Reconsidering McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, 1927–1934: Performing Contexts, Radio Broadcasts, and Sound Recordings

A dissertation submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory

of the College-Conservatory of Music

by

Alyssa Mehnert

BM, University of Cincinnati, 2007

MM, Indiana University, 2012

Committee Chair: bruce d. mcclung, PhD ABSTRACT

Jazz scholars and musicians consider McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (hereafter MKCP), a

Detroit-based dance band active from 1923 to 1941, to be one of the important black dance

bands of the 1920s.1 However, this band has received little attention in jazz scholarship when

compared to its contemporaries, the Ellington, Henderson, and Calloway orchestras.2 John

Chilton published a short book on the band, titled McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of

McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in 1978, and Gunther Schuller provided detailed analysis of John

Nesbitt’s arrangements for the band in his volume The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz,

1930–1945. However, Chilton overlooked many details regarding the band’s history, particularly

its radio presence, and Schuller espoused a negative view of many of Donald Redman’s

arrangements for the band.

This study provides new information regarding MKCP’s performing context, radio

broadcasts, recordings for Victor, touring schedule, and audience reception. I draw from

newspapers (particularly radio schedules, music criticism, and letters from readers), as well as

oral histories, sales catalogues published by Victor records, and transcriptions of MKCP’s

recordings. In order to move away from a focus on recordings as autonomous objects in jazz

historical writing, this study responds to Lydia Goehr’s call to reconcile the aesthetic and

1 John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 1.

2 Jeffrey Magee and Mark Tucker’s books on Henderson and early Ellington, respectively, stand out as landmarks in the field. (Jeffrey Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz [New York: Oxford University Press, 2005]; Mark Tucker, Ellington: The Early Years, Music in American Life [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991].)

ii historical by considering how “empirical space” influenced the musical space of MKCP’s recordings.3

MKCP started as a regional broadcasting dance band and quickly gained status as a nationally recognized dance band and Victor recording artist. After 1930 changes in entertainment industry caused MKCP to shift from its permanent engagement at the Graystone

Ballroom and on radio to instead work as a regional touring dance band, like many bands at this time straddling the national and regional. The challenge of these rigorous tours coupled with management problems likely caused the band’s decline.

MKCP’s history coincides the developing popularity of radio, the practice of early electrical recording at Victor, and the increase in territory band touring after 1930.

Documentation of this band’s popularity as recorded in newspapers and oral histories reveals the nature of audience reception of dance orchestras during this period. Analysis of the MKCP’s recordings shows that the band and its arrangers responded to audience taste for a balance of precision and entertainment. Finally, a revolving door for musicians between the MKCP and the

Ellington, Henderson and Calloway Orchestras, coupled with increased touring in the 1930s, contributed to the homogenization of the arranged big band sound that became popular during the Swing Era.

3 Lydia Goehr, “Writing Music History,” History and Theory 31 (1992): 195.

iii

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At the end of writing this dissertation, I am now convinced that individuals do not write dissertations and earn doctoral degrees alone. This process has been a team effort. Perhaps institutions should consider awarding the degree to groups of family, friends, and mentors rather than to individuals! I want to start by thanking my advisor, bruce mcclung. He has always provided wise research guidance, professional advice, and unwavering support in the discipline. I also thank him for patiently devoting time to provide detailed and constructive comments on this dissertation.

I also want to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Daniel Goldmark,

Stephen Meyer, and Jennifer Doctor. Dr. Goldmark volunteered to serve on my committee and has been a supportive sounding board for research ideas and has provided much professional guidance. Words fall short of expressing the extent to which Dr. Meyer has supported all musicology students at CCM since he arrived in 2015. He has provided a kind place to discuss challenges ranging from research and writing to “life outside CCM.” He is attentive to students and is always willing to read a draft or write a recommendation letter at the last minute.

Additionally, Dr. Doctor has been endlessly helpful and supportive of my writing and professional development. She has been willing to set aside time to discuss literature and research challenges and provide guidance, as well as provide detailed feedback on my writing.

I’d also like to thank all the other CCM faculty that I have studied with during my time at the college for their time and support.

In order to produce this study, I have had wonderful opportunities to do archival research.

I would like to express my appreciation to the Cincinnati Branch of the English Speaking Union, the Institute for Jazz Studies (IJS), and the Ohio Federation of Music Clubs for grants supporting

v this travel. In particular I thank Tad Hershorn and the staff members at IJS for their enthusiastic assistance and sharing of ideas during my time there. I would also like to thank the audio engineers at the Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive at Syracuse University for creating high- quality digital copies of MKCP’s recordings from the original 78s. Additionally, I thank Carleton

Gholz and the Detroit Sound Conservancy for providing advice on finding materials, making

Graystone Ballroom materials available before completion of indexing, and for serving as a sounding board on how to contribute to the revitalization of Detroit’s music history from before the Motown era.

I want to thank my musicology and music theory student colleagues inside and outside

CCM. My peers, who are at various points in this program, have always been eager and willing to read a draft, to offer feedback to work out new intellectual ideas, and to provide excellent company during the long, sometimes isolating periods of writing. The colleagues who I have met during my time in this program have been one of the best parts of my experience, and so I must take the space to honor these other young music scholars at the beginning of their careers.

My husband, Eli Gallegos, has provided boundless emotional support and tolerated my odd schedule and habits during the long dissertation writing process. He has never once complained about the sacrifices we both had to make so I could complete this degree. I could not have finished without him. In addition to Eli, my parents have also provided crucial emotional support, encouragement to stay on track, and the occasional casserole.

vi Table of Contents

Introduction 1 Background 3 Literature review 15 Methodology 38

Part I: Rise of MKCP 1921–26 Chapter 1. Formation of MKCP and its Contract with the NAC, 1921–26 44 Economic conditions for forming a dance orchestra 44 The Synco Trio’s early formation 46 The Synco’s early style 51 Jean Goldkette, Charles Horvath, and the NAC 52 Making McKinney’s Cotton Pickers 60 MKCP at the Graystone Ballroom 61

Part II: MKCP as a Nationally Recognized Dance Orchestra, 1927–30 Chapter 2. MKCP’s Radio Presence, 1927–30 67 WJR and the Detroit Free Press 68 Listening to MKCP live on WJR 77 Summary of MKCP radio presence 79 MKCP, radio, and race 81 Construction of blackness on the radio 83 Radio, black music, and the domestic sphere 85 Constructed race and transgressed boundaries: Black music in the public sphere 91

Chapter 3. MKCP’s Recordings for Victor, 1928–31 97 Recordings as vernacular practice 98 MKCP records in Victor’s studios 99 Listening to Victor’s recordings 106 Victor’s marketing practices 109 MKCP and Victor’s race and mainstream labels 112

Chapter 4. MKCP on Record 125 Transcribing and analyzing recordings 127 Music criticism in the black press 130 The “partitioned” arrangement 136 Entertainment 144 Musical variety as entertainment 153 Arranging inside the strain 174

Part III: Decline of MKCP as a Regional Touring Dance Orchestra, 1930–34 Chapter 5. MKCP’s Touring Activity and Decline, 1930–34 185 Time period and materials 189 Newspaper advertisements 190

vii Touring bands and state highway infrastructure 193 MKCP touring activities: Locations and venues 195 Touring benefits 202 Touring difficulties 210 MKCP’s decline 219

Conclusion: Towards a New Historiography of the Swing Era 222

Bibliography 227

Appendix A. Items of Relevance in the Detroit Free Press, 1927–35 235

Appendix B. MKCP Victor Recordings, 1928–31 248

Appendix C. MKCP Tour Dates, 1929–33 251

viii LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: MKCP NYC and Camden Recording Locations, 1929–31 104

Table 3.2: MKCP Southern Music Copyright Holdings 111

Table 4.1: Pittsburgh Courier Letters to the Contest Editor Discussing “Jungle” Music 171

Table 4.2: “To Whom It May Concern,” Orchestration Diagram of 1'52"–2'47" 180

Table 5.1: MKCP Tour Spring 1930 196

Table 5.2: MKCP Selected College Dance Date Announcements 199

Table 5.3: Press Coverage of MKCP West Coast Tour 206

ix LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Example 4.1: George W. Meyer, Sidney D. Mitchell, “To Whom It May Concern,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, December 17, 1930, Victor 23035, transcription of first eight measures of opening chorus, 0'09"–0'21" 143

Example 4.2: Joe Grey and Arthur Gibbs, “Rocky Road,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, November 3, 1930, Victor 22932, transcription of out chorus lead lines, 1'52"–2'04" 143

Example 4.3: J. Fred Coots and Tot Seymour, “I Miss a Little Miss,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, November 5, 1930, Victor 23024, transcription of clarinet and glockenspiel solo, 2'45"–2'52" 155

Example 4.4: John Nesbitt, Don Redman, “Miss Hannah,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, November 6, 1929, Victor 38102, transcription of Sidney de Paris trumpet solo 1'35"–1'55" 157

Example 4.5: “Rocky Road,” transcription of Rex Stewart’s solo, 0'08"–0'20" 158

Example 4.6: “Okay Baby,” transcription of Joe Smith’s solo, 0'38"–0'53" 160

Example 4.7: “To Whom It May Concern,” transcription of brass lead line, 1'52"– 2'13" 162

Example 4.8: Frank Aquino and Jimmie Green, “Come A Little Closer,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, December 18, 1930, Victor 23035, transcription of first main strain of opening chorus (clarinet lead line and trumpet obbligato), 0'09"–0'22" 163

Example 4.9: Walter Donaldson, “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, December 17, 1930, Victor 23031, transcription of ensemble tutti lead line, 0'09"–0'24" 164

Example 4.10: Maceo Pinkard, William Tracey, “Okay Baby,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, July 29, 1930, Victor 23000, transcription of first twelve measures of out chorus. Ensemble lead line, Robinson solo, Nesbitt solo, 2'22"–2'32" 167

Example 4.11a: Charles Stanton, Don Redman, “Blues Sure Have Got Me,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, July 29, 1930, Victor Vi 40- 0116, transcription of opening brass tutti lead line and saxophones, 0'10"– 0'20" 172

Example 4.11b: Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, “East St. Louis Toodle-O,” recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, March 14, 1927, Brunswick E21872, transcription of Bubber Miley solo, 0'10"–0'24" 172

x Example 4.11c: “St. James Infirmary,” recorded by the Cab Calloway Orchestra, December 23, 1930, JSP 328, transcription of brass melody, 0'20"–0'34" 173

Example 4.12a: “Blues Sure Have Got Me,” transcription of introduction, 0'00"– 0'09" 173

Example 4.12b: “East St Louis Toodle-Oo,” transcription of introduction, 0'00"– 0'12" 174

Example 4.13: “Come a Little Closer,” transcription of introduction, 0'00"–0'09" 176

Example 4.14: Andy Razaf and Thomas “Fats” Waller, “Honey Suckle Rose,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, February 3, 1930, Victor 58546, transcription of Redman head arrangement and Nesbitt trumpet solo, 0'00" to 0'14" 179

xi LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: The Synco Sextet at Manitou Beach, 1921 49

Figure 1.2: The Chocolate Dandies in Band Shell at Manitou Beach, ca. 1927 49

Figure 1.3: Photograph of Graystone Ballroom interior, Date unknown, Courtesy of Detroit Sound Conservancy 55

Figure 1.4: Photograph of Graystone Ballroom exterior 55

Figure 1.5: NAC advertisement from Graystone Topics, March 1928 58

Figure 1.6: MKCP on Graystone schedule from Graystone Topics, 1928 65

Figure 2.1: WJR Radio Schedule, Detroit Free Press, Thursday, October 20, 1927 73

Figure 2.2: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule, Detroit Free Press, November 1, 1928, 17 73

Figure 2.3: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule, Detroit Free Press, January 22, 1929, 15 74

Figure 2.4: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule, Detroit Free Press, September 23, 1927, 8 88

Figure 2.5: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule, Detroit Free Press, October 6, 1927, 17 89

Figure 3.1: Victor Sales Catalogue, September 1929, 20 117

Figure 3.2: advertisement for Grinnell Bros., Detroit Free Press, Saturday, September 27, 1930, 11 122

Figure 5.1: Advertisement for MKCP performance, Eau Claire Leader, January 13, 1931, 7 193

xii Introduction

In September 1931 Chicago Defender correspondent Fred Avendorph reported on a dual dance played by the Duke Ellington orchestra and McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Avendorph reported that seven thousand people were present for the dance at the Graystone Ballroom in

Detroit, Michigan. Both bands were a major draw for audiences and were “unsurpassed when it comes to playing the Duke Ellington and the McKinney styles of music, which have made both groups famous.” Avendorph recalled that this dance at the Graystone “was an event worth remembering and a trip worth taking.”1

Who was this unsurpassed band that performed at a level equal to the Ellington orchestra? McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (hereafter MKCP) first formed as a trio in 1921 in

Springfield, Ohio, and gradually expanded to big band size in its first few years.2 In 1927 the

National Amusement Corporation (hereafter NAC), a band contractor based in Detroit and owned by Jean Goldkette and Charles Horvath, signed the band to play at the Graystone ballroom.3 Original bandleader William McKinney and the NAC subsequently contracted arranger and saxophonist Don Redman, who had been working for the Henderson band, to front

MKCP.4 Through its NACcontract, the band gained popularity through regular dance dates,5 which were often broadcast on WJR. An AM radio station, WJR’s signal could reach as far as

1 Fred Avendorph, “7,000 Present as Ellington Hits Detroit—Cotton Pickers Also on Dance Bill,” Chicago Defender, September 12, 1931, I/5.

2 By 1927 the band’s instrumentation consisted of two trumpets; one trombone; four saxophones or three saxes plus clarinet; and banjo, guitar, tuba, and drums. (John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers [London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978], 2, 56).

3 Ibid., 9.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., 19.

1 Arkansas and Texas,6 giving MKCP a wide reach through radio broadcasting. In 1928 Victor

signed MKCP.7 The group recorded fifty three sides with the company between 1928 and 1931.

The Great Depression, as well as problems with management, caused adversity for the

band during the 1930s. After the stock market crash in 1929, the record industry experienced

falling record sales, and as a result Victor did not renew MKCP’s contract after 1931.8 The same

year Redman left the band to form his own band.9 He was temporarily replaced by Benny

Carter;10 however, the band experienced a high turnover rate in this decade because of poor

management and touring hardships.11 The original band disbanded in 1934, but McKinney would

continue to contract local musicians for one-offs until 1941.

This study works to answer several questions, including why did a black midwestern

band like MKCP do so well at this time and why did they not survive into the late 1930s? And

why do jazz historians discuss the band less than the Henderson, Ellington, and Calloway

orchestras? Answering these questions reveals the band’s relationship to popular media at the

time and economic conditions. MKCP’s status and function shifted during its existence. It started

as a regional broadcasting dance band, gained status as a nationally recognized dance band and

Victor recording artist, and concluded as a regional touring dance band..

6 John Giles Hoglin, “A Descriptive Analysis of the Programming of WJR, Detroit, from 1922 to 1970” (PhD diss., Wayne State University, 1971), 1.

7 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 19.

8 Ibid., 49.

9 Ibid., 37.

10 Ibid., 38.

11 Ibid., 36.

2 After 1930 changes in entertainment industry caused MKCP to shift from its permanent engagement at the Graystone and on radio to instead work as a regional touring dance band, like many bands at this time straddling the national and regional—the band was nationally popular, but mostly toured the industrial Midwestern and Eastern states. The challenge of these rigorous tours coupled with management problems likely caused the decline of the band; its key players departed for opportunities with orchestras that were faring better than MKCP after 1930.

