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.
On a cold winter day in the Windy City eighty-seven years ago, one of my favorite jazz records was recorded. The only record made under this band name, it is by a racially integrated group made up of some of the finest, if rather obscure, Chicago jazz musicians.
Victor V-38023 was recorded December 10, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. The band includes the superb talent of Jimmy Cobb on cornet, Junie C. Cobb on tenor sax and clarinet, “Kansas City Frank” Melrose on piano, and Jimmy Bertrand on drums and xylophone. Some sources claim it’s Punch Miller on cornet, but Cobb seems like the more likely candidate. The artist credit is listed in Victor’s ledgers as “Junie C. Cobb and his Corn-Eaters”, it was changed to the “E” that appears on the label for unknown reasons (or at least unknown to me); perhaps someone misheard “Junie” as “Eunie”, though he was given correct composer credit on the label.
“Barrell House Stomp” is one of my all-time favorite sides. Pay special attention to the duet between Kansas City Frank on piano and Jimmy Bertrand on xylophone.
Barrell House Stomp, recorded December 10, 1928 by E. C. Cobb and his Corn-Eaters.
“Transatlantic Stomp”, a composition by reed man Junie C. Cobb, doesn’t disappoint either.
Transatlantic Stomp, recorded December 10, 1928 by E. C. Cobb and his Corn-Eaters.
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.
It seems wrong that this place called “Old Time Blues” has featured staggeringly few blues records thus far, and after that previous incursion of popular music, I think it’s high time to work some actual old time blues into the schedule. Here’s a classic record by Bertha “Chippie” Hill featuring the work of a very familiar trumpeter.
Bertha Hill was born in 1905 in Charleston, South Carolina, she entered vaudeville in the 1910s, working with “Ma” Rainey and Ethel Waters in the TOBA circuit and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Hill was given the nickname “Chippie” at age 14, referring to her young age at the time. She entered the recording industry in 1925 and only recorded until 1929, making 23 sides total. After retiring from music in the 1930s to raise her children, Hill made a comeback in the late 1940s. Tragically, she was struck and killed by a hit and run driver in New York City in 1950.
On Okeh 8312, a laminated “TrueTone” recorded February 23, 1926 in Chicago, Bertha “Chippie” Hill sings “Trouble In Mind” and “Georgia Man”, accompanied by Richard M. Jones on piano and the incomparable Louis Armstrong on trumpet.
Richard M. Jones’ “Trouble In Mind” is an excellent (albeit melancholy) song, delivered wonderfully by Hill. The label on this side looks pretty darn bad, but fortunately what actually matters, the playing surface that is, is not too bad at all.
Trouble In Mind, recorded February 23, 1926 by Bertha “Chippie” Hill.
“Georgia Man” is a much lighter-hearted piece, trading the dreary theme of laying one’s head on a railroad line for a more raunchy one involving “jelly roll”. The label’s a lot prettier on this side, and it might play just a little bit better, too.
Georgia Man, recorded February 23, 1926 by Bertha “Chippie” Hill.
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.
November 13, 2015 marks the 121st anniversary of the birthday of jazz great Bennie Moten, who led one of the most excellent bands in the United States in the 1920s and early 1930s, his Kansas City Orchestra. Given that I haven’t yet featured one of Moten’s records here, I think a good place to start would be with his earliest record currently in my collection, and one of his earliest overall.
Bennie Moten was born and raised in 1894 in Kansas City, Missouri. He formed his famous Kansas City Orchestra in the early 1920s and made his first recordings for Okeh in 1923, with whom he continued to record through 1925, before moving to Victor in 1926. In 1929, Moten hired a number of musicians away from Walter Page’s Blue Devils, including William “Count” Basie and Oran “Hot Lips” Page. Basie would take over Moten’s orchestra after his untimely death following a botched tonsillectomy (the same fate that befell Eddie Lang) in 1935.
Okeh 8242 was recorded May 15, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri. The band features the talented musicianship of Harry Cooper, and Lammar Wright on cornets, Thamon Hayes on trombone, Harlan Leonard on clarinet and alto sax, Woody Walder on clarinet and tenor sax, leader Bennie Moten on piano, LaForest Dent on banjo, Vernon Page on tuba, and Willie Hall on drums.
“18th Street Strut” starts out a bit rough and weak, but the jazz still comes through just fine for most of the record, and it certainly is a hot one!
18th Street Strut, recorded May 15, 1925 by Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra.
On the reverse, they play “Things Seem So Blue to Me”, which sounds a little cleaner than the previous.
