enjoyed by Harlem audiences, and no one seemed
to mind his including his own compositions, such as Squeeze Me
and Wild Cat Blues. It was in 1923, too, that Fats made his first
radio broadcast, from the Fox Terminal Theater in Newark, New
Jersey.
James P. Johnson, who had been cutting piano rolls for some six
years by 1922, recommended Fats to the QRS company. Johnson's
good word resulted in new prestige and more than $2,000 for
Waller, who made eighteen or nineteen rolls at $100 each and lent
his name to still others performed by J. Laurence Cook. Some of
these rolls have been transferred to records in recent years, allow-
ing historians to better evaluate Waller's development in the early
twenties. To give further perspective, there was also a series of
record dates in late 1922, when Fats was 18,
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P, JOHNSON 151
Of the recorded solos, one, Muscle Shoals Blues, is of special
interest on several counts. It was Fats's first record, and the form
is a blues (Waller recorded relatively few blues); also, a piano
roll of the same selection by James P. Johnson, cut earlier that
year, provides an interesting point of contrast to the recorded ver-
sion. The song itself is not unusual (apparently patterned after
Hand/s Memphis Blues), but there is ample evidence in Fats's
performance that he was a skilled young pianist, if still well below
Johnson's level. A striking deficiency in the solo is its lack of
rhythmic thrust or even jazzlike syncopation, It is a rather formal
performance, not at all in the warm blues idiom that character-
ized the work of Southern jazz instrumentalists at the time. John-
son s piano-roll rendition of the tune is no closer to a true blues
feeling, but this may be due in part to the absence of nuance usu-
ally encountered in mechanical rolls, Despite the similarity of
styles and faults, Waller s recording and Johnson's roll differ in a
fundamental way. Fats had already begun to use single-note
treble lines against his conventional bass figures; Johnson was still
tied to the use-all-ten-fingers philosophy of the ragtimers. Of the
two approaches, Johnson's was the more impressive pianistically,
but Waller's held more promise of new ideas to come.
There were more recorded performances in 1922 Birmingham
Blues, 'Taint Nobody's Bizness If I Do, and several others with
blues singer Sara Martin. Although they show Waller to be a con-
fident pianist with an awareness of the blues, most of these rec-
ords did not provide opportunities for him to demonstrate the en-
tire range of his skills at that time.
The piano rolls were something else again. Though limited by
the mechanical medium, Fats was allowed more latitude to ad-
vance pianistic ideas for their own sake. The pyrotechnical out-
burst in Your Time Now, the complex set of variations in triplets
in 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness (a much better version than the re-
cording, by the way), the smooth trills and clean double-time de-
vices in Mama's Got the Blues, the harmonically full sound of Last
Man Blues, the intimations of a perfectly smooth 4/4 rhythmic
foundation in Snake Hips ail these things that had begun to
make up the Waller-out-of- Johnson style can be heard on Fats's
1923 piano rolls. One roll, Johnson's tune If I Could Be with You
One Hour Tonight, features both Fats and James in a duet per-
152 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWJ4NT1KS
f ormance. Johnson was still the better player, but Fats was begin-
ning to exhibit the more cheerful rhythmic outlook later identified
with him and, indeed, seemed slightly more of the jazz world than
his teacher or, to put it another way, Waller seemed less the rag-
timer of the two.
With records and piano rolls spreading his name, Fats became a
key figure in the Harlem jazz scene. Other musicians began to re-
cord his compositions, especially Clarence Williams, who had a
publisher's interest in such material. Arranger Don Redman be-
came a close friend, as did Fletcher Henderson, whose band was
beginning to gain national recognition. Despite the intensity of
Harlem's keyboard cutting contests, New York pianists helped
each other along. Williams, Johnson, Waller, Eubie Blake, Hen-
derson, Duke Ellington (who arrived in New York in the twenties
partly as a result of Fats's urgings), Stephen "The Beetle" Hen-
derson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and even George Gershwin,
though all of them were busy with composing, publishing, record-
ing, touring, writing for shows, or just playing better piano than
the next man, helped promote one another's songs and spoke up
for those who tended to be overlooked. Johnson and Blake not
only were top pianists, but also scored songs for successful shows
like Dudleys Smart Set, Shuffle Along, Runnin' Wild, and Planta-
tion Days (which toured Europe with James as musical director),
and their accomplishments served as goals for younger pianist-
composers, particularly Fats Waller.
Fats wrote more songs than ever in 1924. He collaborated with
publisher Clarence Williams on a number of ordinary ditties de-
signed to make a quick dollar. This partnership is documented on
an obscure recording by the Jamaican Jazzers, for which Williams
performed outrageously on a kazoo and Waller contributed a
pleasant mixture of rippling swing and lukewarm blues.
In 1925, when Fats was 21, there were still more record dates
(mostly with mediocre singers), piano rolls, and new songs (even
a waltz, called The Heart That Once Beknged to Me). Waller's
studies with Carl Bohm at JuIIiard and his other contacts with
modern formal composition may have affected his playing as well
as his writing by this time. His lessons with Leopold Godow-
sfcy, too, left their mark. It was while working a Chicago theater
job (probably on organ) in 1925 that Fats concentrated on Bach
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 153
under Godowsky. They went through the toccatas and the two-
and three-part inventions together. Fats referred to this period in
an interview for Metronome magazine ten years later, when he
was asked about modern (1935) pianists: "Formerly the right
hand was given all the work and the other left to shift for itself,
thumping out a plain octave or common chord foundation. There
was no attempt at figuration. But that is all in the past. Now it's
more evenly divided and the left has to know its stuff, its chords
and its figuration, just as well as the right. I consider the thorough
bass foundation I got in the study of Bach the best part of my
training."
Apparently, when Fats used the word "training," he meant
training for playing jazz. For all his interest in classical literature,
he regarded himself quite seriously as a jazz musician, and that
by itself sets Waller apart from the many jazzmen who scorned
their own music in the twenties. And Waller used European
music in jazz terms rather than dressing up his improvisations
with superficial classical effects. "Whenever you get stuck for a
two-bar harmonic device," Fats explained, "you can always go
back to Liszt or Chopin. Even so, it's all in knowing what to put
on the right beat."
Even in Waller's 1925 accompaniment records, the use of full
tenths in the left hand lent a distinctly "modern" sound to the
piano parts. Tenths were not a new idea, but Johnson himself
could not handle them with Waller's aplomb. Fats had enormous
hands (blind pianist George Shearing once described the experi-
ence of shaking hands with Waller as Tike grabbing a bunch of
bananas"), and tenths were for him what octaves were to the or-
dinary piano player. He frequently exercised his left hand, in fact,
by running up and down the keyboard in tenths.
Fats wrote some numbers for Fletcher Henderson in 1926, and
the by now celebrated leader asked Waller to sit in on a couple of
recording sessions. One of these dates included The Chant ( a Mel
Stitzel tune), Fats's first pipe-organ recording. More impressive,
however, are the piano solos and ensemble parts in The Hender-
son Stomp and Whiteman Stomp, both Waller compositions with
Redman arrangements. Fats seems to stimulate the entire band
with his enthusiasm and rhythmic propulsion; his solo ideas here
are more absorbing and individualistically mature than before.
154 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Whiteman Stomp must have been a particularly challenging piece
for pianist and orchestra alike, but Waller sails through it easily.
Most important of all, rhythmically Fats was now really swinging.
Waller's exposure to Louis Armstrong in 1925, both in New York
and in Chicago, may have accounted for some of the improve-
ment in this area over his 1922 recordings, but much of it was un-
doubtedly due to the musical maturation of Waller and of jazz
generally during the early twenties.
Beginning in late 1926, Victor launched a series of recordings of
Fats at the pipe organ, his favorite instrument. It was a remark-
able undertaking for the conservative Victor company, for no one
had ever recorded real jazz on the great instrument before. As it
turned out, these are some of the finest recordings of Waller's ca-
reer. His ability to swing on several keyboards and a set of foot
pedals while creatively manipulating the various stops and con-
trols has never been surpassed. At jazz organ, Fats Waller was
supreme. Moreover, he was deeply serious (but not without
humor!) whenever seated at the organ, and his 1926-1927 solos
are refreshingly free of the entertaining but superficial distrac-
tions that mar many of Waller s later recordings.
After an initial fling at St. Louis Blues, Fats (he was still billed
as Thomas on record labels) settled into a series of superb origi-
nals. Lenox Avenue Blues is a fine light piece in which Waller
demonstrates his remarkable control of dynamics; Soothin Syrup
Stomp, Stompin the Bug, and Hog Maw Stomp are extraordinary
sets of variations in the Harlem piano tradition; The Rusty Pail is
a superior jazz performance by any measure and a definitive essay
on the jazz potential of the pipe organ. In short, Waller created a
new body of instrumental music within the jazz language that has
stood untarnished for more than three decades. Fats's organ work
was, as anyone who follows the witless fancies of the listening
public might expect, both the least commercial and the most pro-
found of his many musical assets.
What made these organ solos so special was Waller's intimate
knowledge of the capabilities of the instrument as a unique mode
of jazz expression rather than merely as a piano with extra attach-
ments. The musical style was identifiably Waller s, but his tech-
niques were not the same as those he used at the piano. Fats never
succumbed, either, to the temptation to overdramatize his music
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 155
with trite organ voicings or unnecessary flamboyance. He was es-
pecially skilled at drawing the lightest, daintiest sounds from the
awesome instrument, always avoiding the obvious and rejecting
the sentimental.
The next batch of organ records seems to have been an experi-
ment by Victor. Each of three selections (Sugar, Beak Street
Blues, and Tm Coin to See My Ma] was recorded twice, first as
an instrumental solo, then as a vocal (Alberta Hunter) with organ
accompaniment. The solos are excellent, but the vocals probably
sold more records, for Victor chose to issue very few pipe-organ
solos by Waller after that Among those pieces recorded by Fats
but never issued are two Bach fugues and some light classical ma-
terial, which the organist played first in a straightforward manner
and then as jazz.
The Harlem piano sessions continued throughout the twenties,
sometimes at so-called parlor socials (rent parties), other times at
favorite clubs and meeting places, such as the Clef Club or the
Rhythm Club. The old ticklers, though still highly respected, were
gradually being replaced now by young jazzmen like Waller and,
out in Chicago, Earl Hines. Johnson and Willie Smith were able
to keep up with the shift in rhythm and phrasing, but many of
the older men remained rooted in ragtime. Of the new crop of
pianists in New York, Waller was the most impressive. His wide-
ranging left hand had become, by 1927, a model of metrical accu-
racy and buoyant swing combined with harmonic daring and tre-
mendous rhythmic power. His right usually delineated delicate
but authoritative melodic variations built on rhythmic patterns
similar to those used by horn players of the day. Many jazzmen
preferred Waller's piano to, say, Willie Smith's because Fats
worked better as a member of a jazz band, while Smith seemed to
be playing bravura exercises for his own amazement
Fats stopped touring for a while in 1926 and 1927 to concen-
trate on developing his contacts in New York more fully. He took
on a manager, made downtown appearances in places like the
Kentucky Club, and set to work on the music for a new show, to
be called Keep Shufflin. He turned out tunes faster than his
friends could use them, but Clarence Williams published many,
such as Long, Deep, and Wide, Midnight Stomp, and Old Folks
Shuffle. With Thomas Morris, he recorded Please Take Me Out of
Ig6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE
Jail (a title said to refer to further alimony difficulties in Waller's
life) and Fats Waller Stomp in a pseudo-New Orleans style.
Fletcher Henderson recorded St. Louis Shuffle and Variety
Stomp, which Fats sold to him for $10 apiece.
Waller worked with lyricist Andy Razaf on Keep Shuffliri. Fats
and James P. Johnson were both hired to play in the pit as well as
to compose music for the show. Although the most popular songs
from the show were How Jazz Was Born and My Little Chocolate
Bar, the only Razaf-Waller tune of that score to survive the years
since is Wilkw Tree. The show opened in 1927 and went on the
road in 1928, taking Waller, Johnson, and orchestra with it.
In early 1928, Fats, James, and two more members of the Keep
Shuffliri orchestra, reedman Garvin Bushell and trumpeter Jabbo
Smith, traveled to Camden, New Jersey, to record one of the
strangest sessions of all time. The four men went to the huge old
church that Victor had taken over for a studio. At one end was
Waller at the pipe organ, and at the other were Johnson, Smith,
and Bushell, who remembers the distance from himself to Fats as
*about a city block." Despite these precautions, the pipe organ all
but drowned out Johnson's piano. They recorded four tunes, in-
cluding James's 'Sippi and Fats's Willow Tree. Aside from Smith's
beguiling trumpet and BushelTs unusual effects on bassoon, the
center of interest here is the combined sound of Waller and John-
son. James plays cleanly and engagingly but does not show the
drive and exuberance that Waller had by this time already dem-
onstrated on both piano and organ. The teacher was losing
ground to his star pupil.
The success of Keep Shuffliri encouraged Connie and George
Immennan, owners of Harlem's Connie's Inn, to underwrite a
show of their own for the 1928-1929 season. Fats, Razaf, and
Harry Brooks were to handle the scores. Brooks, who helped on
both music and lyrics and is a good pianist himself, remembers
how he and his partners put together their hit song for Connie's
Hot Chocolates Airit Misbehaving *It was an attempt to copy
the successful formula Gershwin used for The Man I Love" de-
clared Brooks. "We imitated the opening phrase that began just
after the first beat and the minor part of the bridge, too."
Airit Misbehaviri became so popular that it swept its
composers and Louis Armstrong, one of the stars of the show
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 157
into the top echelon of American show business personalities. Less
noticed perhaps, but equally attractive was Black and Blue, the
revue's second hit. (Razaf helped Eubie Blake steal phrases from
BUck and Blue for Memories of 'You a year later, which must be
some kind of private system of poetic justice.) Fats now had his
hands full writing songs for nightclub floor shows, tossing off
originals for friends like Fletcher Henderson or Don Redman, and
preparing for another show, to be called Load of Coal He also
recorded some superb piano solos in 1929.
Handful of Keys and Numb Fumblin represented a new level
of attainment for Waller the pianist, at least on records. Both
were waxed casually by Fats, along with a pair of loose band per-
formances, after a long night of serious drinking and a morning of
hasty mental sketching of material for the date. From all reports,
it was a typical Fats Waller recording session, complete with bot-
tles, last-minute decisions, and gratifying musical results. Numb
FwnbUn' is a splendid blues piece, full of crisp trills, thick har-
monies resembling the sound of an entire orchestra, long thirry-
second-note runs in the best tradition of Harlem bravura playing,
and flawless articulation, Handful of Keys is a scintillating "shout"
in the James P. Johnson manner, far from profound but a rhyth-
mic delight The band sides, The Minor Drag and Harlem Fuss,
are marked by Waller's characteristic disregard for ensemble pre-
cision but are rescued by a rhythmic ebullience generated almost
entirely by Fats himself. (The only other rhythm man, banjoist
Eddie Condon, didn't bother anyone. ) Other piano solos followed
a few months later. Ain't Misbehavin 9 ancli Sweet Savannah Sue,
from Hot Chocolates, are, oddly, rather uneventful performances.
fve Got a Feeling Tm Falling, one of Waller s finest songs, seems
more an exposition of the tune than a true piano solo. Love Me or
Leave Me, Ghdyse, and Valentine Stomp are more interesting,
with Fats transfiguring ragtime ideas by the use of current Har-i
lem "stride" effects and lots of full-bodied chords.
Several solos recorded a few weeks later, in late August, 1929,
seemed to wipe out the last vestiges of the old, stilted Eastern
phrasing, which Fats had been gradually eliminating over ffae
years. (The jagged staccato phrase, New York style, can stiD be
heard in some older Eastern jazzmen today: Jimmy Archey, Harry
Goodwin, the deParis brothers, Hank Duncan, and Garvin
158 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Bushell are examples.) Coin About and My Feelin's Are Hurt
brought out Waller's own musical personality, by now quite obvi-
ously different from James P. Johnson's, more than any of his pre-
vious piano recordings.
1929 was a good year for Fats, notwithstanding the Wall Street
disaster that fall. His songs were bringing him fame, if less than
an equitable share of the publisher's profits, for Waller still had
the unfortunate habit of talcing the short-term view and selling
many of his compositions outright for absurdly small sums. Load
of Coal became another Hot Chocoktes revue, and the new
Waller-Razaf pieces included Honeysuckle Rose, Zonky, and My
Fate Is in Your Hands. At one point, Fats was featured at Con-
nie s playing a huge white organ. The effect must have been simi-
lar to that described by the late Tom Fletcher in 100 Years of the
Negro in Show Business: "One of the greatest performances he
[Waller] ever gave was the night in the latter part of the 1920*3 at
Carnegie Hall when he was on a late spot on the bill. When he
was introduced some of the audience had started to leave, but
when he began playing that immense organ everybody who had
started out rushed back to seats and the applause was so tremen-
dous that he was compelled to give many encores." Fletcher prob-
ably was referring to one of the Clef Club Carnegie concerts that
had been given since at least as early as 1919.
From 1929 to 1932, Fats was one of the most sought-after pian-
ists for recordings and private jam sessions in New York. The
Chicagoans (Joe Sullivan, Eddie Condon, Bud Freeman et al.)
had found him to be just their kind of musician always swinging
right on the beat, iconoclastic, talented, hard-drinking, whimsical,
and basically dead serious about jazz. Jack Teagarden, Coleman
Hawkins, and others also spent as much time with Waller as pos-
sible, for his good nature and musical creativity always seemed to
rub off on those around him. Joe Sullivan, who was deeply influ-
enced by Waller's musical outlook at this time, smilingly recalls
the gregarious pianist:
"When Fats had just sold a tune, he would call me and shout,
'Mother! Come on down, I just made a strike!' and this meant the
drinks were on him. Still, he was completely serious when it came
to playing- particularly when in a cutting contest with someone
like The Lion.
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 159
There were several sides of Fats that most people didn't know
about I heard him play background music for a stag movie once,
and he did some things that even Hines and Tatum couldn't cut
at least on that night! Some nights he and I would go to a Harlem
theater after hours the cleaning ladies all knew him and Fats
would play the organ until six or seven in the morning. He liked to
play original compositions and serious classical things. It was beau-
tiful music. w
Mezz Mezzrow, who was usually on hand because he supplied
Fats and other jazzmen with marijuana, tells in Redly the Blues
of one of the piano contests he attended about the same time:
Fats was a wonderful guy, one of the most jovial persons I have
ever met, always bubbling with jokes so it was impossible to feel
brought down in his company. He stood about six foot tall and
weighed well over two hundred pounds and his feet, that were a
stylish size fifteen, he referred to as his "pedal extremities." . . .
He'd sit at the piano all night long, and sometimes part of the next
day, without even getting up to see that man about that canine.
We'd set up quart after quart of bathtub gin for him one on top
of the piano, so when he was playing treble he could reach up with
his left hand, and another at his foot, so while he beat out the bass
he could reach down and grab the jug with his right hand. . . ,
Well, this morning out came several quarts of liquor, and it was on.
Corky [Williams] sat down and started to play Tea for Two, a
number that Willie The Lion could give a fit. All of a sudden Willie
jumped up and said to Corky, "Git up from there you no-piano-
playin* son of a bitch, I got it," and with that he sat down next to
Corky. As Corky slid over, Willie started to play just the treble,
while Corky still kept up the bass, and then he picked up with his
left hand too, the tempo not even wavering and without missing a
beat Willie played for a while and then Fats took over, sliding
into the seat the same way Willie had done. He played for a while,
looking up at Willie and signifying every time he made a new or
tricky passage. It went on like that, the music more and more
frantic, that piano not resting for even a fraction of a second,
until finally Fats said Tin goin' to settle this argument good." He
went into a huddle with his chauffeur, who-left and returned about
an hour later, but not alone. Fats had telephoned to Jamaica, Long
Island, and woke up James P. Johnson out of his bed. When the
chauffeur brought Jimmy in he was still rubbing his eyes, but as
soon as he sat down at the piano that was all He played so much
l6o JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
piano you didn't have to yell, "Put out all the lights and call the
law," because the law came up by request of the neighbors. "We
been sittin' downstairs enjoying this music," the cops told us, "when
we got a call from the station house to see who was disturbing
the peace around here. Some people ain't got no appreciation for
music at all Fats, just close them windows and pour us a drink,
and take up where you left off." So for the rest of the morning the
contest went on, with these two coppers lolling around drinking our
liquor and listening to our fine music. It was great.
During this period, Fats recorded with members of Fletcher
Hendersons band (called the Little Chocolate Dandies), McKin-
ney's Cotton Pickers, popular singer Gene Austin, James P. John-
son (King Oliver was on the same date), Jack Teagarden, Ted
Lewis, and Billy Banks. In each case, his all-pervading lan and
authoritative sense of time seemed to lift the other performers'
spirits and playing levels. It was virtually impossible to avoid
swinging with Waller in tie band.
There were also some band recordings featuring Fats and some
of his friends (Tats Waller and His Buddies" is the way Victor
billed them). These are rather commercial affairs, but jazzmen
like Red Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa,
Albert Nicholas, and Pops Foster can be heard on them. Waller,
as usual, buoys up the whole band and drives the soloists.
Waller cut his first recorded vocals in 1931 with, enigmatically,
Ted Lewis. His facetious, whining shout is prominently featured
on Dallas Blues, Royal Garden Blues, and his own Tm Crazy
'Bout My Baby, setting the pattern for hundreds of vocal
performances from mock tender to coarsely inanein the suc-
ceeding twelve years. A few days after the Ted Lewis affair, Fats
made his own Columbia vocal record (Victor apparently lost
interest in Waller around 1930, a nasty year for the record indus-
try), Tm Crazy 'Bout My Baby and Draggin My Heart Around.
With these recordings, the die was cast; Thomas Waller, organist
and pianist extraordinary, was destined to play a subordinate role
to Fats Waller, entertainer and buffoon. Yet by way of his easy
humor, Fats brought jazz to many people who might otherwise
have turned away from it. At least one critic, Hugues Panassie of
France, has suggested that Waller's extramusical antics were sim-
ply part of his total musical personality and to be accepted in the
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON l6l
spirit of fun that pervaded much of his playing. "Here was one of
those rare people whom one could not misunderstand without
misunderstanding the music of jazz itself," declares Panassie in
Douze Annees de Jazz.
Joe Sullivan takes a different view: "Many musicians didn't un-
derstand Fats's artistry. They thought he was just a good-time
Charlie, but he was much more. Fats was such a sweet guy, he
tried never to let anybody down his publishers, his friends, and
his public although he was often dragged by all of them. The
piano meant as much to him as it does to me."
Waller, like many jazzmen, found radio one of the few pros-
perous media left for entertainers during the Depression. His
boisterous singing and lilting playing were perfect for radio, and
he worked several shows between 1930 and 1934, including his
popular "Fats Waller's Rhythm Club." In 1932, he and songwriter
Spencer Williams spent a short time in Paris, where Fats enjoyed
the wine as well as the affection of French musicians and fans. It
is said that Williams and Waller ground out dozens of songs in a
few days to make enough money for their steamship fare to Eu-
rope. Williams, who had been in Europe before, stayed on, but
Fats quickly returned to New York and to his radio work. There
was a successful network stint at WLW in Cincinnati, and later,
through a discussion with CBS Radio's William Paley at a George
Gershwin party, Fats took his "Rhythm Club" program to WABC
in New York. Waller's career was on the upswing again.
The radio-show package even went on the road for a while,
appearing in theaters. Big offers, including one from Paul White-
man, came Waller's way now, but Fats had a new manager, a
string of invitations to make guest radio appearances, and, best of
all, a new contract with Victor Records. It was 1934, and he had
visited the recording studios only three times once with Jack
Teagarden, again with Billy Banks, and for a single side with the
Blue Rhythm Band since his vocal performances for Columbia
in 1931. (There has been some speculation that Waller may have
spent part of those three years in jail, for he was still inclined to
neglect his alimony payments. )
The first Victor session was characteristically Waller-like and
pretty much Eke the rest of Fats's prodigious output for the same
company over the next eight years. A few names within the group
l62 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
changed now and then, but the basic formula a loose six-piece
band jamming around Waller's tongue-in-cheek vocals remained
unchanged. It was almost as if Fats had picked up where The
Minor Drag and Harlem Fuss had left off back in 1929. It was
typical of Waller, too, to begin his first session in 1934 with a song
written by two of his closest friends, James P. Johnson and Andy
Razaf s A Porters Love-Song to a Chambermaid. A few months
afterward, he even put Mezz Mezzrow to work on one date and
greater loyalty than that has no man.
Amazingly, of more than four hundred Victor titles recorded for
commercial distribution between 1934 and 1942, only fourteen are
piano solos. There are, of course, many outstanding examples of
Waller's own playing in the Rhythm series, but it is his rare solo
performances that provide a more accurate measure of Fats's mu-
sical growth.
In November, 1934, the pianist recorded four original composi-
tions, three of which are piano masterpieces. (The fourth, Alliga-
tor Crawl, is good but not extraordinary.) Viper's Drag, a logi-
cally constructed showpiece (in three themes, ABCA), sets a high
standard of excellence. As written, Vipers Drag is a sixteen-bar
minor blues followed by a twelve-bar minor blues, a four-bar
modulation and a thirty-two-bar major "shout" section that finally
returns to the blues pattern again. As he plays, Fats improvises on
the structure as well as on the melodic units of the work Thus his
1934 version moves from the initial sixteen-bar blues to an eight-
bar section that forms a bridge to an eight-bar restatement of the
opening blues theme. In short, he plays his opening thirty-two-bar
minor blues section in a remarkably free manner, fitting four-bar,
eight-bar, and sixteen-bar units into whatever order struck his
fancy. (On a 1935 version, originally recorded for Muzak, Fats
jumps from his first sixteen-bar blues directly to a modulation into
the "shout" chorus, leaving out twelve bars of development alto-
gether!)
Ckthes Line BaUet is a virtual three-minute suite in a simple
ABA form. The B strain, however, is far from the conventional
ragtime-march trio, for it is a charming Romberg-like thirty-two-
bar melody in F, contrasting with the opening twenty-four-bar
theme in A-flat. Clothes Line Ballet, as performed by its com-
poser, is a romantic piece, full of delicate pedal work and f ascinat-
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 163
ing harmonies. Fats was highly skilled in the art of the gentle dis-
sonance. He could make a left-hand tenth against a treble ninth
sound wholly innocent.
