In the second half of the 1920s, bandleader, pianist and organist “Tiny” Parham produced a series of hot recordings considered some of the finest of the Jazz Age. Alongside Duke Ellington, Jelly-Roll Morton, Bennie Moten, and others, Parham stood—both figuratively and literally—as one of the biggest in pre-war jazz.
“Tiny” Parham and his Musicians, pictured in 1930 Victor race records catalog.
“Tiny” was born Hartzell Strathdene Parham in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on February 25, 1900 (though both his World War I and II draft cards suggest the same date in December of either the same year or the previous one). From a very young age, he lived in Kansas City, Missouri. There, he studied piano under the “Little Professor,” ragtime composer James Scott, and found work playing piano and organ in local vaudeville theaters. A heavyset man of five feet, ten-and-a-half inches and 275 pounds, he earned the nickname “Tiny” in ironic reference to his stature. In 1926, he made his debut recordings accompanying blues singer and future Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel on a pair of sides for the Kansas City-based Meritt label. Shortly thereafter, he relocated to Chicago, where he began working for the New York Recording Laboratories, makers of Paramount records, as an artist as well as a talent scout and arranger. His earliest Paramount recordings found him as pianist in Junie Cobb’s Hometown Band, followed shortly by a series of records accompanying blues singers Ardell Bragg, Ora Brown, Priscilla Stewart, Sharlie English, “Ma” Rainey, and possibly Ida Cox, Leola B. Wilson and Elzadie Robinson. Parham debuted his first recording ensemble under his own name—the Pickett-Parham Apollo Syncopators—in joint leadership with violinist Leroy Pickett for a single session at the end of 1926. Subsequently, he led his band to St. Paul, Minnesota, to make a single recording for J. Mayio Williams’s legendary Black Patti label. Other recordings Parham made during this period included Paramount sessions with Johnny Dodds, Jasper Taylor’s State Street Boys, and his own “Forty” Five, plus a Gennett session with King Brady’s Clarinet Band. Beginning in 1928, Parham joined the likes of Jelly-Roll Morton and King Oliver as an exclusive Victor artist, leading a band dubbed the Musicians. Over the course of the next two years, “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians cut thirty-nine outstanding hot jazz performances for Victor, of which all but four were issued. At the end of 1930, Parham, like Morton and Oliver, was unceremoniously dropped by Victor, and he did not make any further recordings in the decade that ensued, though he continued to work both as a touring bandleader and theater organist. In 1940, Parham made his last recordings for Decca, with a group called the Four Aces, producing two instrumentals and one side accompanying hokum singer Lovin’ Sam Theard. Three years later, during a performance in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “Tiny” Parham died in his dressing room on April 4, 1943.
Victor V-38041 was recorded at 852 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on February 2, 1929, in a session supervised by Ralph S. Peer. Parham’s Musicians are Ray Hobson on cornet, Charlie Lawson on trombone, Charles Johnson doubling on clarinet and alto saxophone, Elliot Washington on violin, Mike McKendrick on banjo and guitar, Tiny on piano, Quinn Wilson on tuba, and Mike Marrero on drums.
On side “A”, the Musicians play “Subway Sobs”, heavily featuring Quinn Wilson’s tuba and the respective violin and guitar of Elliot Washington and Mike McKendrick.
Subway Sobs, recorded February 2, 1929 by “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians.
A slower number than the first, they play “Blue Island Blues” on the reverse, with more of Washington and McKendrick’s violin and banjo to be heard, plus plenty of cornet from Ray Hobson.
Blue Island Blues, recorded February 2, 1929 by “Tiny” Parham and his Musicians.