MKCP might be discussed less in jazz historical writing for several reasons. The band was not based in New York and never moved to New York like such bands as the Ellington and

Basie orchestras. MKCP was also shorter lived than the Ellington and Calloway orchestras, which remained active throughout the high Swing era (c. 1935–1942). Additionally, although the band had the opportunity to successfully capitalize on radio and recording, MKCP never appeared on film during its existence and thus did not have the opportunity to use this medium to boost its popularity, like the Ellington and Calloway orchestras. Finally, historical writing on

MKCP suggests that its recorded output does not easily fit within the teleological narrative that arcs towards the goal of the Swing-era style of the Goodman and Lunceford orchestras.

Nevertheless, through its radio broadcasts, recordings, and live performances, MKCP’s influenced the key staff arrangers of the Swing era, and many star players of the period passed through this band early in their careers.

Background

Throughout the 1920s dance orchestras were a popular form of entertainment in ballrooms, on record, and over the airwaves. Dancing was a popular recreation throughout the

3 country, creating opportunities for dance orchestras at ballrooms in the decade.12 The typical

instrumentation for dance orchestras in the 1920s included two trumpets, one trombone, three

reeds,13 banjo, piano, tuba or bass,14 and drum set.15 These bands commonly accompanied

dancing at ballrooms. In September 1927 Chicago Defender columnist Dave Peyton described

dance orchestras as one type of many types of orchestras that appeared in different types of

venues for different types of leisure activities: “In the great big orchestra field are four classes—

the picture house orchestra, the cabaret orchestra, the dance hall orchestra and the dignified

symphony orchestra. In the wide field of demand each of these orchestras gets it [sic] share of

business, and if they are distinctive in their line they get the preference.”16

Dance orchestras grew in number and size with the dance craze and building of ballrooms

across the country between 1920 and 1922. Howard Alan Spring explains “During the 1920s a

number of dance crazes sprang up at about the same time as jazz “orchestras” grew in size and

popularity.17 Around 1925 some of the dance crazes that became popular included the

12 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 110.

13 Scholars attribute the addition of the fourth reed to the reed section based on an interview with Andy Kirk: “Back in the 1920s . . . everything was based on triads and dominant seventh chords. Then some bands, McKinney's Cotton Pickers among them, added a sixth—an octave in a different voice. To get a full sound, they added a fourth sax, not doubling, but filling out the chord. I remember clearly that, when I first heard this change, it actually bothered my ear a little.” (Gene Fernett, Swing Out: Great Negro Dance Bands [New York: Da Capo Press, 1993], 38).

14 With the exception of Adrian Rollini who played the bass function on bass saxophone in his band.

15 The percussion set that drummers would play was not standardized in its modern form until the 1930s. Drum sets that percussionists would play could feature all manner of percussion instruments including chimes and timpanis. For example, Ellington’s drummer Sonny Greer used a variety of percussion instruments that are now nonstandard to the modern drumset.

16 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, September 3, 1927, I/6.

17 Howard Spring, “Dance and jazz,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 20, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000549000.

4 Charleston, the shimmy, and the black bottom.18 Robert P. Crease points to the popularity of the

phonograph, the “commercialization of american leisure life,” and exhibition dance teams such

as Irene and Vernon Castle as contributing to the 1920s dance craze.19 In turn, ballrooms and

dance halls continued to open in cities in the early 1920s:

The dance craze sparked a vast increase in the number of places to dance. New ballrooms, cabarets and nightclubs opened, and many hotels and restaurants installed dance floors to cater to the dance-mad public. And, in a development of far-reaching significance to the history of jazz, the market for musicians soared—leading to a vast increase in the number and size of bands able to support themselves.20

Dance orchestras also provided musical entertainment for radio broadcast during the

decade. Charles Sengstock explains: “Radio broadcasting and dance bands seemed made for

each other in the 1920s and 1930s. Radio could propel a band to fame, and dance band music

was great late-night program fare for the budding radio stations.”21 Likewise, Philip Eberly

observes that dance orchestras “were in the driver's seat” of radio programming throughout the

decade.22 Several white dance bands that regularly performed for radio broadcast early in the

decade included Vincent Lopez, Coon-Sanders, and Guy Lombardo.23 This trend was still

present by the time MKCP began broadcasting in September 1927.

18 Danielle Robinson, Modern Moves: Dancing Race during the Ragtime and Jazz Eras (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 9.

19 Robert P. Crease, “Jazz and Dance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, ed. Mervyn Cooke and David Horn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 71.

20 Ibid., 72.

21 Charles A. Sengstock, That Toddlin’ Town: Chicago's White Dance Bands and Orchestras, 1900–1950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 38.

22 Philip K. Eberly, Music in the Air: America's Changing Tastes in Popular Music, 1920–1980 (New York: Hastings House, 1982), 23.

23 Ibid., 17–19.

5 In the late 1920s and ’30s, these dance orchestras provided opportunities for black

musicians to work regularly, to play music with their peers, and to hone their craft in live

performance, on radio broadcast, and in the recording studio. David Chevan explains that

working in a dance band that played arranged music could provide lucrative employment for

black musicians: “With employment opportunities already limited, one can imagine that there

was more at stake in terms of social status and financial gain for African American musicians

who could read music.”24

A discussion of dance bands in the late 1920s and ’30s requires a definition of the terms

“regional” and “territory” to describe bands located across the country. Jazz historical writing

has traditionally focused on a New York-centric narrative, but many big bands, such as those of

Bennie Moten and Edwards’ Collegians, were based in other parts of the country. Many bands

from cities such as Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit toured the northeastern, eastern states, and

industrial north. I refer to these as “regional” bands in line with literature on the subject.25 The

term “territory band” also refers to touring bands, but Marc Rice defines “territory bands” as

bands that were based in cities from Kansas City westward.26 Thus, in reference to MKCP’s

tours, I refer to the band as a regional touring band rather than a “territory band.”

24 David Chevan, “Musical Literacy and Jazz Musicians in the 1910s and 1920s.” Current Musicology 71 (2001): 212. Lawrence Schenbeck also comments on the importance of dance band work to black musicians: “Dance-band work was particularly attractive to working-class black men, who might otherwise have had to push a broom somewhere at a much lower wage, given the economic constraints imposed by racism.” (Lawrence Schenbeck, “Music, Gender, and ‘Uplift’ in the Chicago Defender, 1927–1937,” The Musical Quarterly 81 [1997]: 348).

25 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994).

26 “From the 1920s to 1940s, towns and cities of any substantial size in the Midwest and Southwest were used as a home base by ensembles known as “territory bands.” These dance orchestras defended their turf from visiting bands through pitched musical battles, while also touring in a region that ran deep into Texas, through the Great Plains, and into the Dakotas. Kansas City was the easternmost part of this range.” (Marc Rice, “Territory band,” Grove Music Online, accessed May 28, 2018,

6 By the end of the 1920s, managers and booking agents had adopted the practice of ranking these national, regional, and territory bands with a system that included a national category, with regional categories borrowing from the minor league designations in baseball.27

Thomas Hennessey explains that MKCP fell into the “major league” category:

From 1929 on, the band business adopted an informal structure resembling professional baseball with major leagues and various grades of minor leagues from AAA down to A. The major leagues were the national bands, Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and later Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie, who toured extensively and also received frequent radio time and recording opportunities. Class AAA bands were top territory outfits who occasionally toured elsewhere such as Bennie Moten in the Southwest, Les Hite on the West Coast, and Zach Whyte in the Midwest. Next came the Class A bands, those recognized as supreme in a particular city or region, Red Perkins in Omaha, Grant Moore in Minneapolis, Boots Douglas and Don Albert in San Antonio.

The lowest level in the chain were the local bands trying to make names for themselves. These groups were often amateur or semi-pro groups of young musicians seeking experience and money. These young musicians looked up the pyramid hoping to move beyond the local territory band level.28

Although all of the top-ranked orchestras save for MKCP were based in New York, many of the musicians who played in these groups were not natives to the city, but instead hailed from the Midwest. Quentin Jackson and Milt Hinton reflected on this geography in their interview for the Jazz Oral History Project:

JACKSON. That whole territory, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. A lot of good musicians came from that territory. They used to have territory bands out there, you see, in Ohio. I can name you five territory bands out of Ohio that was working all the time. . . . That’s where these guys came from, you see . . . 1931 Don got that band together. He left McKinney’s Cottonpickers in December—no, September 1931. HINTON. So the thirties was very lucrative and hot for a musician beginning to play. The territorial bands were beginning to flow into New York, the territorial musicians—from http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-1002276655).

27 “Minor League Baseball Timeline, 1901–2001,” MiLB.com, accessed July 12, 2018, http://www.milb.com/milb/history/timeline.jsp.

28 Hennessey, 135.

7 all these different places . . . Which is most interesting because in most historical jazz we only hear of the musicians coming from New Orleans, but we had these great territorial bands—that played in their territory and people are beginning to recognize them and they begin to see, now that the Chicago era is over, everybody’s beginning to flow to New York because this is the mecca now where—entertainment mecca—and they all began to flow into here. So we get these great musicians that are perhaps unsung in the annals of famousness, fame but were the backbone of all the great orchestras, coming from all of these different cities and states, like you say Louisville, Kentucky, contributed. JACKSON. That’s right. Ohio contributed a lot. HINTON. Ohio contributed with— JACKSON. Illinois and Kansas— HINTON. Kansas— JACKSON. Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri. HINTON. And Atlanta, Georgia, had been there with Perry Bradford and all those guys who were doing it at the same time that it was happening in New Orleans. JACKSON. And, you know, around Detroit they had a lot of good bands. When I was there at McKinney’s band, they had a lot of good bands. Billy Minor had a good band around there, you know. And that’s where Inge came from. That’s where we got Inge, from Billy Minor’s band.29

MKCP’s personnel roster shows how many musicians of the 1920s and ’30s hailed from across

the country, tempering jazz historical writing’s traditional focus on New York City.

MKCP’s personnel included many outstanding African American musicians now credited

for their roles in the Swing era and their influence on jazz improvisational and arranging styles.30

One of the best known of these musicians is saxophonist, arranger, and bandleader Don Redman.

Jazz historians Morroe Berger and Edward Berger argue that Redman developed the central

concepts of big band arranging and first brought sectionalization practices to big band jazz.31

29 Though Jackson misremembered Frankie Newton’s and Dickie Wells’s birthplaces (Virginia and Tennessee, respectively), he correctly remembered that Bob Carroll, Bill Coleman, and Jonah Jones came from Kentucky. Moreover the broad origins of these musicians shows that Jackson’s overall point remains valid. (Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1, 1976).

30 MKCP never had women band members in its personnel.

31 Not all scholars agree with this view. Robert Kenselaar explains: “The writings of Schuller and Collier have revised previous assessments of Redman, since they credited the emergence of the central concepts of big-band orchestration to white arrangers and bandleaders active in the late 1910s and early 1920s, notably Ferde Grofé, Isham Jones, Art Hickman, and Paul Whiteman. This reassessment, however, threatens to undervalue Redman’s creativity: by comparison with the predominantly genteel offerings of the earlier white bands, Henderson’s finest recordings of Redman’s arrangements suggests that there is a chasm between a conceptualization in a pop context

8 Redman brought the distinctive arranging style he developed with the Henderson band to MKCP,

thus bringing a distinctly Harlem dance band style to Detroit.

Redman’s approach to arranging has been explored by such scholars as Jeffrey Magee,

but another arranger who made important contributions, John Nesbitt, has not yet received

serious scholarly study beyond Schuller’s analyses of his arrangements for MKCP. Redman

described Nesbitt as “an exceptional trumpet player” who arranged some “fine things for the

Cotton Pickers.”32 Little information on this musician is now available, and his death from

alcoholism cut his career short.33 Schuller claimed that Nesbitt’s “shabby treatment in the

reference literature is quite unforgivable,” and I agree with this view.34 Gene Fernett argues that

Nesbitt had been influenced by trumpeter and composer Bix Beiderbecke and arranger Bill

Challis.35 Chilton claims that after being fired from MKCP, Nesbitt worked for dance bandleader

Zach Whyte and continued writing arrangements for other bands, most famously arranging

“Chinatown, my Chinatown” for the Henderson band.36 I regret that despite extensive archival

searching, I could not find any additional information on this trumpeter and arranger. I have

and a convincing execution in jazz. Redman was an outstanding jazz arranger and the first master of jazz orchestration.” (Robert Kenselaar, “Redman, Don,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., ed. Barry Kernfeld [New York: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2002], 386.) Trombonist Quentin Jackson held a similar view, describing Redman as “one of the forerunners of big band dance arranging.” (Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1, 1976.)

32 Interview with The Jazz Review, cited in Chilton, 10.

33 Chilton, 30.

34 Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 304.

35 Gene Fernett, Swing Out: Great Negro Dance Bands (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993), 39.

36 Chilton, 30. Charles Hiroshi Garrett has explored the appropriation of this song by big bands, including Henderson’s. (Charles Hiroshi Garrett, “Chinatown, Whose Chinatown? Defining America's Borders with Musical Orientalism.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 57 [2004]: 119–74).

9 heard similar complaints from other jazz scholars who also wish to know more about him. Thus,

this study presents little new historical information on Nesbitt although I analyze one of his

arrangements and his solo work with the band.37

In addition to Redman and Nesbitt, saxophonist and arranger Benny Carter also penned

arrangements for the MKCP’s final Victor sessions in 1931. Carter followed Redman through

both Henderson and MKCP early in his career. He replaced Redman as a saxophonist in the

Henderson orchestra, and subsequently replaced him as saxophonist and leader of MKCP in

1931 after Redman left to form his own band. Carter also left MKCP the following year to form

his own band.38

Several outstanding trombonists, Claude Jones and Quentin “Butter” Jackson, also played

with MKCP. Jones was one of MKCP’s first members. He left MKCP in 1929 to join the

Henderson orchestra, and also played with Chick Webb during the 1930s.39 Trombonist and

vocalist Quentin Jackson, who was Jones’s brother-in-law, joined the band in 1930. He left

MKCP in 1932 to join the Calloway orchestra and is best known for his subsequent tenure with

the Ellington orchestra. Jackson is better known as a trombonist, but this dissertation will show

that he was also an outstanding vocalist.40

37 Although I disagree with Schuller’s assessment of Redman’s work for MKCP, he provides useful detailed analyses of Nesbitt’s arrangements for the band in The Swing Era. Thus, I address these recordings in less detail. (Schuller, 305–15.)

38 Edward Berger, “Carter, Benny,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000076600.

39 Bob Zieff, “Jones, Claude (B.),” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000235100.

40 The Oxford Music Online article on Jackson does not mention his skill as a vocalist. Koch, Lawrence. “Jackson, Quentin (Leonard).” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018,

10 In addition to trumpeter and arranger John Nesbitt, MKCP’s personnel included several trumpet players who were well known in the 1920s, and some of whom became star musicians in the Swing era. Doc Cheatham recalled the distinctive and outstanding styles of the different trumpet players who moved through MKCP’s personnel: “From Joe Smith, to Rex Stewart, to the trumpet player that did all the writing for McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, I forget his name,

Nesbitt. All these guys were different. No two guys played alike. All up the line.”41

Trumpeter Joe Smith had success performing and recording throughout the 1920s before playing with MKCP. During this decade some musicians considered Smith to be Armstrong’s rival. Early in the 1920s Smith accompanied Ethel Waters with a Black Swan touring group, and subsequently became known for skillfully accompanying such blues singers as Mamie Smith,

Alberta Hunter, Trixie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith. He also played for the revues

Chocolate Dandies and Blackbirds. Smith joined MKCP in 192942 but left in 1931 when his alcoholism began interfering with his ability to perform with the band.43

Trumpeter and tuba player Sidney De Paris (Wilbur De Paris’s brother) performed and recorded with MKCP for a short period in 1929. He worked with many of the black swing-era

http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000220100.