African Ripples is a curious combination of rag and song. It is a
good demonstration, too, of how much Waller had learned from
Bach, in his unusual figured bass lines and in small details such as
his avoidance of parallel fifths (not to be confused with the paral-
lel quarts about which Mezzrow wrote). The left-hand work in
African Ripples is a far cry from the "stride* oom~pah bass line
many fans associate with Fats Waller.
The second group of piano solos, recorded in June, 1937, was of
an entirely different nature. These performances are variations on
standard songs Star Dust, Tea for Two, Spencer Williams' Basin
Street Blues and I Ain't Got Nobody, and Fats's own Keepin' Out
of Mischief Now. Hie best is I Ain't Got Nobody (one of Fats's
favorites), which sparkles with wit (rather than comedy), musi-
cal thought, whimsicality, and real tenderness. Fats's control of
dynamics throughout is exemplary. Close behind is Basin Street,
ennobled by intelligent understatement and discreet harmonic al-
terations. Tea for Two, a tune popular with jazz pianists from
Willie Smith to Thelonious Monk is accorded a common New
York treatment rhapsodic opening followed by an increasingly
taut set of variations. Star Dust is a trifle florid, perhaps, but well
developed and slightly suggestive of Waller s organ style. A prin-
cipal point of interest in Keepin 9 Out of Mischief Now is Fat's use
of an unusually long concluding line, a scalar line not unlike those
sometimes used many years later by saxophonist John Coltrane.
There is some evidence to support the notion that Waller did
not regard many of his own popular songs very favorably. He
was, of course, expected to perform them; but when the choice
was his own, he frequently selected superior songs by other writ-
ers and only the very best of his own. Panassie was surprised to
discover, upon requesting Waller to play Sweet Savannah Sue in
1932, that tie pianist had completely forgotten it. Fats could write
such songs as fast as he could notate, then promptly forget them;
he had less trouble remembering his more complex and better
pieces, such as Vipers Drag and Clothes Line Ballet.
Waller recorded a number of interesting solos for Muzak (the
company that supplies recorded music to restaurants, etc.) in
164 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TW.EJN JULES
1935 that were not issued until some twenty years later. As usual,
the solos were dashed off without preparation, but several catch
an aspect of Fats seldom preserved on records. Hallelujah, for ex-
ample, is a fast romp in the most advanced jazz language of the
time. Here one can glimpse the virtuosity and depth of mu-
sicianship only touched upon in Waller's ordinary commercial
releases. The same qualities burst through in a later (1939) tran-
scription record for radio use. The solo is built around Poor
Butterfly in a dazzling rococo manner comparable to that of Ait
Tatum.
Tats was really a truly great artist," Gene Sedric, who played
saxophone with him on most of the hundreds of Victor titles, has
said. "Only his very personal friends knew how much he could
play. He could play all styles from modern on down. What is gen-
erally called the Waller style is more or less the style he became
known by commercially. He had a much wider range than most
people realize."
The ndw Victor small-band series was highly successful com-
mercially, and Fats took to the road again with his piano, "jive"
vocals, and a full orchestra directed by bass player Charlie
Turner. From Turner's band, Fats selected the men who usually
appeared on records with him Al Casey ( guitar), Herman Autry
(trumpet), Gene Sedric (tenor saxophone and clarinet), Slick
Jones ( drums ), and Turner himself. Later, Fats traveled with Don
Donaldson's orchestra, frequently using trumpeter John Hamilton
and bassist Cedric Wallace for his six-piece recording band. All
were competent players, and trumpeter Autry a notch better than
that, but most of the action came from Waller himself. Without
frim 3 it is doubtful that his spirited but wobbly little group would
have held together at all
The Ehythm recordings often glitter with gemlike piano solos,
however. Do Me a Favor, Oodhl Looka There Ain't She Pretty?,
Fm Crazy 'Bout My Baby, Fractious Fingering, Honeysuckle
Rose, Blue Turning Gray Over You, 'Taint Nobody's Bizness If 1
Do (a third version from 1940), and many others contain first-rate
Waller, but the burden is upon the listener to sort them out from
dozens of run-of-the-mill variations on pointless transient tunes,
Waller appeared in his first of several films in 1935 and cli-
maxed this side of his career with some winning footage in Stormy
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 165
Weather, released in 1943. In 1938, he traveled to Britain and Eu-
rope, this time' as a working musician at a good price. The idea
came from Ed Kirkeby, who had recently been assigned by RCA
Victor and the National Broadcasting Company to take over
Fate's confused business affairs.
"Our first venture together was a flop," recalls Kirkeby. "It was
when Fats tried fronting a big band on a Southern tour. I tried
looking around for a new territory. Why not Europe? Fats s rec-
ords had already made him famous there. We asked twenty-five
hundred a week for an eight-week tour big money in those days.
But we came to London on those terms and, as you know, opened
the Palladium in 1938."
It was in England that Fate must have decided he could use
the organ again without jeopardizing his commercial position. He
recorded in London on the Compton organ, performing both pop-
ular tunes and straight spirituals. On his first recording session
back in the States that fall, Fate used the Hammond organ on two
titles, Til Never Forgive Myself and Yacht Club Swing. (The lat-
ter was a reference to the Fifty-second Street saloon where Waller
worked for several months. ) Though less satisfying than the pipe
organ, the electric organ had the advantage of portability, and
Fate became one of the Hammond firm's most effective traveling
salesmen.
In 1939, Fate's economic position was still not what he and
manager Kirkeby wished it to be. The RCA Victor company had
shunted the pianist to their cheaper Bluebird label after his return
from Europe, and this represented some loss of prestige as well.
Again Fate and his manager went abroad, this time to Scandi-
navia and to England, only weeks before Great Britain went to
war.
While in London in 1939, Fate improvised a set of six pieces
called The London Suite. Each part was made up on the spot as
Kirkeby described various sectors of the city Piccadilly, Chel-
sea, Soho, Bond Street, Limehouse, and Whitechapel Interest-
ingly, only Piccadilly is in the Harlem "shout" tradition; the others
are essentially reflective, low-key improvisations, superior as
spontaneous motifs (the entire suite was completed within a
single hour) but not up to what Waller might have done with this
idea. The most original of the sk is Chelsea, a charming, whimsi-
l66 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
cal melody. London Suite was the second group of related pieces
that Fats had attempted to write. His first, Harlem Living Room
Suite, was composed in 1935 and consisted of Functioniziri, Corn
Whiskey Cocktail, and Scrimmage. Only Functionizin' was re-
corded, and it was issued only in England.
The songs RCA Victor encouraged Fats to record became worse
and worse. In 1940, he tackled incredibly insipid pieces like Eeep,
Ipe, Wanna Piece of Pie, Little Curley Hair in a High Chair, My
Mommte Sent Me to the Store, and Abercrombie Had a Zombie.
Whenever possible, Waller jeered and joshed his way into a
bumptious burlesque of popular music, but too often the laughs
were empty and the enthusiasm forced. One serious piano solo
session in 1941 was all that Fats was allowed, and he made the
best of it. Again Waller the artist came forth, demonstrating what
he had accomplished since that last session back in 1937. The ma-
terial consisted of two Hoagy Carmichael songs, Georgia on My
Mind and Rockirf Chair, Duke Ellington's Ring Dem Bells, James
P. Johnson's Carolina Shout, and Waller's Honeysuckle Rose.
Carolina Shout is a faithful reading in the old Harlem tradition,
but the other selections suggest that Fats, at 37, was evolving a
sound and timeless piano style, only incidentally of Harlem an-
cestry, that would take its historical place alongside the finished
accomplishments of Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, and
Thelonious Monk. It was a sensitive and serious style, though
laced with wit and fancy, and a logical outgrowth of Waller's own
musical experience, from hymns, blues, and stomps to show tunes,
baflads, and suites. It was, too, the style of a creative, two-fisted
pianist, as much concerned with invention in the left as in the
right hand.
If Waller s new contemplative solo style for the piano ever com-
pletely crystallized, it was not his good fortune to preserve it on
records. That which he did leave behind, of course, was sufficient
to assure his status as a major jazz figure, but to this day there
hangs over his recorded work the uneasy air of the unfulfilled
promise.
Fats maintained his strenuous schedule of touring, entertaining,
composing, film assignments, and recording (now earning for him
about $70,000 a year) well into 1942. His weight and physical ir-
responsibility, which had brought dire predictions from his doc-
tors as early as 1940, were rapidly gaining on him, however, and
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON l6/
he began to think about disbanding his group and settling into a
calmer life of composing and playing as he pleased. In early 1942,
he had presented a disastrous concert at Carnegie Hall that may
have reminded the pianist how late it really was. Dave Dexter re-
viewed the affair in Down Beat:
His fingers, throughout most of the concert, were shaky and
unsure, and bad notes were too common. Several times, Waller
started a melody, elaborated upon it, and then lost the original
theme completely. And instead of dishing out such Waller gems as
Numb Fumblin', Alligator Crawl, Handful of Keys, Black and Blue
and other revered Waller recorded classics, the Carnegie Hall
Waller instead chose to mess with Gershwin and, incongruously
enough, variations on a Tchaikovsky theme. That was the weakest
portion of the entire program ... his playing was unnatural. It
wasn't the Fats Waller of Jazz. . . . His musical artistry was sub-
ordinated throughout.
So "unnatural" was Fats's behavior by this time that he even
forgot to invite his old friend and teacher, James P. Johnson, to
attend what was intended to be a high point in his musical Me.
In the spring of 1943, wi^ 1 a musicians' union recording ban
halting one aspect of his career, Fats broke up his band and went
to work on the score of a new musical, Early to Bed. He hadn't
lost the ability to throw melodies together easily, as he had shown
a few months earlier with Jitterbug Waltz. (Waller's son, Mau-
rice, remembers his father writing that one in about ten minutes
flat.) However, his new tunesSZigfe% Less Than Wonderful,
There's a Gal in My Life, Martinique, This Is So Nice It Must Be
Illegal were rather ordinary, and one, Martinique, was merely a
rehash of an earlier Waller piece called Mamacita. Nevertheless,
Early to Bed was a success and undoubtedly a tonic for Fats in
the final year of his life.
The end came on a train bearing Waller from Los Angeles to
New York in December, 1943. Fats was suffering from influenza,
and his remarkable constitution simply colkpsed. He died in his
sleep before a doctor could reach him.
It is rare for a brilliant jazz musician of conservative good taste
to win public acclaim in America; when the artist happens to be,
paradoxically, a riotous popular entertainer, as was Fats Waller,
his musical gifts often are all but ignored. Despite this outgoing
manner, Waller's best work was frequently delicate and tender.
l68 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
The internal structures of his solos were the work of a contempla-
tive, not a frivolous, musical mind. Andre Hodeir has commented
(in Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence) on the depth of thought re-
siding beneath Waller's casual veneer:
Keepin' Out [of Mischief Now] is an excellent example of clear,
well-directed thought serving a marvelously felicitous melodic
simplicity. It has heen said that thfc melodic continuity of this solo
comes from the fact that Fats doesn't get very far away from the
theme. This opinion won't stand up under analysis. Fats may make
frequent allusions to the original melody of Keepin' Out, but most
of the time he remains completely independent of it, treating what
he is doing as, successively, an exposition-paraphrase, a paraphrase-
chorus, and a free variation. On the other hand, the endless con-
trasts he uses are not merely an easy way to avoid monotony. They
are not arbitrary; they not only are joined to the creative musical
thought, but are part of it. It would scarcely be paradoxical to write
that continuity here springs from contrast
Wallers own recommendations to aspiring jazz pianists, made
when he was 31, bear out Hodeir's view:
First get a thorough bass. Make it more rhythmic than flashy, a
pulsating bass. Know how to play first without pedals and then
always use tihe pedals sparingly. Study harmony so you will know
the chords. Play clean both in the right and left hand. This is one
of the marks of the modem pianist, he plays much cleaner than
the old school. There is also much more expression to modern play-
ing, and it is necessary to know how to build climaxes, how to raise
up and let down, to show sudden contrasts. Keep the right hand
always subservient to the melody. Trying to do too much always
detracts from the tune.
Lyricist Andy Razaf remembered Fats as something of an intel-
lectual, despite his lack of schooling, who absorbed and discussed
Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Plato. It is not an untenable image,
for the finest Waller solos reflect musical planning and aesthetic
judgment as well as joyful spontaneity. Along with this concern
for content, however, went a deep regard for communicative
warmth, the quality that Immediately set Fats's piano work apart
from that of his imitators. James P. Johnson himself could not
match his former pupil in sheer human expressiveness.
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON ibg
In reply to the perennial question, "What is swing?" Fats once
said, "It's two-thirds rhythm and one-third soul." Then he added,
touching his heart and holding up his outsize hands, "It's got to be
in here first and then come out here."
Waller's influence over other pianists was more oblique than di-
rect in most instances. His powerful but measured attack and per-
fect sense of time served as models for individual pianists such as
Art Tatum, Joe Sullivan, Hank Duncan (who learned from Fats
while traveling with him in the thirties), Billy Kyle, Count Basie,
and even Teddy Wilson, who began as an Earl Hines disciple. His
influence bounced back, too, on older men such as Eubie Blake,
Willie The Lion" Smith, Duke Ellington, and James P. Johnson,
all jazzmen who kept in touch with new developments. (Johnson,
in 1947, was one of the few old-timers to praise Dizzy Gillespie,
and Blake went to school to study the modern Schillinger system
of composition when he was 66! ) A few younger pianists Johnny
Guarnieri, Ralph Sutton, Bobby Henderson, Dick Wellstood,
Martha Davis, and Don Ewell are prime examples have at one
time or another borrowed the Waller style intact and made it their
own. And occasional flashes of pure Waller can be heard in the
work of Oscar Peterson, Nat Cole, Errofl Gamer, George Shear-
ing, and Dave Brubeck.
One of the reasons for the wide appeal of Fats's style to pianists
was its appositeness to the physical layout of the keyboard.
Waller could reach thirteenths, but he seldom exceeded the tenth;
his harmonic voicings were calculated to draw the most sound
from the fewest notes; Fats's left hand covered the entire bass
range rather than operating solely within the middle register as
did many others; similarly, the highest treble tones were used to
good effect; his trills and tremolos, like his "stride" bass patterns,
were executed flawlessly with hands straight and fingers close to
the keys. These and other features of Waller's playing still cause
pianists, novice and veteran, to listen to and learn from his re-
corded contributions.
The history of the jazz pipe organ virtually began and ended
with Fats Waller. When he played the electric Hammond, it was
not the same, although Fats was one of the first to explore the jazz
potential of that instrument as well. Had he been permitted to re-
cord noncommercial ideas on the pipe organ in his later years,
iyO JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Waller might well have left an impressive body of new and un-
usual music.
Thomas Waller's 39 years were crowded with good times, pros-
perity, and rewarding friendships; yet the frustation he experi-
enced in his musical life must have weighed heavily upon him.
Fats s son, Maurice, has told how his father played and composed,
in the privacy of his home, ambitious works that no one but the
family ever heard A handful of serious solo recordings, so
dwarfed by the mountain of recorded trivia that made Waller a
"success" in the thirties, remains as an indictment of an unenlight-
ened people who allowed a great talent to slip through its fingers,
just for a laugh.
Recommended Reading
Bfesh, Rudi, and Harriet Janis: They Att Played Ragtime, Knopf,
New York (1950).
Condon, Albert Edwin, and Richard Gehman: Eddie Condon's
Treasury of Jazz, Dial, New York (1956).
Davies, John R. T.: The Music of Thomas "Fats" Waller, "Friends of
Fats," London (1953).
Fox, Charles: Fats Waller, Barnes, New York (1961).
Hodeir, Andr6: Jazz; Its Evolution and Essence, Grove, New York
(1956).
McCarthy, Albert (ed.): The PL Yearbook of Jazz, Editions Poetry,
London (1947).
Mezzrow, Mezz, and Bernard Wolfe: Really the Blues, Random
House, New York (1946).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat HentotT (eds.): Hear Me Talkin f to Y<z,
Rinehart, New York (1955).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.): The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958).
Smith, Willie, and George Hoefer: Music on My Mind, Doubleday,
New York (1964).
Recommended Listening
James P. Johnson: Rare Solos (piano rolls), RIVERSIDE RLP 12-105.
James ?. Johnson: 'Backwater Blues (piano rolls), RIVERSIDE RLP-151.
Luckey Roberts and WUMe "The Lion" Smith, GOOD-TIME-JAZZ
M 12035.
FATS WALLER AND JAMES P. JOHNSON 1/1
Piano Roll Discoveries (Waller and Johnson, one track each), RCA
VICTOR LPM-2058.
Early and Rare (Waller, one track), RIVERSIDE RLP 12-134.
Young Fats Waller (piano rolls), RIVERSIDE 12-103.
Young Fats Waller, "X" LVA-soss (deleted).
"Fats" RCA VICTOR LPT-6ooi (deleted).
The Sound of Harlem, COLUMBIA CsL-33.
James P. Johnson: Father of the Stride Piano, COLUMBIA CL-i78o.
James P. Johnson: Yamekraw, FOLKWAYS FJ-2842.
Willie "The Lion" Smith: A Legend, MAINSTREAM 56027.
A String of Swingin' Pearls (Waller, two tracks), RCA VICTOR LPM-
1373-
Fats Waller: Handful of Keys, RCA VICTOR LPM-15O2.
Fats Waller: One Never Knows, Do One?, RCA VICTOR LPM-1503.
Fats Waller: Aint Misbehaving RCA VICTOR LPM-1246.
The Real Fats Waller, CAMDEN CAL-473.
Fats Waller in London, CAPITOL 1-10258.
The Amazing Mr. Waller, RIVERSIDE 12-109.
The Art of the Jazz Piano, EPIC 3295.
JACK TEAGARDEN
JACK TEAGABDEN, who had a great deal to do with how the jazz
trombone was played after 1930, made his basic contributions
during the twenties. Trombonists have been trying to measure
up to his accomplishments ever since, but surprisingly few have
succeeded, for Jack had a running head start.
Around Veraon, Texas, in 1905, he was known as Weldon, first-
born son of Helen and Charles Teagarden. Helen was a trained
pianist and Charles a persistent, if less than gifted, trumpet player,
Before Weldon reached school age, he was playing a horn him-
self and making blunt remarks about his father's musicianship.
*We had an old brass baritone horn around the house when I
was about five years old," the trombonist once recalled. 1 used to
watch my dad practice the trumpet he had a tin ear and he
used to make so many mistakes on this, every morning before he'd
go to the cotton-oil company, well, I used to tell him which finger
to push on the trumpet, because I had already discovered it on the
baritone. And he used to get real hacked at me. He figured kids
should be seen and not heard."
After a couple of years at the baritone horn, Weldon was given
a trombone. It was a sensible choice, for the slide trombone is the
most perfect brass instrument, permitting a sensitive player to
differentiate between, say, C-sharp and D-flat. Young Teagarden,
already exhibiting an almost painfully acute sense of perfect pitch
("Jack could call off the overtones of a thunderclap," sister Norma
insists), was doubtless happy to graduate from his tempered bari-
tone horn. He progressed rapidly enough to take a chair in the
Vernon City Band while still too small to reach beyond the fourth
slide position.
It was, in fact, Weldon's short reach that brought about some of
his technical grace and flexibility. In the process of learning how
to hit all the notes without using the outer positions, he developed
a highly plastic embouchure and a fast, close-to-the-chest right
arm. The town's bandsmen, who tried to kugh off the boy as a
mere mascot, must have had some uncomfortable moments. T
172
JACK TEAGABDEN 173
used to irk those fellows, I guess, a little bit because I knew the
fingers [for valve horns] and I knew both clefs and everything,"
Jack remembered many years later.
Helen Teagarden had started teaching piano by this time, and
her son picked up valuable keyboard training along the way. (In
later years, Teagarden carried piano-tuning equipment on jobs to
prevent outrages on his delicate ear.) In 1914, Weldon, now 9,
was taken to a trombone teacher in nearby Wichita Falls and told
that he was playing wrong but getting fine results. The teacher
prudently refused to interfere.
It was a strange and rather melancholy childhood for a robust
Western kid. Weldon's friendships were few, and most of his
waking hours had something to do with music, if only by way of
observing his mother's students or his father's quiet musical frus-
trations. He played hymns for three years in church with his
mother and was drafted into the Vernon High School band as a
trombonist and drummer while still in the grades. He listened
with interest to the gospel songs coming from revivalist tent meet-
ings held near his home.
In 1918, Charles succumbed to influenza, and Helen, now with
a brood of four, was faced with working out the family's economic
problems alone. She joined her mother in Oklahoma City for a
while, then moved on to ChappeU, Nebraska. There she found
work in a local movie house, where Weldon operated the projec-
tor (things mechanical had always run a close second to music in
Teagarden's life ) and sat in with his mother on the weekends. The
going was difficult, however, and the Teagardens drifted back to
Oklahoma City. At this point, Weldon decided he might best help
his family's problem by leaving town, making one less mouth to
feed It was faulty adolescent reasoning the family would have
preferred his earning a little money at home but the move
served to make him an independent professional musician at 15.
After a discouraging turn accompanying his Uncle Joe's out-of-
tune country fiddle in San Angelo, Texas, the young trombonist
joined Cotton Bailey's band at the Horn Palace in San Antonio.
There he met pianist Terry Shand and clarinetist George Hill,
who represented what may have been his first enduring friend-
ships. About this time, too, he arbitrarily selected the name Jack
to replace the long-resented Weldon.
174 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
In the summer of 1921, Jack worked at the Youree Hotel in
Shreveport, Louisiana, with a trio that included Shand. This was
the hotel for which New Orleans musicians Tom and Vic Gaspard
had organized the Maple Leaf Orchestra a year or two before.
Whether in 1921 or at a later time (it could have been as late as
1925, when Jack played the Youree with Johnny Youngberg's or-
chestra), Teagarden filled in some gaps in his musical education
under Vic Gaspard, one of New Orleans' finest reading trombon-
ists and an associate of the highly regarded Tios, Pirons, Bigards
et al Eddie Sommers, another New Orleans trombonist just Tea-
garden's age, remembers taking lessons from Gaspard at the time
Teagarden did. In any event, New Orleans music was enormously
appealing to Teagarden, and engagements in neighboring Shreve-
port, Galveston, or Biloxi, Mississippi, put him in touch with many
Crescent City musicians. On one trip to New Orleans, he heard
Louis Armstrong play the cornet, an experience that left a deep
and lasting impression on the novice from Texas.
That fall, Jack met and went to work for pianist Peck Kelley.
Kelley, seven years Teagarden's senior and already a prominent
musician around Houston, was to Jack a kind of combination fa-
ther figure, musical hero, instructor, and understanding friend-
then, as later, the trombonist's ego needed frequent shoring up. It
was largely through Kelley that Teagarden acquired a deep re-
gard for the blues and came in contact, if only through recordings
at first, with blues performers like Bessie Smith. He stayed with
Peck almost two years, well into 1923, and during this period de-
veloped most of the fundamentals of his strikingly unique style.
Most of the band's engagements were in the Houston-San
Antonio area, including an intriguing date at the Houston City
Auditorium in late 1922 called, according to Teagarden chronicler
Howard Waters (in Jack Teagarden s Music), the Musicians Jazz
Festivalalmost certainly the first jazz festival on the books.
Jack worked again with Kelley in 1924 at Sylvan Beach Park,
near Houston, on a summer job that included Pee Wee Russell
and New Orleans clarinetist Leon Roppolo. The Sylvan Beach
band was, from all reports, one of the best jazz combinations of
the period, but it was not recorded. Those who were there re-
member Teagarden's fleet trombone solos above all else, even the
advanced playing of Kelley himself.
JACK TEAGABDEN 1/5
Russell has recalled his initial impression of the music Kelley
and Teagarden were playing in 1924:
"When I first went from St. Louis to join Peck in Houston, I
felt I was a big shot arriving in a hick town. Texas was like another
country, and nobody down there had done any recording, as we*
had in St. Louis.
"I met Peck, listened to him play, and got scared. I had heard
good musicians around home Fate Marable, Charlie Creath, Pops
Foster, Zutty Singleton but this was a different thing. Peck not
only played an awful lot of piano, he played so positive and clean.
He had a 'this is mine' style, with plenty of authority. And he wasn't
like other fast pianists up North, who didn't know the blues. Peck
played real blues. He and I spent a lot of time that summer listening
to Bessie Smith records. It was our way of going to church.
"Anyway, then Teagarden walked in, took his horn off a hook on
the wall, and joined Kelley. That was it. 'Look,* I said, Tm a nice
guy a thousand miles from home, and I'm out of my class. Just send
me back to St. Louis in two weeks/
"It worked out all right, though. Leon Roppolo was in the band,
and I had at least heard him before. But why, I wondered, hadn't
I ever heard about these other guys?"
Jack and Peck went separate ways after 1924, but until Teagar-
den's death remained almost mystically bound to each other. At-
tempts by Teagarden and others to lure the brilliant but diffident
pianist into the limelight always failed. Kelley explained his posi-
tion to a Down Beat reporter in 1940: "... the main reason I
don't want to go with the big guys is because I couldn't live the
way I want to. If I was working with a top band it would be re-
hearse, record, broadcast, play, rush, hurry, with no time to my-
self. I like to practice two or three hours every day; I like to read
an hour or so; I like to be able to do what I want to, when I want
to do it, and that's how I'm going to live if I can." Kelley never
changed his mind.
After a short interval out of music (working in the oil fields),
Jack became a featured attraction with R, J, Marin's Southern
Trumpeters in 1923. Marin billed Teagarden as The South's
Greatest Sensational Trombone Wonder" and traveled through
Texas (with occasional radio broadcasts), into Oklahoma, and fi-
nally to Mexico City, where the band broke up. Jack, at 18, was
176 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
regarded with something like awe by other members of tie band,
most of whom could not read. He doubled on euphonium (and at
times on musical saw) and had begun to sing with a mellow bari-
tone drawl as well.
Word of Jack's abilities had spread across the Southwest, and
he was seldom out of work. After the Southern Trumpeters dis-
solved in 1924, he enjoyed a string of jobs under colorful banners
such as Will Robison's Deep River Orchestra (Kansas City), Doc
Ross and His Jazz Bandits (or Ranger Ross and His Cowboys, de-
pending upon the location), the Youngberg-Marin Peacocks, Joe
Mannone and His Mocking Birds, and the New Orleans Rhythm
Masters. The area covered by these groups was a wide one, from
Missouri to Mexico and from Mississippi to California. While in
Los Angeles, Jack became aware of a still wider variety of band
styles, including that of the newly organized Ben Pollack outfit,
featuring Benny Goodman on clarinet.
