Leonard Davis | Old Time Blues

In honor of “King” Benny Carter’s birthday, here’s an outstanding Harlem jazz record featuring one of his earliest recorded appearances, as well as a taste of his arranging talent.

Bennett Lester Carter was born in Harlem on August 8, 1907. As a child, he was taught piano by his mother, and was later inspired to by Bubber Miley to buy a trumpet. When he couldn’t play like Miley, he decided to take up the saxophone instead. Growing up playing jazz with the Harlem greats, Carter first recorded in 1928 with Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Ten, and played with Fletcher Henderson in the early 1930s. In 1931, he took over leadership of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers from Don Redman, who left to form his own orchestra, and followed in his footsteps the next year with a band of his own. In the 1930s, he began recording with a band under the moniker of the Chocolate Dandies, which had been previously used by a number of others. In 1935, as Louis Armstrong and a number of other jazz musicians had done previously, Carter traveled to Europe, where he played with the Ramblers, Django Reinhardt, and others before returning to the States in 1938. After returning home, he led another band and arranged prolifically. In 1942, Freddie Slack’s Orchestra made a hit with “Cow Cow Boogie”, which Carter wrote with Gene de Paul and Don Raye, and he moved to the West Coast in 1943. In 1973, Carter was a visiting professor at Princeton University for a semester. He continued to play until his retirement in 1997, bringing an end to an eight decade career, and he died in 2003 at the age of 95.

Victor 21491 was recorded January 24 and 10, 1928, respectively, in New York City. The Paradise Ten are made up of Jabbo Smith and Leonard Davis on trumpets Charlie Irvis on trombone, Benny Carter and Edgar Sampson on clarinet and alto sax, Elmer Harrell on clarinet and tenor sax, Charlie Johnson on piano, Bobby Johnson on banjo, Cyrus St. Clair on tuba, George Stafford on drums. Lloyd Scott’s orchestra on the flip-side consists of Gus McClung and Kenneth A. Roane on trumpet, Dicky Wells on trombone John Williams and Fletcher Allen on clarinet and alto sax, Cecil Scott on clarinet, tenor sax, and baritone sax, Don Frye on piano, Hubert Mann on piano, Chester Campbell on tuba, and Lloyd Scott on drums.

Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Ten took their name from Small’s Paradise in Harlem, where they played. Among their alumni were such luminaries as Jabbo Smith and Benny Carter, who made his first recordings with the band. Their superb “Charleston is the Best Dance After All” was arranged by Benny Carter.

Charleston is the Best Dance After All, recorded January 24, 1928 by Charles Johnson’s Paradise Ten.

Lloyd Scott’s Orchestra was another excellent Harlem band, that featured John Williams (husband of Mary Lou Williams) and Dicky Wells. Here they play trumpeter Kenneth A. Roane’s “Harlem Shuffle”.

Harlem Shuffle, recorded January 10, 1928 by Lloyd Scott’s Orchestra.

A young Don Redman in Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra around 1925.

July 29th marks the anniversary of the birth of musician and arranger extraordinaire Don Redman, whose innovative work during the Harlem Renaissance helped to usher in the era of swing jazz.

Donald Matthew Redman was born into a musical family in Piedmont, West Virginia on July 29, 1900. He first took up the trumpet, and could play all the wind instruments before he was a teenager. Redman first studied at Storer College in Harper’s Ferry before attending the Boston Conservatory. After graduating, he went to New York and played with Billy Page’s Broadway Syncopators, playing primarily reed instruments, and soon began arranging. In 1923, he joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, with whom he created arrangements that would develop into swing in the next decade. After recording extensively with Henderson, Redman was invited by Jean Goldkette to take over the reigns of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in Detroit, a position which he held until 1931, when he started his own orchestra. Redman kept his own band together until 1940, playing for the better part of the swing era, and appearing in a Vitaphone short in 1933. After his orchestra disbanded, he continued to arrange prolifically for a number of bands, as he had done previously. Redman died in 1964 at the age of 64.

Brunswick 6211 was recorded on September 24 and October 15, 1931 in New York City, the former being the first session by Don Redman’s newly formed orchestra under his own name. The band includes Bill Coleman, replaced in the latter session by Langston Curl, Leonard Davis, and Henry “Red” Allen on trumpet, Claude Jones, Fred Robinson, and Benny Morton on trombone, Edward Inge and Rupert Cole on clarinet and alto sax, Don Redman on alto sax, Robert Carroll on tenor sax, Horace Henderson on piano, Talcott Reeves on banjo and guitar, Bob Ysaguirre on bass, and Manzie Johnson on drums.

Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen’s “Shakin’ the Africann”, recorded on the latter date, features a vocal by Redman, rejecting “sweet” music in favor of jazz played hot.

Shakin’ the Africann, recorded September 24, 1931 by Don Redman and his Orchestra.

Redman’s own “Song of the Weeds”, most commonly known as “Chant of the Weeds”, was also recorded for Columbia with a quite different sounding arrangement.

Song of the Weeds, recorded September 24, 1931 by Don Redman and his Orchestra.

Tag Archives: Leonard Davis

Victor 21491 – Charles Johnson’s Paradise Ten/Lloyd Scott’s Orchestra – 1928

Brunswick 6211 – Don Redman and his Orchestra – 1931