41 Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976.

42 Chilton, 65.

43 Chris Albertson, “Smith, Joe.” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-1002276511.

11 bands including Benny Carter’s, Don Redman’s, and Noble Sissle’s. De Paris also had success during the early jazz revival with his brother Wilbur in the late 1940s.44

Trumpeter, saxophonist, and singer Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham worked with MKCP late in the band’s existence. He had toured with the Sam Wooding orchestra for several years in the

1920s before joining MKCP but returned to the States in late 1929.45 He played with MKCP from 1931 until 1932,46 when he left to join the Calloway orchestra. Despite being an effective soloist, bands tended to employ him as a lead trumpeter, which frustrated him throughout his career. 47

Cornetist Rex Stewart did not regularly play with MKCP but subbed with the band on some of its late recordings and recorded memorable solo work with the band. Stewart had replaced Louis Armstrong in the Henderson orchestra in 1926 and remained with the group until

1933. He is most famous for his tenure with the Ellington orchestra, which he joined in 1934. 48

Two rhythm section members, banjoist Dave Wilborn and drummer Cuba Austin, made significant musical contributions to the band. Wilborn was one of the original MKCP members.

Unlike many of the other musicians, Wilborn did not go on to join any of the other major

44 William H. Kenney and Barry Kernfeld, “De Paris, Sidney," Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000119000.

45 Cheatham recalled flying back to the States from Europe the day of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. (Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976).

46 Chilton, 64.

47 David Chevan, “Cheatham, Doc,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-1002227973.

48 Bradford J. Robinson, “Stewart, Rex,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-0000041308.

12 orchestras, but rather, remained in the Detroit area for the remainder of his life. Near the end of his life, he was involved in the Detroit-based MKCP revival band, the New McKinney’s Cotton

Pickers.49

Drummer, tap dancer, and comedian Cuba Austin joined MKCP early in its existence— he replaced William McKinney as the drummer in 1926 when McKinney decided to focus on managing the band. Chilton described Austin as “one of the most spectacular and effective drummers of the 1920s.”50 When the band divided into two factions in 1931, he ran the group that took the name the “Original Cotton Pickers.” 51 As comedian and actor Mantan Moreland’s cousin, Austin used a similar style of humor during the band’s live performances.52

Examination of MKCP’s personnel reveals a revolving door for musicians between the band and the top-rated orchestras directed by Henderson, Calloway, and Ellington. For example,

Redman left the Henderson band to lead MKCP in 1927, and saxophonist and arranger Benny

Carter also left Henderson to replace him in 1931. Trumpeter Rex Stewart also came from

Henderson’s band, and eventually went on to be best known for his tenure with the Ellington orchestra. Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham joined Calloway after leaving MKCP in 1931.53

Trombonists Claude Jones and Quentin Jackson also joined Calloway’s band after their time

49 Howard Rye, “Wilborn, Dave,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000483000.

50 Chilton, 3.

51 “Austin, Cuba,” Grove Music Online, Accessed June 10, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000018400.

52 Jackson, interview.

53 Cheatham recalled in an interview “I replaced Curl. And Bennie Carter and I went at the same time.” (Cheatham, interview).

13 with MKCP.54 Like Stewart, Jackson went on to be best known for his tenure with the Ellington orchestra. This rotation of musicians between the top black dance bands after 1930 also contributed to a homogenized big band style in the 1930s.

Both black and white dance orchestras throughout the 1920s exhibited distinctive regional styles. For example, the Harlem bands of the mid-1920s more often played foxtrots and while they did play popular blues numbers, demonstrated less blues influence. Garvin Bushell recalled: “There wasn’t an eastern performer who could really play the blues. We later absorbed how from the southern musicians we heard.” 55 Similarly, Magee claims that before Armstrong’s arrival to the Henderson band in October 1924, the band’s recordings and style competed with white dance orchestras of the period such as Paul Whiteman’s, Vincent Lopez’s, and Sam

Lanin’s.56 In contrast, Bennie Moten’s band in Kansas City did not use notated music in the mid

1920s, and its primary influences included the blues craze, novelty music, and New Orleans-style collective improvisation.57 The Moten band did not adopt elements of the Harlem style until after it travelled to New York in 1930.58

After 1930 bands and musicians began sharing and adopting stylistic characteristics from each other, eventually creating a homogenized style that became the ossified style of the Swing era. Several factors contributed to this homogenization, including radio broadcasts and

54 Both of these trombonists came from Ohio and were brothers-in-law. (Jackson, interview.)

55 Jeffrey Magee, “The Music of Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra in the 1920s” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1992), 66.

56 Ibid., 61.

57 Marc Rice, “Prelude to Swing: The 1920s Recordings of the Bennie Moten Orchestra,” American Music 25 (2007): 262–64.

58 Ibid., 273.

14 recordings, as well as bands touring more frequently after 1930. Hennessey explains that by 1929

“across the United States ballrooms were looking for the arranged big band sound.”59

Additionally, as some musicians in black dance bands became stars for their particular style, younger musicians strove to emulate these star big band players as they heard them on radio broadcasts and records. Hennessey explains:

The goal of joining a name band made the styles of the younger swing players more homogeneous because they emulated their idols and prepared to play in big band arranged swing settings. They wanted to avoid the plight of Lester Young, who was sent home by Fletcher Henderson because his style was too strikingly different from that of his predecessor, Coleman Hawkins.60

These phenomena created a homogenized, high Swing-era style during the 1930s that used the partitioned arrangement, frequent shifts in instrumentation between choruses, and jazz elements like blues, improvisation, and the 4/4 swing feel. MKCP’s radio broadcasts, recordings, and live performances, played an important role in defining this style, as several important swing era musicians moved through this band early in their careers, and Redman’s arranging style influenced the next generation of Swing-era arrangers.

Literature review

John Chilton has authored the only book devoted to MKCP. Titled McKinney’s Music: A

Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers,61 this short volume draws largely on interviews and correspondence with surviving band members and provides a detailed discography and complete list of the band’s personnel. Chilton’s work has proven foundational for my research, as many of his interviews with band members complement my primary sources. This

59 Hennessey, 129.

60 Ibid., 135–36.

61 Chilton, McKinney’s Music.

15 dissertation, however, goes beyond Chilton’s bio-discography through an investigation of archival sources, especially newspapers, for both reception history and MKCP management’s construction of race in advertisements, promotional materials, and press announcements. Chilton largely ignores MKCP’s radio broadcasts, but my archival research has shown these were central to the band’s existence. Finally, he provides no musical analysis or examples from MKCP’s recorded output. In contrast, I have transcribed musical examples from the band’s recordings and traced audience reception of black dance bands from the period.

Authors who have written about MKCP’s musical output have focused less on historical context and more on the band’s recordings as autonomous aesthetic objects and evaluated them for perceived jazz authenticity. Hughes Panassié and Gunther Schuller have written about

MKCP’s musical output in the most detail. Their evaluations of the band also provide background for understanding its current place in jazz literature. Panassié discussed MKCP in detail in his 1934 book, Le Jazz Hot, and praised Redman’s arrangements for the band:

Reckoning with the wild savagery of this orchestra, he wrote straightforward, concise arrangements that would permit this orchestra to show off its remarkable energy. For example, he would often make the final chorus out of one simple phrase, a simple fragment of three or four notes repeated throughout, which the orchestra could play with maximum vigor.62

He cites the band’s recordings of “The Way I Feel Today,” “I’ll Make Fun for You,” “Never

Swat a Fly,” and “You’re Driving Me Crazy” as examples of Redman’s skill. Although Panassié uses racialized language such as “wild savagery” to describe black musicians throughout his book, I find his assessment of MKCP’s musical energy on record to be valid.

62 Hugues Panassié, Hot Jazz: The Guide to Swing Music, trans. Lyle Dowling and Eleanor Dowling, (1934; repr., Westport: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 206.

16 In contrast to Panassié’s positive assessment of MKCP’s recordings during the 1930s,

Schuller had a less favorable assessment. He praised the band’s early recordings from 1928, claiming “It is clear that the band had already achieved a distinctive style and concept unlike any other, and within that style a very high performance level, to my knowledge not matched by any other jazz or orchestra of the time.”63 However, he argued that the band’s later recordings, especially of Redman’s arrangements, lacked jazz artistry. Schuller criticized Redman for falling into the trap of “commercialism” during his tenure with MKCP:

It is quite apparent . . . that Redman, as the titular leader of the band (though it didn’t carry his name), was already beginning to concentrate on a more commercial repertory, whereas the instrumentals and straight jazz numbers were Nesbitt’s domain. A high percentage of Redman’s creative energies was being channeled towards the writing and singing of vocals, novelty tunes, songs which might compete with the big hits of the day (like Coquette, Nobody’s Sweetheart, Four or Five Times, and My Blue Heaven), and established jazz pieces like Morton’s Milenberg Joys or Spencer Williams’s Shim-Me- Sha-Wabble. It is to Redman’s credit that, at least in the early years, he treated such material with distinction. . . .

On the other hand, Redman’s arrangements are not especially outstanding or imaginative. They are skillful and effective, but rarely original; and then only on the level of small details. Furthermore, since so many of his arrangements here are taken up by vocals, there is little space left for developing arranged ensembles, or solos for that matter. Thus even the best of his work during this period, Milenberg Joys and Shim Me Sha Wabble, is cluttered and often too fragmented.64

Schuller also associated Redman’s use of vocals and popular songs for recordings with what he termed a commercial agenda:

As a leader Redman can be faulted for the shoddy material he often had the band record, perhaps due to Goldkette front-office pressures. This tendency, at first moderate and still balanced with fine instrumentals, became a serious problem by 1930, and led not only to the departure of Nesbitt but to a serious decline altogether of the Cotton Pickers. The

63 Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 302.

64 Ibid., 303.

17 inevitable commercialism, we have noted with virtually every band, sooner or later was bound to take its toll.65

Schuller’s assessment of MKCP makes use of an art/commercial dichotomy evident in much jazz

historical criticism. Schuller often employed it in his book The Swing Era. Within this

dichotomy, he tends to view the use of African American coded musical elements, like swing

rhythms, blues inflections, and syncopation as expressions of musical artistry or as a rebellion

against the commercial pressures of the music industry. And likewise, he tends to categorize the

musical styles of white dance bands like Paul Whiteman’s and Guy Lombardo’s as examples of

commercial music. Schuller tended to categorize instrumental numbers as art music and vocal

numbers as commercial. Finally, he tended to prioritize musical coherence and formalism in big

band arranging. Schuller positioned Nesbitt’s arrangements as more formally coherent than

Redman’s by describing Nesbitt’s work with praise such as “not a series of strung-together

episodes, but excellent ‘compositions’ in which form and content are blended into one,”66 and

summarizing Redman’s numbers as “arranged in such a disjunct manner that the band could not

maintain overall continuity.”67

In this study I seek to dismantle Schuller’s assessment of MKCP and the ahistoric use of

the jazz/commercial dichotomy in analysis of dance band music from the 1920s and ’30s.

Examination of both black and white newspapers from the period shows that audiences and

65 Ibid., 303–4.

66 Ibid., 304.

67 Ibid., 303. DeVeaux has connected the desire for formal coherence to American music listeners’ feeling of inferiority comared to the European tradition: “admirers of jazz were as likely as classical music critics to insist loudly on the need for formal rigor. If Americanism in composition had its roots in a hard-to-shake sense of inferiority vis-à-vis Europe, jazz musicians (and their defenders in the press) were doubly insecure with the relation to the classical music establishment—as Americans and as a part of the popular music industry.” Because Schuller strove to position jazz as art music, his emphasis of formal coherence makes sense. (Scott DeVeaux, “Black Brown and Beige and the Critics,” Black Music Research Journal, 13 [1993]: 139).

18 music critics did not use this framework to describe dance band music. Rather, critics and

listeners valued the precision and virtuosity of the band.68 Moreover, examination of the band’s

late recordings reveals the band’s and its arrangers’ compelling use of variety, entertainment, and

precision. Rather than seek formalism in the band’s recordings, reception history from the period

shows that listeners valued a variety of timbres and styles presented in sectionalized

arrangements.

Historians Scott DeVeaux, Jeffrey Magee, John Wriggle, David Ake, and Sherrie Tucker

have worked to dismantle this art/commercial dichotomy in jazz discourse, thus making space

for the study of MKCP’s popularity as a top-ranked black big band. In his dissertation, Jeffrey

Magee identifies this dichotomy in the writings of Schuller and Lawrence Gushee, but he also

explains that it originates in Panassié’s writing. Magee jettisons Panassié’s, Schuller’s, and

Gushee’s critique of the Henderson band recordings from 1923–24. He explains that their value

judgments of the band’s “commercialism” originates from “a complex compound of opinion

linking race, musical style, and commercial inclination.”69 Magee also observes that these

authors dismiss recordings by dance bands such as Henderson’s that sounded “commercial” to

them because they viewed Swing-era music as a teleological goal: “In effect, these and other

critics condemned the band’s earliest recordings on the basis of a known and desired outcome—

68 For example, Elijah Wald has written about midcentury jazz critics’ dismissal of Louis Armstrong’s appreciation of Guy Lombardo. (Elijah Wald, “Louis Armstrong Loves Guy Lombardo,” in Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries, ed. David Andrew Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Daniel Goldmark, [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012], 31–48). Another example appears in the Chicago Defender. The newspaper complained in early 1930 that the Music Corporation of America refused to allow Lombardo to perform for a black audience even though they had recently allowed Rudy Vallee to do so. (“Guy Lombardo Is Refused Chance to Play for Race,” Chicago Defender, February 22, 1930, I/6).

69 Jeffrey Magee, “The Music of Fletcher Henderson,” 57.

19 the swing style.”70 Finally, Magee proposes using the term “jazz” as a “plain noun or adjective instead of a standard of judgment” to examine the Henderson band’s early recordings.71 He also takes this stance in his book The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band

Jazz.72

In his book Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era, John

Wriggle also problematizes this dichotomy. Wriggle argues that the boundary between jazz and commercial arrangers has never been fixed:

Use of . . . terms . . . “artist” instrumental improvisers against “novelty” vocalists or “hack” arrangers—has never resulted in a consistent taxonomy. Even when focusing on freelance arrangers (as opposed to bandleader-arrangers like Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, or Stan Kenton), some commentators have followed Panassié in attempting to separate “jazz” pratitioners (a status frequently assigned to Benny Carter and Gil Evans, for example) from “commercial” laborers.73

He similarly finds the art/commercial dichotomy in Schuller’s assessment of arrangers and argues that he views jazz arranging as less original than composing:

In The Swing Era (1989), Gunther Schuller judges the success of arrangers based on degrees of artistic authenticity, arguing that “an arrangement is by definition a reworking of some other creator’s original material, and only in rare intances . . . can it achieve the authenticity of full creation.” This case-by-case gatekeeper mandate accompanies a critique of black bandleader Jimmie Lunceford, whose college training, “retinue of arrangers,” and “exacting musicianship” is compared to that of the financially successful white bandleader Paul Whiteman, a long-established foil to “authentic” big band jazz.74

70 Ibid., 58.

71 Ibid.

72 Jeffrey Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

73 John Wriggle, Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 12–13.

74 Ibid., 13.

20 Sherrie Tucker similarly views the art/commercial dichotomy as problematic,

“distinguishing real jazz from the popular . . . makes it easy to ignore artists, audiences,

performance contexts, and discursive formations that may tell us a great deal about jazz histories

and cultures.”75 Thus, Tucker, Wriggle, and Magee have worked to dismantle the art/commercial

dichotomy that has pervaded jazz discourse and in doing so provide the opportunity to examine

how dance bands like MKCP performed and interacted with listeners and musical culture in the

late 1920s and early ’30s.

