Paramount 12287 – O’Bryant’s Washboard Band – 1925

Posted on May 15, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

May 15 marks the possible anniversary of clarinetist Jimmie O’Bryant’s birth, and May 20th will mark the anniversary of pianist Jimmy Blythe’s birth. Both those musicians play on this record, so I can’t think of a better time to post it.

Like a number of artists in his era and genre, details regarding the life and times of clarinetist Jimmie O’Bryant are few and far between, and the true birth date of the “mystery man of jazz” is uncertain, but when a date is ventured, it is most often cited as May 15, 1896. O’Bryant was born in either Louisville, Kentucky or somewhere in Arkansas. He took up the clarinet, playing in a style often compared to Johnny Dodds, and also played saxophone. In 1920 and ’21, he played with a band called the Tennessee Ten, and later worked with Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and W.C. Handy. By the mid-1920s, O’Bryant was in Chicago, where he played with Lovie Austin’s Blues Serenaders and with his own washboard band, both producing records for Paramount. On Paramount, he was called “The Clarinet Wizard”. Jimmie O’Bryant’s promising career was cut short when he died of apparently unknown causes on June 24, 1928.

Paramount 12287 was recorded in June of 1925 in Chicago, Illinois. The outstanding but minimal personnel features the likes Jimmie O’Bryant on clarinet, James Blythe on piano, and Jasper Taylor on washboard. This disc has a fairly serious crack about half way into the playing surface, but I’ve done my best to digitally remove all traces of the interruption.

“Clarinet Get Away” has been cited as the earliest recorded track to use a riff resembling the one used in Joe Garland’s 1938 composition “In the Mood”, popularized by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra in 1939, which was in turn borrowed from Wingy Manone’s 1930 “Tar Paper Stomp”, but when I mentioned that tidbit on my YouTube upload of this tune, I get chewed out by a commenter calling it a “hoax” and saying that the recording “sounds very derivative”, so you be the judge. This is take 2, of two issued takes.

Clarinet Get Away, recorded June 1925 by O’Bryant’s Washboard Band.

James Blythe’s composition “Back Alley Rub” is more of a slow drag, and for better or worse, sounds nothing like “In the Mood”. This one is also take 2.

Back Alley Rub, recorded June 1925 by O’Bryant’s Washboard Band.

Updated with improved audio on May 29, 2017, and June 30, 2024.

Broadway 1140 – Devine’s Wisconsin Roof Orchestra – 1927

Posted on April 30, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

So I’m told that the thirtieth of April is International Jazz Day. I was unaware that such an occasion even existed, but I certainly can’t let it fall by the wayside, so here’s a real humdinger of a jazz record, and from a most unexpected place…

An autographed photo of bandleader Bill Carlsen, dating to the late 1920s or early ’30s.

One of the best ways to experience the “real” jazz of the 1920s and 1930s is to seek out the oftentimes scarce records by the so-called “territory bands”, that being bands that traveled around various regions, usually by bus, gigging at dance halls, hotel ballrooms, and the occasional radio station. I think it’s safe to assume that those bands played what the regular folks were interested in hearing.

This disc comes from a fine Midwestern territory band that had the distinction of playing at Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Roof Garden, an open-air ballroom perched atop the Carpenter Building at 700 North 6th Street, owned and operated by George J. Devine, who lent his name to the band for many of their records. The band, led by saxophone player and Kansas-native Bill Carlsen, was a hot one, playing in a style that we today might call “dixieland jazz” (at that time, of course, it was just “jazz”), with that hot and raucous sound common to Midwestern jazz bands.

Broadway 1140 was recorded in December of 1927 at Paramount’s Chicago studio by Devine’s Wisconsin Roof Orchestra, directed by Bill Carlsen (spelled Carlson on the label). The band includes Dip Happe and Alec Alexander on trumpets, Ole Turner on trombone, Paul Peregrine, Harry Bortner and Bill Carlsen on reeds, Lee Simmons on piano, Ralph West on banjo, Chet Harding on tuba and Harry Pierce at the drums. This record was also issued as Paramount 12599.

First, the band plays a hot and stomping novelty rendition of the “New St. Louis Blues”, which, as it turns out, is actually the same old St. Louis Blues as always. My speculation is that bands like this one titled it “new” to entice buyers that likely already owned a copy of the “old” St. Louis Blues.

New St. Louis Blues, recorded December 1927 by Devine’s Wisconsin Roof Orchestra.

Next up, they play what is surely one of the all-time best versions of that classic (or as Satchmo might have put it, “one of the good old good ones”), “Tiger Rag”.—one of my own favorites, at least This pressing is the first of two extant takes of this side.

Tiger Rag, recorded December 1927 by Devine’s Wisconsin Roof Orchestra.

Updated with improved audio on June 5, 2018.

Vocalion 1198 – Cow Cow Davenport and Ivy Smith – 1928

Posted on April 23, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Cow Cow Davenport, circa 1940s. Magazine clipping from “The Jazz Record”.

April 23 marks the 122nd anniversary of the birth of the Man that Gave America Boogie Woogie, Charles “Cow Cow” Davenport. Since it also marks my own birthday, that makes it a very special occasion, and thusly, I hope to offer a very special presentation.