Things Seem So Blue to Me, recorded May 15, 1925 by Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra.
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.
October 25 marks the birthday of jazz guitar great Eddie Lang, who was born on that day in 1902. Eddie Lang was born as Salvatore Massaro in Philedelphia, Pennsylvania. He initially took up violin, playing with his close school friend Joe Venuti, and later switched to guitar. In the 1920s, Lang played in various bands and with such luminaries as Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke, Adrian Rollini, and Lonnie Johnson, the latter of whom he recorded with under the name “Blind Willie Dunn”. Tragically, Eddie Lang died in 1933 at the age of 30 as the result of a botched tonsillectomy.
Okeh 8696 was recorded on May 22, 1929 in New York City, and issued in their race series for some reason. The band includes the talent of Tommy Dorsey on trumpet, Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet and alto sax, Arthur Schutt on piano, Eddie Lang on guitar, Joe Tarto on string bass, and Stan King on drums. This record isn’t in the greatest condition, but I think it’s a great choice to celebrate Eddie’s birthday.
First, the band plays “Freeze an’ Melt”, a Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh composition.
Freeze an’ Melt, recorded May 22, 1929 by Ed. Lang and his Orchestra.
Eddie Lang takes a nice long solo on “Hot Heels”, composed by Jack Pettis and Al Goering.
Hot Heels, recorded May 22, 1929 by Ed. Lang and his Orchestra.
A crop of the only known photograph of Lemon Jefferson, as was pictured in the Paramount Book of Blues.
On this day, we celebrate the probable birthday of the great blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson, so for this momentous occasion, I present to you a great treasure of the Old Time Blues collection, which happened to have been recorded on Lemon’s thirty-sixth birthday.
Lemon Henry Jefferson was born most likely on September 24, 1893 (though, as is so often the case with early blues people, this date is disputed), one of seven children born to a family of poor sharecroppers in Coutchman, Texas (or “Couchman” as the locals seem to spell it, though the former is correct according to the Texas Almanac), near Tehuacana Creek and about five miles west of Streetman, in Freestone County. He was blind from infancy, though the full extent of his visual impairment is debatable—some, including Victoria Spivey, have suggested that he may have had limited sight, and he was reputed to have been able to fire a gun with considerable accuracy. Lemon took up the guitar in his teens and played at picnics and rent parties, or “booger roogers” as he called them, in East Texas. He later took up in Dallas, and in the 1910s worked frequently in Deep Ellum, often playing with fellow musicians such as Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and Alger “Texas” Alexander. In late 1925 or early ’26, a time when most of recorded blues consisted of the vaudevillian variety of women singing with a jazz band backing, Blind Lemon traveled to Chicago to record for Paramount records. Between 1926 and 1929, Jefferson recorded around a hundred songs for Paramount, and made one additional record with Okeh. In addition to recording, Lemon also gigged all around the southeastern United States, along the way meeting other blues musicians like King Solomon Hill, who would later record as “Blind Lemon’s Buddy”. Blind Lemon Jefferson died under mysterious circumstances in Chicago at 10:00 AM on December 19, 1929, Paramount paid for his body to be shipped back to Texas, where he was buried in the Wortham Negro Cemetery.
Paramount 12872, featuring “Bed Springs Blues” and “Yo Yo Blues”, was recorded September 24, 1929—Lemon’s birthday—in either Chicago, Illinois, or Richmond, Indiana. This proved to be Blind Lemon Jefferson’s final recording session. The condition’s pretty rough on this one, but I think the music still comes through. Now, two years after my original posting, a new Grado cartridge has facilitated a much finer quality of transfers than my originals. Though still plagued by some groove stripping and plenty of pops and clicks, they are now much crisper and clearer, and those pesky skips have been all-but-eliminated.
First, Lemon’s “Bed Springs Blues” provides an excellent demonstration of Lemon’s unique style of playing guitar. “Tell me why do them springs tremble so on your bed, baby!”
Bed Springs Blues, recorded September 24, 1929 by Blind Lemon Jefferson.
On the flip, Lemon performs his own “Yo Yo Blues”. A number of songs carrying the same title were recorded around the same period—most notably by Barbecue Bob—opening with “got up this morning, my yo-yo mama was gone,” but Lemon’s is a different song, instead starting with “I would go yo-yoin’, but I broke my yo-yo string.”
Yo Yo Blues, recorded September 24, 1929 by Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Updated with improved audio on July 28, 2017, and again on February 21, 2023.