By October, 1927, Jack had become a seasoned bandsman and a
major, though not yet nationally known, jazz trombonist. His love
for the music of Louis Armstrong had grown with each record re-
leased by the Hot Five, and he had worked many tmmpetlike
ideas into his trombone style. He had, too, learned to play and
sing the blues with real conviction and authority. It was time, he
rightly believed, to play for bigger stakes, In November, Teagar-
den, Doc Ross, and a few other members of the foundering Ross
band piled into two cars and drove from Houston to New York
City.
Teagarden came closer to taking New York by storm than he
could have dared dream, Although essentially a noncompetitive
sort of man, Jack was far from reluctant to demonstrate what he
could do with his unorthodox approach to the horn. He was an
inveterate jam-session player, sitting in at any hour with any com-
bination of instruments. As soon as he arrived in the big city, Jack
contacted old friends Joe "Wingy" Mannone and Pee Wee Russell,
both of whom had direct access to the innermost circle of favored
New York jazzmen. Red Nichols, Glenn Miller, the Dorsey broth-
ers, Vic Berton, Eddie Lang, and others were bowled over by
their initial encounter with the young Texan. So was Miff Mole,
the hitherto undisputed monarch of New York jazz trombonists.
To understand the impact Teagarden made on this rather smug
JACK TEAGABDEN 177
little community of jazzmen, we might review Mole's large contri-
butions in the preceding years.
Mole, a native New Yorker, was born in 1898 and started on the
violin at 11. When barely into his teens, he had also become
skilled enough on the piano to play in local movie houses. He be-
gan teaching himself how to play the trombone around 1914,
eventually transferring his improvising style on the violin over to
the brass instrument. Like Teagarden, who strove for an approxi-
mation of the clean lines of the baritone horn, Mole thus evolved
a fast, accurate, and unusual trombone technique quite unlike the
bawdy glissando vernacular associated with most early jazz trom-
bonists. Again, like Teagarden, he drew upon the sounds of New
Orleans jazz (the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in particular) for
inspiration. He was a co-founder of a successful small group, pat-
terned after the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, called the Original
Memphis Five. Many musicians bought Memphis Five records in
the mid-twenties just to hear the clean, fleet trombone parts.
(Saxophonist Joe Rushton recalled recently that "Miffs ensemble
and solo lines were like compositions" and that, though the phras-
ing had become outmoded, "they were still musically sound cre-
ations, full of unusual passing tones and fills.")
Mole traveled to Chicago during this period and sat in with
King Oliver s band, an event that enlarged his debt to New Or-
leans jazz. After trying California for a year or so, Miff returned to
New York, where he became the most sought-after trombonist in
town. He worked with Sam Lanin, Ray Miller, and Ross Gorman
on records, in radio studios, and under stage lights. From 1925 on,
he played and recorded extensively with Red Nichols, frequently
matching the cornetist's rapid-fire outbursts note-for-note. Mole's
was a modern, complex, technical style that, although somewhat
lacking in expressive warmth, was the dominant influence over
Eastern trombonists prior to 1928. (Tommy Dorsey, it is said, was
one of many who wrote out and studied Miffs solos. ) He was an
excellent reader, and in late 1927, when Teagarden reached New
York, Miff was the leading "hot" man in Roger Wolfe Kahn's
highly rated orchestra.
Within a month of his arrival, Jack landed a record date with
Johnny Johnson's orchestra. A little later, he recorded with his
old boss, Willard Robison, who needed no convincing about
178 JAZZ MASTEBS OF THE TWENTIES
Teagarden's abilities. In March, 1928, came what must have been
a most satisfying assignment for Jack a record date with Roger
Wolfe Kahn, substituting for Miff Mole. His full-chorus solo on
She's a Great, Great Girl, though suggestive of Mole's approach
and less positive than later Teagarden solos, is unmistakably the
work of a mature jazz trombonist with ideas well in advance of
those of most of his contemporaries. Furthermore, he sets forth
these ideas in the warm blues dialect of the South rather than in
the more stilted ragtime-based phraseology of the Northeast. The
effect is stunning.
Another significant feature of Teagarden's style caused other
trombonists even the best of them to despair of ever catching
up to him. His use of the lip, rather than die slide, to play fast
triplets and sixteenth-note clusters opened the way for a whole
new set of possibilities in improvising. This basic device permitted
a true legato line to be played as cleanly as if it were articulated
by a valve instrument, obviating the necessity for tonguing each
note, however lightly, (Obviously, an attempt to play conven-
tional legato phrases without tonguing on die slide trombone
would result in a single confused conglomeration of glissandi.)
Combining this freedom from the tongue with his extraordinary
command of false positions, Teagarden could execute rapidly
without sacrificing lie relaxed manner so important to good jazz
playing. After Teagarden, Mole's rapid single-tongue ideas,
though still impressive, seemed slightly stiff-jointed and stodgy.
New York trombonists went to work on lip flexibility after 1927.
And, although lip triplets are now commonplace, no trombonist
has yet matched the crackling immaculacy of Teagarden's triplet
figures.
Jack quickly became the darling of the jazz fraternity and
everyone's personal discovery. The Chicagoans admired his virile
blues playing, the NichoLs-Miller-Dorsey gang respected his musi-
cianship, the Harlem insiders welcomed his outgoing modern
musical ideas, and Paul Whitemans top jazz players (Beider-
becke, Trumbauer et al.) looked for ways to draft the 22-year-old
"wonder" into their company. But the man who acted first was
saxophonist Gil Rodin, the organizing mind behind Ben Pollack.
Rodin told about it in Down Beat ten years later:
JACK TEAGABDEN 179
Bud [Freeman], Jimmy [McPardand] and I lived together in New
York and at this point, the great "Mr. T." came into my life. Bud,
Jimmy and I went to the Louisiana Apartments on 47th St. to hear
a "session." We had been told about a fellow from Texas, a trombone
player by the name of Teagarden who would be there. . . . The
session was under way when we arrived. Jack started playing and
listening to him provided me with one of my biggest musical thrills.
He played some hot tunes, then some beautiful melodic phrasing on
things like Diane, the like of which I had never heard on a trom-
bone, and finished off with a demonstration of his astounding con-
ception and talent with his "glass and half trombone" [Teagarden's
device of obtaining a muted effect by removing the bell of his hom
and playing the tubing into a water glass] on some blues. His play-
ing that night was the first taste I had of real, genuine hot trom-
bone, and we all went home talking to ourselves. . . .
I told Bennie Pollack all about him, in fact, I'm afraid I probably
became a little incoherent in trying to tell him how greatly Jack
impressed me. As a result, when the band left for Atlantic City
[July, 1928], and Glenn Miller decided to remain in New York, I
suggested that Jack be brought into the band. Jack agreed and
joined soon after. His rise in music was inevitable and the swing
world should be thankful that he came to New York when he did.
One of the most important New York trombonists to be affected
by Teagarden was Jimmy Harrison, At the time of Jack's arrival,
Harrison was also attempting to develop an individual trumpet-
like approach while working with Fletcher Henderson's band. His
rhythmic single-tongue ideas were widely admired, and after
meeting Teagarden, Harrison reached his full maturity as an out-
standing soloist. The coming together of these two superior trom-
bonists has been charmingly recounted by saxophonist Coleman
Hawkins (on the record Coleman Hawkins: A Documentary}:
Jimmy [Harrison], I thought, was quite a trombone player. He was
on the ... order of Jack Teagarden though, I think. . . . The
first time we ever heard Jack Teagarden was in Roseland [Ball-
room]. This other band played the first set, so I went upstairs. . . .
I'd heard about this Teagarden. . . . Jimmy and all the rest of
them were downstairs, or I don't even know if they were in yet. I
heard him playin', so I went downstairs to get Jimmy and the fel-
lows to start kidding about it.
l8o JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
I says, "Man, there's a boy upstairs that plays an awful lot of
trombone.
"Yeah, who's that, Hawk?"
I says, "He's a boy from New Orleans or Texas or somethin'. I
don't know. What do they call him? Jack Teagarden or somethin'.
Jimmy, you know him?"
"No, I'm not gonna know him . . . trombone player, ain't he?
Plays like the rest of the trombones, that's all. I don't see no trom-
bones. I say the trombone is a brass instrument; it should have
that sound just like a trumpet. I don't want to hear trombone sound
like a trombone. I can't see it."
I said, "Jimmy, he doesn't sound like those trombones. He plays
up high; sounds a lot like a trumpet, too."
He says, "Oh, man, I ain't payin* that no mind/'
Jimmy and Jack got to be the tightest of friends.
After this first night, I couldn't separate Jimmy and Jack Tea-
garden. So we used to come up to my house practically every night
... I don't know how they made it, because we'd sit up there and
fool around 'til two, three, four o'clock in the afternoon no sleep.
And we were working every night. We used to sit there and drink
all night and eat these cold cuts, cheese and crackers and stuff, and
we'd do this and play playin' all night. Jimmy and Jack both jivin'
each other . . . trying to figure out what he lacks that he can get
from the other one . . . and I dug what was going on. ... I had
the piano, and they could play all night. It didn't disturb anybody
or nothin*. The house was all well draped and carpeted. . . . Both
of them got their trombones, and I played piano for them. This
used to go on all night long, listening to records and eating and
talking and back to playing again every night.
You couldn't keep Jack out of Harlem. ... He made every
house rent party. . . . Jack made himself right at home. And al-
ways had that horn. He must have never slept, playing horn night
and day.
But that was a funny experience when Jack came up, 'cause
Jimmy never heard anyone play trombone like that.
Teagarden began recording prolifically in late 1928, lending a
touch of the real blues to dozens of performances by Ben Pollack's
band and studio groups. For two years or more, the records
rolled out under pseudonyms like the Big Aces, the Broadway
Broadcasters, the Whoopee Makers, the Hotsy Totsy Gang, the
Lumberjacks, the Dixie Daisies, Sunny Clapp and His Band o*
JACK TEAGABDEN l8l
Sunshine, Mills' Musical Clowns, the Cotton Pickers, Louisville
Rhythm Kings, Jimmy Bracken's Toe Ticklers, the Kentucky
Grasshoppers, Southern Night Hawks, Ten Black Berries, the
Dixie Jazz Band, Louisiana Rhythm Kings, the Knickerbockers,
the Badgers, the New Orleans Ramblers, and the Columbia Photo
Pkyers. Most of these mysterious groups were actually Ben
Pollack's men, circumventing contractual obligations, and their
confusing outpouring of discs has caused jazz record collectors
endless problems ever since.
There are, in effect, three Jack Teagardens on these early
recordingsthe perfunctory "hot" soloist, the earthy blues singer-
instrumentalist, and the creative melodist. As a valuable impro-
vising sideman with Pollack and various recording groups basi-
cally concerned with turning out commercial Tut" material, Jack
maintained an extraordinarily high level of musical integrity and
sincerity. Tunes like Buy, Buy for Baby and In a Great Big Way
are hardly inspiring vehicles, but Teagarden makes the best of
them with brief energetic improvisations of real quality.
As an interpreter of the blues, particularly the minor blues,
Teagarden had few equals in New York in 1928. (Louis Arm-
strong was still in Chicago. ) His specialty, as Rodin pointed out,
was playing with only the slide and a water glass, with which he
achieved a plaintive, edgy, "vocal" sound rather like that of a
magnificent singer humming through a kazoo. He used this arrest-
ing technique with excellent results on Whoopee Stomp, Tailspin
Blues, Digga Digga Do, St. James Infirmary, and his celebrated
Makin' Friends (also called Dirty Dog), a fine traditional blues
close to the spirit of the rural South. Jack's blues performances,
though frequently embellished with dazzling breaks and grup-
petti, are fundamentally very simple statements, delivered
straight from the stomach without the slightest hint of condescen-
sion.
Teagarden was more than a technical innovator and blues
player, however. He was also a foremost improviser, with an ear
for melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic subtleties that few jazzmen
could match. Like Bix Beiderbecke (whom Jack claimed he helped
with the writing of the piano piece In the Dark, incidentally),
Miff Mole, and Coleman Hawkins, he was able to demonstrate his
harmonic ideas on the piano. (Most of die leading developers of
182 JAZZ MASTERS OF TEE TWENTIES
modern jazz more than a decade later worked out their concepts
at the keyboard first, and it is a curious fact that Teagarden, Mole,
and Hawkins were among the most accepting of the older men
when bebop broke through in the forties. ) Perhaps the best exam-
ples of Teagarden's melodic inventiveness during his Pollack pe-
riod appear on some of the recordings he turned out for Red
Nichols in 1929 and 1930.
Indiana, which Jack recorded in April, 1929, with Nichols,
Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, and others, reveals Teagarden as
the propelling force and musical paterfamilias of the date. Two
takes were issued, showing clearly the seaching creativity of the
24-year-old trombonist at that time. On the first turn, each soloist,
Jack included, experiments with the simple harmonic patterns of
the rune. Teagarden characteristically plays a blues game, altering
his opening G chord to a G minor and introducing flowing blues-
like phrases. On the second take, Jack retains his minor blues feel-
ing but goes into the upper harmonic reaches for his melody
notes. Building a melodic line with sixths and diminished, major,
and minor sevenths and ninths, young Teagarden suggests some
of the notions propounded by Charlie Parker and others ten to
fifteen years later. Only a few other jazzmen (Beiderbecke,
Hawkins, Russell, and Freeman were leading examples) could
have attempted this and succeeded in 1929. Mole and Nichols
were aware of the possibilities of these harmonic explorations, but
most of their attempts along such lines were self-conscious experi-
ments that failed to grow naturally out of the heat of spontaneous
improvisation. Teagarden, like Charlie Parker in later years,
played rhythmically propulsive, blues-touched, emotionally satis-
fying jazz first, then added the melodic and harmonic interest,
Teagarden's natural tendency to transform popular songs into
the blues worked better on some tunes than on others. By insert-
ing ambiguous diminished chqrds and substituting minor for
major chords, he could change the character of most tunes, but he
appeared to be more comfortable working with chord structures
that lent themselves to his designs. Thus Tm Just Wild About
Harry, with its built-in ninths (even in the melody) and minor
harmonies, was ideal raw material for his trombone, as was
Dinah, on which Jack toys provocatively with minor seventh and
augmented chords without losing the blues idea.
JACK TEAGABDEN 183
Other Nichols recordings are equally impressive. Tea for Two,
After You've Gone, China Boy, Peg o* My Heart, and The Sheik of
Araby all feature extraordinary solos marked by harmonic bold-
ness, thematic unity, melodic charm, and rhythmic excitement. I
Want to Be Happy, in addition to offering a highly unified state-
ment punctuated by sixteenth-note triplets, contains a good exam-
ple of Jack's use of the trumpethlce "shout," which also appears in
On Revival Day. One of Teagarden s very best contributions is on
Rose of Washington Square, performed by a Nichols group that
includes Chicagoans Bud Freeman, Joe Sullivan, and Dave
Tough, as well as Pee Wee Russell. Here is Jack in his freest form,
piling swirling chromatic triplet figures on top of powerful me-
lodic declarations with taste, intelligence, and supreme finesse.
Teagarden always performed best when supported sympatheti-
cally by his musical equals, and Rose of Washington Square was
one of the all too rare occasions when close to ideal conditions
prevailed.
Jack made more than one hundred recordings in 1929, Some
feature him with handpicked groups of friends, such as the Eddie
Condon Hot Shots date with Leonard Davis on trumpet, the
Louis Armstrong session with Eddie Lang and Joe Sullivan, and
a couple of Fats Waller thes dansants that include jazzmen Gene
Krupa, Albert Nicholas, Pops Foster, Red Allen, and Kaiser Mar-
shall, among others. On these, Teagarden's playing is at a consist-
ently high level. The larger portion of his studio time that year,
however, was logged as a Ben Pollack sideman. The Pollack rec-
ords cover a wide musical range, from a kicking small-band Bugle
Call Rag and a bluesy full-orchestra My Kinda Love to a cloying
popular trifle such as Fd Like to Be a Gypsy and a bit of transient
nonsense like Keep Yowr Undershirt On. Considering the nature
of much of the material, Teagarden performs very well indeed.
By 1930, record companies were feeling the economic pinch,
but Jack continued recording, frequently on a free-lance basis,
through most of 1931. He showed up on dates contracted by
Hoagy Carmichael, Red Nichols, Ted Lewis, Ozzie Nelson, Joe
Venuti, Sam Lanin, and, of course, Ben Pollack. He also saw his
name appear on a label for the first time, but it turned out to be a
mere cover-up for the usual Pollack fare, which had by now
grown rather tepid. A few months later, in January, 1931, the
184 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Crown company used Jack's name again, this time a little more
appropriately, on Rockin Chair and Loveless Love, but both per-
formances are disappointing.
More important to Jack was a "Gil Rodin" (again the Pollack
gang) date that produced Beak Street Blues and If I Could Be
with You. As these were good songs for Teagarden to sing and
play, he took over the whole show, and Beak Street became one
of his staples in later years. A few months later, he recorded Beak
Street with Benny Goodman; a month afterward, he cut the tune
a third time, with Ben Pollack; then again in 1931, with Joe
Venuti and Eddie Lang. Each has been considered a classic per-
formance (although not on the high order of Jack's work with
Nichols), and all four helped to carry the Teagarden name to lis-
teners beyond the uncommercial world in which jazz musicians
lived. Similarly, Basin Street Blues, included in the 1931 Good-
man date, became associated with Teagarden over the years. By
the sixties, he had made more than a dozen recordings of Basin
Street and probably had grown very weary of playing it, on or off
records.
From all his recording dates, radio remotes, pit-band assign-
ments, and engagements with Pollack, Teagarden was earning
up to $500 a week in the best days of 1928 and 1929. He had
no concern for the future and, except for music, gave little
thought to the present. He was already on his way to a breakup of
his second marriage and to the doubtful distinction of possessing
perhaps the greatest capacity for liquor of any major musician in
the East, Fats Waller excepted. After 1930, however, Me became
somewhat less prosperous. PoDack's men experienced long layoffs,
and extended hotel engagements, once common, became rare
events. There simply wasn't as much money around, although the
band was still working fairly regularly. At one point, though, Jack
returned to Oklahoma City to spend a couple of layoff months
with his family. During this time, he also played with the orches-
tras of Clarence Tackett and Paul Christensen and sat in with top
territory bands like Bennie Moten's and Andy Kirk's.
Jack made no records at all in 1932. Most of that depressed year
was spent out on the road or playing in Midwestern ballrooms
and nightclubs. The Pollack band had by now become a camp of
musical dissension and unrest. Only Gil Rodin had weathered all
JACK TEAGAKDEN 18$
the storms from the beginning, while stars like Benny Goodman,
Glenn Miller, Bud Freeman, and Charlie Teagarden (Jack's tal-
ented, trumpet-playing younger brother) had come and gone.
The 1932-1933 band was a good one, with jazzmen like Sterling
Bose (trumpet), Eddie Miller and Matty Matlock (reeds),
Nappy Lamare (guitar), and Ray Bauduc (drums), but Pollack's
commercial policies caused constant friction. Finally, in mid- 1933,
Jack and Sterling Bose broke away from the band to take a job at
the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.
The new job didn't even last the season. After a short summer
at the Exposition, Teagarden joined Mai Hallett's orchestra back
East. It was a good outfit for 1933, with Tiot" men like Gene
Krupa, trumpeter Lee Castle, and saxophonist Toots Mondello
featured from time to time. This one ksted until December, 1933.
Before leaving Chicago, Teagarden recorded four sides under
his own name. One, Tve Got "It" is of interest because it indicates
a new direction the trombonist had taken since his last trip to the
studios. His solo lines are less tmmpetlike here and closer in con-
struction to the agile clarinet figures of Benny Goodman. It was a
remarkable turn for a trombonist to take, and only a musician of
Teagarden's skill could have attempted it. With this development
went an appropriate softening of tone and almost total abandon-
ment of the "shout" device. The effect is a solo style that seems
"cool* rather than "hot," yet remains virile and rooted in the
blues. A cogent description by Otis Ferguson of Teagarden's low-
key post-1933 style appeared a few years later in The New Re-
public:
He will hit fuzzy ones sometimes, sometimes crowd his horn too
much and often bring back the same variation for a supposedly dif-
ferent theme, but taken at his best he has that dear construction in
melodic lines, that insistent suggestion through complexity of the
simple prime beat. And in both tonal and rhythmic attack there is
that constant hint of conquest over an imposed resistance which is
peculiar to jazz and therefore undefinable in other terms. Something
like the difference between driving a spike cleanly into a solid oak
block and the hollow victory of sinking it in lath and plaster.
The new lithe Teagarden style also encompassed a superb bal-
kd approach that had been shaping up for a long time. It came
l86 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
out in a series of late 1933 recordings made in New York during
Jack's Mai Hallett stint. One session was Teagarden's own, and
the sophisticated songs he selected to sing and play Love Me,
Blue River, A Hundred Years from Today, and I Just Couldn't
Take It Baby were vastly superior to much of the material he
had endured for five years as a Pollack sideman and were typically
Teagardenish.
Better known are those dates on which Benny Goodman, now
on the brink of the most successful period of his career, was in
command of sidemen like the Teagarden brothers, Joe Sullivan,
and Gene Krupa. Again Jack responded to the happy, if semicom-
mercial, setting with fine solos on I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues,
Aint-cha Glad?, Dr. Heckle and Mr. Jibe, a blues called Texas
Tea Party, Love Me or Leave Me, Why Couldn't It Be Poor Littk
Me?, Keep On Doin What You're Doin', and a couple of numbers
featuring vocals by i8-year-old Billie Holiday.
As these recordings, which held so much promise for the years
to come, were being made, Jack signed a five-year contract with
Paul Whiteman. It was one of the most unfortunate decisions of
his professonal life, but there was no way he could have known
it then. Within two years, jazz made a dramatic comeback. Good-
man struck pay dirt with his swing band, and the old Pollack
gang was lining up a bright future as a cooperative unit under
singer Bob Crosby. Both groups wanted Jack Teagarden. Noth-
ing could be done about it, however, and Jack settled down in the
brass section of the hippopotamic orchestra to serve out his five
years. During 1934, there was a rewarding Columbia date with
Goodman and Teddy Wilson, a pleasant engagement with Adrian
Rollini for the new Decca company, and a good session, organ-
ized by Jack for the Brunswick label, in which brother Charlie,
Goodman, pianist Terry Shand, and jazz harpist Casper Reardon
participated, but the four years that followed these high spots
were long and dreary. Between June, 1936, and February, 1938,
peak years for the big swing bands fronted by his old friends,
Teagarden recorded exactly one solo eight bars of crisp jazz
somewhere in a forest of thirty instrumentalists toiling over Shall
We Dance?
In 1937, Otis Ferguson took note of Jack's plight in The New
Republic: "Though still a fine musician, he seems tired and cyni*
JACK TEAGABDEN l8?
cal, his creation a bit shopwornwhich knowing gentlemen have
not hesitated to remark or less knowing gentlemen to echo, which
in itself is enough to embitter a fellow and make him listless."
The situation improved somewhat in 1938, Whiteman, finally
unable to resist the swing tide, allowed Jack a few moments in the
light with a "swing wing" of the orchestra and permitted several
outside dates that helped to relieve the monotony of warmed-
over Gershwin and pompous Roy Bargy "concert'* arrangements.
Most gratifying was a reunion with friends Bud Freeman, Pee
Wee Russell, Jess Stacy, Eddie Condon, George Wettling, and
Bobby Hackett in the studios of the new Commodore company.
Jack sang and played the blues (Serenade to a Shylock), revived
the tune with which he had impressed New York jazzmen so
much ten years before (Diane), demonstrated his current ballad
manner (Embraceable You), and jumped into a rousing ensemble
romp, Chicago style (Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland). It was
good therapy as well as good music; Jack began to gain back his
confidence and his ability to think while playing.
Within weeks of his release from Whiteman in December,
1938, Teagarden formed his own orchestra and plunged into a
full schedule of ballroom jobs, hotel engagements, recordings,
motion picture work, and broadcasting. On the surface, all looked
well, but by 1939 the swing craze was waning, and it required
both good management and a natural business sense to survive.
Jack had neither. Like other disillusioned soloists-turned-leaders
(pianist Bob Zurke, trumpeter Bunny Berigan, trombonist Jack
Jenny, and trumpeter Bobby Hackett were a few), he discovered
that the band business in 1939 was a dangerous jungle of avarice,
dishonesty, crass commercialism, and bone-racking travel condi-
tions. Teagarden's ingenuous affability and lifelong disregard for
the harsher realities of life (one example: through sheer neglect,
Teagarden lost all his teeth before he was 40) did not equip him
to deal effectively even with personal problems, let alone with a
bandleader's tribulations. Within a year, h$ filed a voluntary peti-
tion of bankruptcy.
Later in 1940, the trombcajist was back in business again, this
time with a less expensive and less jazz-oriented band. The group
went over well at college dances and landed a few good location
jobs with radio hookups. Its recorded output is without much in*
l88 JA2Z MASTERS OF TEE TWENTIES
terest, except for an occasional trombone specialty like The Blues.
a masterpiece of sustained upper-register virtuosity, More com-
mon are bubbles like I Hear Bluebirds or Fatima's Drummer Boy.
In 1941, Jack boosted the band's popularity with his appearance
in the film Birth of the Blues, took on arranger Phil Moore, and
secured a new contract with Decca Records. He had just begun to
turn out some fairly good performances for Decca when the war
and a musicians' union ban on recording interfered. The Teagar-
den orchestra was not asked to make regular records again, except
for a couple of full-orchestra performances released in 1946 on a
label called Teagarden Presents.
From 1940 to 1947, however, the trombonist took part in a
number of successful small-band recordings. One of the most sat-
isfying is a 1940 Bud Freeman album of eight tunes associated
with the Chicagoans. Teagarden is in optimum form, especially
on the blues Jack Hits the Road and on the curiously modem-
sounding Prince of Wails. Drummer Dave Tough is the driving
force of this session. In December, 1940, Jack recorded with
Tough, pianist Billy Kyle, and bassist Billy Taylor, along with
Duke Ellington sidemen Barney Bigard, Ben Webster, and Rex
Stewart (Oddly, Teagarden was quoted by Leonard Feather
seven years later as follows: "I never did like anything Ellington
ever did. He never had a band all in tune, always had a bad tone
quality and bad blend.") Though these performances carry some
of the external trappings of 1940 swing (or, as it has come to be
called, "mainstream" Jazz), they are, ironically, not as advanced
for the period as the so-called Dixieland recordings of Bud Free-
man earlier in the year.