In his landmark article “Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography,” DeVeaux

observes this art/commercial dichotomy in jazz historiography and argues that scholars and

musicians who endorse this construction must work hard to maintain it, as it ignores jazz’s

relationship to capitalism:

It is all the more remarkable for jazz—a music that has developed largely within the framework of modern mass market capitalism—to be construed within the inflexible dialectic of “commercial” versus “artistic,” with all virtue centered in the latter. The virulence with which these opinions are expressed gives a good idea how much energy was required to formulate this position in the first place, and how difficult it is to maintain.76

Deveaux argues that jazz historians have constructed a “coherent” narrative of jazz history that

falls apart in the present.77 He explains that this narrative fails to account for the diversity of

styles that musicians and scholars consider to be jazz, explaining “that the idea of the ‘jazz

75 Sherrie Tucker, “Deconstructing the Jazz Tradition: The ‘Subjectless Subject’ of New Jazz Studies,” in Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries, ed. David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Goldmark (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 275.

76 Scott DeVeaux, “Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography,” Black American Literature Forum 25 (1991): 530.

77 Ibid., 525.

21 tradition’ is . . . an overarching narrative that has crowded out other possible interpretations of the complicated and variegated cultural phenomena that we cluster under the umbrella jazz.”78

DeVeaux connects the art/commercial dichotomy and historical narrative to scholars’ and critics’ treatment of jazz as autonomous rather than created within a social and historical context:

“The concept of the jazz tradition tends to leach the social significance out of the music, leaving the impression that the history of jazz can be described satisfactorily only in aesthetic terms.”79

He describes Schuller’s historical tomes Early Jazz and The Swing Era as “a monument to the ideal of jazz as an autonomous art.”80

DeVeaux demonstrates how critics must work to construct the jazz historical narrative to fit the framework that the art/commercial dichotomy creates. For example, if bebop is jazz as art music, historians have to work to position select musicians from early jazz and the swing era as art music, too:

Much that must be counted as “early jazz” can be understood as an autonomous art music only in retrospect, and with some difficulty. This strategy therefore exaggerates the tendency to make artificial distinctions between the artistic and the commercial, and assumes that the association of this nascent art with less elevated social functions was either a mistake in judgment or a burden imposed by a less enlightened time.81

Through his demonstration of how scholars have constructed the jazz tradition to position jazz as art music, and position “art” music as having positive qualities while constructing “commercial” as negative, DeVeaux observes how the jazz history narrative mirrors the historical narrative used to describe European music history. He calls for scholars to cease constructing jazz as an art

78 Ibid., 531.

79 Ibid., 542.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid., 544.

22 music and instead employ a particularist approach to understand jazz history: “The time has come for an approach that is less invested in the ideology of jazz as an aesthetic object and more responsive to issues of historical particularity. Only in this way can the study of jazz break free from its self-imposed isolation, and participate with other disciplines in the exploration of meaning in American culture.”82 My focus on a MKCP, a dance orchestra that used jazz elements and made quality recordings that were commercially successful, but has been discussed less in jazz historical writing and was criticized by Schuller as too “commercial,” responds to

DeVeaux’s call for the particularist approach.

Andrew Berish has demonstrated the historical basis for the use of the art/commercial dichotomy in jazz criticism, connecting it to the hot/sweet dichotomy used previously in 1920s and ’30s jazz discourse. He describes the hot/sweet dichotomy and the perceived connection between race and musical style:

In the United States at this time, Americans heard music, including jazz, through a racial ideology designed to differentiate black from white. Although individuals might have disagreed in specific cases, the written records of these years—oral histories, journalism, and academic writing —clearly show that most Americans had available a general cognitive framework for identifying certain sounds as “black” or “African” and others as “not-black” (thus, implicitly “white”). There were, in sociologist Barry Shank's words, audible “musical signatures of racial identity” that musically encoded blackness. . . . The racial identity of a musical performance was created through an articulation—a joining together—of racial thinking and musical sound. And because this connection was not “natural” but historically determined, it was inherently unstable. The voices of cultural authority such as writers, intellectuals, and teachers had to actively promote these articulations, to reiterate them again and again. Music and racial identity become mutually constitutive and part of a circular social argument: music is proof of racial difference, and racial difference “naturally” produces different music. Oftentimes Americans reiterated this articulation of race and music in oblique language: during the 1930s, jazz was frequently categorized as either “hot” or “sweet.” . . . these two terms

82 Ibid., 553.

23 had strong racial connotations. Describing a band as “hot” was another way of saying that the music was played in, or at least approximated, a black style.83

Berish describes the musical characteristics associated with “sweet” and “hot” music. He describes sweet music as “slower tempos and straightforward, romantic interpretations of melodies”84 and hot jazz as “the opposite of this: full of rhythmic excitement, improvisation, unusual timbres, and ‘Negro’ influence.”85 Although these are the basic musical characteristics of these categories, he explains that “the distinction between sweet and hot was more a discursive practice than a musical fact,”86 and “these categories . . . were gross simplifications that never could encompass the fluid world of jazz-inflected dance band music.”87

Berish explains how the hot/sweet binary eventually developed into the dichotomy between “real jazz” and “commercial” dance band music made by subsequent critics and scholars such as Schuller:

Most jazz critics of the 1930s and ’40s made a distinction between “jazz” (the loose, small-group improvised music made famous in 1920s Chicago largely by expatriated New Orleans musicians) and “swing” or “orchestral jazz”—the large-ensemble dance music of the big bands. Other critics insisted less on clarifying the jazz/swing boundary than on making distinctions within the large and growing world of commercial dance bands—by the early 1930s the dominant organizational form of this American popular music. For these writers, making the distinction between jazz and “not jazz” or between hot and sweet rested on identifying certain key musical parameters—especially improvisation and rhythm—as well as the influence or presence of African American musical culture. As defined by the writers in the major music publications such as Down Beat and Metronome (many of whom were opinionated devotees of “authentic” hot jazz), sweet jazz, also labeled “commercial jazz,” was a diluted version of hot, improvised “Negro” jazz. Featuring little or no improvisation and prominent, easily accessible

83 Andrew Berish, Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 13–14.

84 Ibid., 42.

85 Ibid., 43.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid., 44.

24 melodies, sweet jazz was often based on stock arrangements of popular Tin Pan Alley tunes. Rhythms were staid and lacked the hard-driving, forward push of hot swing rhythms.88

Thus, rather than consider MKCP’s foxtrots and “sweet” elements as commercial, my musical

analyses will show that this dichotomy is a constructed anachronism, and that “commercial” and

“art” are not necessarily in opposition to one another. For dance orchestras in the 1920s and early

’30s, the musical styles associated with “hot” and “sweet” playing provided equally legitimate

options that arrangers and performers employed to create musical variety. MKCP featured and

juxtaposed “sweet” music or foxtrots, “hot” jazz, “blues,” and on occasion the “jungle” style.

Within this approach, I find Berish’s term “jazz-inflected dance band music” the most useful

moniker for MKCP.89

The art/commercial dichotomy derives from a long-standing problem in music historical

writing: the treatment of music as an autonomous object. Wriggle views the construction of the

boundary between jazz and commercial arranging as part of “efforts to legitimize jazz as an

autonomous art form, including jazz’s perceived antagonism toward the stage entertainment

medium.”90 The debate over whether musicologists should consider “music as a particular factor

in broader culture” or as an autonomous aesthetic object has likewise pervaded historical

musicology.91 Similar to discourse on Western European art music, the issue of autonomous

88 Ibid., 43.

89 Berish, “Swinging Transcontinental,” 18. Additionally, although Berish describes the distinction between “hot” and “sweet” as “more a discursive practice than a musical fact,” I propose that Redman played with and emphasized these elements to create musical meaning.

90 Wriggle, 13.

91 Donald Jay Grout, Principles and Practice in the Writing of Music History (Brussels: Paleis des Academiën, 1972), 6. For example, Burkholder, Grout, Tomlinson, and Treitler view music as part of a broader historical context. (Grout, 17; J. Peter Burkholder, “Changing the Stories We Tell: Repertories, Narratives, Materials, Goals, and Strategies in Teaching Music History,” College Music Symposium 49/50 [2009/2010]: 121; Gary Tomlinson, “Musical Pasts and Postmodern Musicologies: A Response to Lawrence Kramer” Current Musicology 53 [1992]: 23; Leo Treitler, “The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present” in Rethinking

25 artworks and historical context also pervades jazz discourse and informs the art/commercial

dichotomy. In the past few decades, several prominent jazz scholars have emphasized the

importance of a contextual approach to jazz rather than studying recordings as autonomous

works. All of these scholars argue that to understand jazz one must understand the African

American experience. Amiri Baraka raised this concern already in the 1960s, and scholars such

as William Howland Kenney and Gary Tomlinson revisited it in the 1990s.92 Despite the work of

DeVeaux, Ake, Gabbard, and Tucker to decenter Jazz Studies,93 many scholars still treat

recordings as autonomous texts rather than as a “vernacular practice” in musical analysis.94

Arved Ashby observes a similar phenomenon in the scholarship of Western European art music

and argues that scholars ignore recordings because they refuse to allow classical music a

“vernacular practice.” Moreover, he posits that American musicologists fail to give recordings

“ontological recognition beyond documentary functions.”95 Treating recordings as autonomous

Music, ed. Nicholas John Cook [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], 377). However, other scholars have taken the opposite tack. Carl Dahlhaus proposes that we can either argue for music’s autonomy or dependence on social history depending on our approach. (Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations of Music History, trans. J. B. Robinson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983], 143). Lawrence Kramer argues that scholarship should dislocate the boundary between autonomous work and social context, or “efface . . . distinctions between inside and outside, work and frame, text and context.” (Lawrence Kramer, “Music Criticism and the Postmodernist Turn: In Contrary Motion with Gary Tomlinson,” Current Musicology 53 [1993]: 34). Kerman argues for a continuum that moves from historical context to musical works. (Joseph Kerman, Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985], 125–28).

92 Gary Tomlinson, “Cultural Dialogics and Jazz: A White Historian Signifies,” Black Music Research Journal 22 (2002): 71–105; William Howland Kenney, “Historical Context and the Definition of Jazz: Putting More of the History in ‘Jazz History,’” in Jazz among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 100–16.

93 Scott DeVeaux, “Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography,” Black American Literature Forum 25 (Fall 1991): 525–60; Krin Gabbard, “Introduction: The Jazz Canon and Its Consequences” in Jazz among the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995): 1–30.

94 Arved Ashby, Absolute Music and Mechanical Reproduction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 5.

95 Ibid., 1.

26 objects rather than considering the act of recording as a “vernacular practice” obscures the historical context surrounding recordings. Heile Björn, Peter Elsdon, and Jennifer Doctor explain:

What is—perhaps conveniently—masked in audio recordings are aspects such as race and gender, as well as the communal basis of music making, the inaudible threads that bind the musicians to a wider culture. In this way, whether deliberately or not, the concentration on sound recordings aided the construction of jazz as a decontextualized, autonomous art music.96

I argue that many jazz historians have denied jazz a “vernacular practice” by treating recordings as autonomous objects for transcription and analysis rather than as historicized objects.

Lydia Goehr speaks of this problem in the tradition of Western European art music, but her observation applies to jazz scholarship as well (I invite the reader to replace “works” with

“records”):

Most of us tend, like Hoffmann, to see works as objectified expressions of composers that prior to compositional activity did not exist. We do not treat works as objects just made or put together, like tables and chairs, but as original, unique products of a special, creative activity. We assume, further, that the tonal, rhythmic, and instrumental properties of works are constitutive of structurally integrated wholes that are symbolically represented by composers in scores. Once created, we treat works as existing after their creators have died, and whether or not they are performed or listened to at any given time. We treat them as artefacts existing in the public realm, accessible in principle to anyone who cares to listen to them. And when called, finally, to give examples of works, we usually look . . . to works . . . of a “purely instrumental” or “absolute” sort.97

The practice of considering records in this manner has a long history in jazz studies. Christopher

Wells observes that jazz scholars extending back to the discographer Charles Delaunay have used recordings as fixed texts from which they can make aesthetic judgements: “The field has

96 Björn Heile, Peter Elsdon, Jennifer R. Doctor, Watching Jazz: Encounters with Jazz Performance on Screen (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 3.

97 Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2.

27 traditionally used recordings as stand-ins for printed scores in order to maintain a set of fixed

aesthetic texts through which to make critical and analytical claims about style, relevance, and

brilliance.” He argues that this approach ignores crucial historical context surrounding these

recordings and it has “obscured artists, listeners, and locations that left no sonic traces through

the literal and institutionally machinery of the commercial recording industry.”98 Like many jazz

historians of the twentieth century, Schuller analyzed MKCP’s recordings as fixed, autonomous

objects without considering the contexts in which the band recorded or performed. Like Wells, I

argue that we should focus on artists, listeners, locations rather than “make critical and analytical

claims about style, relevance, and brilliance.”99

Goehr provides an intriguing opportunity to move away from the study of musical

“works” (either canonical scores or recordings) as autonomous objects. She deconstructs the

boundary between the musical and the extramusical, and proposes reconciling the aesthetic and

the historical:

The aesthetic and the historical domains are mutually dependent . . . they reinforce and influence one another. Such mutual relations connect the two domains without implying reductionism or absorption of either one by the other. Each defines itself by its difference from the other, though it recognizes simultaneously that if the other did not exist then neither could it.

The two sides, moreover, are no longer seen to stand in the kind of antagonistic relations to one another in which each demands that attention be given to it at the expense of the other. Neither side is privileged with the title “musical” (“transcendental,” “pure,” or “spiritual”), relegating the other to the (“common,” “ordinary,” and “impure”) “periphery.” Rather, the two sides are regarded as compatible or reconcilable, though (in

98 Christopher Wells, “‘Go Harlem!’ Chick Webb and His Dancing Audience during the Great Depression” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2014), 3.

99 Ibid. Panassié also viewed white jazz as inauthentic. (Hugues Panassié, The Real Jazz [New York: Barnes, 1942], 26).

28 Adorno’s terms) still non-identical.100

Drawing from a broad discourse that seeks to contextualize music within conditions and

practices of musicians and listeners, this study works to reconcile the “aesthetic and the historical

domains.”

In an effort to move toward a contextual rather than autonomous examination of MKCP,

scholarship focused on place, modernity, and musical labor has proven crucial to this study.

Because of his focus on the touring conditions of dance bands and observation of how music of

the Swing era expressed modernity, Andrew Berish’s work informs my analysis of MKCP’s

touring activity, reception, and style. Berish seeks an approach between the musicological and

historical, arguing that “musicological writing on swing tends to decontextualize the music while

historical writing tends to eliminate it.”101 His dissertation, “Swinging Transcontinental:

Modernity, Race, and Place in American Dance Band Music, 1930 to 1946,” and book Lonesome

Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s make

compelling arguments about territory bands in the 1930s and ’40s. In his dissertation he focuses

on the themes of race, place, and dislocation caused by modernization during the Depression and

employs these themes to provide a hermeneutic reading of Swing-era recordings, including those

by the Ellington orchestra. Berish explains that “the experience of modernity affected everyone,

but not everyone’s experience was the same, refracted as it was through the omnipresent lens of

race.”102 He examines the experiences of touring musicians and observes that the opportunity to

tour “came with the loss of a stable place in which to experience . . . freedoms. The very

100 Lydia Goehr, “Writing Music History,” History and Theory 31 (1992): 195.

101 Andrew Seth Berish, “Swinging Transcontinental: Modernity, Race, and Place in American Dance Band Music, 1930 to 1946” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2005), 12.

