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Back There in the Old Ratty I Was Vacjue Strains Hung in the Place. I Wanted

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Back There in the Old Ratty I Was Vacjue Strains Hung in the Place. I Wanted STAR DUST 911 EMORIES Dixieland Jazz Band. By the early 1920s, how- important composer. Gennett also teamed ever, Chicago, with the nation's largest black Morton with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings population, had become the center of the in what historians believe was the first interra- jazz universe. And yet Chicago was ignored by cial jazz recording session. the record labels until Gennett Records During a college break in the became the city's primary aural diary. Several early 1920s Carmichael visited New Orleans Rhythm Kings' releases on Gen- Chicago's Friars Inn to hear nett in 1922 and 1923 marked the beginning firsthand (he New Orleans of an amazing run for the Indiana label. Over Rhythm Kings. While there he the next two years Gennett Records intro- first met Bix Beiderbecke, a talented white MARCH OF THE duced America to authentic, Chicago-based jazz cornetist from Iowa who soon led the HOODLUMS Wolverine Orche- (Carmichael) Carmichael's CollegianB stra, a fledgling jazz GENNETT RECORDS band that barn- RICHMOND, IND. stormed the Mid- west and recorded in Richmond in early 1924. Carmichael became one of Bei- and together they headed for Richmond, derbecke's most where Carmichael joined the band on piano serious followers for his first recording session at Gennett. and hired the Wolver- Down along the Whitewater River gorge, ines for engagements past the long row of Starr manufacturing at the IU campus. buildings, Carmichael entered the studio by The two men the tracks. The single-story, gray wooden became spiritual studio was situated on a concrete flood wall brothers in the near the river, next to the factory's flood pursuit of musical pump house. A secondary railroad spur, for understanding. One slow-moving cars hauling freight through drunken morning the crowded factory, ran about three feet at IU's Kappa Sigma Hoatjy Carmichael (in bow tie) joins Curtis Hitch from the studio's front door. The freight house, Carmichael at the piano as Hitch's Happy Harmonists record confessed to Beider- Carmichael's "Washboard Blues" in Richmond, 1925. becke his desire The other band members are (left to right) to compose. Beider- "Back there in Haskell Simpson, Maurice May, Harry Wright, becke provided the necessary, if some- Early "Buddy" McDowell, Arnold Habbe, and Fred Rollison. what incoherent, the old ratty jazz from New Orleans originals and their encouragement before he passed out. midwestern followers. In the spring of 1924 Carmichael gathered RECORDING STUDIO, Ironically Fred Gennett had no personal the Wolverines around the piano to hear his interest in jazz. Prohibition Chicago's explod- first composition, "Free Wheeling." The I was vacjue ing jazz scene, sparked by the migration of Wolverines took the song to their next record- black and white musicians from New Orleans, ing session in Richmond. To Carmichael's in MOOD as the contrasted sharply to Richmond's composed, amazement, Gennett released the Wolverines' small-town environment. However, Gennett rendition of his New Orleans-style song, viewed jazz as a viable market, particularly which they renamed "Riverboat Shuffle." The strains hung in the with black consumers, for the small family record encouraged Carmichael to continue label. Gennett was the first label to record composing. In the spring of 1925 he played a RAFTERS of the King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, a legendary new song, "Washboard Blues," for an area black group of New Orleans musicians based bandleader named Curtis Hitch, whose in Chicago, headed by Oliver and Louis Arm- Hitch's Happy Harmonists performed in place. I wanted to strong on cornets. Oliver's band recorded sev- southern Indiana. Hitch had recorded sev- eral landmark discs in April 1923 between the eral sides for Gennett, which routinely SHOUT, 'Maybe five-hour train rides from Chicago to Rich- released discs by area bands. Hitch asked Car- mond and back. The Gennett release of michael to compose an additional number I didn't write you, Oliver's "Chimes Blues" contains Armstrong's and proposed the band record both songs at first recorded cornet solo. That same year the next Gennett recording session. Car- Gennett produced the first solo piano records michael responded with "Boneyard Shuff le." but I FOUND you.'" by Jelly Roll Morton, arguably jazz music's first Carmichael loaded Hitch's band into his car, Summer 19 9 4 7 .
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