Jack's other New York recordings made at this time usually
find him with old friends a date with George Wettling that in-
cludes pianist Herman Chittison and Coleman Hawkins or a
Commodore blowout with sister Norma on piano and Max Ka-
minsky on trumpet Some of the most relaxed moments can be
heard on a couple of Eddie Condon gatherings for Decca in 1944
and 1947 that feature members of the clan such as Pee Wee Rus-
sell, Ernie Caceres, Bobby Hackett, and singer Lee Wiley. On
these, Jack blows with more conviction and thought than he dis-
played in front of his own orchestra during the same period.
Throughout the war years, Jack struggled to keep his organiza-
JACK TEAGABDEN 189
tion together in the face of selective service, travel restrictions,
lack of promotion or good management or recording contracts,
and the general decline of big bands in America. To add to his
woes, a third wife was collecting alimony and Jack's fourth mar-
riage^seemed to be sinking. The trombonist had many interesting
ideas for improving his band hiring pianist Art Tatum was one
yet they never seemed to work out. His last orchestra (1946)
was a potentially good one that featured modern arrangements
like Jerry Redmond's Martian Madness, but Jack's health finally
started to crack late in that year, and the group broke up for good.
"Jack was a good musical leader," remembers Leon Radsliff,
saxophonist and arranger with the last Teagarden band, "but he
was no businessman. He seemed to be more interested in steam
engines than publicity, and his managers played him for a sucker.
But we had a hell of a band for a while ten brass, including a
French horn, and five reeds. And we had some interesting ar-
rangements. Jack invented a slide-rule method of writing, and he
scored some far-out brass-choir things," Radsliff recalls. "We used
to sit up at night and play Tatum records, then slow them down
to catch what was happening. Jack was completely open-minded
about modern jazz and admired the really good players like Gil-
lespie and Parker."
Teagarden elected to remain in the unclassifiable niche he had
carved for himself; the proper foundation for exploring modern
jazz was there, but Teagarden's approach was already as "mod-
ern" as it was traditional, and there was little reason for him to
change it. As Teagarden biographer Jay Smith wrote: "Woe be to
the critic who dares approach the maverick with branding iron in
hand."
After 1946, Jack, now broke, drew into the protective noncom-
petitive shell he had kept handy for such emergencies since his
boyhood in Texas. He worked in California with a small group
for a couple of months, wandered to the East Coast, and picked
up a sextet in New York for a run on Fifty-second Street. Some
nights he sat behind the piano, with only his fast-moving slide
visible to the audience. With old friends Dave Tough, Max Ka-
minsky, and others, Jack explored a few of the contemporary
ideas that were being played along the Street in the mid-forties
and built up his confidence again. (This phase is best docu-
1QO JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
merited by a 1947 RCA Victor recording called Jam Session at
Victor.)
A few weeks later, Teagarden joined Louis Armstrong's All-
Stars (the trumpeter had had his big-band problems, too), a high-
tension packet of jazz talent (Earl Hines, Barney Bigard, Sidney
Catlett, etc.) that somehow never quite amounted to very much
as a going band. Still, it was a chance to play jazz with a longtime
hero and to make good money as well He stayed with Armstrong
for four years.
It was about 1952 that Jack Teagarden finally took full com-
mand of his personal lif e. Now 47, he quit drinking, salvaged his
fourth marriage, assessed and assumed his responsibility toward a
newborn son, relegated business affairs to his wife, and took to the
road again with a sextet. Good things began to happen at last, and
the group met with modest but firm success in the mid-fifties. In
1958, the American State Department sent Teagarden and his
band on a tour of Asia that brought the trombonist's chronically
drooping self-esteem to an unprecedented height.
Teagarden's Dixieland-oriented group, featuring trumpeter
Don Goldie, carried on into the sixties, playing clubs and festivals
and turning out records. The trombonist nearly always played
flawlessly, though seldom with the drive and daring of his early
days, Only occasionally was a Teagarden sextet performance
memorable, as in a Roulette recording of Tm Getting Sentimental
Over You. Yet, even when Teagarden was coasting, he tossed off
casual trombone passages that could send novices running back to
their woodsheds.
Teagarden's horn and voice never lost their singular charm and
warmth. One of his last recording sessions features a set of songs
written by former employer and longtime friend Willard Robison.
They are the sort of offbeat songs modern jazz-based singers en-
joy, and in doing them, Teagarden again proved himself an un-
dated, front-rank jazz ballad singer.
In late 1963, the trombonist was presented at the Monterey Jazz
Festival in California, along with his family (pianist Nonna,
trumpeter Charlie, and Jack's mother, still active as a piano
teacher) and old comrade Pee Wee Russell. It was a happy re-
union, but the aging trombonist was ill, overweight, and no longer
on the wagon. Following another separation from his wife-man-
JACK TEAGARDEN 1()1
ager, he had pared his regular band down to an economical quar-
tet (sparked by pianist Don Ewell); yet, there were still those un-
pleasant leader chores to perform. Teagarden was looking for his
old shell to pull into again when, during a New Orleans engage-
ment in early 1964, his heart suddenly stopped.
Seldom has the influence of a single jazzman been so demon-
strably clear as was Jack Teagarden's. After the shock of his 1927
charge on New York wore off, most Eastern trombonists set about
the task of reorganizing their concepts of what could be done with
the horn. Jimmy Harrison's pre-Teagarden ideas were not exactly
like those he played later; Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, enor-
mously impressed, simply bowed to Jack's preeminence and be-
came "sweet" players; young Benny Morton came close to Tea-
gardens clean, flowing, high-register style; Brad Gowans used a
valve trombone to capture some of Jack's agility and lightness;
Jack Jenny elaborated upon the Texan's elegiac ballad style,
clearing a path for Bill Hairis and Urbie Green; Fred Beckett,
whose work inspired J. J. Johnson, demonstrated a kind of lip
flexibility that could only have developed through Teagarden;
Keg Johnson and J. C. Higgenbotham, possessors of fine original
styles in the early thirties, were indebted to Teagarden for their
flexibility and trumpetKke melodic lines, And, of course, there
were literally hundreds of players who simply worked out of Jack's
style from the start: Lou McGarity, Joe Harris, Ted Vesely, Abe
Lincoln, and others.
It may be that the jazz trombone would have evolved along
similar lines without Teagarden, There were, to be sure, trombon-
ists like Jimmy Harrison and Lawrence Brown about to discover
some of the same principles of post-tailgate playing. It is un-
likely, though, that all aspects of Teagarden's style could have
been worked out by others in less than ten years, if at all. Ad-
vances come more quickly after a single man has proved their
feasibility.
Because Teagarden retained a superb command of the trom-
bone until his death, there is a still-glowing awareness of his skills
among younger performers. Trombonists Bob Brookmeyer, Bill
Russo, and Urbie Green, saxophonists Stan Getz, Al Cohn, and
Johnny Dankworth, and pianists George Wallington and John
Mehegan are some who have praised Teagarden highly. Although
1Q2 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
his general musical outlook was, by the late forties, no longer
shared by the new generation, Jack's ability to execute phrases
that no one could duplicate preserved something of the image of
invincibility he first created in the twenties. Teagarden's accom-
plishments, well documented by recordings, will probably con-
tinue to be used by jazz trombonists as a measure of their, own
abilities for many years to come.
Recommended Reading
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds,): Hear Me Talkin' to Ya, Rine-
hart, New York (1955)-
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds,): The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958).
Smith, Jay D. and Len Guttridge: Jack Teagarden, Cassell, London
(1960).
Waters, Howard J., Jr.: Jack Teagardens Music, Walter C. Allen,
Stanhope, NJ. (1960).
Recommended Listening
Jazz, Vols. 7 and 8, FOLKWAYS FJ-28o7, FJ-28o8.
The Red Nichols Story, BRUNSWICK BL-54oo8, BL-54047.
A String of Stvingin Pearls (four tracks), RCA VICTOR LPM-1373-
The Louis Armstrong Story, Vol. 4 (one track), COLUMBIA. CL-854.
Chicago Style Jazz (one track), COLUMBIA CL-632.
Benny Goodman from 1927 to 1934, BRUNSWICK BL-54010.
Great Jazz Brass (two tracks), CAMDEN CAL-383.
The Vintage Goodman, COLUMBIA CL-821.
The Bessie Smith Story, Vol. 2, COLUMBIA CL-SsG.
The Big U T Plays the Blues, ULTRAPHONIC 1656.
Jack Teagardens Big Eight, RIVERSIDE RLP-141.
Bud Freeman: All-Star Jazz, HARMONY HL-7046.
The Jazz Greats (three tracks), EMARCY MG-s6o53.
Eddie Condon: Ivy League Jazz, DECCA DL-82&2.
A Night at Eddie Condon's, DECCA DL-828i.
Town Hall Concert Plus, RCA VICTOR LPM-1443.
Satchmo* at Symphony Hatt, Vols. i and 2, DECCA DL-8037, 8038.
Satchmo' in Pasadena, DECCA DL-8o4i.
Big Ts Jazz, DECCA 01-8304.
This is Teagarden, CAPITOL 1-721.
JACK TEAGARDEN 193
Bobby Eackett: Coast Concert, CAPITOL T-6g2.
Bobby Eackett: Jazz Ultimate, CAPITOL 1-933.
Jack Teagarden: Shades of Night, CAPITOL 1-1143.
Jack Teagarden: Misry and the Blues, VERVE 8416.
Jack Teagarden: Think Well of Me, VERVE 8465.
Jack Teagarden: King of the Blues Trombone, EPIC SN-6044.
The Golden Horn of Jack Teagarden, DECCA DL-4540.
Tribute to Teagarden, CAPITOL 1-2076.
A Portrait of Mr. T, ROULETTE 11-25243.
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND
DON REDMAN
FEW MEN in the annals of jazz have given rise to as disorderly a
lot of historical misconceptions as has Fletcher Henderson. Hen-
derson was an accomplished pianist but an undistinguished jazz
instrumentaHst; he was a gifted arranger, but he began writing in
earnest only after the best years of his own orchestra were past;
he was not a particularly good businessman, yet in the twenties he
built his band into a top attraction. These and other ambiguities
in his history have left behind a blurred picture of triumphs and
failures that, over the years, have tended to cancel one another
and all but wipe Fletcher Henderson right off the books of some
jazz historians.
The problem of finding Fletcher's rightful place in jazz can best
be approached, perhaps, by regarding him as the focal point in a
musical movement that involved a number of important allied
contributors. Henderson's was the role of musical catalyst,
patriarch, straight man, and sometime fall guy in the story of the
evolution of big-band jazz.
Fletcher was born in 1898 at Cuthbert, Georgia, where his fa-
ther taught school and governed his family with an iron hand.
Henderson senior was a pianist, as was Fletcher's mother, who
taught music. Inevitably, each Henderson child was encouraged
to begin keyboard studies at an early age. Fletcher started at 6
and was forced to continue, like it or not, for seven years. Younger
brother Horace recalls occasions when Fletcher was locked in a
room and not released until his practicing was done. All three
Henderson children (two boys and a girl, Irma) finally developed
absolute pitch, the ability to read difficult music at sight, and a
well-rounded education in harmony and piano technique.
Fletcher did well by his demanding father, performing in small
classical recitals and avoiding the "undesirable" influence of the
blues. By 1912, however, he had begun to be exposed to a variety
of musical styles through piano rolls.
194
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 195
Young Henderson did not plan a career in music. In 1916, he
entered Atlanta University, where he majored in mathematics and
chemistry. There he occasionally worked piano jobs but devoted
most of his energies to science and sports. It was about this time
that his baseball batting average, along with a singular manner of
smacking his lips, earned for Fletcher the nickname "Smack," an
appellation that stayed with him the rest of his Me.
In 1920, Henderson traveled north to New York City, where he
hoped to continue studying chemistry and to start earning money
in his chosen field. He soon discovered that the prospects were
poor for him as a fledgling chemist and that he could earn more as
a skilled pianist He took a job with the Pace and Handy publish-
ing house, demonstrating and promoting songs like Aunt Eager* s
Children and Long Gone. W.C. Handy specialized in blues songs,
but he was more concerned with "proper" readings of them than
with earthy interpretations. Fletcher met the firm's requirements
perfectly.
Shortly after Fletcher entered music on a full-time basis, Mamie
Smith's record of Crazy Blues, a big commercial hit, launched a
torrent of blues songs and suggested an enormous untapped mar-
ket for blues recordings. Harry Pace saw the possibilities and
started a record company called Black Swan, appointing Fletcher
Henderson as musical director. The new firm signed up Ethel
Waters and, in the fall of 1921, made big money with her Down
Home Blues. The accompaniment, furnished by Cordy Wil-
liams' Jazz Masters, was unbending and leaden, in the then ac-
cepted style of many of New York's top "jazz" bands.
Clarinetist Garvin Bushell, who toured with Ethel Waters
and Fletcher Henderson in 1922, has described (in the book Jazz
'Panorama] the better big bands, some of them fifty men strong,
around New York at the time:
They played dance music at places like the New Star Casino oa
lo/th Street and Lexington and at the Manhattan Casino, now
Rockland Palace. There were sometimes 20 men playing bandolins,
a combination of the banjo and violin that was plucked. Among the
leading conductors were John C. Smith, Allie Ross (who later con-
ducted Blackbirds), Happy Rhone, and Ford Dabney, who had
been in it from the beginning and was much bigger than Jim Europe.
They pkyed pop and show tunes. The saxophone was not very
ig6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
prominent as a solo instrument, but the trumpet, clarinet and trom-
bone were. The soloists, especially the trumpet players, improved,
and those trumpet players used a whole series of buckets and cus-
pidors for effects. The bands played foxtrot rhythm and still adhered
to the two-beat rhythmic feel . . . New York "jazz" then was
nearer the ragtime style and had less blues. There wasn't an Eastern
performer who could really play the blues. We later absorbed how
from the Southern musicians we heard, but it wasn't original with
us. We didn't put that quarter-tone pitch in the music the way the
Southerners did. Up North we leaned to ragtime conception a
lot of notes.
Henderson "leaned to ragtime conception," too, but his jobs
with Pace and Handy and Black Swan had put him in touch with
those New York musicians closest to the blues idiom. Bushell
himself, for example, had been exposed to the New Orleans style
of clarinetist Larry Shields in New York and had studied various
regional jazz styles while on the road with Mamie Smith in 1921.
When asked to put a group together to accompany Ethel Waters
on tour, Fletcher selected Bushell and the Aikens brothers, trum-
peter Gus and trombonist Buddy, to create as "hot" an impression
as possible. (The Aikens were but two of many fine brass players
who graduated from the widely known Jenkins Orphanage band
in South Carolina.) Ethel herself encouraged Fletcher to acquire
a more positive jazz feeling in his piano work, suggesting that he
listen carefully to James P. Johnsoa The troupe appeared in au-
ditoriums and large theaters during the winter months of 1922-
1923, then returned to New York and disbanded. Ethel resumed
recording for Black Swan, this time with Fletcher Henderson
participating directly in the sessions.
Cornetist Joe Smith was the favorite horn player of many blues
singers in the twenties, and a number of Ethel's records now car-
ried the name Joe Smith's Jazz Masters as well as the singer's own.
The task of organizing and controlling the small band usually fell
to Henderson, however.
"Fletcher didn't write out anything for Ethel's record dates,"
Bushell told writer Nat Hentoff in 1958. ""You didn't have written
music to back singers in those days. The piano player did have
music, and the trumpet player would take the melody of! the
piano sheet We couldn't use a bass drum, although sometimes we
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 197
used the snare drum or a wood block. Also we didn't use a bass,
Therefore, when there was no drum at all, the rhythm tended to
get ragged. Then too we'd be in awkward positions and scattered
all over the place, which would also make it hard to keep the
rhythm together. We'd spend the greater part of the day making
two numbers."
Henderson's recorded performances of this period were an im-
provement over Cordy Williams' efforts, but his band's music was
still hampered by stiff blues playing and stilted, staccato phrasing
only one step removed from orchestral ragtime. By 1923, the rec-
ords of King Oliver, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, the Original
Dixieland Jazz Band (and its New York imitator, the Original
Memphis Five), Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Clarence Williams
(with Sidney Bechet), and Doc Cook (with Freddie Keppard
and Jimmy Noone) had already helped to spread the New Or-
leans approach across the nation. Because Louisiana jazzmen
seemed to possess a special feeling for the blues, alert musicians
everywhere with the possible exception of Harlem pianists, who
had their own tradition to build upon attempted to master this
stimulating and now quite profitable musical outlook. Those who
were most successful in New York usually found themselves, at
one time or another, in a recording studio with Fletcher Hen-
derson.
By mid-1923 Fletcher had become one of the busiest recording
artists in New York. He accompanied Bessie Smith on the Colum-
bia label and was turning out some piano solos for Black Swan
and performing with a band on Paramount and Edison records.
The band he used in the recording studios was basically the one
violinist "Shrimp" Jones directed at Harlem's Club Bamville, a
group that was soon to form the nucleus of Fletcher's own orches-
tra. Included in Jones's crew were trumpeter Howard Scott,
bassist Bob Escudero, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, pianist
Leroy Tibbs, and drummer Kaiser Marshall. Eliminating Tibbs
and adding trombonists Teddy Nixon or Charlie Green, trumpeter
Elmer Chambers, banjoist Charlie Dixon, and reedman Don Red-
man, Henderson threw together his first regular band for a six-
month engagement at New York's Club Alabam in early 1924.
Allie Ross, formerly violinist and arranger for Ford Dabney, di-
rected and trained the Club Alabam orchestra until Henderson
ig8 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
was fully ready to take over himself. Most of the men had played
together for a couple of years or more, if only in Henderson re-
cording sessions, and the group shaped up quickly into one of the
finest bands in the city.
Fletcher's recordings of 1923 and early 1924 reveal that he had
borrowed from several sources to achieve his distinctive band
sound. The influence of New Orleans jazz could be heard in the
band's use of riffs ( an old New Orleans device that Chicago bands
had already been using for some time by 1923), in the Ring Oli-
ver-like instrumentation (Hawkins frequently played bass sax,
leaving a front line of two trumpets, clarinet, and trombone), and
in the unrelenting four-to-the-bar pulse established by the rhythm
section.
"New Orleans drummers kept a steady beat," recalls Jerome
Pasquall, a Henderson sideman of a later era. They played 2/4
and 4/4, but steady. Before that, drummers were a show. They
threw their sticks up and often lost the time.*
There were other influences as well Art Hickman and Paul
Whiteman had helped establish the use of the saxophone section
in a dance band Whiteman, whose early band had little to offer
in the way of jazz, had by 1922 developed a rigid but syncopated
jazzlike manner of section phrasing, including arranged "call and
response" devices. These and other ideas of the day were incorpo-
rated into the Henderson book, largely through the efforts of ar-
ranger Don Redman. From 1923 to 1927, Fletcher relied upon
Redman for most of his arrangements, and it is to this diminutive
saxophonist from West Virginia that much of the credit must go
for the initial success of the Henderson orchestra.
Redman, two years younger than Henderson, had been reared
as a musical prodigy by musical parents. He had played cornet at
3, joined his father's marching band at 6, started piano lessons at
8, taken up trombone at 15, and dabbled with violin before com-
pleting high school. At Storer College in West Virginia, Redman
studied theory, harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration. He was
graduated about the same time that Fletcher Henderson was leav-
ing Atlanta University, then joined a small band in Ohio. He
picked up the alto saxophone in 1921, traveled to New York with
Billy Paige's Broadway Syncopators (under the auspices of band-
leader Paul Specht), and within a few weeks was working record
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN igg
dates with Henderson. Redman's rich background of musical ex-
perience and training was unusual in the popular field, even in
New York, and he was soon scoring for Fletchers nine-piece
group as well as playing creditable clarinet along lines lying
somewhere between the styles of Ted Lewis and Larry Shields.
Henderson's early band recordings were often mere elabora-
tions on the Eastern Dixieland style as played by the Memphis
Five and others around 1923. ( When You Walked Out is one ex-
ample of this approach.) Coleman Hawkins, still in his teens,
demonstrated obvious skill with the tenor and bass saxophones,
but at that time his slap-tongue phrasing was unattractive and his
rhythmic ideas were still rooted in monotonous dotted-eighth- and
sixteenth-note patterns. He had already achieved a big sound,
however, as his recording of Do Doodle Oom proves. Hawkins
may have picked up some ideas from Sidney Bechet at the time,
for the two men demonstrated a comparable degree of urgency
and authority in their playing styles, although Bechet was by far
the more mature improviser during this period.
On numbers like Potomac River Blues, there seems to be a seri-
ous absence of blues feeling in the band, but one can almost sense
that these young men were working on that problem, too. Some
blueslike mannerisms of Fletcher's band were doubtless acquired
from the popular New York trumpeter Johnny Dunn. Dunn
played a powerful, sometimes downright nasty, horn, and many
trumpeters followed his example until Louis Armstrong arrived
in New York. (A prime example of the influence of Dunn's
plunger style can be heard on Henderson s Janurary, 1924, record-
ing of Lots o' Mama.)
Henderson and Redman were searching for more than a mere
assemblage of good improvisers; they wanted a crack reading
band capable of taking on untried written ideas as well as han-
dling straight jazz and conventional orchestrations of the day.
That they did not allow the improvised portions of their arrange-
ments to wither away in the face of bigger and better scored pas-
sages is the key to the importance of their contributions to the
evolution of big-band jazz. Had Henderson followed Whiteman's
example, there would have been precious little space left for jazz-
men to play in the band. 'The day of the improvising jazzers is
over," announced a Whiteman publicist in 1925, "and members of
200 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Mr. Whiteman's orchestra deport themselves as do the members
of any musical organization, playing from scores which are mar-
vels of part writing and tonal contrast."
Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman proved Mr. Whiteman
and his press agents wrong by combining imaginative arrange-
ments with improvised jazz so adroitly that written and ad-lib
passages flowed together without a break in musical manner of
expression or intensity of mood. As the playing of each Henderson
soloist matured and took on new harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic
interest, so, too, did Redman's arrangements. Redman set out to
enlarge upon and consign to paper what King Oliver and Louis
Armstrong had already proved could be created by ear thematic
variations performed by two or more horns in close harmony
without loss of rhythmic freedom, the sensation of spontaneity, or
the satisfaction of the creative urge within each player. With Red-
man's arrangements, musicians could enjoy it both ways: impro-
vised solos became integral parts of the whole score, and the score
itself was challenging and provocative as a point of departure for
the soloist.
The compelling sounds that came from his Club Alabam or-
chestra, on records and radio as well as across the dance floor,
earned Fletcher a better job at New York's Roseland Ballroom in
1924. He played there at least several months of each year until
1931. The group had improved steadily in the early months of
1924, particularly when cornetist Joe Smith joined, swelling the
trumpet section to three. Redman widened his scores accordingly
and took note of Smith's sublime tone a tone that retained its
seductive purity even when a plunger mute was held over the
bell. Just as Coleman Hawkins* dexterity on his horn invited fast
saxophone-section figures, so Smith's passionate cornet suggested
lyrical possibilities to Redman. Arrangements designed to set off
Smith's tone resulted (those for Mobile Blues and Meanest Kind
of Blues, for example). There were others that emphasized
Smith's "hot* side, derived largely from Johnny Dunn's style. The
Gouge of Armour Avenue (double-time introduction a la Dunn;
trumpet solo backed by riffs, New Orleans style); My Papa
Doesn't Two Time No Time (Smith sounding like a cross between
Dunn and Beiderbecke; this record is also notable for a genial,
raggy Henderson piano solo and a scat vocal, possibly the first on
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 201
record); War Horse Mama (wa-wa plunger mute, in the Dunn-
King Oliver tradition); Muscle Shoals Blues (more Dunn-like
double-time effects).
The Wolverines, with Bix Beiderbecke, arrived in New York in
late 1924, about the same time Louis Armstrong replaced Joe
Smith in Henderson's brass section. Now there was simply no
avoiding the influence of the New Orleans outlook. The Wolver-
ines, who borrowed many of their tricks from the Original Dixie-
land Jazz Band and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, were playing
modern riffs, brief repeated rhythmic phrases (their Tiger Rag is
the best recorded example), with more ease and rhythmic thrust
than Henderson or Redman had yet been able to bring to their
performances. Best of all, of course, Armstrong himself, whom
Fletcher had been hoping to hire for more than two years, was on
hand every night to show the New Yorkers just how it was done*
Most of them learned fast.
With Armstrong came a new phase of development in the Hen-
derson band Hawkins' slap-tongue solos and Redman's whim-
pering alto passages began to drop away. The reed section was
enlarged to three with the addition of ex-King Oliver clarinetist
Buster Bailey, New Orleans trombonist Charlie Green was
brought in, creating in the four brass a still more powerful, ensem-
ble sound. Most important, Redman's arrangements were begin-
ning to swing more comfortably and convincingly. On Go 'Long
Mule, the band seems to respond to Armstrong's lesson in the art
of sustaining end-of-phrase tones rather than chopping them short
in the old New York tradition. Redman furnished appropriate sus-
tained saxophone "organ" chords under Louis on pieces like
Words. Copenhagen has much of the bite and momentum of the
Wolverine recorded version of a few months before as well as the
broad impact of an eleven-man band under full steam. Naughty
Man, recorded in November, 1924, demonstrates how quickly
Redman had whipped the three saxophones into an integrated, re-
laxed section quite unlike the agitated saxophone duo on earlier
Henderson recordings. The clarinet trio, too, was a favorite Red-
man touch and begins to appear on records made about this time,
most impressively on Alabamy Bound. By January, 1925, the band
had swung almost all the way over to Armstrong, even to provid-
ing New Orleans-like riffs and afterbeat cymbal explosions as
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
extra support for soloists. (Money Blues contains good examples
of these devices.) Sugar Foot Stomp, a reworking of the Oliver-
Armstrong specialty Dippermouth Blues, represents the culmina-
tion of Henderson's early period and the completion of the task of
catching up to the New Orleans-dominated bands in Chicago,
Biffs, "organ" chords, a good grasp of the blues idiom, loose-
jointed but precise ensemble playing, and first-rate solo power all
come together in this performance to place the Fletcher Hender-
son band and its chief arranger, Don Redman ahead of all its
competitors.
