MTM Jazz on Record and Radio 2024.pdf

Jazz On Record and Radio, 1917-1940 In groups of 2-3 - How have you used recordings to help you learn to play/make music? - Did you use recordings to learn how to improvise music? Jazz on Record First officially jazz recording, ironically by a white band: Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Victor, 1917 “...

Jazz On Record and Radio, 1917-1940 In groups of 2-3 - How have you used recordings to help you learn to play/make music? - Did you use recordings to learn how to improvise music? Jazz on Record First officially jazz recording, ironically by a white band: Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Victor, 1917 “Dixie Jass Band One Step” & “Livery Stable Blues” http://www.odjb.com/VintagePhotoODJB.htm Louis Armstrong New Orleans à Chicago à New York (1923) 1925: recorded with Bessie Smith, Columbia, “St. Louis Blues” by W. C. Handy KEXP Radio. http://blog.kexp.org/blog/2010/03/03/kexp-documentaries-blues-for-hard-times-st-louis-blues/ “The St. Louis Blues” by W. C. Handy Bessie Smith & Louis Armstrong Columbia Phonograph Company 1925 http://www.redhotjazz.com/louie.html Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven, Okeh Records, Chicago “West End Blues” (1928) Armstrong, , Johnny St. Cyr, banjo, Johnny Dodds, clarinet/sax, Kid Ory, trombone, Lil Hardin Armstrong, piano Quotes about Learning Jazz [Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz (Univ. Chicago Press, 1994)] What do these recordings tell us about the relationship between live and recorded music? Recorded Music & Live Music Music was recorded differently than how it was performed live So recordings sounded different than live performance Musicians learned music through recordings as well as watching live performances In turn, recordings influenced the development of younger musicians, therefore future live performances and future recordings New method of disseminating music Old way: traveling musicians disseminated new sounds, which lead to sales of sheet music and records. New way: recordings preceded tours of musicians: people in Europe already knew recordings by Armstrong before he arrived. Duke Ellington (1899-1974) Led house band at Cotton Club, 1927-1931 Recorded on RCA Victor and other labels CBS network radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club to a national audience Toured Europe in 1933; realized how popular jazz had become abroad Ellington’s orchestra, 1930s Cotton Club, Harlem, 1920s-30s Black performers, white audiences Southern plantation theme Continued minstrelsy image But very high quality and innovative performers Run by mobsters Photos from Getty Images via https://allthatsinteresting.com/cotton-club#2 “The American sprinter Jesse Owens and dancer and actor Bill Robinson —on the left — surrounded by dancers during a rehearsal at the Cotton Club, Sept. 2, 1936. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images” “A chorus line dancing the can-can at the Cotton Club. George Karger/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images” “American bandleader and singer Cab Calloway leads an orchestra during a New Year's Ball at the Cotton Club in New York, 1937. Bettmann/Getty Images” Ellington’s Four Styles Jungle – “Black and Tan Fantasy” (Victor, 1927) Mood – “Mood Indigo” Concerto – “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue” (1937) Standard Irving Mills Ellington’s Manager, Publicist, Publisher (1926-1939) A new model of management, using new media: Three parts: “National exposure through recordings and radio broadcasts” “publicity to build interest” “National tours to reap the profits of the band’s reputation” Source: Thomas Hennessey, From Swing to Jazz (Wayne State UP, 1994), p. 125 Business Practices Owned 45% of Duke Ellington, Inc. – Compare: booking agency MCA took 19% (Starr & Waterman, p. 120) Collected royalties as publisher and co-composer Hired members of bands he managed for freelance sessions on his labels Booked his bands as substitutes when Ellington (and Cab Calloway) toured Plugged his publishing house in Ellington PR Competing opinions about their relationship New Amsterdam News (1936): Mills’s bands were “musical sharecroppers… for Massa Mills.” John Hammond: “he was a man who saved black talent in the 1930s when there was no one else who cared whether it worked or not.” Mark Tucker: Mills recognized and promoted Ellington’s compositional artistry Quotes in Alyn Shipton, A New History of Jazz (Continuum, 2001), pp. 294f. Handout: Ellington about Mills “Irving Mills and I had come to the parting of the ways some years before. He gave me his 50 percent of Duke Ellington, Inc., in exchange for my 50 percent of Mills-Calloway Enterprises, Inc. We dissolved our business relationship agreeably and, in spite of how much he had made on me, I respected the way he had operated. He had always preserved the dignity of my name. Duke Ellington had an unblemished image, and that is the most anybody can do for anybody.” Ellington, Music is My Mistress (1973), p. 89 Student presentation Cab Calloway, Inc., 1931 Calloway started playing at Cotton Club Irving Mills became his manager/publisher Established Cab Calloway, Inc. – Mills, his lawyer, and Ellington owned 65% – Mills may have owned 40% – Cab owned 35% – Maybe Ellington didn’t own 50% Alyn Shipton, Hi-de-ho: the life of Cab Calloway (Oxford, 2010), pp. 45-48 Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher” – Mills produced, marketed –Brunswick, 1931 – First disc by an African American to sell 1 million copies Pros and cons of the Ellington-Mills Relationship? How did both parties benefit? How were both parties dependent on the other? Was a 45-45-10 split fair? Who is more responsible for Ellington’s success and historical status as one of the most important American composers and bandleaders? Benny Goodman (1909-1986) White bandleader from working class Chicago. Son of European Jewish immigrants Gained radio play with a commercially oriented jazz band. “His rise to fame is testament to the importance of radio in promoting popular music.” (Millard, p. 179) Goodman on network radio in 1930s “Let’s Dance,” NBC radio program, 1935 – 3 hours of dance music each Saturday night – 3 bands, Goodman played last, but it was prime time in the west coast Ritz Cracker ads by National Biscuit Co. Radio program brought Goodman a contract with RCA Victor Fletcher Henderson Black bandleader and arranger The Depression and other events reduced Henderson’s business With the radio contract, Goodman bought many Henderson’s charts and later hired him as staff arranger Goodman’s National Tour, 1935 Midwesterners preferred conservative dance music – Waltzes and “sweet” jazz pieces – “Blue Moon” sung by Helen Ward Californian youth preferred “hot” jazz – “King Porter Stomp”, arr. by Fletcher Henderson Californians already knew and liked Goodman: – Radio program aired earlier (diff time zones) – Local DJ Al Jarvis played his records Palomar Ballroom concert, Los Angeles was a smash hit among youth who had been listening to him on the radio Goodman integrated his band (Black and white musicians)… carefully First to do this in live concerts, 1935-36, with Teddy Wilson (piano) and then Lionel Hampton (vibraphone) But did so incrementally and cautiously given segregation at the time: they were “special guests” and during a section of the concert with his trio/quartet How did radio affect the music industry? Jazz and Racial Justice, 1930s: Anti-Lynching Protests in the Depression “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allen), recorded by Billie Holiday on Commodore Records, 1939 Scott Deveaux and Gary Giddens, Jazz: Essential Listening (New York: Norton, 2011), p. 178-9 “She was not a Nell Irvin Painter, Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2007), 219, 221 Scott Deveaux and Gary Giddens, Jazz: Essential Listening (New York: Norton, 2011), p. 178-9