102 Ibid., 25.

29 technologies that promised extrication from class, race, and regional identities also ripped one from the support mechanisms that were such an integral part of those places.”103

Berish also argues that modernization influenced African American musical styles in jazz: “the changes of the machine age and its ‘stylization’ and transformation by African

Americans were symptoms of deeper cultural preoccupations with the more fundamental experiences of dislocation and loss of place.”104 His theoretical analyses of the social conditions of African American touring bands provide a useful framework for analyzing MKCP’s touring activities as a case study after the 1929 stock market crash.

Similarly, Joel Dinerstein’s study of big band music and machine-age modernism provides a framework to understand audience taste for a balance of entertainment and precision.

In his dissertation he connects the musical precision of big band music and tap dancing to

“machine-age modernism.” He quotes Le Courbusier, who observed that “African Americans had successfully integrated music and technology: ‘The Negroes of the USA have breathed into jazz the song, the rhythm and the sound of machines.’”105 Dinerstein argues that “Americans realized with their senses, perhaps unconsciously, that big band swing music and dance stylized the increased pace of urban, industrial life, torqued up individual metabolic rates to the faster social tempo, and assimilated machine aesthetics into two of the oldest cultural forms of human expression—music and dance.”106

103 Ibid., 6.

104 Ibid., 8–9.

105 Joel Norman Dinerstein, “Swinging the Machine: White Technology and Black Culture between the World Wars” (PhD diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2000), 1.

106 Ibid., 3.

30 Dinerstein identifies the concept of “flow,” or specifically “rhythmic flow,” as the

“unifying aesthetic principle of machine-age modernism,” which inspired the taste for big bands and tap dance in the 1930s.107 Additionally, he sees this aesthetic of “rhythmic flow” as a metaphor for the assembly line:

Between 1908 and 1913, Ford’s production engineers and senior mechanics realized that if you placed benches end to end and ran a conveyor belt across them, you could create a more uniform pace for workers: it would speed up the slow workers and slow down the fast ones. Imagine setting up dozens of workbenches end to end, replacing the table-tops with a moving conveyor belt, and lining up the workers alongside, and you have the perpetual motion of the assembly line. Smith suggests that the same ideal of rhythmic flow was already present in motion pictures. He sees the assembly line as itself cinematic: workers are framed in a single, specialized job and then sequenced, just as individual photographic frames become motion pictures.108

Dinerstein draws a connection between the divided labor and “flow” of the assembly line and the divided sections of big band music and argues that this new, modern music made collective improvisation look dated.109 My examination of audience reception in the Chicago Defender and

Pittsburgh Courier provides primary source support for Dinerstein’s hypothesis. Audiences and critics heard the partitioned arrangement as modern and contrasted it with pre-modern collective improvisation.

Like Berish and Dinerstein, James P. Kraft has also provided a foundational study of jazz musicians and musical culture. Kraft focuses on the living and working conditions of musicians in the early twentieth century and considers these within the context of American labor and social history. He explains the importance of considering musicians as part of the workforce:

Social and cultural historians have traced the emergence of mass culture in modern America, but their works invariably overlook musicians as workers in the new realm of

107 Ibid., 5.

108 Ibid., 6.

109 Ibid., 7–8.

31 leisure. Historians of business and technology have only begun to investigate the leisure business and have ignored altogether the conditions of its workforce. The experience of the vast majority of musicians remains distorted in romanticized accounts of popular bands, bandleaders, and singers in the glamorous and too easily glamorized early years of radio, recording, and Hollywood. . . . This distortion is understandable. Most of us think of musicians as artists who “play” rather than work. The distinctiveness of musical labor obscures the fact that musicians work for a living and have a role in the nation’s economy larger than their numbers suggest.110

In his research Kraft focuses on “instrumentalists who earned most of their income from

performances in places of private enterprise with vested interests in utilizing sound technology to

maximize profits, reduce production costs, or control labor.”111 Like Berish, he argues that “even

the most celebrated accomplishments of the capitalist market system can be, and usually are,

accompanied by social dislocation.”112 MKCP included instrumentalists who worked in “places

of private enterprise,” and the musicians’ documented experiences reflect the feeling of

dislocation. Thus, Kraft’s consideration of these musicians as part of labor history provides an

impetus for my study of MKCP’s touring activities.

Kraft focuses on the emergence of records, radio, and sound film, the American

Federation of Musicians’ involvement in organizing musicians to control these new

technologies’ influence on job availability, and how these technologies affected working

instrumentalists.113 However, he focuses very little on the effect of touring on working

musicians, even though this was an important part of the instrumental labor market. Thus, he

leaves the experiences like those of MKCP band members unexplored.

110 James P. Kraft, Stage to Studio: Musicians and the Sound Revolution, 1890–1950 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 4.

111 Ibid., 5.

112 Ibid.

113 James P. Kraft, “The ‘Pit’ Musicians: Mechanization in the Movie Theaters, 1926–1934.” Labor History 35 (1994): 66–89.

32 Scholarship focused on recording and radio broadcasting as a cultural phenomenon and social process also informs my analysis of MKCP’s radio broadcasts and recordings. The concept of recording or radio broadcasts as a copy of an original has provided a significant theme for many writers on this subject. When theorizing recorded sound, authors such as Theodor

Adorno and R. Murray Schafer have theorized radio and recorded sound as divorced from the

“original” in some way. For example, Adorno viewed the “radio voice” as related to the “illusion of closeness.” He describes this illusion as what we now call schizophonic or acousmatic, because the performer who is broadcasting is not seen by the listener: “The obvious reason for this illusion of a speaking radio is that the listener directly faces the apparatus instead of the man who is playing or speaking. Thus the visible tool becomes the bearer and the impersonation of the sound whose origin is invisible.”114 Adorno also applied Benjamin’s theory of “aura” to radio and defined radio broadcasts as a copy of an original, live performance.115 He argued that the sound that comes out of the radio is more homogenous than in live performance.

Contemporary media theorists, however, take a more nuanced view of recorded sound and radio broadcasts as cultural artifacts in their own right rather than as copies of an original.

For example, Jonathan Sterne rejects the theorization of records and radio broadcasts as copies of an original. Rather, he argues that because a medium is not a technology but rather “a recurring set of contingent social relations and social practices,” the original never would have existed

114 Theodor W Adorno, Current of Music: Elements of a Radio Theory (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006), 47. Before 1950 radio was most often thought of as a live broadcast, because in the first decades of radio broadcasting, both the networks and the federal government favored live broadcasts over prerecorded. (David Morton, Off the Record: The Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America [New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000], 50).

115 Ibid., 88.

33 without the social practice of recording or radio.116 He explains, “Attending to differences between ‘sources’ and ‘copies’ diverts our attention from processes to products; technology vanishes, leaving as its by-product a source and a sound that is separated from it.”

Sterne also rejects the acousmatic or schizophonic definitions of sound reproduction. He argues that they “carry with them a questionable set of prior assumptions about the fundamental nature of sound, communication, and experience. Most important, they hold human experience and the human body to be categories outside history.” Sterne explains that these definitions

“assume that face-to-face communication and bodily presence are the yardsticks by which to measure all communicative activity” and “that sound-reproduction technologies will have a disorienting effect on the senses that are otherwise oriented or grounded in coherent bodily experience.”117 He points out, however, that the human body never “existed in some prior holistic, unalienated, and self-present relation.” He explains that this conception of the body is a historical phenomenon:

The idea of the body’s phenomenological unity and sanctity gains power precisely at the moment in its history that the body is being taken apart, reconstructed, and problematized—the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast, medieval thought and practice often constructed the body as a filthy container for the soul, something to be transcended and overcome in the afterlife.118

Rather than theorize sound reproduction as schizophonic or acousmatic, Sterne proposes using transducers as a starting point for a theory of sound reproduction, because they “turn sound into something else and that something else back into sound.”119 He also connects transducers with

116 Sterne, 182.

117 Ibid., 20.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid., 22.

34 media as a set of social practices, because “even though transducers operate on a very simple set

of physical principles, they are also cultural artifacts.”120 Like Sterne, I consider the media of

records and radio as a set of social relations, and explore how these social relations, such as

Victor’s business practices and WJR’s programming structure, influenced MKCP’s opportunity

to perform for a broad audience.

Several other authors, including David Morton and Michael Chanan, focus on the history

of recorded sound as social phenomena. Like Sterne, Morton frames recording as a cultural

phenomenon rather than as a distorted copy of an original. He explains: “Recording culture in

America emerged not through the dictates of the technology itself but in complex ways that were

contingent upon the actions of people. . . . The recording of music, for example, incorporated but

reshaped the aims, conventions, economy, and social hierarchy that had already developed

around musical performance.”121 Similarly, in his book Repeated Takes: A Short History of

Recording and Its Effects on Music, Chanan not only details the history of recording, but also

explores concerns that writers, musicians, and industry professionals had over changes in

recording practices. For example, like Adorno, J. P. Maxfield, the engineer who developed and

installed electric recording technology in Victor’s studios,122 was concerned about the effect of

recording technology on musical performance.123 However, Chanan argues that “recording . . . is

not a transparent process, but the manufacture of a product out of a certain type of raw material.

120 Ibid.

121 David Morton, Off the Record: The Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 6.

122 Allan Sutton, Recording the ’Twenties: The Evolution of the American Recording Industry, 1920–29 (Littleton, CO: Mainspring Press, 2008), 170.

123 Michael Chanan, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 2000), 67–69.

35 But in that case, to designate the results of the process as distortion may be missing the point.”124

Like Sterne and Morton, Chanan views recording as its own social process rather than a copy of

a live performance, and I use this framework to explore MKCP’s recordings as artifacts in their

own right rather than as a copy of the band’s practices in live performance contexts.

Like these authors who have framed recording as a cultural process, authors Michele

Hilmes, Susan Smulayn, and Jason Loviglio have focused on radio as a cultural rather than

technological artifact. They explore how culture influenced radio broadcasting. In her book

Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952, Hilmes emphasizes the importance on

focusing on radio as a cultural rather than technological tool. She asks “What if . . . we regard

radio not as a collection of wires, transmitters, and electrons but as a social practice grounded in

culture, rather than in electricity?”125 In this book Hilmes discusses the construction of blackness

on the radio through radio minstrelsy, and her perspective on this topic provides a crucial

framework to understand MKCP management’s construction of the band as black for listeners.

Smulyan also explores the social phenomena that influenced radio’s development. In

Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting, 1920–1934, she details the

history of the commercialization and merchandising of radio and the use of advertising to fund

radio programming. The standardization of radio practices demanded by advertisers influenced

both network and local stations, and likely influenced MKCP’s presence on the radio, though no

evidence exists to suggest that MKCP’s broadcasts were sponsored by an advertiser.126

124 Ibid., 69.

125 Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), xiii.

126 Susan Smulyan, Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting, 1920–1934 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), 84–85.

36 Loviglio also considers radio broadcasts as social phenomena, exploring how radio

changed the relationship between the private and public spheres, and how radio nationalization

also reflected changing relationships between media on the local and national levels. He

explains:

The tension between intimacy (interpersonal communication) and publicity (mass communication) was the defining feature of early network radio, its central problem and its greatest appeal. The “intimate public” . . . refers to a new cultural space created by radio broadcasting in the 1930s that was marked by tensions between national and local, inclusion and exclusion, publicity and privacy.127

This tension between local and national on the radio, which occurred in the 1930s, connects to

the development of a more nationalized swing style through recordings, radio broadcasts,

touring, and nationally popular dance bands during the same period. Although MKCP no longer

enjoyed regular radio presence after 1930, it contributed to the formation of a national swing

style. These authors’ framing of radio as a social phenomenon has informed my study of

MKCP’s presence on the radio in the years 1927–1930.

Philip Auslander has also provided crucial theoretical work on how recording and radio

influenced music. He defines the concept of “liveness” as historically related to recording and

broadcasting, and argues that the concept did not emerge until these media became popular:

Liveness is not an ontologically defined condition but a historically variable effect of mediatization. It was the development of recording technologies that made it both possible and necessary to perceive existing representations as “live.” Prior to the advent of these technologies (e.g., sound recording and motion pictures), there was no need for a category of “live” performance, for that category has meaning only in relation to an opposing possibility.128

127 Jason Loviglio, Radio’s Intimate Public: Network Broadcasting and Mass-Mediated Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), xvi.

128 Philip Auslander, “Digital Liveness: A Historico-Philosophical Perspective,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 34, no. 3 (2012): 3.

37 Auslander explains that the concept of “live broadcasts” emerged with the development of radio and television broadcast technologies. He explains that these broadcasts are only “live” in a temporal rather than a spatial sense: “Performers and audience are temporally co-present, in that the audience witnesses the performance as it happens, but they are not spatially co-present.”129

Auslander’s discussion of “liveness” has been particularly useful for my study because many of

MKCP’s radio broadcasts were band remotes, or live performances that were broadcast from the

Graystone Ballroom.

Methodology

Although scholars have expressed concern regarding a focus on jazz recordings as autonomous objects, jazz studies struggles to find alternative methodologies to understand the music. Heile, Elsdon, and Doctor observe, “Despite the widespread criticism of the privileging of sound recordings, there have been relatively few constructive proposals of alternatives.”130

However, an exclusive focus on oral histories, documentation of radio broadcasts, and documentation of live performances would constitute “a history without jazz. Although it offers new historical insights into jazz and its cultural contexts, these are no longer directly tied to anything we can see or hear directly.”131 Thus, recordings still play a crucial role in my study.

Andre Millard argues: “A sound recording is a piece of historical evidence. It has an impact that

129 Ibid., 5.

130 Heile, Elsdon, Doctor, 4.

131 Ibid.

38 goes well beyond the written word or photographic image.”132 He also views recordings as

tangible evidence of the history of popular culture:

The vast number of recordings made of popular entertainment, music, radio broadcasts, and film sound tracks from the turn of the century onwards is an important archive of popular culture. Recorded sound was a technology for the masses, and these recordings were at the heart of a new mass culture of entertainment. The content of these records reflect the times in which they were produced, providing us with insights into those who listened and those who produced them.133

Thus, to move beyond study of recordings as autonomous objects, I draw on several types

of archival sources to provide context, including newspaper criticism, radio schedules printed in

newspapers, and oral histories. Throughout this study I cite oral histories from both MKCP band

members and other touring musicians active in the early 1930s. Many oral histories and memoirs

from these musicians reveal the lived experiences of black touring musicians, and these accounts

provide a valuable resource for understanding MKCP’s touring activities. However, musicians’

memories can be unreliable. Many of these musicians were interviewed in the 1970s and ’80s as

part of the Smithsonian’s Jazz Oral History Project and other preservation efforts. In most cases,

I have been able to use newspaper articles and announcements to corroborate or to correct

remembered experiences. I present these oral histories throughout each chapter to foreground the

musicians’ voices.

As a complement to musicians’ oral histories and memoirs, newspapers from this period

have provided a wealth of information about tour routes, audience reception, and touring

mishaps and incidents. Newspapers announced shows at various venues in both write-ups and

advertisements. In particular, black newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago

132 A. J. Millard, America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 10.

133 Ibid., 11–12.

39 Defender have proven crucial to this study’s assessment of musical style and its connection to the African American community in the late 1920s and early ’30s. These papers often reported on the activities of successful black orchestras and periodically published news regarding

MKCP’s tour schedule.