While finding success at the Roseland Ballroom, Fletcher con-
tinued to keep his hand in studio recording work. The combina-
tion of his own experience as an accompanist and his ready access
to a fund of talented instrumentaKsts (including sought-after cor-
netist Joe Smith, who returned to the fold in 1925) meant that a
singer could be sure of superior backing whenever Fletcher was in
charge. The combinations were endless: Henderson and Coleman
Hawkins; Henderson and Joe Smith; Henderson, Smith, and Bus-
ter Bailey; Henderson, Smith, and Charlie Green; Hendersons
Hot Six. The singers' styles were nearly as varied; Fletcher
worked with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Alberta
Hunter, Maggie Jones, Clara Smith, Trixie Smith, Ida Cox, and a
dozen others between 1924 and 1926. Some of the best of these
are Bessie Smith classics such as Cake WaUdn' Babies, on which a
seven-man contingent from the orchestra improvises in the New-
Orleans collective manner with grace and zeal Henderson's own
piano contributions to these sessions are generally simple, correct,
and undistinguished,
In 1925, Fletcher married Leora Meoux, a professional trumpet
player who occasionally filled in for lead trumpeter Russell Smith
in the Henderson band. Smith, cometist Joe's brother, had for-
merly been married to Leora, in fact, and the social structure of
the band began to resemble that of a large family. (At one point,
a third Smith brother, Luke, joined Joe and Russell in the trumpet
section for a brief stay.) Fletcher's father occasionally visited
Roseland to point with pride, although his pointing had to be
done from the side of the bandstand, since that was the only spot
in the ballroom where Negroes were allowed. (Many years later,
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 203
ballroom stopped hiring Negro musicians. ) Another frequent visi-
tor was brother Horace, who was organizing a band of his own at
Wilberforce University in the mid-twenties.
By 1926, the Henderson organization had become a permanent
fixture at Roseland, except for three or four summer months spent
on the road each year. The personnel was relatively stabilized
with Russell and Joe Smith and the New Orleans trumpeter
Tommy Ladnier, as good a substitute for the departed Armstrong
as one could hope for. Redman was turning out splendid arrange-
ments now, and Fats Waller (who had become the main influence
on Henderson's own piano style) contributed a number of origi-
nal compositions for Don to work on. Impressive electrical re-
cordings like The Stampede, Henderson Stomp, and Hot Mus-
tard, released at this time, give evidence of steady improvement
in the band and its soloists. Section parts are even more challeng-
ing in these, but Redman's complex melodic figurations never led
Henderson's men away from natural jazz-oriented readings. It
was largely the ensemble playing of this orchestra that caused
jazzmen to evolve a reading method all their own. Eighth notes
became dotted eighths, sixteenths became thirty-seconds. Section
members learned to think in terms of rhythmic and melodic pat-
terns rather than in separate measures. This system of interpreta-
tive reading was the key to Henderson's unique style, a style that
magnified and intensified the spirit of the small jazz band. From
1926 on, every major big band that featured any "hot" tunes at all
followed Henderson's example.
Fletcher was beginning to experience difficulties as a band-
leader about this time. His men were loyal to him and his musical
philosophy, but he was not a strong leader, either as an instru-
mentalist or as a personality. When Fats Waller sat in on piano on
several 1926 record dates, the entire orchestra responded with
noticeable extra enthusiasm to the new authority that came from
the piano. "Fats played with us every now and then," Coleman
Hawkins has recalled. 1 didn't think Fletcher was taking advan-
tage of it like he should have. If it had been me, I'd have hired
Fats. Fletcher could have done it."
Other possibilities were overlooked and neglected as well. De-
spite the group's musicianship and elan, its recordings were often
allowed to pass with sloppy section work and faulty dynamics,
204 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
while competing bands took great care with execution and shad-
ing. As the decade wore on, Henderson made fewer and fewer
recordings, while the orchestras of Duke Ellington and Paul
Whiteman increased their recorded output. Radio had also he-
come important, and Fletcher's chronic bad starts were not desir-
able in broadcast work. ""[Fletcher] would be starting off, and
half the band would be looking for their music," Hawkins remem-
bers. "That used to happen regularly. All kinds of things like
that . . . The band was a bit like they didn't care sloppy but
it had something else. It had a good sound, a good beat. It lacked
a lot of precision. I think that's why the records were like they
were. Where in Duke's band it was loaded with precision, they
couldn't give you that good in-person sound," Hawkins recalls.
"Maybe sometimes you can get too precise, and maybe you lose
something when you get like that. You certainly don't on rec-
ords. A good record has to be precise." But, as Hawkins put it,
"when it got down to the core of the music, when it was supposed
to be sounding good, everybody was together and everybody was
playing like mad."
Redman continued exploring new scoring ideas in 1927. He was
still fond of clarinet trios, but he also featured "pyramid" (arpeg-
giolike) chords, sectional counterpoint, advanced harmonies
(Redman had been writing flatted fifths, for example, into his
scores since early 1924), and sudden shifts in rhythm and key sig-
nature. One of his most involved works is Whiteman Stomp,
which both Henderson and Whiteman recorded. Despite White-
man's more exact reading, with Jimmy Dorsey's excellent alto sax-
ophone playing, Henderson's is the more appealing version. Red-
man's skill in dealing with riffs is apparent in his outstanding
treatment of Hop Off, recorded in November, 1927. For this, he
scored a variety of riffs to build to a natural climax, avoiding the
monotonous excesses that detracted from the worth of many
swing bands a decade later. Hop Off also features the vigorous,
churning sound of reeds in countermovement to brass, an ad-
vanced idea that arranger Bill Challis used often in Jean Gold-
kette's orchestra at the time.
Like Challis, Redman discovered that some of his writing,
though a delight to musicians, was not always within the public's
grasp. A 1927 issue of Orchestra World magazine, for example,
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 20$
complains that the Henderson band played too much "modern
stuff."
Redman received $25 an arrangement from Henderson, in addi-
tion to his regular pay of about $80 a week as lead alto saxophon-
ist In mid- 1927, he accepted an offer there had been many
before to take over the musical direction of McKinney's Cotton
Pickers in Detroit, one of several bands handled by Jean Gold-
kette's office. It was potentially a good group and had grown out
of a band called the Synco Septette, originally fronted by ex-
circus drummer William McKinney. McKinney had hired the sur-
vivors of a Springfield, Ohio, outfit called Scott's Symphonic Syn-
copators, which had broken up in 1924. From that original
Springfield group came trombonist Ckude Jones, pianist Todd
Rhodes, saxophonist Milton Senior, and banjoist Dave Wilborn.
Before 1927, McKinney had turned over the drums to the talented
Cuba Austin and had hired saxophonist-vocalist George Thomas
and trumpeter-arranger John Nesbitt.
With Nesbitt's help, Redman built the McKinney band's book
into one of the finest in the country. He added his own alto saxo-
phone to those of Senior, Thomas, and Prince Robinson (a long-
underrated tenor saxophonist) to form a four-man reed section.
Together with the change to three brass (from Hendersons five),
this new balance in instrumentation resulted in a fresh Redman
sound, quite unlike his previous efforts. Don drilled his men and
even gave them lessons in reading and interpretation. By mid-
1928, he had created a first-class orchestra rivaling Henderson's.
Redman's saxophone section was without equal, and Don took
advantage of all four voices, writing bravura passages that at-
tracted wide attention from other arrangers. Nesbitt, whose jazz
outlook was deeply affected by the work of cornetist Bix Beider-
becke and arranger Bill Challis, also began to contribute superior
scores to the band's library. With records like Stop Kidding,
Uilenberg Joys, Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble, and Cherry, McKinney's
Cotton Pickers was quickly established in 1928 as a leading dance
orchestra and an important modern "hot" band. Redman settled
into Detroit's Greystone Ballroom for a long and profitable stay.
Henderson never completely filled the enormous gap left by
Redman's departure. Jerome Pasquall, who moved into the lead
alto chair at this time, recalls that the band was full of "flaws" and
06 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
lacked the rhythmic freedom of Fletcher's 1936 band, of which
Pasquall was also a member. One problem may have been the ab-
sence of bassist Bob Escudero, who was now with Redman in Me-
Kinney's Cotton Pickers. Another was the old matter, grown even
more serious without Redman, of lack of discipline. Still another,
of course, was the loss of a highly skilled arranger within the band
to write material suited to its individual soloists. With Redman,
too, went some of the earthy quality that had characterized much
Df the band's work until 1927.
"[Fletcher] was exchanging arrangements with other bands,"
Coleman Hawkins has observed of this period. "He kept on and
on, and finally the band, to me, got to the place where it sounded
just like other bands, which is no good. We used to play numbers
that sounded just like the Casa Loma band at times, because we
had gangs of their arrangements. You see, what it was, for one
thing, in the earlier band when he had Don Redman, Don used to
do ... some very good gutbucket arrangements."
For some time, the band got by on borrowed scores (some
came from Goldkette s orchestra, others from Mel Stitzel, a few
from Ellington, and some even from John Nesbitt), loose pieces
tied together by Henderson himself (D Natural Blues, Oh Baby),
"head" arrangements comprising riffs and fills elaborated by side-
men in the orchestra (King Porter Stomp), and old Redman spe-
cialties like Hop Off. Recording dates were rather rare events
now, although the band was still an excellent one. Only about
two dozen selections were turned out in the more than three years
between October, 1927, and February, 1931, and a number of
those carried the pseudonym Dixie Stompers in place of Hender-
son's own name.
During this slack recording period, Fletcher's soloists were ex-
panding their abilities and reputations to new levels. By 1928,
trombonist Jimmy Harrison, who had joined the year before, was
heavily featured at Roseland, as was Hawkins, who now had no
peers on the tenor saxophone. (Two good examples of his drive
and technique are the 1928 recordings Oh Baby and Tm Feelin
Devilish. ) Joe Smith, always a personal favorite of Fletcher's, had
been in and out of the trumpet section again by the summer of
1928, Rex Stewart and the brilliant Bobby Stark were now the
jazz soloists, while Russell Smith continued to handle most of the
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 20/
lead work. Then Fletcher hired altoist-arranger Benny Carter, for-
merly a member of Horace Henderson's Wilberforce band, who
came closer to filling Don Redman's spot than anyone before or
after him. Carter had a superb alto style original, though
touched by Frank Trumbauer and wrote particularly handsome
section figures for saxophones. The group responded to his com-
mand of modern voicings with spirited readings of Come On,
Baby, Easy Money, Blazin, and Wang Wang Blues. (The last
features trumpeter Cootie Williams, who spent a brief period with
Henderson in 1929 before joining Duke Ellington.)
While Redman worked out the principles of the four-man saxo-
phone section in Detroit, Henderson was establishing the use of
five brass three trumpets, two trombones in the East. To-
gether, their respective orchestras anticipated the classic propor-
tions of the thirteen-piece swing band in the thirties five brass,
four reeds, four rhythm.
From the spring of 1929 to the fall of 1930, the Henderson or-
chestra did not cut a single record. Fletcher played more one-
night engagements than ever now, although Roseland was still
home. "Every April we would pile into our assorted Packards,
Buicks, and Caddies and hit the coalfields of Pennsylvania until
September," Rex Stewart has recalled, *and each year we went
further afield.'*
The rise of show bands and novelty attractions had left wholly
musical organizations like Fletcher's behind. Henderson's main
commercial card was trombonist Jimmy Harrison, who contrib-
uted comedy turns, Bert Williams impressions, and "preacher"
routines. Ellington had his "jungle" style plus a visually effective,
sleek presentation of his wares. Armstrong was an unbeatable
showman who swept up his audiences in staged displays of high-
note virtuosity and frivolity. Cab Galloway featured his own
frenzied singing and band to match. The public was, in short,
buying a show; that the music was often superior had significance
mainly to other musicians and a very small portion of the listening
audience.
Redman appraised the situation and laced many of his arrange-
ments with moody themes suitable to the early Depression days
(Blues Sure Have Got Me) and clever vocal routines, carried out
by himself, saxophonist George Thomas, and banjoist Dave Wil-
208 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
bom (If I Could Be with You One Hour, Rocky Road, Just a
Shade Corn). Most important, he dropped some of his more am-
bitious ideas and began to write simple, spare, melodic section
lines that held appeal for musicians and nondiscerning listeners
alike (Baby Wont You Please Come Home?, Travellin' AH
Alone). Together with a number of very commercial pieces, these
generally excellent records brought unprecedented success to Me-
Kinne/s Cotton Pickers. While Henderson's recording work
dropped off, Redman's increased substantially in 1929 and 1930.
Fletcher's morale might well have hit bottom when cornetist Joe
Smith joined Redman, then returned East with Don to help select
Henderson's best men for McKinney's Cotton Pickers recording
dates. (The results, featuring Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter
and Kaiser Marshall, can be heard on Plain Dirt, Gee Aint I
Good to You?, Td Love It, The Way 1 Feel Today, Miss Hannah,
Peggy, and Wherever There's a Will, Baby.)
In 1931, Fletcher and his band, for some reason, became ac-
tive in the recording studios again. (Henderson's slow recovery
from a severe automobile accident in the late twenties might well
have been a factor in the erratic course of his career about this
time.) Their performances, now sparked by magnificent bravura
flights of Hawkins and mature trombone statements of Jimmy
Harrison, were better than ever. The impressive trombonist
Claude Jones had by now come over to Henderson from Redman,
and the rhythm section had profited by the arrivals of drummer
Walter Johnson, banjoist-guitarist Clarence Holiday (Billie Holi-
day's father), and bassist John Kirby. The change, not yet com-
plete, from banjo and tuba to guitar and bass was a significant
one; a light but firm four-to-the-bar beat was now possible, open-
ing the way for more supple, intelligently modulated arrange-
ments. It meant, for example, that Coleman Hawkins could
rhapsodize breathily on a slow ballad without fear of a flagging,
top-heavy rhythm section and without losing the more subtle
flourishes in his solos. This light, airy rhythm was also the perfect
backdrop against which to play simple, insinuating riffs of the sort
Don Redman had been writing for the Cotton Pickers.
Fletcher continued to pick up arrangements wherever he could.
John Nesbitt contributed Chinatown, My Chinatown, Nat Leslie
scored Radio Rhythm, and Benny Carter continued to turn out
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN
effective pieces like Somebody Loves Me and Sweet and Hot.
The band used publishers' stock arrangements as well, often doc-
tored here and there to permit more freedom for soloists. ( My Gal
Sal is a good lesson in the art of swinging a stock orchestration.)
Others came from the old Jean Goldkette book (My Pretty Girl),
publishing-house arranger Archie Bleyer (Business in F), Casa
Loma's Gene Gifford (Casa Loma Stomp), and young Horace
Henderson, who had by 1931 blossomed into a promising if not
yet original arranger and a good jazz pianist. Horace's Hot and
Anxious and Comirf and Goin have themes borrowed from El-
lington and others, but they point up the new soft saxophone
blend that was replacing the old shouting, gutbucket sound at this
time. The rhythmic figures thus played seem, to melt into the
rhythm section itself, creating a unified ensemble effect at once
easygoing and surging with potential power.
In this leashed energy lay much of the appeal of this approach
to big-band jazz. Arrangers, section men, and soloists all took part
in the game of building, holding back, and releasing tensions, and
this technique was proving to be more electrifying than the all-out
stomp tactics of a few years before. Duke Ellington was probably
the first major bandleader to make intelligent use of this more
subtle method of big-band playing.
It was about this time 1931 that Fletcher himself took a
greater interest in writing arrangements for the band At first, he
simply exercised his sharp ear by transcribing passages from old
jazz records and scoring them for a full orchestra. Thus the Bix
Beiderbecke-Frank Trumbauer 1927 versions of Clarinet Mar-
malade and Singin the Blues became part of Henderson s library
four years later. Fletcher's Just Blues suggests that he still had a
good deal of catching up to do, for the arrangement itself, calling
for a return to old banjo-tuba figures, has its roots in the King Oli-
ver style of four or five years before.
Gradually, Henderson came out of this experimental phase as
he grew more familiar with arranging techniques. His 1932 scores
of Honeysuckle Rose and Blue Moments reveal considerable
progress and a new understanding of tonal colors not unlike El-
lington's. Honeysuckle Rose even carries implications of an origi-
nal Henderson style, which the band needed badly if it was to
survive the competition of many highly stylized orchestras in the
210 JAZZ MASTERS OF IHE TWENTIES
popular-music field Built on a resourceful manipulation of tune-
ful riffs in the Redman tradition, this style was soon to establish a
whole new identity for the troubled 34-year-old bandleader.
Henderson learned from his own sidemen as well. It was indeed
a remarkable band, not merely as a gathering of outstanding solo-
ists but as a musical unit possessed of a rare and unique collective
spirit Some of Henderson's best numbers King Porter Stomp is
one were head arrangements worked out by the players them-
selves. Made possible by the riff approach to ensemble playing,
head arrangements were to be a significant but often overlooked
characteristic of big-band music in die thirties. The process of de-
veloping a head arrangement often appears, like the collective
creations *of New Orleans bands, to be an easy matter. It requires,
however, sensitive and experienced musicians to bring it off prop-
erly. A single sideman thinks of a new idea, plays it, and suddenly
all his section mates join him with their appropriate harmonic
parts. A player in a different part of the orchestra thinks of a logi-
cal answering phrase and is joined by his section. The third horn
section adds its part in the same manner, and the entire orchestra
is under way. The rhythm players add to the total effect by sup-
porting the specific rhythmic figures devised by each section.
When one set of riffs begin to wear thin, the entire process may
repeat itself with new ideas, usually marked by an increase in
tension.
Many excellent swing arrangements came from this practice,
which found its finest expression in the Fletcher Henderson band
Fletcher's 1933 organization, which included saxophonists Haw-
kins and Hilton Jefferson, trombonist Dickie Wells, and trumpeter
Red Men, was particularly skilled in creating head arrange-
ments.
Despite the quality of its work, the band continued to suffer
from Fletcher's failure to establish a code of discipline. Several
men drank too much, missed rehearsals (even fell off the stand
occasionally), and sometimes had trouble keeping up with the
music. Although Fletcher's arrangements often sounded elemen-
tary enough, many were written in unusual keys. Clarinetist Dar-
nell Howard, who once substituted for Buster Bailey, remembers
facing the task of sight-reading a score in the key of E ( concert).
When Howard suggested to Henderson that it might be a bit
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 211
rough the first time around, Fletcher snapped, "You have a union
card, don't you?"
"Everybody got juiced up when they wanted to, w trombonist J.
G Higginboftam, who put in better than a year with the band in
1931 and 1932, has recalled. '"You had a lot of fun."
Coleman Hawkins, the star performer and an important com-
mercial asset to the band, finally departed in 1934, just as Fletch-
er s arranging talents had reached maturity. Hawkins had been
heavily featured on a number of 1933 recordings (Queer Notions,
Its the Talk of the Town, Tve Got to Sing a Torch Song) made
for release in England. The brilliant tenor saxophonist followed
his fame to England and Europe, remaining there about five
years. By the fall, Fletcher had found Ben Webster as a replace-
ment and at last added a fourth saxophone to form still another
first-rate band. In addition to arrangements by Benny Carter and
Horace Henderson, Fletcher's own were now an important part of
his book.
A new Decca contract in 1934 provided needed encouragement,
and in two memorable sessions during September, Fletcher re-
corded his Wrappin 9 It Up, Down South Camp Meeting, Shang-
hai Shuffle, and the excellent Big John Special Each piece is a
masterpiece of intelligent, jazz-based writing. The four saxo-
phones are blended to sound light yet muscular; despite challeng-
ing double-time figures and treacherous syncopations, ensemble
passages appear to float effortlessly over the light but firm rhythm;
each arrangement seems to swing virtually by itself, requiring
only a few good soloists here and there to make up a completely
satisfying performance, in jazz terms, from first measure to last
With these recordings, Fletcher set the high standards to which
most other big bands aspired for the next five or six years. He also
demonstrated in no uncertain terms that his creative strength now
ky in arranging rather than piano playing or even leading a
band.
As good as they were, the records did not save the Henderson
band. Writing in Swing magazine in 1940, Duke Ellington re-
called how and why the group broke up:
Smack's band was beginning to find the going a little tough around
'32 and '33. Work was scarce, but the band was so fine, and the
guys so attached to it, that nobody had the heart to quit. It was
&12 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
exceptional the way everybody stuck, hoping for a break. Almost
each individual musician had money coming to him and yet nothing
ever happened. Finally when they couldn't hold out any longer,
the whole band got together, and everybody turned in their notice
at the same time. That was the break-up of the Fletcher Henderson
band. Maybe it was an appropriate finale for one of the greatest
dance bands anybody ever heard.
That was in 1934 and the men in the band were: Pops Smith,
Red Allen, and Mouse Randolph, Claude Jones, and Keg Johnson,
Benny Webster (Hawk had already left for Europe), Procope, and
Jeff, Walter Johnson, Lucie, Kirby, and Horace. Things had been so
bad with Smack, the boys were working one-nighters for $50 a
week. And yet some of them like Claude Jones, who had $400
coming to him, were refusing offers from Galloway and others, to
stick till the end.
Incidentally, that was probably one of the partyingest bands that
ever was. They used to travel on the road in cars, instead of buses.
As soon as they'd arrive at their destination they'd start in having a
ball When they got through at night, they'd pick up where they
left off. They'd wait till the last possible moment before leaving
for the next town, and they'd have to hold a steady seventy on the
road to arrive on schedule (which half of them never did).
In early 1935, temporarily without a band at all for the first
time in a dozen years, Fletcher became chief arranger for Benny
Goodman, who now stood on the threshold of unparalleled suc-
cess in the band business. The enthusiasm of Goodman and his
players for Henderson's arrangements had much to do with this
success. Goodman himself told of this period in his book, The
Kingdom of Swing:
It was then that we made one of the most important discoveries of
all that Fletcher Henderson, in addition to writing big arrange-
ments such as the ones I have just mentioned [King Porter Stomp,
etc.], could also do a wonderful job on melodic tunes such as Can't
We Be Friends?, Skepy Time Down South, Blue Skies, I Can't
Give You Anything But Love and above all Sometimes fm Happy.
He had to be convinced of it himself, but once he started he did
marvelous work These were the things, with their wonderful easy
style and great background figures, that really set the style of the
band
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 213
Up to that time the only kind of arrangements that the puhlic
had paid much attention to, so far as knowing who was responsible
for them was concerned, were the elaborate ones such as Ferde
Grofe's for Whiteman. But the art of making an arrangement a band
can play with swing and I am convinced it is an art one that
really helps a solo player to get off, and gives him the right back-
ground to work against that's something that very few musicians
can do.
The whole idea is that the ensemble passages, where the whole
band is playing together or one section has the lead, have to be
written in more or less the same style that a soloist would use if he
were improvising. That is, what Fletcher really could do so wonder-
fully was to take a tune like Sometimes Tm Happy and really
improvise on it himself, with the exception of certain parts of the
various choruses which would be marked solo trumpet or solo tenor
or solo clarinet. Even here the background for the rest of the band
would be in the same consistent vein, so that the whole thing really
hung together and sounded unified. Then, too, the arranger's choice
of the different key changes is very important, and the order in
which the solos are placed, so that the arrangement works up to a
climax. In all these respects, Fletcher's ideas were far ahead of
anybody else's at the time, partly because of afl the experience he
had with the great soloists in his different bands, and partly because
he was such an outstanding musician himself. Without Fletcher I
probably would have had a pretty good band, but it would have
been something quite different from what it eventually turned out
to be.
British writer G. F. Gray Clarke unwittingly added an appro-
priate footnote to Goodman's remarks in an essay titled "Deep
Henderson":
I have heard a band of good stout Nazis in Berlin playing one of
those Henderson-Goodman arrangements and, in spite of them-
selves, producing lift, drive and guttiness: you can't go terribly far
wrong by just reading accurately whatever Henderson happens to
write. The internal evidence of his scores is that he knows what a
man can play on a man-made instrument, and never tries to guess
what an archangel with musical leanings might produce in a mo-
ment of inspirational ecstasy from Jehovah's own silver trumpets.
Too many modern orchestrators, both straight and jazz, make these
impossible demands of flesh, blood and brass. . . .
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Some of the dozens of arrangements that Fletcher wrote for
Goodman in the next fifteen years line up almost like a capsule
history of Benny's bands: When Buddha Smiles, Get Happy,
Christopher Columbus, Star Dust, Sugar Foot Stomp, Stealin*
Appks, Beyond the Moon, Opus Local 802, Crazy Rhythm, Chi-
cago, South of the Border, and Wolverine Blues.
Don Redman had had his share of hard times by the mid-
thirties, too. In 1931, he had taken over Horace Henderson's or-
chestra and made an impressive start as a leader with records like
I Heard and Chant of the Weed. However, he soon ran into prob-
lems of poor management and lack of public acceptance, except
for the vocals of Harlan Lattimore. In 1936, Don fronted a differ-
ent and still excellent orchestra that included clarinetist-arranger
Ed Inge, trombonist Benny Morton, and a trumpet section com-
posed of Renauld Jones, Shirley Clay, and Sidney deParis, but the
cards seemed stacked against him. He struggled on until 1940,
then disbanded and took up a more predictable life as a busy free-
lance arranger. His scores found their way into groups as diverse
as those of Harry James, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Dorsey, Jimmy
Lunceford, Charlie Barnet, Fred Waring, and Count Basie. Ex-
cept for brief flings as a leader or musical consultant (including a
stint directing Jay McShann's 1942 band), Redman has remained
an independent arranger ever since and has often worked with
singer-comedienne Pearl Bailey in recent years.
McKinney's Cotton Pickers lasted a couple of years after Red-
man left but reached the end of the rocky road in 1934. When last
heard from, William McKinney himself was working as a bellhop
in a Detroit hotel
Fletcher, encouraged by public support of his Goodman scores,
was back in the band business in 1936, again with a crack outfit.
Buster Bailey returned, as did John Kirby. Joe Thomas, Dick
Vance, and Roy Eldridge were die trumpeters. Jerome PasquaH
and Chu Berry graced the saxophone section. Sid Catlett joined
on drums for a while, then was replaced by Walter Johnson. The
band's first record, Christopher Columbus, was a hit (musicians
still speak of "Smack's Christopher Columbus band") and landed
Fletcher in top locations again, notably the Grand Terrace in Chi-
cago. The glory was relatively short-lived, however, and Hender-
son's failure to produce another hit started the downward slide
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON BEDMAN 15
once more. In 1938, he placed twenty-fifth in a music-magazine
poll of favorite swing bands. (Mai Hallett, Jan Savitt, Skeets Tol-
bert, and Dean Hudson were among the names ahead of Fletch-
er si) The battle-weary Henderson began to realize that the
"swing craze" of the late thirties was little more than another man-
if estation of the public demand for novelty and not at all a musi-
cal awakening.
