Musical Notes

“Charleston”
The Blues Chasers
(Perfect 14432)                                    May 1925

“What A Smile Can Do”
The Blues Chasers
(Perfect 14432-B)                                    May 1925

From the Edward Mitchell collection, here are two recordings on a fun record that will turn 100 years old a few months from now.

For many years, it was widely believed that the actual band behind the pseudonyms these recordings were issued under was Nathan Glantz’s band due to it being listed as such in Brian Rust’s American Dance Band Discography and his Jazz Records 1897-1942.

Because I consulted Rust’s discographies when preparing my show notes, this was the information that I passed along when I played the “Charleston” side on Radio Dismuke’s recent New Year’s broadcast.

However, when putting this update together, I discovered that, in recent years, a number of discographers have come to believe that the band was, in fact, William Polla’s Clover Garden Orchestra.

This copy of the record is on the Perfect label, which was a lower-priced subsidiary label of the American branch of the French-based Pathe Records.  Unfortunately, most of Pathe’s recording session ledgers are presumed to have been destroyed.  Brian Rust did not provide information as to his source for believing that the band was Nathan Glantz’s.

The author of the Polla discography, The Recordings of William Conrad Polla’s Clover Gardens Orchestra, provides several pieces of evidence in support of the view that the band was Polla’s.  The most convincing to me was the fact Pathe’s parent company imported the master of “Charleston” and made it available for release in France on the Salabert label, which credited the band as the Clover Garden Orchestra.   It was common practice for Pathe to issue recordings from its American subsidiary for the French market using a band’s actual name rather than the pseudonyms that were frequently used on American issues. For more information, you can read the Polla discography via the Internet Archive at this link – scroll to page 6 for details about these recordings.

“Charleston” is the song that is still most widely associated with the 1920s decade and helped popularize the wildly popular dance of the same name.   The song was introduced in the 1923 Broadway production Runnin’ Wild, which had an all-black cast.

The first recording of “Charleston” was embedded within an October 3, 1923 Vocalion recording by the Ambassadors of “Old Fashioned Love,” another famous song from the production.  That recording is in Radio Dismuke’s playlist.

The first standalone recording of the song was made one week later by Arthur Gibbs and his Gang on Victor.

The recording presented here will be the eighth version of the song to be added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist.  In a previous blog posting, I featured an April 1925 Edison Diamond Disc recording of the song by the California Ramblers under the pseudonym of the Golden Gate Orchestra, which you can listen to at this link.

Both of the recordings in this posting were issued on Perfect under the pseudonym of “The Blues Chasers.”  But on parent label Pathe, they were credited to the “Westchester Biltmore Orchestra”

Pathe supplemented the revenues it received from sales of its own Pathe and Perfect discs by leasing out its master recordings to other record labels.  This recording of Charleston was one such recording – and it was issued on several labels under an array of pseudonyms.

On the Bell label, the recording was credited to the “Hollywood Ramblers.”  On Oriole, it was credited to the “Dixie Jazz Band.” On Banner, Regal and Domino, it was credited to the “Six Black Diamonds.” The National Music Lovers label credited it to the “Manhattan Musicians.” And, rather bizarrely, on Silvertone, a label sold through Sears & Roebuck, it was credited as Lanin’s Roseland Orchestra – which was the name of an actual band that had no part in this recording session.

No doubt that many record buyers over the past ten decades have purchased one of these releases believing that they have come across a different version of “Charleston” for their collection – only to discover upon playing it that it was the exact same recording they already had on some other label under a different pseudonym.

“What A Smile Can Do” is a largely forgotten song –  but I think the version on this record is quite charming.

While Victor and Columbia were increasingly using microphones in their recording sessions by May 1925,  Pathe/Perfect still used acoustical recording horns.

“Dallas Blues”
Ted Lewis And His Band; Thomas “Fats” Waller, vocal & piano
(Columbia 2527 D mx 151397)          March 6, 1931

“Royal Garden Blues”
Ted Lewis And His Band; Thomas “Fats” Waller, vocal & piano
(Columbia 2527 D mx 151398)        March 6, 1931

From the Edward Michell collection, here are two recordings from a historic 1931 recording session that I played on the recent Radio Dismuke New Year’s broadcast, and which are being added to the station’s playlist.