A column that ran in the Defender in the 1920s and ’30s titled “The Musical Bunch” proved an especially useful resource for this study. Chicago pianist, bandleader, and contractor

Dave Peyton authored this column from 1925 to 1929, and Chicago musician Walter Barnes subsequently took it over.134 Lawrence Schenbeck explains that Peyton’s audience included working and aspiring musicians:

His column was clearly aimed at working dance-band and café musicians. Jobs were to be had in the hotels, saloons, theaters, and restaurants of Chicago, and Peyton could help ambitious musicians get them. . . . Every installment of Peyton's column provided a wealth of practical advice to novices and, for old hands, a weekly helping of news about local engagements, hirings, firings, and more.135

In turn, African American musicians valued the Defender and other black newspapers because, as Fred Carroll explains, until the Civil Rights Movement, “[White] editors avoided stories about racial repression, which would have undermined their magazines’ aspirational tone by challenging white readers’ claims to privilege”:

Instead, advertisers reinforced conceptions of African Americans—as well as other ethnic and racial groups—as premodern through the stereotyped images of the happy servant and the irascible pickaninny. Such depictions protected the interests of white entitlement—just like southern newspaper editors’ lurid lynching stories, which transformed white lawlessness into a sacred duty to protect white womanhood. Denied a voice in mainstream journalism, racial, ethnic, and political minorities strengthened their own dissident presses.136

134 “Dave Peyton,” The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed August 31, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/J353300.

135 Schenbeck, 348.

136 Fred Carroll, Race News: Black Journalists and the Fight for Racial Justice in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 22.

40

Oral histories reflect this preference for black journalism among African American musicians

because of the lack of coverage of black issues in the mainstream press. In his interview with

Chris Albertson, Cheatham recalled only reading black newspapers, in particular the Defender,

because they were more relevant to his experience than white newspapers:

ALBERTSON. How important was say, the Chicago Defender to—to you when—back in the 20’s, and 30’s, was that something you looked forward every week to read? CHEATHAM. Oh, yes. ALBERTSON. Defender and— CHEATHAM. Oh, absolutely yes ALBERTSON. To find out what was happening in the business. CHEATHAM. That’s right. Yes. We thought that was a great paper. ALBERTSON. Because the black show business world was quite separate from the white. CHEATHAM. Oh, absolutely, yes. Yes. Chicago Defender really gave you all the news of the entertainment in Chicago at that time. ALBERTSON. Right, and the white papers weren’t bothering with that. CHEATHAM. Bothered at all, didn’t mean a thing. . . . ALBERTSON. But did you read, for instance, white papers? CHEATHAM. Well, no, I didn’t really didn’t. I only read the Chicago Defender. ALBERTSON. Uh-huh. And I guess the Amsterdam News. CHEATHAM. Amsterdam News, the Afro-American.137

I cite Peyton’s and Barnes’s column for the Defender throughout this study not only because of

its importance to African American musicians during the period, but also because both

columnists touch on issues that preoccupy current scholars of black music, including

performance of blackness and the absence of a visual dimension in radio broadcasts. Moreover,

this column exemplified the Defender’s mission of “racial uplift” in the 1920s.138 A focus on

137 Cheatham, interview.

138 Schenbeck claims that Defender columnists saw jazz as uplifting as it provided an opportunity for black excellence: “In the pages of the Defender, jazz, as part of the entertainment world, was seen in a positive light insofar as it had potential for material advancement but could be considered negative to the extent that it reinforced stereotypes about blacks. As a signifier in the black discourse on manhood, it appears to have been associated with economic opportunity rather than with narratives about cultural authenticity; that would come later.” (Schenbeck, 349).

41 black newspaper criticism has revealed a cyclic relationship between black critics who wrote about black music, and black musicians who read the discourse in the black press of the period.

Other valuable primary sources for this study include the daily radio schedules published in the Detroit Free Press, which published schedules for WJR, WCX, and other local stations.

These schedules are crucial to this study because they document MKCP’s frequent broadcasts on

WJR radio and likewise, its regular schedule at the Graystone Ballroom from 1927 to 1930. The schedules also show what Detroit and Toledo radio stations broadcast during this period and how

MKCP fit into radio broadcast offerings. MKCP performed in three different forms: live performance, radio broadcast, and recordings. Thus, I analyze documented evidence of all three, and combine these with oral histories to provide a contextualized picture of the band’s success and subsequent decline.

This study has five goals. First, I explore how MKCP performed on the radio, on record, and in live ballroom dance dates. Second, I explore how MKCP influenced the homogenized style of the Swing era through these three modes of performance. Third, including MKCP in the narrative of early big bands reveals how musicians rotated through MKCP’s ranks as well as

Henderson’s, Ellington’s, and Calloway’s, which also contributed to the homogenized Swing-era sound, as well as the transition from distinctive regional styles to a national big band style.

Fourth, contextualizing documented evidence of the band’s radio and recording activity within the history of these media as popular (and thus profitable) modes of communication reveals how the band proved a profit-making venture for the Goldkette management, Victor records, and the band members themselves. Finally, comparison of selections from MKCP’s recordings with contemporaneous discourse in the black press regarding dance bands provides an opportunity to connect musical style with the contemporaneous discourse from the New Negro movement and

42 the racial uplift narrative of the time. MKCP simultaneously entertained audiences in a profit- generating venture while also espousing the ideal of black exceptionalism and its recorded output reflects the artistic goals of the New Negro movement. It is the author’s hope that this study, which draws on many different types of sources to contextualize recordings and reconcile “the aesthetic and the historical domains,” proves useful not only to jazz scholars, but also to performance-oriented jazz educators who wish to teach jazz history from a nuanced and critical framework.

43 Chapter One

Formation of MKCP and its Contract with the NAC

Before its permanent engagement at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom, MKCP originally started as a small regional band based in Springfield, Ohio. Founded in 1921, the group originally worked under several variants of the name “Synco” (short for Syncopation), including “The Synco Trio,”

“The Synco Septette” after a personnel expansion, and finally “McKinney’s Synco.” Although

MKCP found early success as a midwestern regional band, three factors helped launch it to national success. These include the band’s contract with Jean Goldkette and the NAC, William

McKinney and Goldkette’s decision to hire Don Redman to front the band, and the band’s permanent residency at the Graystone under NAC management. Although the group found early success under McKinney’s management and the Synco name (with several core MKCP musicians already working with this group), MKCP was, in a way, a “made” band created by

Goldkette and McKinney, two musicians-turned-entrepreneurs. Goldkette wanted to add a black band to his roster and the hiring of Redman provided the opportunity to bring the arranger’s sound, until that point associated with the Henderson orchestra based in Harlem, to the city of

Detroit.

Economic conditions for forming a dance orchestra

McKinney first formed his Synco group in 1921 in the central Ohio city of Springfield.

Although the city was not a major metropolitan center like New York or Chicago, the Springfield area and northern part of the Midwest provided ideal conditions for forming a new dance orchestra. Thomas Hennessey lists several reasons that dance bands found economic success in the Midwest and industrial north in the 1920s: ballroom dancing was a popular recreation, and several cities nearby had large populations that had grown with the Great Migration, including

44 Detroit, Toledo, and Cleveland. The close distance of these cities made it easy for a band like the

Synco Trio to travel to gigs in other cities. Additionally, Michigan boasted many summer resort

areas that would hire dance bands for the entire tourist season.1

John Chilton writes in his biography of the band “apparently there was a lot of musical

activity in Springfield,” suggesting that the growth of dance bands was restricted to major

metropolitan areas in this period and musical activity in smaller cities was less significant. The

1920 census lists the city’s population as about sixty thousand, having grown nearly 30% in size

since 1910.2 Chilton describes Springfield’s primary industries in the 1920s as “agricultural

machinery and produce,” but the city was also home to ten automobile companies until 1926,

indicating that it was also benefiting from the manufacturing boom.3 Scott Appelrouth explains

that across the country, the industrial economy in the North and migration to northern cities

created new opportunities for commercialized leisure:

Expanding industrialization and changing migration patterns produced rapid growth in the population of northern cities. A shortened work week combined with higher earnings to foster a burgeoning consumption-oriented ethic as well as a leisure industry eager to capitalize on new “needs.”4

In addition to its industrial economy and growing population, Springfield was also

conveniently located within driving distance of many other Ohio cities that had benefited from

manufacturing, including Akron, Cleveland, and Toledo to the north, as well as Dayton and

1 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 110.

2 Fourteenth Census of the United States, Number and Distribution of Inhabitants, 85.

3 “History of Springfield Ohio,” Springfield Ohio History, accessed July 12, 2018, http://www.springfieldohiohistory.net/historyofspringfield.htm

4 Scott Appelrouth, “Jazz: The Symbolic Meaning of an Emerging Music” (PhD diss., New York University, 2000), abstract.

45 Cincinnati to the south.5 These cities boasted such commercialized leisure as ballroom dancing

and provided opportunities for local dance orchestras.6 Thus, an industrialized midwestern city in

a central location like Springfield would have provided ample opportunity for an enterprising

musician like McKinney to form a dance orchestra to perform at ballrooms and dance halls

throughout Ohio.

The Synco Trio’s early formation

Chilton’s bio-discography provides the most detailed account of MKCP’s early

formation. The Synco Trio first formed with William McKinney as drummer and leader, along

with Milt Senior on saxophone and Todd Rhodes on piano. The trio grew to a sextet by 1923,

adding trombonist Claude Jones, banjoist Dave Wilborn, and violinist Wesley Stewart.7

Examination of the band’s early personnel shows that these musicians came from three different

musical institutions available for African Americans during the period: black colleges, the

military, and circus and carnival bands.8 McKinney served in World War I, and became a

drummer after demobilization in 1919, touring with a circus band.9 He met Rhodes, who

5 By 1920 Ohio was also the fourth most populated state, after New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, providing a large audience for commercialized leisure. (Jack S. Blocker, A Little More Freedom: African Americans Enter the Urban Midwest, 1860–1930. [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2008], 189; Fourteenth Census of the United States, Number and Distribution of Inhabitants, 16).

6 John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 3.

7 Ibid., 2.

8 Hennessey lists the concentration of black colleges as Ohio as a pool of talented musicians who ended up working in dance orchestras in the 1920s. (Hennessey, 110).

9 Quentin Jackson and Doc Cheatham’s interviews for the Jazz Oral History Project show what a common source circus and carnival bands were for employment for black musicians, some of whom went on to dance bands. Quentin Jackson recalled that trumpeter John Nesbitt and drummer Cuba Austin came from a carnival (conflicting with Austin’s account that he had been working as a bellhop), and Doc Cheatham explained that many of his early gigs consisted of carnivals and medicine shows. (Chilton, 2; Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral

46 “studied at the Springfield (Ohio) School of Music (1915–17) and the Erie (Pennsylvania)

Conservatory (1919–c. 1921).”10 Similarly, Claude Jones had both college and military

experience. He had studied at the HBCU Wilberforce University for three months, joining the

Student Army Training Corps while there. He played in the Army band after the war:

When I finished high school I went up to Wilberforce and joined the Army—the Student Army training corps. I matriculated and went into the Army and played in the band. I played whatever instrument they wanted me to play, bass horn, trumpet and trombone. This was after the War. I was only at college three months. One day, when I was fooling around with the horn, Bill McKinney came by and heard me practicing. “Hey, can you play that thing?,” he said. I said I could. Then he said “I’ll give you six dollars a day if you will play with me . . . .” I said I’d go with him.11

These early accounts show that McKinney was able to capitalize on Springfield’s community of

young, up-and-coming black musicians interested in potentially lucrative dance orchestra work.

McKinney’s Synco were not the only dance band active in the city during this period.

The Scott brothers, clarinetist Cecil and drummer Lloyd, also had a dance band in the city, and

one finds that musicians moved back and forth between these two bands frequently while the

Synco band was in Springfield. For example, Wilborn was a member of the Scott Brothers

before joining the group. Trumpeter Gus McClung occasionally played with the Synco band but

chose to remain a regular member of the Scott Brothers until 1927, as they may have had more

lucrative bookings in Pittsburgh and New York City in 1924.12 McKinney’s Synco was,

History Project, April 1, 1976; Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976).

10 The author cannot find any evidence of the existence of either of these institutions. (Howard Rye, “Rhodes, Todd,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 16, 2018. http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000377400).

11 Interview with Jazz Monthly, 1962, in Chilton, 2. With its strong music program, many other notable black musicians attended Wilberforce, including composer William Grant Still, trumpeter Freddie Jenkins, saxophonist Ben Webster, and later flutist Frank Foster and composer George Russell.

12 Chilton, 3.

47 however, able to obtain steady seasonal work at one of the many summer resorts in Michigan.

Chilton explains that the band played several seasons at Manitou Beach early in the decade, and

“usually before they left to return to Springfield they were offered a booking for the following summer.”13 Manitou beach is located on Devil’s lake, about eighty miles southwest of Detroit near the Ohio border, and had been a popular vacation spot since the beginning of the century.14

This resort area provided a scenic forest setting for vacationers (see figure 1.1) and an outdoor band shell where dance bands would perform (see figure 1.2).

13 Ibid.

14 Chilton wrote that Manitou Beach is on lake Michigan. This is incorrect but Lake Michigan did have many popular cost destinations that also hired dance orchestras for the summer season. (Chilton, 4; “Brief History of Manitou Beach,” accessed June 18, 2018, http://watrousmanitou.com/HistoryManitouBeach.pdf.)

48 Figure 1.1: The Synco Sextet at Manitou Beach, 1921.15

Figure 1.2: The Chocolate Dandies in Band Shell at Manitou Beach, ca. 1927.16

15 Lars Bjorn, and Jim Gallert, Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920–1960 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 26.

16 Ibid., 34.

49 With the band’s early success, between 1922 and ’23 McKinney decided to stop playing drums with the band and focus on managing it instead. McKinney’s limited skill as a jazz drummer may have also played a role in this decision. He hired drummer Cuba Austin to play drums with the group Wilborn recalled “McKinney was a circus drummer, he couldn’t play jazz drums, that’s why he hired Cuba.”17 Austin recalled first hearing the Synco band while working as a bellhop at a hotel in White Sulphur Springs, Virginia: “The band was playing a one nighter .

. . I sat in. . . . About a month later I received a telegram from Bill McKinney saying that he was going to stop playing drums and devote his time to booking the band, and that he wanted me on drums.”18 McKinney’s skill set and personality may have been best suited to a management role.

Wilborn recalled that McKinney never became close with the band members, did not have an outgoing personality, and “wasn’t a leader.” He was, however, a good businessman, and Chilton observes that his “full-time management speedily improved the scope of the band’s engagements.”19

After switching to his management role, McKinney again expanded the group. He hired trumpeter John Nesbitt on Austin’s recommendation, as well as saxophonist and singer George

“Fathead” Thomas and sousaphonist June Cole.20 Stewart switched from violin to saxophone, expanding the reed section to three members. Through these expansions the band now had a standard dance orchestra instrumentation: three reeds, one trombone, one trumpet, and a full

17 Letter to John Chilton, cited in Chilton, 3.

18 Downbeat, cited in Chilton, 3.

19 Chilton, 6.

20 Ibid., 4.

50 rhythm section including piano, banjo, sousaphone, and drums.21 In August 1925 the Chicago

Defender praised the band’s performances on its summer engagement:

Still at the bat and going big at Manitou Beach, Michigan this year, making their fifth season. Band has been made larger by the addition of two new men, and the name has been changed from Synco Septette to McKinney’s Synco, booking out of Springfield, Ohio. Competition has been going strong for the boys this year from the surrounding lakes, but their red hot entertainment is the drawing card, and when it comes to the real dirt their brass section won’t quit; not leaving out the saxophone section—it does the sweet work.22

The Synco’s early style

McKinney’s Synco did not record before they became MKCP, but interviews with band members provide an idea of the kind of music the group played. Although the band was not playing in Don Redman’s arranging style that featured the partitioned arrangement, sectionalized variety of elements, and call-and-response textures, Nesbitt was transcribing arrangements from recordings, including popular numbers recorded by the Henderson orchestra.23 Moreover, the group had already developed some of the comic entertainment that it would become nationally known for later in the decade. Milt Senior was serving as musical director, and Chilton explains that the band played typical dance orchestra fare for the period, including hot numbers, ballads, waltzes, and novelty numbers “that featured comedy routines and jokey vocals.”24 Rhodes recalled, “We played typical dance music of the early 1920s, complete with paper hats and silly

21 Redman would eventually add a fourth reed to this section, a new development which influenced the next generation of big band arrangers in the 1930s. John Wriggle, Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 73.