Whether or not the current tremendous public interest in Jazz
wiH die out and be replaced by a new popular idea [Fletcher wrote
in the 1939 Yearbook of Swing] need not concern either intelligent
musicians or honest admirers. It is encouraging to find that among a
few persons a genuine understanding of jazz has at last flourished
and promises to stimulate a wider interest and appreciation on the
part of others who are able, through a knowledge of music gener-
ally, to interpret the aims and efforts of composers long neglected
The demand for old recordings of music in the hot style is persist-
ent. If the small group, which really finds in this music an element
of art to which it feels a definite response, can be looked to for moral
support, then we can anticipate the evolution of an even finer
jazz, brought about by composers, arrangers, and musicans fired
with a new ambition.
The outstanding drawback to the development of jazz, as every-
one knows, is the unfortunate commercialism which always turns a
deaf ear to unconventional progress [obviously, a reference to his
own plight]. Worthy organizations and individuals find it difficult
to reconcile their art with their daily sustenance, and huge booking
agencies have little regard for artistic sensibilities. Public reaction is
always uppermost in importance, and many a worthy musician must
suffer furious, if silent, indignation at the nature of 'request num-
bers" from patrons, The average popular song is anathema to the
musical taste of the orchestra characterized by talent and originality.
It not only offends the taste, but, what is far more important, dulls
the creative spirit and demoralizes real jazz music far more than
jazz will ever even with the assistance of professional reformers
demoralize the youth of this great nation.
In 1939, Henderson dropped his bandleading career a second
time and joined Goodman's orchestra for a few months, playing
piano and turning out more arrangements. After an abortive third
try at maintaining a big band in 1941, he finally gave up the idea
altogether, except for specific jobs that came up occasionally dur-
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
ing the next few years. (A fifteen-month run at the DeLisa in Chi-
cago around 1945 was the best of these.) In the late forties, he
toured as arranger and pianist with Ethel Waters, much as he had
done a quarter century before,
Fletcher's health began to fail in 1949, but in 1950 he was back
at work in New York's Cafe Society with a sextet. The job was cut
short by a paralyzing stroke in December. The famed arranger
lost heart, retired for a while to his birthplace in Cuthbert, Geor-
gia, then returned to New York City to await death. It came a few
days after his fifty-fourth birthday, in December, 1952.
Without Fletcher Henderson, it is likely that big-band jazz
would have developed differently. A big-band style, if it had come
at all, might well have been dominated by pompous extensions of
the Paul Whiteman-Ferde Grofe idea. It was largely through
Henderson's outlook and Redman's talent that the free-swinging,
blues-oriented music of New Orleans was combined successfully
with the sophisticated harmonies and ambitious arrangements of
the popular dance band. The basic rules of big-band jazz (and
Fletcher saw to it that his remained primarily a jazz band) were
first set up, carried out, and refined to a fine art in Henderson's
groups.
By way of Henderson and Redman came the fundamental in-
strumentation of big bands in the thirties three trumpets, two
trombones, four saxophones, and four rhythm. Although these
components were enlarged in later years, the relationship of each
section to the other three has not changed to this day.
To the men in Fletcher's bands, as well as to Redman, must go
much of the credit for the system of interpreting conventional
music notation that has made possible the rise of hundreds of jazz-
grounded orchestras in the last four decades. It was this departure
from legitimate'' reading techniques that won for big bands the
sort of relaxed swing found almost exclusively in small improvis-
ing combinations before Henderson.
Without Henderson, it is questionable whether head arrange-
ments could have developed to any significant extent. The true
head arrangement, seldom caught in full cry on records, is a mar-
vel of collective improvisation and a logical extension of the best
contrapuntal efforts of small New Orleans jazz bands. Among the
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND DON REDMAN 217
post-Henderson orchestras, those of Count Basie, Cab Galloway,
Woody Herman (c. 1945), and, of course, Duke Ellington made
extensive and impressive use of this method of creating new or-
chestral literature.
Henderson deserves special credit, too, for helping to build the
skills and reputations of his sidemen, Louis Armstrong, Joe Smith,
Coleman Hawkins, Jimmy Harrison, Don Redman, and many
others were featured in specialty numbers that drew attention to
their individual talents as artists, not merely as entertainers.
Fletcher himself benefitted from this when he was with Benny
Goodman, who, following Henderson's example, felt that sidemen
and arrangers should receive proper recognition, even on record
labels. For all its faults, the star system has been essential to the
rapid growth and broad acceptance of jazz around the world
since 1930.
Finally, there is the influence of Henderson the arranger. Had
he made no other contribution, Fletcher's place in jazz would be
assured by his role in the spread of jazz through Benny Good-
man's orchestra. That it was not Fletcher's own organization that
caught the brass ring is a strange piece of irony that would re-
quire a volume of psychological, sociological, and economic essays
to explain. Goodman happened to be the symbol of the age, but
this came about, at least in large part, as a result of the artistry
and craftmanship, bora of twelve hard years of musical experi-
ence, that Fletcher Henderson brought to him at just the right
moment in history.
Recommended Reading
Feather, Leonard: The Encyclopedia of Jazz, Horizon, New York
(1960).
Goodman, Benny, and Irving Kolodin: The Kingdom of Swing, Stack-
pole, Harrisburg, Pa. (1939).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.): Hear Me TdW to ?a, Bine-
hart, New York (1955).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.): The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958).
2l8 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Recommended Listening
The Birth of Big Band Jazz, RIVERSIDE RLP 12-129.
The 'Fletcher Henderson Story, COLUMBIA C^ig.
Young Louis Armstrong (one track), RIVERSIDE RLP 12-101.
The Bessie Smith Story, Vol. 3, COLUMBIA CL-85/.
Jazz: Big Bands ( 1924-1934) > Vol. 8, FOLKWAYS FP 69.
Guide to Jazz (one track), RCA VICTOR LPM-1393.
The Encyclopedia of Jazz on Records, VoL 2 (one track), DECCA DL
8399.
This Is Benny Goodman, RCA VICTOR LPM-1239.
The Golden Age of Swing, RCA VICTOR LPT-e/os.
Benny Goodman Presents Fletcher Henderson Arrangements, COLUM-
BIA CL-524.
Swing with Benny Goodman, HARMONY HL 7190.
BESSIE SMITH
ONLY ONE WOMAN contributed significantly to the development of
jazz in the twenties. She was an aggressive singer from Chat-
tanooga. Tennessee, christened, unprepossessingly, Elizabeth
Smith. Eveiyone called her Bessie.
It is not known just when Bessie was born, but most educated
guessers place the time around 1898. She was one of five children
Tinnie, Viola, Lulu, and Clarence were the others. A natural en-
tertainer, Bessie appeared in school pkys and even earned $8 for
a single appearance in a Chattanooga theater when she was only
9. There was a period, too, when she sang in a choir that gave
performances in other parts of Tennessee. Her early experience in
church groups must have made a lasting impression, for, as vet-
eran promoter Perry Bradford has observed, Bessie's vocal style
had "that spiritual touch" throughout her career. As she grew into
a tall young woman, Bessie gradually assumed a bearing that has
frequently been described as regal, to match her increasingly pow-
erful and authoritative voice.
When she was about 14, Bessie met Gertrude "Ma* Rainey, a
splendid blues singer from Columbus, Georgia, whose big som-
ber voice was already well known throughout the South. Ma,
some twelve years Bessie's senior, and Ma's husband, Will, heard
the youngster sing and took her as a kind of protege into their
traveling troupe, called the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. During the
next critical couple of years, Bessie learned all about show busi-
ness as practiced in the big tents up, down, and across the Deep
South. She learned to project her impressive voice over spirited
gatherings without a megaphone (there were, of course, no elec-
tric microphones at that time); she discovered how to take advan-
tage of her outgoing personality and handsome features; most im-
portant, she came to know the ways of a wide segment of the
Southern public, particularly its boundless affection for the blues,
The word "blues" as an expression of melancholy had been in
common use throughout the country even as far north as
Vermont for many years. But by the end of the nineteenth ceo-
219
220 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
toy, a definite musical and vocal form by that name had found
its way into the realm of Southern folk and popular music. It is a
simple form, its lyrics usually comprising two identical four-bar
statements and a third four-bar "punch line" to conclude the
chorus.
For example:
Don't the moon look lonesome rising through the pine?
Don't the moon look lonesome rising through the pine?
Don't a woman look lonesome when her man leaves her behind?
Blues songs, however, were not always sung in twelve-bar cycles;
formal eight-bar and sixteen-bar patterns were common, and self-
accompanied folk singers often stretched or compressed these
songs to unusual dimensions. Bessie, like Ma Rainey, drew largely
upon the vast reservoir of anonymously created blues melodies
and verses that were public domain, adding a few notions of her
own as she went along. Possessed of a more flexible and vibrant
voice than her mentor, Bessie eventually became the better all-
around singer of the two, but neither she nor anyone else ever
sang a blues more convincingly than Ma Rainey.
By about 1914, Bessie had left the Rainey tent show to try her
luck in theaters as a singer and a dancer. Perry Bradford saw her
in Atlanta at this time; "She was playing at the Dixie Theater, and
I was playing at Charlie Baileys Theater [the "81"] on Decatur
Street. But she was doing an act at the time with a partner,
Buzzin' Burton, and they were featuring a dance called Buzzin
Around. [She was] a whopping good flat-foot dancer."
In succeeding years, Bessie worked countless jobs in theaters,
tents, dance halls, and cabarets throughout most of the South-
eastern states, returning frequently to die TOBA (Theater Own-
ers' Booking Agency) circuit, which included Atlanta's well-
known "81." There was a minstrel show called the Florida Cotton
Blossoms, trio acts, dance routines, comedy in short, any kind of
entertainment that would pay. All this time, Bessie was becoming
a blues singer of extraordinary musical quality and unsurpassed
communicative power. "When you went to see Bessie and she
came out, that was it," New Orleans guitarist Danny Barker re-
called years later. *lf you had any church background, like people
who came from the South as I did, you would recognize a similar-
BESSIE SMITH 221
ity between what she was doing and what those preachers and
evangelists from there did, and how they moved people. . . .
Bessie did the same thing onstage,**
She had built a fairly good reputation in clubs and theaters by
1919, Northern musicians visiting Atlanta heard her there in
places like the "91" (just up the street from the "8i w ) ? where she
worked with two other entertainers in an act called the Liberty
Belles. The money was good $75 a week plus tips. In 1920, an
offer came to join the revue at the Paradise in Atlantic City.
Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon, a popular entertainer-producer-man-
about-show-business (and a former partner of the aforemen-
tioned Buzzin' Burton), also worked the Paradise that season. Jax-
on's description (in Australian Jazz Qwrtely #3) of a typical
Paradise show, probably much like the one in which Bessie par-
ticipated, reveals the level at which even gifted performers had to
operate if they were to keep working in the twenties:
Then the finale. Afl who had been on came out on the big wide
floor. The band struck up a tune called *1 Ain't Gonna Give You
None of My Jelly Roll." Each had an imitation of a real Jelly RoH
They'd do a walk all around inside of the floor, showing their Jelly
Roll, with their costumes as dresses made to look like grass skirts,
and short, holding the skirts up to thighs and stomachs. Then I'd
come out from and thru the band stand, strutting around each
female, while the band played a vamp. Fd pick up and start sing-
ing the tune, pointing my finger at each gaL The band kept the
tune going on. I went to the right of the girls all around the ring.
The band kept the tune going all the time. I stopped, and called
the first girl. (They were all different shapes, you know, each typed
by the type of tune that she sang.) I did the pantomime of holding
a conversation with her, she still shaking and twirling her body
every way. I stood still and just looked at her shake and twirl. Then,
when she'd put on a heck of a shake and stand shimmying her body,
my eyes would go here and there around her body, but Fd make
believe I was touching her, and I'd lean close to her and whisper in
her ear. She'd step back and shake her head, and Fd signal as if
asking how much she wanted. She put up 5 fingers. I looked, and
put up 2 of my fingers. She shook her head, and put up 7 fingers.
I shook my head, put tip 3 fingers. She made a quick twirl, stood
before me just turning every muscle in her body; I was twirling and
looking in every one of my pockets, searching for my money. When
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
I found it, I stepped back and made a long slide into her. She tried
to keep going on in a pretending manner. I put my arms around
her hips, she put hers around my neck. She tried not to faint, but I
gave a high bounce up in the air, and danced in front of her. She
held me again, and I made a twirl. She jerked from me, and as I
twirled and twirled 3 or 4 times, 2 girls walked out of the lines and
caught her behind the back parts of her shoulders and dragged her
off the floor, as I am supposed to have made her faint.
The music kept the tune going, but loud, and the customers just
fainted and shouted laughing, and most everybody wanted to pour
water on her. The waitresses did.
While Bessie was appearing in Atlantic City, a singer named
Mamie Smith (no relation) opened the door to a vast market for
blues recordings with her hit Crazy Blues. It was now but a mat-
ter of time until someone "discovered" Bessie Smith.
Following an engagement at a theater in Detroit, probably in
early 1921, Bessie was guided by Perry Bradford to Emerson Rec-
ords in New York, where she made a test. Curiously, the com-
pany failed to follow up this opportunity (Bradford claims it had
to do with his prior managerial commitments to Mamie Smith and
the Okeh company), and Bessie went off to a successful Philadel-
phia engagement and a swing through the South again.
During a stay in Washington, D. G, Bessie met saxophonist Sid-
ney Bechet at the home of blues singer Virginia Listen. Bechet
helped secure a part for Bessie in the show How Come, and their
friendship deepened into a fitful romance as they toured together.
The two cut a test record for Okeh, but that firm already had as
many blues singers as it could handle, and Bessie remained un-
signed. It was, in fact, the third company to turn her down, for
Black Swan Records had judged her too rough for their taste.
"Bessie was a hell of a fine woman [Bechet recalled in his last years].
A fine farmer, too; she had a place of her own in New Jersey and
was doing well growing things. Another thing about Bessie, she
could be plenty tough; she could really handle her own. She always
drank plenty, and she could hold it, but sometimes, after she'd been
drinking a while, she'd get like there was no pleasing her. There
were times you had to know just how to handle her right.
"She had this trouble in her, this thing that wouldn't let her rest
sometimes, a meanness that came and took her over. But what she
BESSIE SMITH 223
had was alive; she'd been through the whole book. And you can
say that one way and you can say it another. If you understand it,
it's there, and if you don't understand it, it's not for you, Bessie,
she was great. She was the greatest"
Frank Walker of Columbia Records, who had heard Bessie sing
several years before, finally sent for her, and in February, 1923,
the first of many successful sessions for that label took place.
Down Hearted Blues and Gulf Coast Blues were instant hits,
launching one of the most profitable careers in the history of the
recording industry. She was billed as a "comedienne," but South-
ern listeners, including many who had resettled in tie North,
knew that Bessie was the real article a woman steeped in au-
thentic blues lore who sang the familiar old words as if she really
meant them. Over the next six years, Bessie's admirers purchased
about six million of her records, and about two million of them
were sold in the first ten months of her Columbia contract
Some "respectable" families winced at the popularity of the
earthy songs Bessie sang. Singer Juanita Hall, who has come
about as close to re-creating the Smith style as anyone, remembers
the effect Bessie's first record had upon her: "111 never forget it I
was on my way home one day, and out of this house came the
sound of a record playing, and I heard Bessie Smith singing Down
Hearted Blues. Well, I went home singing it at the top of my
voice, and my grandmother said to me, ^Wherever did you hear a
tiling like that? You should know that is very, very bad music!*
But I never forgot the tune it was one of her greatest ever."
Bessie's winning style, made beautiful by a sonorous, deep-
chested, but perfectly controlled voice, came straight from Ma
Rainey, Like Ma, she worked around strong "center tones" in an
ingenious variety of ways. Bessie s most powerful, ringing tones
were F, F-sharp (or G-flat), G, A-flat, and A. Within this interval
of a third, she invariably selected a single note to serve as her
center tone, working this note into her rendition as often as possi-
ble. When singing in C, as in Down Hearted Blues, she usually
built her melody around G, the fifth of the tonic chord. Upon
changing to the inevitable F chord, she was only a step away
from a strong root note, while the customary G-seventh change
could be accommodated with either the F or the G, Thus, it was
actually possible to sing an entire twelve-bar blues song on only
224 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
two notes, although Bessie never carried the idea quite that far,
Her constant return to, elongation of, and emphasis upon these
strong center tones tended to create the illusion of a kind of mod-
ern plainsong with almost spiritual intimations. Under this attack,
the most trite popular song could be transformed into a fine blues
as Bessie reshaped its melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic configu-
rations to match her simple but moving style.
In Bessie s case, this center-tone approach, probably born of the
necessity for projecting the voice, without benefit of microphone,
to the last row in tents and theaters, did not lead to monotony. On
the contrary, it was an effective means of finding new harmonic
possibilities in old materials merely by changing key, which auto-
matically changed the relationship of Bessie's strongest notes to
the tonic tone. Thus 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I do, sung in D,
has an F-sharp center tone, or the third, while Graveyard Dream
Blues, in B-flat, emphasizes F, or the fifth. On Cemetery Blues,
she achieves a more somber mood by dwelling upon the minor
third (G-flat) in the key of E-flat When skilled pianists such as
Fletcher Henderson or James P. Johnson were on hand to ac-
company, Bessie tried more adventurous keys that might have
confounded most instrumental groups. Any Woman's Blues, for
eacample, is in B, and the singer's center tone here is the fifth, or
F-sharp. Occasionally, too, she selected unusual harmonic posi-
tions from which to work, as in Yettow Dog Blues, where A-flat
(the fourth to the root) becomes the center tone. In Nashville
Woman's Blues, sung in B-flat, she uses her strong notes F and G
(the fifth and sixth, respectively) with almost equal emphasis to
create a slightly different effect A singer with less imagination or
skill in bending and stretching notes to fit her expressive needs
might have run into trouble with this system.
Bessie had a good range, nearly two octaves, from low F to high
E, but worked most creatively within the single octave in which
her strong middle F was just about dead center. On Ticket Agent,
Ease Your Window Down, Cold in Hand Blues, and You've Been
a Good Old Wagon, she even manages to perform convincingly
while staying almost entirely within the range of a fifth. Like the
best instrumentalists, Bessie could fashion a compelling solo from
an absolute minimnyn of musical raw material and, again like
most jazzmen, was frequently forced to do just that
BESSIE SMITH 225
Many of Bessie's songs were "composed* by her accompanists,
notably Clarence Williams and Fletcher Henderson, or by New
York songwriters looking for a fast dollar. These men usually
tacked together a series of familiar public-domain lines, tossed in
a few Tin Pan Alley cliches, and fit the result to a stock twelve-
bar or sixteen-bar melody pattern. Lyrics were mined from seem-
ingly inexhaustible folk sources as fast as Bessie and dozens of
other blues singers could record them. This would have been an
acceptable procedure if the songs always told a logical story, but
often they did not
Clarence Williams* Jail House Blues, for example, goes like this:
Thirty days in jail with my back turned to the wall,
Thirty days in jail with my back turned to the wall
Look here, Mr. Jailkeeper, put another gal in my stall.
I don't mind being in jail, but I've got to stay there so long;
I don't mind being in jail, but I've got to stay there so long,
When every friend I have is done shook hands and gone.
You better stop your man from tickling me under my chin,
You better stop your man from tickling me under my chin,
Because if he keeps on tickling, I'm sure gonna take him on in.
Good mornin*, blues; blues, how do you do?
Good mornin', blues; blues, how do you do?
Say, I just came here to have a few words with you.
Jail House Blues is a good example of Williams' disregard for the
meaning of the blues. His first stanza and opening lines of the sec-
ond stanza are pure folk blues, close to the final lines of I Don't
Mind Beirf in Jail, collected in the Southeast by Odum and
Johnson:
I laid in jail, back turned to the wafl;
Told the jailer to put new man in my stafl.
I don't mind bein* in jail,
If I didn't have to stay so long.
Ite third stanza seems jarringly inappropriate and may be the
work of Williams himself. It is totally out of place and detracts
from the song. The final stanza is a powerful folk blues declara-
tion but somehow fails to conclude die thoughts put forth at the
beginning of the song.
226 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
Despite these flaws, Bessie sings each stanza with authority
and conviction, revealing her skill as a seasoned performer as
well as her ability as a singer, At that, Jail House Blues was one
of the better blues handed to her and rates as one of her finest
recordings. Curiously, the pianist for this date was not Clarence
Williams but Irving Johns.
Many of Bessie's recordings were not blues at all, but cabaret
favorites, torch songs, and robust vaudeville tunes: among Co-
lumbia's early Smith releases are Baby, Won't You Please Come
Home?, Beale Street Mama, Oh Daddy Blues, Modeling Blues, If
You Don't, I Know Who Will, St. Louis Gal, and Aggravatiri
Papa. She sometimes recorded blues or blues songs written by
other singers as well, including Down Hearted Blues, by Alberta
Hunter; Graveyard Dream Blues, by Ida Cox; and Moonshine
Blues, by Ma Rainey.
Bessie's 1924 version of Boweavil Blues, a piece which was first
recorded by Ma Rainey in 1923, points up a fault in the younger
woman's work that usually went unnoticed behind the awesome
strength of her voice and the wonder of her dramatic delivery.
Though she made the most of the lyrics as she sang them, her
poetic sense was less acute than Ma Rainey's, Compare her two
final stanzas of Boweavil Blues with Ma's kter recording New
Boweavil Blues:
Bessie Smith:
I went downtown, I bought myself a hat
I brought it back home, I laid it on the shelf.
I looked in my bed, I'm tired sleepin* by myself.
I'm tired sleepin' by myself.
Ma Rainey:
Lord, I went downtown and bought me a hat,
I brought it back home and laid it on the shelf.
Looked at my bed Tm gettin' tired
Sleepin' by myself.
Ma Rainey's artfully paced stanza leads gracefully and inevi-
tably to her final stark summation of loneliness "sleepin' by my-
self." Bessie, barely avoiding disaster from excessive use of the
same personal pronoun, throws her finish line away on a weak
BESSIE SMITH 22/
phrase and can finally do no more than repeat the words to fill the
remaining time.
Yet Bessie's very determination to do things her own way was
the real basis for her influence over many jazzmen. In her work,
instrumentalists recognized the sort of individuality they sought to
express on their own horns and strings. Jazzmen heard, too, a
thoughtful blend of precomposed song structures and Southern
blues feeling, a blend close to their own ideas about how good
jazz should sound. Pure folk blues, as in the music of Blind Lemon
Jefferson, was once removed from jazz: it lacked the urbane so-
phistication that had marked jazz music from its earliest New Or-
leans days. Bessie Smith bridged the gap; she was both from
country blues and of big-city ways at the same time. Unlike Ma
Rainey, she repeatedly demonstrated her desire to become a
musician-singer as well as merely an interpreter of the blues.
Composer-arranger Don Redman once declared that he and
many other musicians around New York learned much from
Bessie Smith. Because she and her records were in New York at
least eighteen months before the arrival of Louis Armstrong,
Bessie functioned as a first contact with full-blown blues expres-
sion for countless Easterners. Like Annstrong, she drew out each
tone to its fullest value, projecting strength and excitement over a
deep foundation of inner repose. The effect was electric, causing
jazzmen like Redman to ponder the less profound aspects of their
own "hot" styles, many of which were rooted in mere agitation
rather than in human expressiveness.
In 1924, Bessie began to use leading jazz musicians for her ac-
companying band, often those associated with Fletcher Hender-
son's young orchestra. Her favorite was trumpeter Joe Smith (no
relation), whose poignant tone and simple ideas contrasted per-
fectly with Bessie's effusive style. From this time to the end of
1926, the popular singer hit the peak of her popularity and her
highest consistent performing level. Record after record proved
to be an enduring classic, a definitive lesson in the art of blues
singing. Weeping Willow Blues, Bessie's first recording with Joe
Smith, is one such performance, described enthusiastically by
writer Abbe Niles twenty-five years afterward (in A Treasury of
the Blues):
228 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
[Weeping Willow Blues] had never been published, and on com-
paring the original manuscript with Bessie's record, it became evi-
dent that, starting out with a good tune and idea, she and her
accompanists had done a most extraordinary job of interpretation
and embellishment in the best New Orleans jazz vein.
The instrumental lead, in general, is the trumpet's; the trombone
[Charlie Green] coming in with occasional baleful growls, and the
piano [Fletcher Henderson], in its typical subordinate New Orleans
role, following lazily along with this finger and that but in this
record the timing, the touch and the feeling, in every instance, were
about perfect. (Not that the accompaniment is emotional the poor
girls tale of woe is, to these musicians, no more than a pleasant path
along which to trifle, observing meanwhile the flowers and the
birds.) Keep in mind that the trio played slowly, quietly, in ex-
quisite time and, in the "riff* accompaniment to the patter, with
the spring and light-footedness of a cat on hot rocks.
In this recording, without doubt, the entire introduction, accom-
paniment, and the two interludes were wholly improvised as are
some of the words and much of tihe vocal line.
It is open to question whether Weeping-Willow was wholly im-
provised or not (the rifis, the repeated instrumental figures, were
probably worked out carefully in advance by Henderson), but
Niles was quite right about the emotional detachment of the mu-
sicians. Bessie had good reason to prefer it that way; it was her
date and her voice occupying the center stage, not the improvisa-
tions of the musicians. In this light, it is reasonable to assume that
Bessie was not altogether pleased by Louis Armstrong's highly
charged cornet playing on a couple of 1925 recording sessions,
despite her own fine work on those occasions. For one thing,
Armstrong already knew the fine points of blues expression, as
most New York musicians did not, and his matching of Bessie's
lowered or raised pitch for a given melody note tended to destroy
the shock value of her alteration as it collided with the legiti-
mate" pitch.
Ironically, however, Bessie's recordings with Armstrong are
among her very best Perhaps she was attempting to outperform
Armstrong by leaning a bit harder into her "blue** minor thirds
and sevenths; whatever the motivation, Bessie came out of these
sessions victorious.
BESSIE SMITH 220
Referring to these Smith-Armstrong sessions, Winthrop Sar-
geant has written (in Jazz: Hot and Hybrid) :
Her treatment of conventional tunes is exceedingly free, in the
sense that she pays very little attention to the notes, or even the
words, of the printed version. As in the case of all true "hot" soloists,
the rigid conventional lines of the standard tune on which her im-
provisation is based often become almost unrecognizable in what
she produces. Her freedom of treatment, however, is not the freedom
of elaboration. She does not add florid elements to the original tune.