This recording session with Ted Lewis and His Band is historic because it marked Thomas “Fats” Waller’s first appearance on records as a vocalist.  The only mention of Waller on the record labels from that session was the description “fox trot vocal refrain” – a common practice for dance band recordings of that era.

This was by no means Waller’s first recording session. Since 1922, he had made dozens of records for OKeh, Victor, and Columbia as a piano and pipe organ soloist.  In December 1929, Waller provided comedic dialogue while Clarence Williams sang the vocal on The Seven Gallon Jug Band’s recording of “Wipe ‘Em Off” for Columbia.   And Waller was already internationally famous as the composer of songs such as “Ain’t Misbehavin” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”

With the onset of the Great Depression and slowing record sales, Waller became concerned as opportunities for recording sessions suddenly dried up, and he consulted his publisher and agent, Joe Davis.  Pointing out that there was only a limited market for piano solo recordings, Davis suggested that Waller broaden their appeal by singing on such records.  Waller scoffed at the idea, feeling that his voice was not good enough to be on records.

In late 1930, Waller accepted a job as the organist on a new 13-week pilot radio program on CBS, Paramount On Parade.  On the radio, he was not able to incorporate the outrageous facial expressions that were a successful part of his in-person performances.  To compensate, he began to sing in a manner intended to achieve the same comedic effect.  It was an immediate success; the program became so popular its timeslot was expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, and its contract was renewed for an additional 13 weeks.

Joe Davis seized upon the radio success of Waller’s vocals to secure some recording sessions for him.  He first approached management at the top-selling label, Victor, who expressed no interest in having Fats Waller sing.  He then persuaded the popular music director at the number two label, Columbia, to listen in on Paramount On Parade.  Impressed with what he heard, the director saw that the next recording session on Columbia’s schedule was with the Ted Lewis band and successfully persuaded Lewis to include Waller.

The two-day recording session on March 5 and 6, 1931, resulted in four sides.  Among the musicians in Lewis’s band were Benny Goodman on clarinet, Mugsy Spanier on trumpet, and Bud Freeman on tenor sax.

One of those sides, “Egyptian Ella,” recorded March 5, in which Waller did not participate, eventually became one of Lewis’ better-remembered recordings.

That same day, Waller performed piano and vocal on one of his own compositions, “I’m Crazy ‘Bout My Baby (And My Baby’s Crazy ‘Bout Me).”  The following day, Waller performed on both of the recordings featured here.

Fats Waller’s son, Maurice, later wrote that Ted Lewis was somewhat annoyed at being asked to include Waller in the session, fearing he might be upstaged.  During Waller’s piano solo in “Dallas Blues,” Lewis provides a bit of brief vocal patter followed by his trademark expressions “Is Everybody Happy?” and “Yes sir!”   According to Maurice Waller,  this was not planned and was entirely spontaneous on Lewis’s part.  (To be fair, it should be pointed out that it was not uncommon for Lewis to provide similar comments during his own musician’s jazz solo passages.).

Columbia was sufficiently pleased that they invited Waller back a week later to make two additional vocal recordings, accompanying himself on piano.

Victor executives eventually changed their mind about having Fats Waller perform vocals as he later sang on well over 200 sides cut by Victor between 1934 and 1942.

Waller’s unique vocal recordings not only made him one of the top musical stars of the era but also helped him gain greater recognition as one of the great jazz pianists.

“The Mooche”
Duke Ellington And His Cotton Club Orchestra
(Brunswick 4122)                                    October 17, 1928

Here is a haunting Duke Ellington recording I came across in the Edward Mitchell collection of one of Ellington’s more famous compositions.

In October 1928, Ellington’s band made four separate recordings of “The Mooche” for different record labels. At the time, his band was not under an exclusive contract with any particular label and was thus free to make recordings for multiple labels. Each of the four versions is a bit different from the others.

Ellington’s first recording of the song was for the OKeh label on October 1, 1928, credited as Duke Ellington And His Orchestra.