22 Chicago Defender, August 8, 1925, cited in Chilton, 4–5.

23 Chicago Defender, September 5, 1925, cited in Chilton, 6.

24 Chilton, 6.

51 gadgets like whistles.”25 Austin would tap dance in addition to playing drums, and Jones recalled learning to play trombone with his foot as a comic act.26 Although the band employed comic elements, trumpeter Bill Coleman recalled seeing the band live and explained that the group maintained a high level of musicianship even at this early stage:

It was a mixture of a show band, a dance orchestra, and a stage act all rolled into one. Until then it was the first Negro orchestra to blend high-class playing and musicianship with showmanship. . . . They would suddenly all put on moustaches, funny hats, women’s dresses, and false faces, but they’d continue to play very rhythmic music all the while in a way that really got the dancers.27

Coleman’s description of the band’s “very rhythmic music” fits the band’s name which labels the group as a black syncopated dance band. Additionally, his description shows that even at this early stage the band balanced the characteristics of entertainment and precision for listeners. This balance would become the hallmark of the early black big bands such as Ellington’s,

Henderson’s, Calloway’s, and MKCP that would rise to prominence late in the decade.

Jean Goldkette, Charles Horvath, and the NAC

McKinney’s Synco first crossed paths with Jean Goldkette in 1925, and the band’s contract with the NAC would eventually transform it into the nationally recognized MKCP.

Musicians and music entrepreneurs Jean Goldkette and Charles Horvath owned the NAC and worked with MKCP from 1927 until about 1931. Charles Stanton also worked for the company.

The NAC owned the Graystone and several other ballrooms in the Detroit area, as well as the

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., 4.

27 Interview with John Chilton, September 18, 1975, cited in Chilton, 5.

52 Pla-mor in Kansas City.28 Goldkette was a pianist turned music entrepreneur, and had befriended

Horvath, a drummer, during their childhoods.29

When Goldkette and Horvath decided to form the NAC and open the Graystone ballroom, Detroit’s economic landscape provided the ideal situation for this type of business venture. In his survey of Detroit’s economic history, Scott Martelle explains, “Detroit was making and selling the ultimate consumer item: the car. That brought massive wealth and massive growth, both in people and in geographic space. The city population tripled between

1910 and 1930, with more than half a million people arriving in the 1920s alone.”30 More people at all economic levels had time and money to spend on leisure activities such as going to ballrooms, buying records, and buying radios, especially in the industrial north. Additionally,

Detroit experienced a “ballroom building boom . . . in the 1920s, mainly along Woodward and

Jefferson Avenues.”31 The Arcadia and Crystal Palace ballrooms had opened along Woodward, and the Pier Ballroom and Palais de Dance had opened along Jefferson by the end of World War

I.32 These circumstances provided the opportunity for Goldkette and Horvath to expand their booking business.

Goldkette, Horvath, and Horvath’s father made plans to open the Graystone at the same time as founding the NAC. Goldkette was playing a regular engagement at the Detroit Athletic

28 Chilton, 8.

29 Chilton states that Goldkette and Horvath met in Chicago, but Rex Stewart recalled that they met in Europe before Goldkette came to the States. (Chilton, 7; Rex Stewart, Jazz Masters of the Thirties [New York: Macmillan, 1972], 15).

30 Scott Martelle, Detroit: A Biography (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012), 95.

31 Bjorn and Gallert, 7–8.

32 Ibid.

53 Club in 1921 when a Chinese restaurant in the building called The Chinese Gardens went out of business.33 Goldkette, Horvath, and Horvath’s father formed the NAC in order to obtain financing to purchase the building. An announcement in the Detroit Free Press in early 1922 announces that the building’s completion was financed by “the American Loan and Trust

Company,” and that it would hold 3,500 people (see figure 1.3, 1.4). The paper described the dimensions as 124 square feet with a balcony and announced that the ballroom would open on

February 27 for the All-University Ball.34 The ballroom itself was an addition on the back of the building and also included an outdoor dance space called the “Graystone Gardens” for summer dances. The space boasted heating and air conditioning, and patrons could purchase soft drinks and refreshments.35 The Free Press provided additional description of the space the day before the ballroom’s opening:

Couples would waltz under a 60-foot-high domed ceiling, or they could take a breather and watch the action from a balcony that ringed the dance floor. Elegance was everywhere, from marble staircases and hand-carved railings to a circular fountain. “In addition, color changes have been worked out so that with the use of spotlights and floodlights, many unusual and beautiful lighting effects can be obtained during dance numbers,” the Detroit Free Press reported ahead of the Graystone’s opening. “Beauty, grace and dignity are the first impressions received from a visit to the structure,”36

With its large size and appealing decor, the Graystone would be an ideal large venue for

Detroit’s burgeoning middle class.

33 Stewart, 14.

34 Detroit Free Press, February 19, 1922, 16.

35 Dan Austin, “Graystone Ballroom,” Historicdetroit.org, accessed June 18, 2018, http://historicdetroit.org/building/graystone-ballroom/.

36 “The Graystone: Detroit’s Newest Ballroom,” Detroit Free Press, February 26, 1922, 17, in http://historicdetroit.org/building/graystone-ballroom/.

54 Figure 1.3: Photograph of Graystone Ballroom interior. Date unknown. Courtesy of Detroit Sound Conservancy.

Figure 1.4: Photograph of Graystone Ballroom exterior. “Graystone Ballroom—Old Photos,” HistoricDetroit.org, accessed July 9, 2018, http://historicdetroit.org/galleries/graystone-ballroom-old-photos/.

55

In the 1920s the Graystone was a whites-only venue.37 In his autobiography Berry Gordy

recalled that Monday nights were “colored” nights: “Graystone Ballroom and Graystone Gardens

was where we went on Monday nights, the only night colored people could go. . . . That was our

night. Everybody who was anybody would be there, dressed to kill.”38 Gordy, however, was not

born until 1929, and was speaking of his teenage years in the 1940s in this recollection. Charles

Victor Moore recalled in an interview that in the 1920s the Palais de Danse had “colored” nights

on Mondays featuring Earl Walton’s orchestra, and that the Graystone did not yet have “colored”

nights:

Earl had the younger crowd at the Palais de Danse. . . . They had colored dances at the Palais on Monday nights before the Graystone. Earl rented the ballroom himself . . . and he’s have 10,000 people and pay his musicians $50 that night . . . for 3 hours work . . . Earl was making more on one night than the Cotton Pickers got all week . . . He was offered the job at the Arcadia Ballroom before the Cotton Pickers came to town and he said: “Are you kidding?”39

Goldkette and Horvath initially served as the house band at the Graystone, but Goldkette

was a better classical than jazz pianist, so like McKinney, he also eventually chose to focus on

administration and booking bands. Chilton explains: “All of these venues needed bands, and

Goldkette became fully occupied in signing established bands and forming up new bands from

various musicians who were already on the agency’s books.”40

37 Bjorn explains that “de facto segregation of Detroit ballrooms meant that the major Black big bands had to play a new form of Black music to almost exclusively white audiences.” (Lars Bjorn, “Black Men in a White World: The Development of the Black Jazz Community in Detroit, 1917–1940,” Detroit in Perspective 5 [1980]: 5).

38 Berry Gordy, To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown: An Autobiography (New York: Warner Books, 1994), 42.

39 Bjorn and Gallert, 23.

40 Chilton, 8.

56 The NAC had twenty bands under contract by its peak in the second half of the decade, some of which the company had formed from area musicians and some of which it had signed, but Goldkette’s Victor Recording orchestra was its top orchestra (see figure 1.5).41 Goldkette had hired some of the best white jazz musicians of the 1920s for this band, including Bix

Beiderbecke, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Eddie Lang, Frankie Trumbauer, and Joe Venuti.42

Cornetist Rex Stewart expressed admiration for the this band and recalled being astonished by its’ musicians ability to play “hot” music when the band played opposite the Henderson orchestra at the Roseland in 1927. However, as early as 1926 the NAC was finding the Victor Recording

Orchestra expensive to maintain at a fee of 3,000 per week.43

In 1926 Goldkette began investigating the possibility of adding a black dance orchestra to his roster. Richard Sudhalter explains that Goldkette was interested in the economic prospects of a Harlem-style dance orchestra performing for the Graystone’s white audience. He was “deeply impressed by the possibilities opened up by the Fletcher Henderson band performing to an all- white dancing market. . . . He was interested in establishing a black band at the Graystone, playing in the Henderson style.”44 The NAC did not yet have any black bands on its roster, and after five years of experience booking at various ballrooms in Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas City, management was becoming aware of the popularity of the Henderson and Ellington orchestras. A

41 Bjorn, 4.

42 Stewart lamented that the band has not been studied more, and as a swinging white band, identified it as the main predecessor to Goodman’s band in the 1930s (Bjorn, 4; Stewart, 11–12, 16–17).

43 Richard Sudhalter also explains that the Goldkette organization was having financial difficulties even by the time they hired McKinney’s Synco. (Richard M. Sudhalter and Philip R. Evans, Bix: Man & Legend. (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1974), 199–200).

44 Sudhalter, 201.

57 black band that emulated the Harlem sound would be a good investment. Goldkette “decided to look for a top-class black big band to play occasional dates at their ballrooms in Detroit.”45

Figure 1.5: NAC advertisement from Graystone Topics, March 1928

Chilton explains that McKinney’s Synco first crossed paths with Goldkette during a long engagement at Green Mill in Toledo in 1925.46 Rhodes described this venue as “a tough gangland place with gambling tables under cover in the rear.” Chilton explains that the establishment’s owner was friends with Goldkette and invited him to hear the band at the club.47

I suspect inaccuracies surrounding this account of the band’s first encounter with Goldkette.

Though Chilton locates the Green Mill in Toledo, newspaper ads locate the club in Findlay,

45 Chilton, 8.

46 Music Mirror, June 1955, cited in Chilton, 6.

47 Chilton, 6.

58 Ohio. The club’s name was likely inspired by the famous Green Mill in Chicago.48 Additionally, contrary to Chilton’s account, Goldkette recalled McKinney approaching him at his office first.49

Moreover, Quentin Jackson recalled that Goldkette first heard the band while on one of its

Manitou Beach summer engagements.50

Despite the unclear circumstances of Goldkette’s and McKinney’s first meeting, the NAC first contracted MKCP in 1926 for a five-month contract at the Arcadia Ballroom in Detroit.51

The Arcadia, which opened in 1912, served as a ballroom, theater, and concert hall for the

Detroit Symphony Orchestra until 1929.52 After the success of this contract, the NAC booked the band for a two-week trial at the Graystone in early 1927. This engagement was so successful that the company decided to give MKCP a permanent engagement at the ballroom starting in

September of the same year.53 Sudhalter explains that Goldkette paid MKCP a third of what it paid the Victor Recording Orchestra. Thus, since the Victor band made $3,000 per week,

MKCP’s weekly fee was likely $1,000.54

48 “Jazz Joint Still Jives; Green Mill Lounge Celebrates 100 Years of Good Times and Colorful Characters.” Washington Times [Washington, DC], May 11, 2007, A2.

49 Chilton, 8.

50 Jackson, interview.

51 Bjorn describes as Arcadia as “among the most popular and least discriminatory of the city’s major ballrooms during the 1920s,” though it is unclear whether the Arcadia had a “colored” night in this decade. (Bjorn, 4-5; Chilton, 8.)

52 “Arcadia Ballroom,” HistoricDetroit.org, accessed July 12, 2018, http://www.historicdetroit.org/building/arcadia-ballroom/.

53 MKCP was not the only black dance band in Detroit when it relocated to the city for its permanent Graystone engagement. Detroit also boasted several black society bands which were precursors to big band jazz, including Earl Walton’s band. (Bjorn, 6).

54 Sudhalter, 205.

59 Making McKinney’s Cotton Pickers

After contracting McKinney’s Synco, Goldkette and the NAC quickly began making changes to the orchestra, most likely to maximize its marketability on stage, on radio broadcasts, and on record. Charles Stanton and the NAC changed the band’s name from McKinney’s Synco to “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers” despite the protests of band members, probably in order to capitalize on the popular trope of the Antebellum south and the popularity of plantation imagery used in the Cotton Club in Harlem in this decade.55

Goldkette and McKinney also hired a new bandleader for the orchestra: saxophonist and composer Don Redman, who had been playing saxophone and arranging music for the

Henderson orchestra since 1923, and as arranger had been a crucial force in the group’s distinctive sound.56 Redman recalled when McKinney had approached him to join the group:

I had gotten an offer from Bill McKinney to run his band for him, but since I was getting pretty good money from Fletcher, and was well regarded, I decided not to take another offer until it was better than what I was getting then. We (Fletcher’s band) used to work the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit all the time while McKinney was at the Arcadia, and he would come over and tell me when he got in a position to make me the kind of offer I wanted, would I take the job? I told him I would.57

Redman brought with him an entertaining bandleader personality, arranging skill, and the ability to teach the band to play in the precise, arranged style that was associated with the Harlem orchestras and was becoming popular for jazz-inflected dance bands by the mid-1920s. Redman had already made his reputation as an arranger with Henderson and through arrangements he had penned for Whiteman, having effectively employed modern dance-orchestra arranging

55 I explore how this racialized name created disjuncture with the band’s music and the nature of this racialized construction in chapter 2.

56 For more on Redman’s contribution to the Henderson sound, see Jeffrey Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

57 Interview with The Jazz Review, cited in Chilton, 10.

60 techniques. By leading MKCP, Redman would imbue the orchestra with the sound of popular

Harlem dance orchestras like the Henderson band and bring to it the sound of the partitioned arrangement.

The newly named McKinney’s Cotton Pickers also expanded its ranks before starting its permanent Graystone engagement. Gus McLung joined the trumpet section, sousaphonist Ralph

Escudero, who was also previously with the Henderson orchestra, replaced June Cole, and woodwind player Prince Robinson joined the reed section.58 The group began rehearsing intensively under Redman’s leadership to adopt the precise, arranged sound of the Harlem orchestras.59 Although McKinney’s Synco had found success as a regional band, Goldkette

“made” the band into McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by changing the its name and hiring Redman as well as other additional musicians. The decision to expand the orchestra’s size and hire a leader centrally associated with the Harlem dance orchestra sound would bring this sound to

Detroit.

MKCP at the Graystone Ballroom

MKCP found immediate success when it began playing at the Graystone for both white and “colored” nights in September 1927. Chilton explains, “The crowds at the Graystone

Ballroom quickly took to the Cotton Pickers’ blend of polished musicianship and inspired showmanship.”60 NAC management wrote effusive copy for the band in March 1928:

Of all the orchestras before the public today none has held more fast the continued approval of those who dance to them than has McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Since early last spring it has played continuously at Graystone and its sister summer ballrooms, the Blue Lantern, Island Lake, and today is more firmly entrenched in favor than ever before.

58 Chilton, 10.

59 Ibid., 19.

60 Ibid.

61 It is a musical organization of “infinite variety,” and whether the tastes of its hearers bend toward the lighter vein, the medium or the classical, it is entirely satisfying. It is an extraordinary orchestra in many ways and regarded as supreme in entertaining features. Every member is a versatile artist, doubling on both songs and instruments, and there are several comedy actors who have appeared on the professional stage. their work is clever and clean and in full keeping with the excellence of the music.61

A newsletter published by the NAC, titled Graystone Topics, provides a snapshot of how the band fit into the ballroom’s weekly schedule. The ballroom featured a variety of novelties and entertainment in its weekly schedule, including a weekly waltz contest, balloon parties, song plugging, and holiday celebrations such as a St. Patrick’s Day dance, a Valentine’s day dance, and a celebration of the ballroom’s birthday, which boasted decorations and a fake birthday cake.62 The ballroom would plug published songs by having MKCP play them, and the weekly schedule also featured singers to plug selected numbers. For example, the newsletter announced performances of songs by Jerome Remick, Irving Berlin, and Will Rossiter in March 1928:

You may always hear the latest in music at the Graystone. Not only are the latest songs played by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers as dance numbers but they are sung by noted vocalists and illustrated on the screen.