She rather subtracts its superfluous elements, pruning it down and
simplifying its phraseology; making it, in fact, more truly "primi-
tive."
Most of her songs are based on a single tetrachordal grouping,
either the upper or lower, and strayings beyond the four-note limits
of this grouping are infrequent.
Sargeant regarded the "cool freedom with which European
conceptions of melody are disregarded" by Bessie "both amazing
and refreshing":
Where You've Been a Good Old Wagon occupies exclusively the
lower tetrachordal grouping of tones, the Cold in Hand Blues is
sung entirely in the grouping associated with the upper tetrachord.
Whether the singer herself was conscious of this change of orienta-
tion in relation to the tonic may be questioned, although she uses
her scalar material somewhat differently in the new surroundings.
The actual pitches of her tones may, of course, be the same in both
recordings, and the change may be brought about by a shift in the
key of the accompaniment.
Though he underestimated the fairly wide range of Bessie's
voice, Sargeant was intrigued by the singer's ability to flatten out
the contours of written melodies to suit her blues style. (This sim-
plifying process was a function of the center-tone approach, dis-
cussed above, although Sargeant did not carry his analysis
through to that conclusion. ) The critic went on to describe Bes-
sie's treatment of St. Louis Blues:
Bessie Smith's version of the famous St. Louis Blues is governed
more by complicated harmonic considerations than either of the
above mentioned recordings. Handy's composition contains a section
2gO JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
in the minor scalean unusual feature in the simpler type of
blues and there are other factors of a chordic nature that tend to
force the singer into more sophisticated scalar treatment. Neverthe-
less it is interesting to note that the vocal interpretation tends
always to simplify rather than to complicate Handy's original
melody.
In so doing, Bessie followed the same pattern used by preach-
ers and rural blues singers all over the South. Small wonder that
her music had more meaning for Southern audiences than for
sophisticated Northerners.
"When I was a little girl," singer Mahalia Jackson remembers,
"I felt she [Bessie] was having troubles like me. That's why it was
such a comfort for the people of the South to hear her. She ex-
pressed something they couldn't put into words.
"All you could hear was Bessie. The houses were thin; the
phonographs were loud. You could hear her for blocks."
The theaters were generally packed on Bessie's Southern tours.
Her Columbia records had become so identified with the singer
that, for a time, part of her act was devoted to re-creating a studio
recording session. Plenty of money was coming in, but Bessie had
other problems. She had purchased a home in Philadelphia for
herself and her husband, a policeman named Jack Gee, whom
Sidney Bechet once summed up as "a mean man, really a mean
man." With money came a horde of new opportunistic friends
and parasites, most of them unconcerned with her growing drink-
ing problem. And by 1926, whether Bessie sensed it or not, the
rage for elemental blues had begun to wane. A new era of popu-
lar music, shaped in part by the introduction of the electric mi-
crophone, was just around the corner.
The microphone, along with improved radio broadcasting, put
the shouters and the crooners on an equal footing, the size of the
hall notwithstanding. Established popular singers Irving Kauf-
man, say suddenly finding themselves shouting unnecessarily
into the sensitive new instruments, changed to a softer, more inti-
mate style. For Bessie, whose singing style was as natural as
breathing to her, it was not so simple. Her blues depended on a
full-bodied voice. And hadn't her fans made it clear that that was
exactly what they wanted?
BESSIE SMTIH 231
But a new record market was growing for the sort of singers
long favored in small urban cabarets, singers such as Ethel
Waters. Tor years they had been used to Bessie Smith and Ma
Rainey," Ethel wrote in her autobiography. "They loved them and
all the other shouters. I could always riff and jam and growl, but I
never had that loud approach."
Ethel had had considerable success in clubs and on records,
particularly her Black Swan recordings of 1921-1923, but with
electrical recording methods, she became still more popular. To
make matters more uncomfortable for Bessie, Ethel began re-
cording for Columbia in 1925, often with the same accompanying
musicians Bessie used. This was tough competition, and it became
more difficult for Bessie to ignore than the run-of-the-mill releases
of blues shouters such as Clara Smith, Chippie Hill, Sara Martin,
and Bessie Tucker. (There were, incidentally, about a dozen sing-
ing Smith girls, none related to Bessie.)
The momentum of Bessie's enormous popularity carried her
easily into 1927, but in her soberest moments she must have no-
ticed that as her recorded output was going down, Ethel Waters'
career was on the upswing. Having already experimented with
the Tin Pan Alley type of song in 1925 ( At the Christmas Ball)
and 1926 (her own composition Baby Doll), Bessie tackled more
such non-blues material in 1927, including After You've Gone,
There'll Be a Hot Time in Old Town Tonight, Muddy Water, Al-
exanders Ragtime Band, Lock and Key, A Good Man Is Hard to
Find, and Them's Graveyard Words. Her attempts at big-city so-
phistication in diction and delivery probably succeeded only in
cutting off some of her remaining Southern support without win-
ning over wise urbanites at all. She was soon back to the blues
format again, singing magnificently on numbers like Mean Old
Bed Bug Blues, Foolish Man Blues, and Dyin by the Hour.
About this time, she recorded her superb Back Water Blues and
the even better Preachin the Blues, with James P, Johnson pro-
viding the most virile piano accompaniment Bessie had ever had
Throughout 1927, the still popular singer kept busy with shows
and revues, including her own Harkm Frolics, with a company
of forty dancing girls. She toured the South as usual, but also
found a receptive audience in Chicago, where many Southerners
had settled since the war. With her visits to Chicago from 1924 to
2JJ2 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
1928, Bessie left a solid impression on a whole generation of ap-
prentice jazzmen there.
"There she is," pianist Art Hodes reminisced in his magazine
Jazz Record. "Resplendent is the word, the only one that can de-
scribe her. Of course, she ain't beautiful, although she is to me. A
white, shimmering evening gown, a great big woman and she
completely dominates the stage and the whole house when she
sings the Yellow Dog Blues. Ah! I don't know, she just reaches
out and grabs and holds me. There's no explainin' her singing, her
voice. She don't need a mike; she don't use one. I ain't sure if
them damn nuisances had put in their appearance in that year.
Everybody can hear her." Hodes noted, "As she sings she walks
slowly around the stage. Her head, sort of bowed. From where
I'm sittin' I'm not sure whether she even has her eyes open. On
and on, number after number, the same hush, the great perform-
ance, the deafening applause. We won't let her stop. What a
woman."
"Every note that woman wailed vibrated on the tight strings of
my nervous system," Mezz Mezzrow wrote many years later.
"Every word she sang answered a question I was asking."
"... the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, who planted the seed,
and then Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Bix, Jimmy Noone . . .
and Bessie Smith," said Bud Freeman. "Our style, 'Chicago style/
came from all of that."
"That spring Bessie Smith also came to town," remembers
Eddie Condon. "We went to hear her at the Paradise, a battered
joint with the buttons off at Thirty-fifth and Calumet. The first
night Bix turned his pockets inside out and put all his dough on
the table to keep her singing. We had been raised on her records;
we knew she was the greatest of all the blues singers; but she was
better than any of us could possibly have anticipated."
In 1928, Bessie broke with her manager, Frank Walker, who
had long taken a sincere interest in the singer's welfare. She still
made trips to the Columbia recording studios, although some of
the singing seemed mechanical and the material she worked with
was frequently inferior. The voice was still full and strong, but the
words were often contrived, sometimes bordering on the porno-
graphic, and Bessie seemed more caught up in theatrical Northern
ways (the popular ways of Ethel Waters and of the recently de-
BESSIE SMITH 233
ceased Florence Mills) than she ever had been. Nevertheless, she
could still knock out a deep blues at will, as she did on Wash-
woman's Blues, recorded in August, 1928, Her last recording that
year the next session was not to be until more than eight months
later was, appropriately, Me and My Gin.
It was mostly downhill now. Bessie flopped at New York's Con-
nie's Inn, a key location on the sophisticated nightclub circuit
The few recordings she turned out in 1929 are dominated by
trashy songs like Tm Wild About That Thing, I Got What It
Takes, and Youve Got to Give Me Some. Most of these are tossed
off with disdainful expediency, but two Nobody Knows You
When Tfoure Down and Out and Kitchen Man leave no doubt
that the great voice was still as true and strong as ever. There
were even intimations that Bessie had discovered how she might
adapt to the new environment of show tunes, cabaret dramatics,
and piquant balladry without sacrificing her leading assets-
power, projection, tone, and feeling. As of 1929, she had become
several times removed from the folk sources of her earlier blues
songs.
In October, she recorded a typical transient popular song,
Dont Cry, Baby, with James P. Johnson. Though not particularly
successful, this performance suggests where Bessie might have
traveled had her luck held out. Dont Cry, Baby is performed
with what Winthrop Sargeant might have called "the European
conception of melody" rather than with Bessie's old center-tone
Ma Rainey-like technique. In effect, she was coming around to
Ethel Waters' outlook on jazz singing to treat the melody as an
instrumentalist would. Unhappily, this change failed to alter Bes-
sie's fortunes, and the downward slide continued.
In 1929, Bessie made her only film appearance, in a two-reel
short called S*. Louis Blues, which also features a band under
James P. Johnson's direction and a large choir. The sound track is
crude and the scenario hopelessly offensive, but Bessie was al-
lowed to let her voice all the way out, with fine results. It's too
bad that we didn't make a feature picture out of this," an execu-
tive of RCA Photophone remarked to W. C. Handy at the time.
The film soon disappeared, rarely to be seen again in the United
States until long after Bessie's death.
A new kind of blues market bloomed in 1928 and 1929, but it
MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
failed to help Bessie very muck These were the best years for the
big-city blues players and singers, especially the boogie-woogie
pianists. Into the spotlight stepped performers like Cow Cow
Davenport, Will Ezell, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Romeo Nelson,
Pine Top Smith, Montana Taylor, and Rufus "Speckled Red"
Ferryman, whose masculine, optimistic blues styles replaced the
moaning and wailing blues of the Smith girls and all their imi-
tators. A rugged amalgam of hokum, stomps, country blues, old
dance rhythms, and urban party games, the music now called
boogie-woogie (piano) and skiffle (add jugs, washboards, and
kazoos) had been gathering force since 1925, particularly in Chi-
cago. Bessie was, of course, aware of this group of players (espe-
cially one of the most creative of them, Jimmy Yancey, at whose
home she sometimes stayed while in Chicago), but she did not
identify her stage act with their back-room informality. She used
only "high class" musicians trained instrumentalists of the jazz
world for her shows.
Another trouper caught in a kind of middle ground similar to
Bessie's was guitarist-singer Lonnie Johnson. Johnson was a supe-
rior jazz guitar player but earned most of his money as a singer of
blues, many of them salacious. Like Bessie, he recorded blues ex-
tensively but preferred to regard himself an all-around musician,
as authoritative with ballads and jazz pieces as with twelve-bar
Freudian imagery. The two singers toured in Southern theaters
together several times in 1929. "Nobody I know could sing better
than Bessie," Johnson has recalled. "She didn't mind shouting
over a crowd to wake them up and make them listen to her sing.
She didn't need a microphone, either. Bessie was lively and full
of fun," he added, "but nobody could push her around."
Perhaps she had felt Frank Walker was "pushing her around,"
but without his guidance (which included putting her on an al-
lowance), Bessie was soon burning up money much faster than it
was coming in, even after she separated from Gee and moved to a
modest home in New York. (Gee had managed Bessie's own
show, called the The Midnight Steppers, just before the breakup,
with unimpressive results.) She could ill afford layoffs; yet in
1930, as clarinetist Edmond Hall remembers it, Bessie "wasn't
doing anything. ... It was a long time before I even found out
BESSIE SMITH 235
that Bessie Smith was living in the apartment next to mine," Hall
recalls. "She was just about on her way out then."
In 1930, Bessie recorded just eight tunes, none of them deep
blues of the sort she had once been famous for. Her voice was not
responding with consistency now. There is a touch of strain in her
performances of New Orleans Hop Scop Blues and See If fll
Care, although On Revival Day and Hustliri Dan, recorded a few
weeks later, show her in fine form. In fact, on the day that she
turned out On Revival Day and Moan You Moaners (June 9,
1930), both rendered in a pseudogospel style, Bessie sang from a
resonant low A-flat to a strong high E, a very respectable range,
And in these recordings is still more evidence of Bessie's changing
outlook on her own role in show business at that time; she was
definitely trying to achieve a tuneful quality in a substantial por-
tion of her work, eschewing the blues chants of her early career.
Another year passed. Two more recording sessions were held in
1931* ending her long association with the Columbia company.
These dates seemed to be deliberate attempts to go back to the
old shouting blues style of 1924. Bessie plays her part well, singing
Long Old Road effectively (around a center tone on the fifth in-
terval of the tonic), but the tongue-in-cheek antics of her musi-
cians give the secret away. Trumpeter Louis Bacon and trombon-
ist Charlie Green obviously did not feel this was the way jazz
should be played in 1931. Though still in command of her mar-
velous voice, Bessie began to have some breathing problems
about this time, most noticeably on Safely Mama ( a dreary set of
coarse metaphors), where she seems unable to complete normal
cadences without bobbing up for more air.
Following the last six years of Bessie Smith's life is not unlike
attempting to chronicle the death throes of a whale. Occasionally
the subject surfaces to register its agony, but most of the process
takes place below and out of sight. Bessie put in well-remembered
appearances now and then, but much of her remaining time was
spent knocking about the South, playing theaters or anyplace that
would have her. Professional jazz fan John Hammond arranged
for and supervised her final recording date, in 1933, an occasion
that found her in good spirits and quite acceptable voice. The
band, which included trumpeter FranMe Newton, tenor saxo-
236 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
phonist Chu Berry, Jack Teagarden, and Benny Goodman, was
probably the best studio group she ever had. On the four tunes
recorded that day (Do Jour Duty, Tm Down in the Dumps,
Gimme a Pigfoot, and Take Me for a Buggy Ride), Bessie returns
to her mid-twenties shout, clinging to tonic tones and thirds most
of the way, with happy, if not distinguished, results. It was as
good a note on which to end her recorded career as any, consider-
ing the hard times that were yet to come.
She surfaced again in early 1936 to sing on Fifty-second Street
in a blues and jazz concert. Carl Van Vechten, leader of a group
of New York intellectuals who admired Bessie's music, told (in
Jazz Record magazine) of photographing the singer at tiiat time:
*. . . she came to see me between shows, cold sober and in a
quiet, reflective mood She could scarcely have been more amiable
or co-operative."
With the worst of the Depression behind her and some fresh
recognition, Bessie must have felt better about her future in early
1937. A run at Connie's Inn the season before, new shows, new
tours, and some possibilities for film and recording work sug-
gested that 1938 was to be her happiest year in a long, long time.
The blues men were making a comeback as the nation pulled
out of its colossal slump, and Bessie asked Lonnie Johnson, about
to record again after a five-year lapse, to join her new fall tour
with a show called Broadway Rasius. Johnson felt a premonition
of disaster and turned down the offer. Days later, Bessie Smith lay
dead in Mississippi, the victim of a ghastly highway collision.
"Someways, you could almost have said beforehand that there
was some kind of accident, some bad hurt, coming to her," Sidney
Bechet observed in later years. "It was like she had that hurt in-
side her all the time, and she was just bound to find it."
Bessie Smith's magnificent voice and direct approach to the
blues left their mark on almost every singer including Ethel
Waters who ever heard her in person or on records. Jazz musi-
cians were deeply affected by her work, too, largely because it
contained the sort of fundamental order and integrity they strove
to bring to their instrumental styles. Unlike the supper-club sing-
ers, Bessie was, in her best days, totally involved with but one
goal to sing the blues better than anyone else. She was com-
pletely successful in doing just that Up to 1927, her singing was
BESSIE SMITH 237
unmarred by affectations or phony diction. Jazzmen hailed Bes-
sie's honesty and earthiness and winced as otherwise beguiling
singers, such as Ethel Waters, fell into jarring mannerisms the
rolled V was one alien to their natural speech.
Bessie brought dignity, even majesty, to the blues in much the
same way that Louis Armstrong did. Her recordings were models
of simple but eloquent expression for countless instrumentalists.
And she accomplished this in the language of common folk, one-
and two-syllable words that all could understand Jazzmen, al-
ways interested in the most direct, unvarnished forms of self-
expression, liked that, too.
Ethel Waters, unlike Bessie, borrowed many of her ideas from
jazz musicians. Her voice was a fine instrument upon which she
improvised, ran chord changes, and learned to swing in a most
modern way. (Her Sweet Georgia Brown, recorded in 1925, was
fifteen years ahead of its time, despite the stodgy accompani-
ment.) Ethel's outlook had even more influence than Bessie's, but
only over other singers, not instrumentalists. From Ethel's easy-
swinging, slightly cynical, and very worldly approach came the
styles of the finest girl singers of the thirties Lee Wiley, Mildred
Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday (compare Ethels 1929
Travellin All Alone with Billie's later recorded version).
Bessie was also deeply admired by all these singers, but none of
them possessed the natural power to follow her example, even if it
had been commercially feasible to do so. Billie Holiday, more
than any other popular singer, preserved some of Bessie's chant-
ing blues expression, but she put the idea to an altogether new use
in her unique style. Probably the closest approximation of Bessie's
sweeping vocal command and rafter-ringing projection is the
voice of Mahalia Jackson, who is able to perform seriously in the
musical idiom of the mid-twenties by dealing only in gospel songs.
Tn New Orleans, where I lived as a child," Miss Jackson once
told an interviewer, *1 remember singing as I scrubbed the floors.
It would make the work go easier. When the old people weren't
home, I'd turn on a Bessie Smith record and play it over and over.
Careless Love, that was the blues she sang."
No singer or musician who heard Bessie Smith sing, if only on a
recording, ever forgot the experience.
238 JAZZ MASTEBS OF IHE TWENTIES
Recommended Reading
Bechet, Sidney: Treat It Gentle, Hill and Wang, New York (1960).
Handy, W. C., and Abbe Niles: A Treasury of the Blues, Boni, New
York (1949)-
Oliver, Paul: Bessie Smith, Barnes, New York (1961).
Sargeant, Winthrop: Jazz: Hot and Hybrid, Button, New York (1946) .
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.): Hear Me Talkin' to Ya,
Rinehart, New York (i955)-
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : The Jazz Makers, Grove, New
York (1958).
Waters, Ethel: His Eye Is on the Sparrow, Doubleday, New York
Recommended Listening
The Bessie Smith Story, Vols. i, 2, 3, 4, COLUMBIA CL 855, CL 856,
CL 857, CL 858.
The Jazz Makers (one track), COLUMBIA CL 1036.
Jazz, Vol. 2 (one track), FOLKWAYS FP 55.
Jazz, Vol. 4 (one track), FOLKWAYS FP 59.
The Perry Bradford Story (one track), CRISPUS-ATTUCKS PB 101.
Great Blues Singers, RIVERSIDE RLP 12-121.
Blues: Ma Eainey, RIVERSIDE RLP 12-108.
Ma Eainey: Broken Hearted Blues, RIVERSIDE RLP 12-137.
Juanita Hatt Sings the Blues, COUNTERPOINT CPST 556.
EDDIE LANG
THE ONE major jazz figure of the twenties about whom relatively
little has been written is guitarist Eddie Lang. Perhaps because
there is general agreement among critics and musicians as to this
man's singular influence over other jazz guitarists, or possibly
owing to a lack of colorful extramusical digressions in his life
story, Lang has never been considered particularly good copy.
Nonetheless, it was this mild young man from Philadelphia who,
as modern jazzman Barney Kessel expressed it, "first elevated the
guitar and made it artistic" in jazz. Eddie Lang, working without
precedent or predecessor, virtually wrote the book on jazz guitar
in the twenties.
Lang was born Salvatore Massaro in 1904 (some jazz historians
say 1902), the son of a South Philadelphia banjo and guitar
maker. Sidestepping the instruments of his fathers trade for a
time, Eddie (whose professional name was apparently lifted from
a boyhood basketball hero) devoted several years of his child-
hood to studying the violin. He shared his problems and triumphs
during this time with another young violinist, Joe Venuti, who at-
tended grammar and high school with Eddie and remained his
closest friend until the guitarist's death. Eddie studied with Pro-
fessors Changura and Luccantino and was almost certainly
trained in solfeggio (sight singing) as well (Venuti commenced
his reading exercises when he was just four. )
"Solfeggio, of course," Venuti explained in Down Beat maga-
zine years later, "that's the Italian system under which you don't
bother much about any special instrument until you know all the
fundamentals of music. It's the only way to learn music right"
Lang and Venuti worked a dance job with pianist Bert Estlow's
quintet at Atlantic City's L'Aiglon restaurant in 1921 or 1922.
Though Lang was still playing violin, he apparently picked up
banjo ( and probably guitar) at or shortly before this time, for the
following season found him playing banjo with Charlie Kerr s or-
chestra. He experimented with the four-string banjo at first and
kter spent some time playing a six-string guitar-banjo, but the
240 JAZZ MASTERS OF TEDS TWENTIES
harsh sounds of these instruments obviously were not to his hieing.
Red Nichols remembers hearing Lang on guitar behind Venuti's
violin in 1923, playing concert music at the Knickerbocker Hotel
in Atlantic City. The two friends had been working up duets of
one sort or another since childhood.
"We used to play a lot of mazurkas and polkas," Venuti has re-
called. "Just for fun, we started to play them in 4/4. 1 guess we
just like the rhythm of the guitar. Then we started to slip in some
improvised passages. I'd slip something in, Eddie would pick it up
with a variation. Then I'd come back with a variation. We'd just
sit there and knock each other out."
In addition to Nichols, a number of soon-to-be-influential
musicians played Atlantic City in the early twenties. Young play-
ers like the Dorsey brothers and Russ Morgan (all working with
the Scranton Sirens) admired and relaxed with Lang and VenutL
Later, these friends were helpful in lining up lucrative jobs in top
bands for the Philadelphia boys.
Eddie, back in Atantic City for the 1924 summer season after
working winter jobs with the Scranton Sirens and others, met and
sat in with a young novelty group from St. Louis, the Mound City
Blue Blowers. This brash trio (Red McKenzde, comb; Dick Slevin,
kazoo; Jack Bland, banjo) was riding high on its hit recording of
Arkansas Blues, cut four or five months earlier that year. The
Blue Blowers were booked into the Beaux Arts Cafe, a club
owned by two Philadelphia entrepreneurs, Joe Moss and Nookie
Johnson. In casual jam sessions, die uncommon sound of Lang's
guitar added harmonic flesh and rhythmic bones to the rather
rickety sound of the little group, and by August, Eddie was taken
on as a regular member. He traveled to New York and a stint at
the famed Palace Theater with the Blue Blowers; but for a while,
Lang continued to play in Atlantic City, commuting to New
York only when needed for theater or recording dates. From this
time on, Eddie was never without plum jobs at the highest going
rates except when he wanted to be.
In the fall of 1924, the Blue Blowers played the Piccadilly Hotel
in London and a short engagement in Limehouse at a place called
Haggarty's Empire. England's reaction seems to have been rather
mixed at best, for the quartet was back in New York before the
end of the year. Mound City Blue Blowers recordings of late 1924
EDDIE LANG 241
and early 1925 document the sound of Eddie Lang at this junc-
ture.
A piece called Deep Second Street Blues reveals that Lang had
already fixed several aspects of his personal style and was well on
the way toward establishing the guitar as an important band in-
strument as weU. For one thing, Eddie, like comb player McKen-
zie, knew how to get inside a blues and express himself convinc-
ingly in this essentially Southern idiom. Deep Second Street, for
all its emphasis upon novelty effects, is performed with genuine
blues feeling, a feeling Lang apparently acquired quite easily and
was never to lose, even on very commercial assignments. Deep
Second Street also has Lang playing rhythm in a manner that was
highly personal and distinctly advanced for the time. His tend-
ency was toward an even four-to-the-bar pulse, often with a new
chord position, inversion, or alteration on every stroke of the
strings. In contrast to the monotonous chopping of most banjoists
of the day, Eddie's ensemble guitar sparkled with passing tones,
chromatic sequences, and single-string fills. With all this went a
firm, individual tone unlike the sound of any other instrument yet
heard in jazz.
Another moody piece called Play Me Slow demonstrates many
of these same qualities, as well as Lang's early mastery of varying
vibratos (often adapted from violin techniques) and the startling
sound of "artificial" harmonics the technique, seldom used in
jazz, of barely touching the string to achieve overtones an octave
higher than normally sound in the given fret position.
For faster selections, such as Tiger Rag and Gettin* Told, Lang
often reverts to straight 4/4 rhythm or to a "walking" line in 2/4
or 4/4 on his lowest string in the manner of a string-bass player.
The Mound City Blue Blowers' somewhat rustic library was
hardly a challenge to Lang's advanced ear. Like most of the out-
standing jazzmen of the twenties, the guitarist's most valuable
asset was his ability to hear and grasp new material upon a single
exposure to it. Lang had a photographic memory and a perfect
sense of pitch. "He had the best ear of any musician I ever knew,*
wrote guitarist Jack Bland many years after working with Lang in
the Blue Blowers. "He could go into another room and hit A and
come back and play cards for fifteen minutes, and then tune his
instrument perfectly. I've seen that happen *
342 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
In the summer of 1925, Lang and Venuti landed in Atlantic
City again. The resort town was, as usual, full of live music. The
Benson Orchestra was booked into the Million Dollar Pier, the
Mason-Dixon Seven worked the Steel Pier, the Calif ornia Night-
hawks were at Evelyn Nesbitt's Silver Slipper, and the Dance-
land Seven, with whom Venuti played for a while, appeared in a
show called The Wild Ways of 1925 at the Beaux Arts. The
Mound City Blue Blowers, with Lang, also put in some time
there that summer, and Venuti could often be found playing with
them, with or without pay. Everyone sat in with everyone else
from time to time.
Although the Mound City Blue Blowers continued to delight
audiences in movie houses ( a . . . at a theater date in Minneapolis
on a Friday night they had to take the picture off three times be-
cause the crowd was clapping so hard, especially for Lang, 1 *
Bland has recalled), it was obvious that their peak of success had
been passed and equally obvious that Lang could do much better
elsewhere. From late 1925 on, the guitarist was more in demand
than perhaps any other jazz musician in the country. He was es-
pecially valuable on recordings, where microphone balance
could easily compensate for the guitar's lack of carrying power.