Shortly after that (the exact day in October is not known), the band recorded it again for Cameo Records, which had recently merged with Pathe Records.  That version was issued on Cameo and its subsidiary Romeo and Lincoln labels credited under the pseudonym The Washingtonians, and on Pathe and its subsidiary label, Perfect, under the pseudonym of The Whoopee Makers.

The band made the recording featured here, credited as Duke Ellington And His Cotton Club Orchestra, for Brunswick on October 17, 1928.

Finally, the band made recorded a fourth version for Victor on October 30, 1928 which was also credited to Duke Ellington And His Cotton Club Orchestra.

All of the versions, besides the one recorded for Victor, feature the stylized trumpet playing of Bubber Miley that helped define the sound of the Ellington band for several years.

At 56 seconds into the recording here, Ellington himself performs a piano solo passage. That passage features other instruments on the OKeh and Victor recordings.  The Cameo/Pathe recording also features the piano solo by Ellington, but he performs it a bit differently.

The OKeh version also features a scat passage by Ellington’s female vocalist Baby Cox and is my favorite of the four – though that does not diminish the excellence of the Brunswick version.

In 1938, a few years after the American Record Corporation had taken control of both the Brunswick and OKeh labels, the October 1, 1928 OKeh recording was reissued on Brunswick 8241.   Thus, one can find two versions on Brunswick – the original Brunswick recording featured here and the 1938 reissue of the OKeh version.

I am pretty sure I have come across a copy of the Victor version of “The Mooche” in my personal collection – though, if so, I am not sure what condition it is in.  And, it is entirely possible that, as I go through Eddie’s collection, I will come across one or more of the other versions.  If so, I will prioritize them for digitization and inclusion in Radio Dismuke and, perhaps, another update on this blog.

In the meanwhile, the other versions have been happily uploaded by other collectors to YouTube and can be heard and compared at the following links:

YouTube recording of the October 1, 1928 OKeh version

YouTube recording of the Cameo/Pathe Washingtonians/Whoopee Makers version

YouTube of the October 30, 1928 Victor version (performed on an unusual and superb-sounding vintage machine) 

“Mooche” is a slang term that can mean either a person who takes advantage of another person’s generosity without giving anything in return or to walk and go about slowly and aimlessly.  Ellington indicated that the song’s title referred to the second meaning.

“Mocosita”
Orquesta Tipica Victor
(Victor 79688-A)                           July 5, 1926

“Acordate”
Orquesta Tipica Victor
(Victor 79688-B)                           July 5, 1926

Here are two tango recordings from Argentina being added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist.

Orquesta Tipica Victor, i.e., the Victor Tango Orchestra, was an in-house studio band formed in 1925 by Adolfo Carabelli, the music director for the Buenos Aries branch of the Victor Talking Machine Company.   Under the leadership of various directors, the band had well over 400 recordings to its credit before its last one was made in 1944.  

“Mocosita” was a well-known tango composed in 1925 by Uruguayan composer Gerardo Matos Rodríguez.

“Acordate” was composed by Raúl Ruiz Moreno.  While I was able to find mention of a number of other songs he composed, I was not able to locate any biographical information about him.

Tango music was popular during the 1920s and 1930s, not just in South America but worldwide, especially in Germany and Eastern Europe.   Both recordings here were also issued in the United States, Germany and Spain.  My strong guess is they were also issued in the United Kingdom and probably other countries.

“Stormy Weather”
Elmer Feldkamp & His Orchestra; Elmer Feldkamp, vocal
(Crown 3481-A mx 2039)                        March 1933

“Was That The Human Thing To Do”
Bert Lown And His Orchestra; Elmer Feldkamp, vocal
(Victor 22908-A)                                     January 12, 1932

“And Then Your Lips Met Mine”
Bert Lown And His Hotel Biltmore Orchestra; Elmer Feldkamp, vocal
(Victor 22582-A)                                     November 24, 1930

If you collect 1930s dance band 78 rpm records, you will inevitably start seeing the name Elmer Feldkamp, a then well-known vocalist who appeared on hundreds of recordings across multiple record labels.

