Regal 9791 – Harry Richman – 1925

Posted on August 10, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Harry Richman around the mid-1920s.

August 10 once again marks the birthday of one of Old Time Blues’ favorite vaudevillians, Harry Richman. Last year, we celebrated the occasion with his famous “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. This time, I offer to you Richman’s first recording ever.

Harry Richman was born Harold Reichman on August 10, 1895 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began performing by the age of eleven, and was working the vaudeville circuits by eighteen. After striking out as an act of his own in the early 1920s, he worked his way up, appearing as the star of George White’s Scandals in 1926. In 1930, he made his motion picture debut in Puttin’ on the Ritz, in which he introduced the famous Irving Berlin song of the same name. Though his acting career failed to take off, he appeared in four more pictures from 1930 to ’38. Throughout the 1930s, Richman hosted a radio program, and made a number of popular records. He was also noted as a record setting aviator, making a famous round-trip flight across the Atlantic in 1936 with Dick Merrill. In 1938, he married former Ziegfeld girl Hazel Forbes, though they had divorced by 1942. After his career slowed down in the 1940s, Richman made a number of brief comeback appearances, largely in a nostalgic context. He published an autobiography titled A Hell of a Life in 1966, and died in 1972.

Regal 9791 was recorded January 30, 1925, most likely in New York. Unfortunately, though it appears to be in decent condition, it suffers from a very thin, quiet signal, and sounds generally lousy. In spite of that, the music is still plainly audible.

First, Harry croons “Will You Remember Me”, with guitar accompaniment adding a charming, folksy effect.

Will You Remember Me, recorded January 30, 1925 by Harry Richman.

Richman seems to put on his best Jolson for “California Poppy”.

California Poppy, recorded January 30, 1925 by Harry Richman.

Updated with improved audio on November 13, 2016.

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

Posted on August 8, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

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.

Brunswick 6211 – Don Redman and his Orchestra – 1931

Posted on July 29, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

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.

Velvet Tone 1759-V – Rudy Vallée Accomp. by his Yale Men – 1928

Posted on July 28, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

Rudy Vallée in the 1930 Victor catalog,

Heigh-ho everybody! 115 years ago today, the vagabond lover, Rudy Vallée was born. Some twenty-five years later, he would become the idol of a nation.

Hubert Prior Vallée was born in Island Pond, Vermont on July 28, 1901. At 15, he joined the navy to fight in the Great War, but was discharged after forty-one days, when his age was discovered. With his high school band, Vallée played drums, but soon took up the saxophone, playing in local bands. In the middle of the 1920s, he traveled to England, and made his first phonograph recordings with the Savoy Havana Band in London. After returning home, he was educated at the University of Maine, then at Yale, and in 1928, made his first recordings under his own name for Columbia’s budget labels, with his Yale Men. At the University of Maine, he was dubbed Rudy, after the popular saxophone player Rudy Wiedoeft, and the name stuck. After graduating, Vallée formed his Connecticut Yankees, and secured a contract with Victor records in 1929. It was around this time that his popularity skyrocketed, becoming one of the most popular personalities of the 1920s and ’30s, and making a string of hit records and motion pictures. Vallée’s feature film debut in 1929’s The Vagabond Lover had him in a starring role, and was a success. Also in ’29, he began hosting The Fleischmann Hour on NBC, staying on-the-air until 1939. The next year, he had a smash hit with the University of Maine’s “Stein Song” for Victor, and continued to rise in his fame. Attempting to list the bulk of Vallée’s popular songs would consume far too much space. With his fame however, came an ego rivaling that of Al Jolson, and Vallée was known to have a short temper.

As the Depression rolled in, Vallée remained among the most popular entertainers on radio and record, and, moving to Columbia Records in 1932, was given a special picture label in an attempt to increase sales. His association with Columbia did not last long, as he returned to Victor in 1933, first appearing on their Bluebird label, before moving back to the full-fledged Victor label. As swing began to take off, Vallée’s popularity began to wane, though he continued to make popular records. Vallée arranged for Louis Armstrong to host his radio program for the summer of 1937, making him the first African-American to host a major radio show. After the 1930s, Vallée recording sporadically on a wide variety of different record labels, none of which saw the success of his earlier works. In 1943, Victor made a hit with a reissue of Vallée’s 1931 recording of “As Time Goes By” to coincide with the release of Casablanca, as the musicians strike prevented a new recording from being made. After his popularity had faded from its 1920s heights, Vallée continued to record and appear in films, and on television, and enjoyed moderate success all the way. After a long career in the show business, Rudy Vallée died on July 3, 1986 at the age of 84.

Velvet Tone 1759-V on October 10, 1928 in New York. The Yale Men are made up of Don Moore on trumpet, Hal Matthews on trombone, Rudy Vallée on clarinet and alto sax, Joe Miller on tenor sax, Manny Lowy and Jules de Vorzon on violin, Cliff Burwell on piano, Charles Peterson on banjo, Harry Patent on tuba, and Ray Toland on drums.

First Vallée and the Yale Men play a hot side on “Doin’ the Raccoon”, referencing the popular 1920s collegiate fad for raccoon coats.

Doin’ the Raccoon, recorded October 10, 1928 by Rudy Vallée Accomp. by his Yale Men.

Next, Vallée sings a sweet tune on “Bye and Bye Sweetheart”.

Bye and Bye Sweetheart, recorded October 10, 1928 by Rudy Vallée Accomp. by his Yale Men.

Melotone M 12052 – “Happy” Dixon’s Clod Hoppers – 1930

Posted on July 25, 2016 by R. Connor Montgomery

It’s no secret that I’m fond of folk and country songs adapted to jazz and dance arrangements (see Casey Jones, Hand Me Down My Walkin’ Cane/She’ll Be Comin’ Around the Mountain, another Casey Jones), and this new arrival to my collection fits squarely in that mold. I’ve always found the material on many of these early issues of Melotone records interesting, and looking through the discography, a few records by “‘Happy’ Dixon’s Clod Hoppers” particularly intrigued me. Was it a country band or a dance band playing country music a la Paul Tremaine (as was apparently a passing fad around 1930). No transfers of any of their records seemed to be available, and little information on the group seemed to exist, so I’d been keeping an eye out for one of their for quite a while. This copy having fallen into my possession, I’m happy to finally be able to hear it, and now all of you can too.

Melotone M 12057 was recorded on October 27, 1930 in New York City by “Happy” Dixon’s Clod Hoppers, actually a pseudonym for Harry Reser’s Six Jumping Jacks with vocals by Tom Stacks, and most likely with Bill Wirges at the piano.

The first side is a fine fox trot rendition of the pseudo cowboy ballad “When the Bloom is On the Sage”, punctuated with Harry Reser’s famous banjo and an accordion near the end lends a Western touch.

When the Bloom is On the Sage, recorded October 27, 1930 by “Happy” Dixon’s Clod Hoppers.

The flip-side is a little hotter, with a fast paced novelty arrangement of Henry Whitter’s famous “The Wreck on the Southern Old 97”, made popular by Vernon Dalhart in 1924. In this version, specific reference is made to “Steve” Broady, the engineer of the Southern Railway 1102 pulling the Old 97 “Fast Mail” when it departed Monroe, Virginia on September 27, 1903, bound for Spencer, North Carolina. As the song tells, the Old 97 never made it to Spencer, derailing on a trestle near Danville, Virginia as a result of Engine 1102’s excessive speed. Unlike Steve Broady, Engine 1102 survived the accident, and was still in service when this side was recorded in 1930.

The Wreck On the Southern Old 97, recorded October 27, 1930 by “Happy” Dixon’s Clod Hoppers.