Singers in particular discovered that Lang's sensitive chording
and striking single-string arpeggios added immeasurable class to
their performances, many of which were at the outset rather grim
affairs. A case in point is a recording by one Norman Clark, a pre-
electric-microphone shouter of the lowest order. His painful ver-
sions of Sleepy Time Gal and Lonesomest Gal in Town are gilded
with superlative guitar accompaniments, complete with ringing
artificial harmonics and advanced single-string runs. Other
highly forgettable singers to whom Lang gave his best were
Charles Kaley, Harold Lem, Seger Ellis, Russell Douglas, Peggy
English, Emmett Miller, Lee Morse, Ruth Etting, Sammy Fain,
CM Edwards, and Vaughn de LeatL
By late 1925, Eddie was also recording with Ross Gorman's re-
spected studio band (with members often drawn from Paul
Whiteman's orchestra), along with other rising instrumental stars
like Red Nichols, Miff Mole, and Jimmy Dorsey. On these dates,
Lang's guitar was sometimes featured as a solo instrument only,
while a conventional banjo played rhythm in the background.
EDDIE LANG 243
Throughout this period, Eddie demonstrated constant improve-
ment and deepening in his command of the guitar and in his con-
cepts of the harmonic language of jazz. With Mole, Nichols and
Dorsey exploring new ideas alongside him, Lang began to hit his
full stride. On one Gorman tide, No More Worrying he tosses off a
virile blues-touched solo, played partly with pick and partly with
fingers. Other guitarists were amazed by Lang's ability to tuck the
pick into his palm, play with his fingers, and suddenly bring the
pick back again all without disturbing the flow of his solo.
With Lang's arrival, arrangers began to recognize the potential
of the guitar as a melody instrument. One of Gorman's scores,
Sleepy Time Gal, called for the unheard-of duet combination of
baritone saxophone and guitar in a surprisingly modern interlude.
With electrical recording methods, Lang's solo guitar became a
familiar sound to many record buyers. Often he was featured in
"hot" passages along with Venuti's violin, for where one man
went, the other usually followed
Eddie was favored by demanding bandleaders, too, because he
was, as jazzmen went, a reliable man to have on the job. He sel-
dom drank and was by nature a rather retiring person. Only his
passion for gambling games and an overwhelming urge to spend
every summer fishing with Venuti in Atlantic City were allowed to
intrude occasionally upon Lang's devotion to the guitar.
After a stint with the pit orchestra of Earl CarrolTs Vanities (co-
directed by Gorman and Don Voorhees), Eddie began in 1926 to
be heard in arrangements by outstanding jazz-slanted bands such
as Jean Goldkette's, Roger Wolfe Kahn s, and, eventually, Paul
Whiteman's. Lang and Venuti were continually drafted into such
organizations but frequently departed after short tenures. Some-
times it was the call of Atlantic City; often it was simply the lure
of steady radio and recording work in New York.
In the fall of 1926, Venuti and Lang turned out their first duet
record, Stringing the Blues (a thinly camouflaged Tiger Rag) and
Black and Blue Bottom. Venuti, displaying a good share of his
bag of violin tricks, is clearly the featured performer, but Lang's
clean four-to-the-bar pulse and pregnant chords are impressive.
Most musicians had never heard a guitarist of this caliber before,
except in classical and flamenco circles. Lang made many realize
that for small jazz groups, the guitar could offer subtlety, dynamic
244 JATT; MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
response, and flexibility beyond what the banjo was capable of
delivering. Some banjoists began studying the guitar in earnest,
An even wider audience of musicians and fans was reached
with a series of 1926-1927 recordings by Red Nichols and the Five
Pennies (also billed as the Redheads). Nichols' own work usually
suffered from overconcern with precision ("King Oliver s records
were full of mistakes * the cornetist once said, "So were ours, but
we tried to correct them"), but his little recording group gleamed
with new ideas and talent. He was given a relatively free hand to
try unusual tunes, original arrangements, and daring instrumental
effects. The gang Eddie worked with usually included Vic Ber-
ton, a trained and imaginative drummer who doubled on tym-
pani; Jimmy Dorsey, already regarded as a virtuoso alto saxo-
phonist and a very capable clarinetist; Arthur Schutt, a skilled
pianist with a deep knowledge of harmony and arranging tech-
niques; and Miff Mole, considered by New Yorkers in 1927 to be
without equal on trombone.
Lang may have played his old six-string guitar-banjo on a few
of these dates, but his important solo work was performed on the
plectrum guitar. Using a precise, powerful attack derived from
tight, high strings and a stout plectrum (pick), Eddie moved in
close to the microphone to achieve on records a vibrant, personal
sound as persuasive as the sounds of the horn players around him.
Further, he seemed completely at ease in the frequently tense at-
mosphere of Nichols' more advanced sessions.
The attitude of the Five Pennies was, in a way, a reflection of
the spirit of unrest and experimentation that marked much of the
world's music in the twenties. Indeed, the Nichols-Mole-Schutt
credo could be expressed by the comments of Heinrich Simon, an
observer of European formal music in the twenties: "The triad is
the symbol of bourgeois conformity in music ... a bore too
tenacious to be done away with, an undesirable to be ignored.
The same may be said of form . . . freedom of form is the slogan
of the day."
Hoagy Carmichaers Washboard Blues was such a departure
from conventional song forms. It includes, even in Nichols* simpli-
fied version, an unorthodox sixteen-bar melody ( originally written
as seventeen bars) leading to curiously altered blues sequences,
all heavily syncopated. Tommy Dorsey and Bix Beiderbecke had
EDDIE LANG 245
attempted to play the composition several years earlier in the
Gennett studios, but, as Dorsey expressed it in later years, "We
must have fooled with that piece for hours, but we never could
get to play it right."
Nichols featured Berton's tympani in a semimelodic role on
Washboard Blues and left room for Lang to improvise a splendid,
unusual countermelody. It was to remain one of the more creative
melodic solos of Eddie's career.
Another strange composition from this period is That's No Bar-
gain, which jazz writer Richard DuPage has described well:
"That's No Bargain broke nearly all the Tin Pan Alley rules of the
twenties. ... It has an even number of bars but it sounds un-
even, yet with a good beat throughout Hardly anyone could
whistle it correctly, even after several hearings. . . ."
The eighteen-bar chorus allotted to Lang on That's No Bargain
comes out as an intelligent, ordered, and understated solo played
against the basic pulse, creating the same mood the tune itself had
been designed to achieve.
These Nichols records range from noisy and contrived to pro-
phetic and breathtakingly adventurous, but Lang seems forever
unruffled, even complacent, on them all.
For at least one recording, Eddie apparently had his solo well
formed in his mind before beginning to play. It is Get a Load of
This, a Lang melody probably inspired in part by Bix Beider-
becke's ideas (the performance is full of flatted fifths, minor sev-
enths, parallel ninths, etc.) and played by a quartet made up of
Eddie, Nichols, Schutt, and Berton. Lang later developed this
piece into a guitar specialty called Eddie's Twister, without
changing his solo very much.
There were more Nichols dates in 1927. Some, like Cornfed, re-
veal that Lang, for all his brilliance as a soloist, accompanist, and
innovator, had unfortunate lapses as a rhythm player. Here there
is a tendency to allow his strings to ring too long, blurring and
casting a cloud of doubt over the exact location of each pulse. As
guitarist and Lang student Marty Grosz once summed it up, Ed-
die's rhythm sometimes sounds "a bit lumpy, like a guy running
with a pie in his pants."
Grosz explained: The Chicago guys felt that Lang didn 1 : realty
swing, and I'm inclined to go along to an extent At least, he ha
246 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
trouble swinging in the way that some of the Chicagoans did and
in the way his successors did. But I think we can overlook that for
the nonce. In his way he did so much, and it sounds so damn nat-
ural and easy. And he was first; he had to think the whole thing
out for himself," Grosz added. "It is always more difficult to lead
the way. Hence modern bass players can play rings around Jimmy
Blanton but Blanton was first and had the soul. Same with
Lang."
During 1927, Eddie appeared on many recordings in the com-
pany of Bix Beiderbecke and a variety of supporting players, usu-
ally mutual friends selected from the Goldkette or Whiteman
ranks. (Bix and Lang were both members of the short-lived 1927
Adrian Rollini band as well.) The most famous of these record-
ings are Singiri the Blues and Tm Comin 9 Virginia, on which Bix
went far toward establishing a robust ballad style in jazz. Lang
seemed to grasp the significance of the date, for his support of
Beiderbecke is in the arpeggio single-note style he usually re-
served for singers rather than "hot" instrumentaKsts. Moreover,
the rich chords, inversions, and alterations Lang selected were
valuable to Bix, whose quick ear promptly put such provocative
material to excellent use. For Tm Comin' Virginia, arranger Irving
Riskin wrote an unorthodox guitar lead over a brace of supporting
horns, emphasizing the string instrument's new independence,
which came in with Lang and electric microphones.
In several instances, Lang took on the large task of providing
nearly all the rhythmic thrust behind the horns as well as sharing
the front-line spotlight with Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer.
This occurs in Riverboat Shuffle, a band performance that suc-
ceeds in spite of drummer Chauncy Morehouse's halting contri-
butions.
One of Eddie's finest recorded solos of this period appears in a
trio version of Td Climb the Highest Mountain, slightly altered
and retitled For No Reason at All in C. Beiderbecke, playing
piano, turns about and supports Lang's guitar with anticipatory
modern chords, as Eddie had done for his cornet. The result is a
highly creative guitar solo marked by an unusual degree of me-
lodic continuity.
The influence of these outstanding Beiderbecke-Lang sessions
be heard in numerous bands, large and small, around 1927.
EDDIE LANG 347
Jean Goldkette, for whom Eddie worked only as an added attrac-
tion, used the guitar to advantage on his recordings. Lang can be
heard playing breaks and filling spaces in Bix s remarkable solo on
Goldkette's Clementine. Paul Whiteman also added Lang for spe-
cial assignments. When Eddie was unavailable, Whiteman some-
times called upon guitarists Gilbert Torres or Carl Kress to per-
form similar duties.
It was shortly before this time that Roger Wolfe Kahn, a
wealthy young man who decided to lead a band just for the fun of
it, bought out Arthur Lange's orchestra and began restocking its
ranks with the best New York talent available. Eventually, he was
able to secure Lang, Venuti, Arthur Schutt, Miff Mole, and Vic
Berton because the band spent much time in New York more
than two years at the Hotel Biltmore and the pay was generous.
Best of all for the musicians, Kahn's working hours were 11 P.M.
to i A.M., which meant plenty of outside recording, radio, and
theater work.
"Joe and Eddie were presented as a special attraction by them-
selves," pianist Schutt recalled. "Roger paid one price for the
pair. We averaged five to ten recordings a week and made a lot of
money $400 or $500 a week was usual, and in one seven-day pe-
riod I made $1,250. No one worked for scale that was an insult
We got double scale for casuals and $175 for one radio show. We
lived it up."
Eddie often supplemented his already large income with win-
nings from cards and billiards, at which he excelled He also
picked up some pin money working in a successful broadway
show called Rain or Shine.
In addition to countless commercial recordings during 1927 and
1928, Eddie and Joe stepped up their record output with duet,
trio, and quartet performances and, for Lang, an impressive set of
guitar solos. All these records combined amounted to a virtual
textbook on plectrum guitar playing that, in some respects, re-
mains valid and useful to guitarists to this day.
Lang's solo recordings range from a sensitive, rather formal
rendering of Prelude in C-sharp Minor to strong blueslike state-
ments, as in a piece called Melody Man's Dream (which begins
with a series of chromatic thirteenths ) . For blues numbers, he fre-
quently employed the "smear," a sliding across the fret that added
fcfS JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
to the tone something resembling a human cry. This device was
probably picked up from folk blues guitarists. And by using
downstrokes almost exclusively, Lang also approached the kind of
ringing authority and positive cadences usually associated with
horns rather than strings.
In passages such as his introductory cadenza to April Kisses,
Lang tosses off sixteenth-note and thirty-second-note single-string
runs with precision and ease. Sometimes he changed the angle of
the pick or the position of the stroke in relation to the fingerboard
to achieve special sounds.
Eddie's Twister, Lang's first recorded solo piece (and, as has
been mentioned, previously titled Get a Load of This), offers a
nearly complete kit of Eddie's ideas. Here can be found "dead
string" chords (achieved by dampening certain strings to obtain
desired chords without losing the impact of a full stroke), the
changing of fingers on the same fret to get a fresh attack, interval
jumps of a tenth to simulate the effect of a jazz pianist, parallel
ninth chords, whole-tone scalar figures, "smears," unusual glis-
sandi, artificial harmonics, harplike effects, consecutive aug-
mented chords, and relaxed, hornlike phrasing.
So it goes, through selections like Perfect, Rainbow Dreams,
TU Never Be the Same, Church Street Sobbin' Blues, and There'll
Be Some Changes Made (the last two issued under the name
Blind Willie Dunn).
Of Changes Made, Marty Grosz has written:
... it is a journey from Naples to Lonnie Johnsonville (New
Orleans, Natchez, South Side Chicago) in two and a half minutes.
After a cadenza right out of the bagnios of old Italy and a few
F. Scott Fitzgerald chords from pianist Signorelli, Lang proceeds to
play a slower than expected Changes in the simplest and yet most
eloquent manner . . . blue and melancholy as hell. It is a very
difficult matter to play a lead as -simply and directly as that and to
make it come to life, especially on guitar. Here is the real genius of
Sal Massaro. This is the honest bread stick How Eddie Lang found
out I don't know.
In addition to his roles as rhythm player, guitar soloist, Tiot*
man, and accompanist, Lang recorded as a blues specialist, usu-
ally under the Dunn pseudonym. Sometimes he worked with sing-
ers such as Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey, or Texas Alexander, and
EDDIE LANG wg
Lang was always careful to play elemental blues phrases rather
than delicate arpeggios behind these artists. Occasionally, he ap-
peared in sessions with instrumental groups that included older
men like Joe Oliver and Clarence Williams. He recorded Bne
straight-faced blues solos with a couple of hokum clarinetists
named Wilton Crawley and Boyd Senter. Best of all, he turned
out a dozen duets with New Orleans jazzman Lonnie Johnson,
one of the very few original guitar stylists (other than straight
folk blues players) in the kte twenties and, like Lang, an ex-
violinist. "Eddie could lay down rhythm and bass parts just like
a piano/' Johnson recalls. "He was the finest guitarist I had ever
heard in 1928 and 1929. I think he could play anything he felt
like."
If Lang suffered from problems with rhythm, they are not con-
spicuous on his duets with Johnsoa Together the two men charge
through original blues and stomp pieces with titles such as Two
Tone Stomp, Bullfrog Moan, and Handful of Riffs. One of the
most stunning of these performances is a bustling number called
Hot Fingers, where the two guitars sound like four.
By 1928, some of Lang's New York colleagues were turning to-
ward more earthy blues-touched styles on certain record dates,
and Eddie obliged by shifting to a matching mood. A pair of out-
standing examples of this development are Jimmy Dorsey s Pray-
ing the Blues and Tommy Dorsey's trumpet recording of It's
Right Here for You. Lang himself conducted one 1929 session in a
similar humor, on which the Dorseys, Arthur Schutt et al. display
obvious delight with their loose digressions from the old Red
Nichols discipline. Two reasons for these bluesy performances
(the Lang titles are Bugle Call Rag 3 Walkin the Dog, Freeze an
Melt, and Hot Heels) were the arrivals in New York of Jack Tea-
garden and Louis Armstrong, whose Southern blues deliverances
soon replaced the more ordered messages of Miff Mole and Bk
Beiderbecke in the affections of Eastern musicians. In short, the
gang had new heroes. For Eddie, it was easy; he already knew it
all.
This shift of interest within the New York clique toward the
blues and Louis Armstrong's blues, in particular is succinctly
expressed in a single recording of a casual jam session involving
Armstrong, Teagarden, Lang, and pianist Joe Sullivan, among
JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
others. Here these men play a simple and moving blues in a man-
ner that almost seems to say, "If you can't play a real blues, don't
bother to play jazz." The blues piece is called Knockin 9 a Jug. Ed-
die sets the mood of it and prudently stays out of Armstrong's
path while the trumpeter brings the affair to its climax.
Some of Lang's best work of the 1927-1930 period can be heard
on more than a score of records released under Joe Venuti's name.
The earliest of these frequently reveal the influence of Beider-
becke, through choice of material and manner of improvisation.
(Bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini, a convincing out-of-Bix soloist,
appears on many Venuti records.) In a tune called Sunshine,
made before Bix's classic Singin 9 the Blues, there are even intima-
tions of the new style soon to come from Beiderbecke. Again, the
famed cornetist's ideas seem to flow in and out of a selection
called Cheese and Crackers, on which Venuti plays a pizzicato
solo that sounds remarkably like Lang at the guitar.
One of the group's many "original" compositions is Doin 9
Things, which pianist Arthur Schutt developed from Debussy's
Maid with the Flaxen Hair. Another is A Mug of Ale (actually
Lmehouse Blues), a good jazz vehicle that allows Lang to
build a sixteen-bar spiral of ideas utilizing two-string chords and
arpeggios dissolving into single-string melodic units. Some of the
tunes borrow heavily from the perennial Tiger Rag. An unusual
composition is Pretty Trix, a charming concert piece on which
Lang achieves a Spanish-Latin American feeling while using his
fingers instead of the customary plectrum.
The Venuti-Lang quartet performances represent a pioneer
effort to present chamber jazz with a minimum of unmusical
effects or superfluous vocals and without any pretense of its being
anything but music for listening.
That Lang was still' at odds with the ardent Chicago gang in
matters of rhythm is dramatically demonstrated by a 1928 record-
ing with Red McKenzie and banjoist Eddie Condon called My
Baby Came Home. Condon, in the zealous Chicago manner,
pushes to the top of the beat, while Lang remains coolly an eye-
wink or so behind him. Both are acceptable ways of setting out
the rhythm, but not at the same time. Lang, however, was, unlike
Condon, an important soloist, and his solo style derived much of
its charm and impact from this penchant for laying back." And,
EDDIE LANG 2<1
as it turned out, it was Lang's way (or, more directly, the ways of
his successors) that triumphed in the thirties: the concept of an
even, relaxed, flowing rhythm against which the soloist was free to
build his own tension-and-release patterns rather than falling un-
der the whip of a highly aggressive rhythm guitarist.
Paul Whiteman, who had been unable to hold on to Lang and
Venuti more than a few weeks in 1927, hired the team once again
in May, 1929. This time they stayed for a year. Lang is featured
on many Whiteman recordings of this period, as well as in con-
certs, broadcasts, and the unsuccessful movie The King of Jazz.
He appeared with Venuti in duets and frequently could be heard
behind Whiteman's best vocalists, Mildred Bailey and Bing
Crosby. Whiteman himself wrote about this period in Down Beat
magazine a decade later:
Eddie played with our band over a long period of time during
which I had less trouble with rhythm than at any other time. ... I
don't even know whether he could read or not. It made no differ-
ence. ... No matter how intricate the arrangement was, Eddie
played it flawlessly the first time without ever having heard it be-
fore or looking at a sheet of music. It was as if his musically intui-
tive spirit had read the arranger's mind and knew in advance every-
thing that was going to happen.
Frank Trumbauer remembered Lang carrying the entire White-
man library in the form of cues written on the back of a small
business card. Whatever the details, it seems safe to assume that
Eddie played out his time with Whiteman almost entirely by ear.
Lang and Bing Crosby became fast friends during their stay
with the orchestra. The guitarist married a close friend of Dixie
Lee, Crosby s wife. Kitty Lang, a Ziegfeld Follies graduate, was
Eddie's second wife, and their marriage remained lastingly
successful.
About a month after Crosby's departure from Whiteman in the
spring of 1930, Venuti and Lang also dropped out. The orchestra
had been having trouble meeting its enormous payroll under De-
pression conditions, and with the coining of warm weather, Joe
and Eddie doubtless turned their thoughts to Atlantic City.
In 1931, Lang became full-time accompanist to Crosby, who
was beginning to build his fortune as a single performer. As Cros-
252 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
by's weekly income leaped toward five figures, Eddie dropped
many of his independent activities to concentrate on four theater
shows a day, Cremo Cigar broadcasts at night, and Crosby record
dates in between. When Crosby closed a deal for five film assign-
ments at $300,000, Lang went along to California. The guitarist
even made a brief appearance in The Big Broadcast of 1932.
Most of Lang s record work behind Crosby consists in single-
string fills and arpeggios, played as often with fingers as with pick.
Some of his more impressive accompaniments are How Long
Witt It Last?, Here Lies Love, and Please.
For all his preoccupation with the genesis of the Crosby image,
Eddie continued to find numerous extra recording jobs, jazz and
otherwise, He worked frequently with the Boswell Sisters, a jazz-
oriented vocal trio, displaying on pieces like Mood Indigo, It's the
Girl, and There'll Be Some Changes Made a new feathery touch,
combined with the steadfast 4/4 rhythmic flow, that was signal-
ing the coming of swing music and the end of the "hot" era. There
were, too, more dates with Venuti, notably four band selections
under the name Venuti-Lang All-Star Orchestra.
The All-Star session, which included Benny Goodman, Jack
Teagarden, and other contemporaries, was a curious mixture of
stomp and swing; yet most of the participants seemed to be look-
ing ahead to new developments of the thirties. Teagarden offers
his traditional Beale Street Blues, and a nod to the past can be
heard in Farewell Blues, but Someday Sweetheart and After
"You've Gone are harbingers of the sound of Benny Goodman,
circa 1935. Lang displays on these numbers an evolving style of
playing rhythm chords that would belong to the new decade.
Along with a handful of other guitarists, most of whom had taken
their inspiration from Lang, the quiet man from South Philadel-
phia had sealed the banjo's fate by 1932. (Duke Ellington's Fred
Guy, one of the last to give up banjo for guitar, made the switch
in 1933, a few weeks after Lang's death. )
Two guitar duets recorded with Carl Kress in 1932 document
Lang's continuing search for new possibilities on his instrument.
Pickin My Way and Feelin My Way are full of virtuoso tricks,
such as the achievement of a gruppetto effect (several neighbor-
ing notes used as embellishment just before or after a melody
note) with but a single stroke on the string. There is even a Ha-
EDDIE LANG 253
waiian sliding device used, of course, with taste and restraint
The two duets (and it should be mentioned that Kress, who used
a unique tuning system and a rhythm approach different from
Lang's, was a first-class performer) are the final chapters in Eddie
Lang's text. There were other recordings, but nothing new was
added to what had already been set out.
Eddie was still a young man of 28 in 1933, his last year, and was
looking forward to continued personal prosperity with Bing
Crosby. Crosby has given (in his autobiography Cdl Me Lucky)
the facts of Lang's untimely death.
He had a chronically inflamed sore throat and felt bad for a year or
eighteen months before his death. He mistrusted doctors and medi-
cine. Like many people who came from backgrounds similar to his
and had no experience with doctors or hospitals, he had an aversion
to them. But his throat was so bad and it affected his health to
such a point that I finally talked him into seeing a doctor.
Many times afterward I wished I hadn't
The doctor advised a tonsillectomy, and Eddie never came out
from under the general anesthetic they gave him . . . [he] devel-
oped an embolism and died without regaining consciousness.
The legacy left by Lang to jazz guitarists was colossal. Almost
alone he proved the desirability of the guitar as a band instru-
ment, making life more interesting for rhythm playersas well as
soloists than ever before. Setting an example for all to follow,
Eddie put to work technical devices, some established in formal
music and others of his own invention, that had never been used
in jazz before. More than thirty years after his death, guitarists are
still impressed by Lang's command of his instrument ("Artificial
harmonics?" exclaimed guitarist Jim Hall in 1962. "I know about
them, but the only man Ive heard use them in jazz recently is Tal
Farlow, who is probably the most technically advanced guitarist
we have today,")
From Lang, guitarists Carl Kress and Dick McDonough
evolved personal styles that in turn influenced many rhythm play-
ers in the thirties. Kress departed from Eddie's solo approach to
combine chords and melody simultaneously. George Van Eps,
also building on Lang's foundation, followed with a method of
playing melody, chords, and intelligent bass lines at the same time.
The Van Eps system was adopted or modified by many of the best
254 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES
rhythm guitarists Freddie Greene of the Count Basie band was
one during the thirties. Musicians also learned from Lang that
the guitar could be used to accompany singers as effectively as
could the piano.
Part of the credit for the advent of the guitar solo in jazz must
go to the electric microphone, but it was Lang who first put the
microphone to work in a creative way. The guitarist did not
merely play into the microphone, he used it to bring out his most
subtle ideas. In this way, Lang's work presaged the arrival of the
electric guitar, a development that followed his death by several
years. With or without electrical amplification, however, Eddie's
concept of hornlike single-string jazz solos was to remain the dom-
inant mode of self-expression on the instrument, from the Euro-
pean Django Reinhardt to Tal Farlow. There were other men
playing solo guitar in the twenties, musicians like Teddy Bunn,
Lonnie Johnson, and blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson, but none
approached Lang's finesse, technical command, resourcefulness,
and expressive scope all at once.
Eddie Lang set another kind of example as well. Like Bix Bei-
derbecke, he was a serious musician who dug deep into jazz but
also looked to formal music for inspiration. Despite Lang's reluc-
tance to read music, other jazzmen saw in him the complete musi-
cian, a man who would handle any assignment, including a ses-
sion with Bessie Smith, with authority and intelligence. He was
one of the first to disprove the notion (still held in some quarters)
that all-around musicianship and the spirit of jazz cannot go
together.
Unlike some of his gifted friends, Lang neither dashed himself
to pieces on the crags of self-indulgence nor shielded himself from
everyday reality through perpetuated adolescence; yet he fared
no better than the weakest of them at the end. In its way, his end
may have held the deepest irony of all.
Recommended Reading
Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith: Jazzmen, Harcourt,
Brace, New York (1939).
Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.): Hear Me TaUdtf to Y<z, Rine-
hart, New York (1955).
EDDIE LANG 255
Recommended Listening
Thesaurus of Classic Jazz, COLUMBIA C4L-i8.
The Bix Beiderbecke Story, Vols. 2 and 3, COLUMBIA CL-845, 846.
The Bix Beiderbecke Legend, RCA VICTOR LPM-2323.
Red Nichols: For Collectors Only, BRUNSWICK 54008.
Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, "X" LVA-sosG (deleted).
The Louis Armstrong Story, Vol. 4 (one track), COLUMBIA CL-854-
Jazz, Vol. 7 (one track), FOLKWAYS FP 67.
The Encyclopedia of Jazz on Records, Vol. i (one track), DECCA
8383-
Lang and Venuti: Stringin' the Blues, COLUMBIA C2L-24.