While Feldkamp fronted bands of his own for brief periods, most of the time, he was employed as a clarinet and saxophone player and vocalist for prominent bandleaders of the era, most notably Bert Lown and, beginning in 1932, Freddy Martin, and regularly appeared on both bands’ records.

Feldkamp was also one of a handful of vocalists, along with Smith Ballew, Chick Bullock, Scrappy Lambert, and Dick Robertson, who were in high demand by the era’s record labels for freelance work in recording sessions with their in-house studio bands.  Thus, Feldkamp appeared on numerous recordings with pseudonymous bands on Columbia, Brunswick, Okeh, Crown, and the various labels issued by the American Record Corporation.

He was also well-known to radio audiences through his vocals on broadcasts by the Bert Lown and Freddy Martain bands and some of the Fred Rich Orchestra’s broadcasts. For a while, he also had his own radio program on the NBC Red Network’s New York flagship station WEAF.

Unfortunately, Feldkamp’s career came to an abrupt end in 1938 when he died unexpectedly at the age of 36, apparently as a result of complications of appendicitis.

While all three songs presented here were well-known at the time and recorded by multiple artists, only “Stormy Weather” remains widely known today.   I think Feldkamp’s recording here for Crown, a short-lived Depression-era budget label, is among the nicer of the many versions of the song that have been made over the years.   According to discographer Brian Rust, the band for which the label credits Feldkamp as leader most likely consisted of members of the Freddy Martin band who were recruited for the session.

A month after Feldkamp recorded “Stormy Weather” for Crown, he provided the vocal for the Freddy Martin orchestra’s recording of the song for the American Record Corporation, which issued it under the pseudonym of Bob Causer And His Cornellians on the company’s  Banner, Conqueror, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect and Romeo labels, though Feldkamp was given label credit for his vocal and under his actual name.   You can hear a recording of that version on YouTube at this link.   Of the two, I personally prefer the Crown version.

On Feldkamp’s recording of “Was That The Human Thing To Do” with Bert Lown And His Orchestra, you might notice a bit of improvement in fidelity over the other two recordings.  At the time, Victor was experimenting with new ribbon-type microphones and improved cutting lathes.  Some of their recordings from this period yielded a level of fidelity not seen again on commercial records until the 1950s.  The few people who could still afford to buy records during the depths of the Great Depression usually could not afford to replace their old-fashioned wide-up phonographs with modern, lighter-weight electrical pickups.  The heavy tone arms and steel needles on the old windups caused the grooves on the higher fidelity records to wear out after just a few plays, thus making it necessary to dial back the improvements in fidelity for a number of years.

“And Then Your Lips Met Mine” was made at a time when the Bert Lown orchestra had a long-term engagement at New York’s Biltmore Hotel. If you listen closely, 20 seconds into the recording, you will hear what sounds to me like some sort of error, either by the recording technicians or by the musicians.   After I completed and listened to my audio restoration, I thought that it might have been a result of a slight skip in the record’s grooves that I hadn’t noticed.  But I found copies that a couple of people have uploaded to YouTube and it can be heard on their transfers as well.  I suspect that there was some sort of brief hicup with the recording equipment as it was transmitting the audio to the blank wax master.  Two other takes of the song were made during the recording session.  So either Victor’s staff did not notice the error, or they felt that, in spite of the error, this was the best take out of the three.

You can read more about Elmer Feldkamp and his career in this article by Anton Garcia-Fernandez, who has done a great job researching hard-to-find information about Feldkamp.

“Beale Street Blues”
George Olsen And His Music
(Victor 19457-A)               July 25, 1924

“Boll Weevil Blues”
International Novelty Orchestra; Ed Smalle and Vernon Dalhart, vocal
(Victor 19457-B)               August 8, 1924

Here is a pre-microphone era record from the Edward Mitchell collection. The recording on one side turned 100 years old just a few days ago, and the one on the other side will turn 100 within the next couple of weeks.

“Beale Street Blues” is a famous 1917 W. C. Handy composition named after a street in Memphis, Tennessee, which, at the time, was part of that city’s black entertainment district. Many jazz artists have performed the song and continue to do so. This version is quite hot, especially for George Olsen compared with most of his band’s recordings after the advent of electrical recording the following year.