Charles Edward Davenport was born in Anniston, Alabama on April 23, 1894. He took up the piano at the age of twelve. Davenport’s father was a pastor, and opposed his son’s musical interests, sending him away to a seminary to continue in his father’s work. The young Charles was kicked out the the seminary for playing ragtime. He began his professional career playing boogie woogie piano in medicine shows and touring the TOBA vaudeville circuit. In 1924, Davenport made his debut recordings as an accompanist for his vaudeville partner Dora Carr for Okeh Records, recording his trademark composition, “Cow Cow Blues”, one of the earliest instances of boogie woogie piano on record, from which he got his nickname. After Okeh, Cow Cow several records for Paramount, and recorded fairly prolifically, solo and as an accompanist. By the later 1920s, he was working with a new partner, Ivy Smith, and recording for Vocalion records, with whom he made a larger number of sides. He also worked as a talent scout for Vocalion, bringing in such talent as Clarence “Pine Top” Smith. Composed by Davenport were such classics as “Mama Don’t Allow It” and supposedly “You Rascal You”, which he claimed to have sold to Sam Theard. In the early 1930s, he took up in Cleveland, Ohio, which remained his home for the rest of his life. In 1938, Davenport suffered a stroke that caused minor paralysis in his right hand that forced him to temporarily retire from music and take menial jobs, and impeded his playing for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he continued to perform and record. In 1942, his name was put up in lights when Freddie Slack’s Orchestra had a smash hit with “Cow Cow Boogie”, no doubt taking its name from the aging piano man. His final years plagued by ill health, Cow Cow Davenport died of heart failure on December 12, 1955 in Cleveland.

Vocalion 1198 was recorded in Chicago on July 16, 1928 featuring Cow Cow Davenport on piano assisted by his vaudeville partner, Ivy Smith on one side. Two known takes of each side were recorded that day, and both are presented here. Takes “A” come from the original issue, and takes “B” are from the 1943 reissue on Brunswick 80022.

Davenport first plays solo on his eponymous song “Cow Cow Blues”, deriving its name from the cowcatchers mounted on the front of old steam engines.

Cow Cow Blues, recorded July 16, 1928 by Cow Cow Davenport.

On the reverse, Davenport is joined by the vocals of his stage partner Ivy Smith on “State Street Jive”. “What kinda piano player is this?” Smith asks on take “B” of this tune.

State Street Jive, recorded July 16, 1928 by Cow Cow Davenport and Ivy Smith.

Oriole 8122 – Bessie Jackson – 1930

Posted on April 1, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Please note: this article dates to Old Time Blues’ first year and does not meet the standard of quality to which more recent postings are held. Thank you for your understanding.

Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama was the blues singer Lucille Anderson, better known by her married name Lucille Bogan, or her commonly used pseudonym, Bessie Jackson. Born on April Fools’ Day of 1897 in Amory, Mississippi, Bogan is sometimes considered among the “big three” of blues singing, along with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (though I would argue that Lizzie Miles deserves a position among them). She was known for her unadulterated singing with lyrics ranging from raunchy to downright filthy, often much more so than those of her contemporaries. This record contains some of her tamer material, but there’s one record floating around out there with lyrics that would put some of the present day’s songs to shame for their “explicit content”. However, this is a family website, so I’m not going to go into detail on that one. Bogan died of coronary sclerosis in 1948.

Oriole 8122, issued in their “race records” series, was recorded in Chicago sometime in March of 1930. It features Lucille Bogan under her typical pseudonym Bessie Jackson, accompanied by boogie woogie piano player Charles Avery. This record was originally issued as Brunswick 7210, this issue likely dates to 1931.

First up, Bogan sings on the boogie woogie piece “Alley Boogie”, probably one of the earliest instances of a song title using the term “boogie”, following “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie”.

Alley Boogie, recorded March 1930 by Bessie Jackson.

Labeled here as the “B” side, but generally and more properly serving as the “A” side on most issues of this pair is the quintessential “Sloppy Drunk Blues”, one of Bogan’s signature numbers.

Sloppy Drunk Blues, recorded March 1930 by Bessie Jackson.

Vocalion 02621 – W. Lee O’Daniel and his Light Crust Doughboys – 1933

Posted on March 2, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Please note: this article dates to Old Time Blues’ first year and does not meet the standard of quality to which more recent postings are held. Thank you for your understanding.

1933 Sheet music for Beautiful Texas, words and music by W. Lee O’Daniel.

On March 2, 2016, Texas celebrates the 180th anniversary of its independence from Mexico, and the creation of the Republic of Texas. After ten years as an independent nation, and a hot button issue in United States politics, Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state. To celebrate and remember the occasion, here’s two fiercely Texas-themed tunes by the Fort Worth-based Light Crust Doughboys, under the leadership of W. Lee O’Daniel, the radio advertising director for Burrus Mills, makers of Light Crust Flour and future Governor of Texas.

Vocalion 02621 was recorded on October 10, 1933 at Vocalion’s studio in the Furniture Mart Building at 666 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois, the first recorded (but not first issued) sides at the Doughboys’ first Vocalion session, and only second overall session, after their 1932 Victor session, which yielded one disc. The band members on these sides include Herman Arnspiger and Leon Huff on guitars, Clifford Gross on fiddle, Sleepy Johnson on banjo and fiddle, Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, and Ramon DeArman on string bass.

Guitar player Leon Huff sings lead vocal on W. Lee O’Daniel’s song, “Beautiful Texas”, proudly boasting of “about six million people who’re glad that they’re here to stay.” A truer song has never been written.