“Spread Yo’ Stuff”
Joseph Samuels’ Jazz Band
(Okeh 4260 B mx S 7728 C) January 1921
Here is a pre-microphone era 80 rpm recording that will be part of this week’s Radio Dismuke playlist update.
Joseph Samuels’ band recorded several hundred jazz and dance band sides between 1919 and 1925 for most of the American record labels in existence at the time, some of which were issued under various pseudonyms. He was one of the first white bandleaders to include black vocalists on recordings.
Other bands recorded “Spread Yo’ Stuff” and the Joseph Samuels band made two additional recordings of the song for Edison, one of which was released on a Blue Amberol cylinder record. The recording made for release in disc format was never issued but a test pressing still exists at the Edison National Historic Park.
Among the band members on this recording for Okeh (and most likely the Edison recordings as well) was one of the song’s co-composers, Jules Levy Jr., the son of the world-renowned late-19th century cornetist, Jules Levy Sr., who, among many other accomplishments, assisted Thomas Edison in demonstrating his newly-invented tinfoil phonograph. Levy Jr’s half-brother through one of his father’s previous relationships was actor Conway Tearle who was prominent on stage and screen from the turn of the century through the 1930s.