What caught my attention about this record and made me curious enough to pull it and give it an audition was the title on the flip side: “Boll Weevil Blues.”  The Central American insect, which first appeared in the United States in the 1890s, was very much a topical subject when this recording was made as, by the 1920s, it had a devastating impact on cotton crops and local economies throughout the southern states.

This was not the only song from the period with the title “Boll Weevil Blues.”  Several artists made recordings of a 1921 song with that title composed by Cliff Hess. While music and lyrics are protected by copyright laws, song titles are not.

This particular composition was by two extremely obscure composers,  Emabel Palmer providing the music and Charles Postal McCurdy providing the lyics.  Both hailed from Augusta, Arkansas.  Apparently, it was the only song either of them published, and neither a genealogy website referencing McCurdy nor an obituary for Emabel Palmer makes mention of them having written a song that was both published and recorded.  Around the time this song was copyrighted in March 1924, McCurdy had been working as a teacher at Fakes Chapel, about 10 miles northeast of Augusta.

I cannot help but wonder how, in an age dominated by the Tin Pan Alley music publishing firms and fierce competition to get a song published by one of them, two unknowns from a very small town in rural Arkansas were able to get their song not only published but recorded.

I have found four references to recordings of the Palmer-McCurdy song, three of which have a common denominator: vocal performances by Ed Smalle and Vernon Dalhart, neither of whom were under exclusive contract with any single label.

Their first recording of the song was for Edison on June 20, 1924, accompanied by John Cali on banjo and issued under the pseudonym of Arkansas Trio.   In July 1924, Smalle and Dalhart recorded the song for OKeh, accompanied by Harry Reser on banjo.

On June 25, 1924, Smalle and Dalhart made a recording of the song for Victor that was not issued.  According to the Discography of American Historical Recordings, Victor ledgers indicate that the recording was “made on approval” – meaning that Victor had not contracted for the recording and the artists made it with the hope that Victor would buy it.

Apparently, Victor executives liked it enough that Smalle and Dalhart were invited to make the recording presented here on August 8, 1924, backed by the International Novelty Orchestra, a pseudonym for Victor’s in-house orchestra led by Nathaniel Shilkret.

On November 3, 1924, an instrumental recording of the song was made on the Gennett label by the Miami Lucky Seven, a regional band from the upper Midwest.

Given that Smalle and Dalhart’s first recording of the song on Edison was issued under the pseudonym of the Arkansas Trio, which was not used on any other Edison record, I have to wonder if the pseudonym is more than a mere coincidence and might have been inspired by where the song originated.  And the note in the Victor ledgers that their initial recording for that company was “made on approval” indicates that the song was being actively plugged by Smalle and/or Dalhart.

Thus, it occurs to me that perhaps someone familiar with Emabel Palmer or Charles Postal McCurdy might have brought the song to the attention of either Smalle or Dalhart, who then decided to plug their version of it to the record labels.  If that was the case, it would explain how a song by two unknowns from Arkansas was recorded and picked up by a major New York music publishing house.

On the Edison recording and the earlier, unissued Victor recording, both Smalle and Dalhart are credited on the record companies’ ledgers for the kazoo playing, and I think it is a safe bet that they did so on this recording.

Here’s a sampling of some of the recent audio restorations that have been added to Radio Dismuke’s playlist.   Brief information about the selections can be found following the recordings. 

“Old Fashioned Love”
Clyde McCoy And His Orchestra
(Decca 509-A mx C 9960)                          April 25, 1935

“Azul”
Agustin Lara; vocal, piano
(Peerless 1383 mx 270 A)                              1933

“Concha Nacar”
Agustin Lara; vocal, piano
(Peerless 1383 mx 268 A)                            1933

“Tell Me Why You Smile Mona Lisa”
Victor Young And His Orchestra;  Frank Munn, vocal
(Brunswick 6309)                                   May 11, 1932

“Bring It On Down To My House”
Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys; Tommy Duncan, vocal
(Vocalion 03492 mx C 1500)                 September 30, 1936

“Mean Mama Blues”
Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys; Tommy Duncan, vocal
(Vocalion 03492 mx C 1495)                September 30, 1936

“Jig In G”
Emilio Caceres And His Club Aguila Orchestra
(Victor 24614-B)                     April 4, 1934

“I’ll Be Blue Just Thinking Of You”
Buddy Blue, vocal
(Crown 3021-A mx 1015)      September, 1930

“You’re All I Need”
Freddie Rose; vocal, piano
(Decca 523-A mx 39770)             July 26, 1935

“I Love You From Coast To Coast”
Jack Shilkret And His Orchestra; Chick Bullock, vocal
(Melotone 7-02-14 mx 20375)             December 9, 1936

Clyde McCoy’s version of “Old Fashioned Love” was both old-fashioned and modern when it was recorded in April 1935.  By then, the song was already an “oldie,” having been written by James P. Johnson and Cecil Mack for the 1923 Broadway production Runnin’ Wild.  The show, with an all-black cast, also introduced their song “The Charleston,” which sparked the mid-1920s Charleston dance craze.  On the other hand, the closing passages of Clyde McCoy’s recording very much foreshadow the swing era, which, according to music historians, officially began four months later with Benny Goodman’s famous and highly successful engagement at the Palomar Ballroom.

Agustin Lara was a famous Mexican composer.  The two haunting recordings here, in which he provides the vocal and accompanies himself on the piano, are of his own compositions.  Both songs are well-known in the Spanish-speaking world but, for whatever reason, never really caught on in the United States.

“Tell Me Why You Smile Mona Lisa” is one of the relatively few popular German songs of the era recorded by American bandleaders. It is from the 1931 German film Der Raub der Mona Lisa/The Theft of the Mona Lisa and was written by Austrian composer Robert Stolz. Stolz is best remembered as a composer of operettas, but he also wrote for the film industry.

Bob Wills (along with Milton Brown) launched a new musical genre, western swing, in Fort Worth, Texas, during the early 1930s. This genre combined elements of country music with jazz and became extremely popular by the end of the decade, particularly in the Southwestern United States.

Jazz violinist Emilio Caceres was another musician who was extremely popular in Texas and, eventually, beyond in the 1930s.  The band had a long-term engagement at and broadcasted from San Antonio’s Club Aguila. “Aguila” is Spanish for “eagle.”   The club was owned by the Gephardt Chili Powder Company, which manufactured Gebhardt’s Eagle Brand Chili Powder, among other products, and introduced the wider world to another famous Texas invention, Tex-Mex cuisine.

Another Texan who made an impact on the musical world in the 1930s was Smith Ballew, recording here as “Buddy Blue,”  a pseudonym frequently used on his recordings for labels other than the one that currently had the exclusive on issuing recordings under his own name.

I suspect, but can’t confirm, that Ballew is accompanied here by Joe Venuti on violin and Eddie Lang on guitar.  Someone who has uploaded a copy of this recording to YouTube says in the upload notes that Joe Venuti was on this recording.  However, I have not found any definite confirmation in any of my reference material.  But Venuti and Lang did freelance with Crown Records’ in-house studio band and appeared on other Smith Ballew Crown recordings.  Thus, I suspect that chances are pretty good that they are on this recording as well.  Regardless, I think this is a very nice performance by Ballew and whoever the violin and guitar players might have been.

Freddie Rose provides another example of a famous composer accompanying himself on the piano – though the song he plays here was not one of his compositions but rather one co-written by Walter Jurmann and Kaper Bronisław, a songwriting team that was famous in Weimar-era Germany before they were forced to flee that country when Hitler’s National Socialists came to power.  They eventually landed a long-term contract in the United States with the MGM film studio. “You’re All I Need” is a song they wrote for the 1935 MGM film Escapade.

In the 1920s Rose composed several jazz songs that became hits and also made a good number of vocal recordings for Brunswick.  But, in the early 1930s, he moved to Nashville, Tennesee, where he began to increasingly focus on country music.  He eventually became a music publisher and a major force in the country music industry.

Jack Shilkret was a successful bandleader and the younger brother of Nathaniel Shilkret, who headed up in-house bands for the Victor label.