Joe Qualters is now featuring two new Jerome Remick song hits on Tuesday and Thursday nights—Sing, Sing, Sycamore Tree, and Auf Wiederseh’n (We’ll meet again). On Wednesday and Friday nights, Joe Morris sings—Sunshine, by Irving Berlin, and Back in Your Own Back Yard, an Irving Berlin Publication, So Tired, a Will Rossiter offering, is one of the best musical products of the season, it is recorded on Victor Records by Jean Goldkette’s Victor Recording Orchestra and is an extremely popular number.63

61 “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers’ Orchestra: Graystone Band Stands Test of Time, Artist Musicians and Excellent Entertainers,” Graystone Topics, March 17, 1928. The Blue Lantern Dance Hall was a popular ballroom in Brighton, Michigan. (“Ballrooms of the Past,” National Ballroom and Entertainment Association, accessed July 9, 2018, http://nbea.com/archives11.htm#MICHIGAN).

62 Song plugging at a ballroom owned by the same agency that booked the band provides an example of entertainment companies conglomerating roles together, in this case band booking, venue ownership, song plugging, and radio broadcasting. Graystone Topics, March 17, 1928.

63 Ibid.

62 The explanation that the songs are “illustrated on the screen” indicates that the ballroom projected the text to these songs on a screen for the audience to sing along. The weekly schedule boasted “screen entertainment . . . every Dance Night at 8 o’clock” (see figure 1.6). Daniel

Goldmark explains that this practice remained common for Tin Pan Alley publishers long after the development of narrative film:

Illustrated song slides, which first appeared in the 1890s, became a particularly useful tool for publishers, who would send out sets of slides with promotional copies of the sheet music; an entire audience of theatergoers, potentially several hundred per showing, could sing along with a new song. . . . The song-slide craze died down just around the time narrative film began to dominate in theaters. However, the sing-along vogue didn’t go down without a fight. Accounts vary, but the origins of the bouncing-ball cartoon most likely came about with the aid of Tin Pan Alley veteran Charles K. Harris. He visited the cartoon studio run by the Fleischer brothers in the mid-1920s with an idea: could audiences be made to sing along with a cartoon? The novelty of connecting a song with a cartoon seemed brilliant, eventually becoming a key visual component to public song consumption that persists to this day.64

The weekly schedule’s announcement of “T and Kakes” from 4 to 6 PM on Sundays suggests that the Graystone also programmed tea dances. Lewis Erenberg explains that these dances were marketed towards women and became popular in the previous decade:

Extending the hours of the dance into the afternoons, cabarets and then hotels established the tea dance, or as it was known in fashionable circles, the dansant. Lasting from two or three in the afternoon until six in the evening, the teas attracted women to public institutions during those hours and transformed the tea hour into “merely an excuse for dancing.”65

The Graystone also programmed special events for holidays. The newsletter’s advertisement for its St. Patrick’s Day dance, which featured MKCP playing Irish songs, suggests that the orchestra had a broad, versatile repertoire to accompany holiday celebrations:

64 Daniel Goldmark, “Creating Desire in Tin Pan Alley,” The Musical Quarterly 90 (2008): 219–20.

65 “Dancing at Five,” Smart Styles 2 (1914) 44–45, cited in Lewis A. Erenberg, “Everybody's Doin’ It: The Pre-World War I Dance Craze, the Castles, and the Modern American Girl,” Feminist Studies 3, no. 1/2 (1975): 159.

63 Sure enough it will be none other than McKinney’s Cotton Pickers that will be playing the ould Irish tunes. Don Redman, the wan that shakes the shillelah an the other lads in the band, has fixed up all the grand ould airs of Ireland and it’s (sic) fox-trotting you’ll be to “The Wearing O’ the Green” and “The Irish Washer Woman” and waltzing to “Come Back to Erin” and “The Lakes of Killarney.”

Ballroom dates such as the regular engagement at the Graystone would continue to be a major

source of income for MKCP, and the popularity of dances held at ballrooms and dance halls in

the 1910s and ’20s is a well-documented part of the commercial music scene in the early

twentieth century.66 In cities such as Detroit, ballroom dates were the best paying work for black

musicians.67

66 Robert P. Crease, “Jazz and Dance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, ed. Mervyn Cooke and David Horn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 69–82; Christopher Wells, “‘Go Harlem!’ Chick Webb and His Dancing Audience During the Great Depression” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2014); Marc Rice, “Dances, Frolics, and Orchestra Wars: The Territory Bands and Ballrooms of Kansas City, Missouri, 1925–1935,” in Perspectives on American Music 1900–1950 (New York: General Music Publishing Co., 2000), 137–70.

67 Lars Bjorn, “Black Men in a White World: The Development of the Black Jazz Community in Detroit, 1917–1940,” Detroit in Perspective 5, no. 1 (1980): 7.

64 Figure 1.6: MKCP on Graystone schedule from Graystone Topics 1928

Although McKinney’s Synco had found early success through band members’ talent and entertaining performances before signing with the NAC, its contract with the company launched

65 the band to a new level of success. Management’s decisions to hire Redman to front the band and to provide arrangements, the hiring of additional new band members, a permanent residency at

Graystone, and a new name, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, created a band that imitated the

Harlem dance orchestra sound that was becoming popular (and thus profitable). Goldkette did not hire just any immediately available black dance band, he and the NAC management brought the sound of Harlem orchestras like Henderson’s to Detroit.

MKCP was not only immediately popular but also was immediately successful at mastering the partitioned sound that Redman brought with him from the Henderson orchestra.

Gunther Schuller wrote that by 1928 the band “had already achieved a distinctive style and concept unlike any other, and within that style a very high performance level, to my knowledge not matched by any other jazz or orchestra of the time.”68 Thus, the band’s changes in leadership, intense rehearsal schedule, and a regular engagement at a popular ballroom launched it to a new level of success.

WJR radio also began broadcasting MKCP’s sets remotely from the Graystone as soon as it began its permanent engagement in September 1927. These broadcasts, paired with a recording contract in 1928, would transform MKCP from a regional dance orchestra to a nationally recognized broadcasting and recording dance orchestra.

68 Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 302.

66 Chapter Two

MKCP’s Radio Presence, 1927–30

Detroit’s WJR radio station began broadcasting MKCP live from the Graystone Ballroom

as soon as the orchestra began its permanent engagement at the venue on September 15, 1927,

and continued broadcasting the band frequently until after 1931. In these four years, MKCP

maintained a busy radio schedule, participating in nearly 250 live broadcasts from the Graystone.

WJR broadcast these performances anywhere between weekly appearances to as many as five

times a week, with breaks for tours and performances at other venues during the summer months.

Because WJR broadcast at an optimal frequency and could reach as far as Arkansas, Texas, and

West Virginia, MKCP was heard by a national audience.1

MKCP’s remote broadcasts from the Graystone brought the band from regional to

national prominence, showing the power that radio and ballrooms exerted during the late 1920s

to launch a band to national fame. Additionally, because MKCP broadcast remotely while

performing for a live audience, radio listeners not only had the experience of listening to MKCP,

they also had the experience of listening to MKCP live in front of a ballroom audience of

dancers. In this chapter I argue that the NAC management constructed the band’s blackness for

its radio presence by assigning it a name associated with the South, because the band

transgressed musical boundaries of what it meant to play music that was coded as essentially

“black” or “white” during this period. Constructing the band as “black” worked to maintain the

distinction of racial difference for white listeners.

1 John Giles Hoglin, “A Descriptive Analysis of the Programming of WJR, Detroit, from 1922 to 1970” (PhD diss., Wayne State University, 1971), 1. No information is available suggesting that MKCP’s remote broadcasts were sponsored by an advertiser.

67 WJR and the Detroit Free Press

MKCP began broadcasting on WJR soon after signing with Goldkette and the NAC, but the beginning of the MKCP’s radio broadcasts also coincided with several changes to WJR radio station’s leadership and structure, making the station an advantageous vehicle for the band’s rise to national popularity. WJR radio has a complex history and recounting its relationship to federal regulation in the emerging radio market shows how MKCP began its radio presence at a time of change in broadcasting practices. WJR’s history began with Detroit Free Press’s creation of the

WCX radio station in 1922. It had shared broadcasting time with the station WWJ, which was owned by the Detroit News, on the wavelength of 833 kilohertz and subsequently 749 kilohertz.

Herbert Hoover, who was then secretary of commerce, had classified the station as a Class B station because of its use of a lower powered, 500-watt transmitter.2

In 1925 a radio manufacturer based in Pontiac, Michigan, Edward H. Jewett, joined the broadcasting business in order to boost his radio sales at the same time that the Free Press wanted to reduce the cost of operating its station.3 Jewett’s decision to partner with WCX and the Free Press provided a boon for the newspaper and the station, as the new company owner would build a new, high-powered transmitter for the Free Press to broadcast from, and in turn,

Jewett would have use of the Free Press’s sanctioned broadcast frequency. “On June 5, 1925, the

Jewett Radio and Phonograph Company and the Detroit Free Press entered into an agreement whereby Jewett Radio would use the call-sign ‘WJR’ in connection with its programs, while the

Free Press would continue to sign its programs with ‘WCX.’”4 Through this agreement, Jewett

2 Ibid., 14–15.

3 Ibid., 18.

4 Ibid., 19.

68 Radio would have access to this licensed frequency to broadcast its content, and the Free Press

would have use of a transmitter ten times more powerful than the one they had previously been

using.

This would prove an invaluable move in the battle over station assignments, as Hoover

organized frequency assignments based on transmitter power. By the mid-1920s, the airwaves

contained too many radio stations, which clogged the available radio frequencies nationwide,

creating problems for both broadcasters and listeners.5 The excess of radio stations made it

difficult for listeners to tune to their favorite radio station and created interference. Additionally,

stations with high-powered transmitters were able to obliterate stations with lower ones.6 This

proliferation of radio stations was especially acute in large cities like New York and Chicago but

had not been a significant problem in Detroit until the second half of the 1920s. By 1926, WJR

had more competition on the local wavelengths. WWJ, WCX’s former partner, had moved to

850 kilohertz, and was now competing with WCX-WJR for listeners. Additionally, a new

station, WGHP, began broadcasting on 1110 kilohertz.7

In the following two years, Hoover would federally organize these stations according to

transmitter power, and WCX-WJR would have an advantage because of its ownership of the

high-powered transmitter that Jewett had purchased for the station. When Hoover set out to

assign wavelengths, the process he used favored higher-powered transmitters, and thus favored

stations with the financial resources to own these transmitters. “Those stations with the most

5 Susan Jeanne Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 62.

6 Ibid., 63.

7 Hoglin, 23.

69 sophisticated and expensive transmitters (backed by the most money) got the best slots on the

AM dial. Others were forced to share frequencies or given daytime-only licenses.”8 In this arrangement WCX-WJR would win a better federally assigned frequency because of its new high-powered transmitter.

In the spring of 1927, the Federal Radio Commission reorganized which stations could use particular frequencies. They reassigned WJR and its partner station WCX to 680 kilohertz, and banned all other stations from this wavelength which allowed the station to reach longer distances.9 Listeners said that this lower frequency was easier to tune to than the higher frequency.10 WCX-WJR was likely favored for this optimal frequency because of its use of a high-powered transmitter. Five months later, the FRC “cleared the new WJR wave length of all other stations, excepting KFSD in San Diego, assuring long-distance reception.”11 This organization and reorganization of the station eventually led to optimal frequency assignment, making WJR a significant broadcasting force and an ideal vehicle for MKCP’s rise to fame when they began broadcasting on the station later that same year.

WJR’s broadcasting schedule

MKCP was an ideal group to broadcast on the radio because it provided the varied, entertaining dance orchestra performances that were popular during the 1920s. MKCP’s radio presence, however, also defies a trend of the late 1920s: the homogenization of radio programing through the formation of national networks. Douglas explains: “By the late 1920s ‘chain

8 Douglas, 62–63.

9 Hoglin, 28.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

70 broadcasting’ was centralizing radio programming in New York and standardizing the broadcast day so that listeners tuning between stations at night often heard the same chain program.

Meanwhile, independent stations featured locally produced programs with local talent.” She adds that NBC had been founded in 1926 and CBS in 1927, and “their purpose was to link stations via telephone lines so they could all broadcast the same show at the same time.” This formation of national networks had a chilling effect on the diversity of local programming: “Local programming would be eclipsed, especially during prime time, by shows produced in New York

City and distributed across the nation. And broadcasting came under oligopoly control as the two networks dominated the airwaves.”12

In line with this trend, WCX-WJR joined NBC in April 1927, just a few months before the beginning of MKCP’s regular radio engagement. Station management, specifically Free

Press executive Ed Stair, was disinterested in radio broadcasting and saw the NBC affiliation as an opportunity to avoid devoting time to station management.13 Despite the establishment of

WCX-WJR’s network affiliation, local entertainment continued to appear on the station.14 In line with WJR’s choice to continue programming local talent, Douglas notes that in the shift to national network affiliations, a national debate formed over whether this homogenization of local radio programming was appealing to listeners; “There was enormous support and affection for what one listener called the ‘home talent’ at local stations.”15 Thus, even though WCX-WJR

12 Douglas, 63.

13 Hoglin, 25–26.

14 Ibid., 26.

15 Douglas, 79.

71 broadcast some NBC Blue Network programming, it also continued to broadcast local talent and bands managed by Jean Goldkette and the NAC.

Like other local stations in the late 1920s, WJR’s programming mimicked the variety of entertainment that listeners might experience at a vaudeville theater. Radio programming could include different styles of vocal and instrumental music, minstrel shows, plot-driven shows, news, and informational programs. Eberly explains that stations were still programming concert music late in the decade, and besides music and theatrical shows, stations were broadcasting

“news commentaries, homemaker hints, religious features, drama, travel talks . . . public affairs,

[and] play by play of sporting events.”16 For example, on October 22, 1927, the station broadcast a “musical matinee,” various news programs, soprano and tenor singers, “old time songs,” and remote broadcasts of MKCP from the Graystone as well as two of Goldkette’s white dance orchestras, the Venetian ensemble and the Blue Room Orchestra (see Figure 2.1). Like MKCP,

Goldkette’s white bands also frequently broadcasted from ballrooms, especially the one at the

Book Cadillac hotel in the Book tower. On November 1, 1928, in addition to sets by MKCP,

Goldkette’s Blue Room orchestra, and the organist at Detroit’s Annex Theater, the station broadcast more NBC content, including the Maxwell Orchestra and Amos ’n’ Andy, which had launched previously that year (see Figure 2.2). In January 1929, the station broadcast music shows such as “Music of the Masters,” a male sextet, MKCP, and Fred Bergin’s Book Cadillac

Orchestra (from the Book Cadillac Hotel). The station also broadcast other entertainment on this day, such as Amos ’n’ Andy as well as an additional Minstrel show, sponsored programs, and a news reel (see Figure 2.3).

16 Philip K. Eberly, Music in the Air: America's Changing Tastes in Popular Music, 1920–1980 (New York: Hastings House, 1982), 34.

72

Figure 2.1: WJR Radio Schedule, Detroit Free Press, Thursday, October 20, 1927.

Figure 2.2: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule. Detroit Free Press, November 1, 1928, 17.

73

Figure 2.3: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule. Detroit Free Press, January 22, 1929, 15.

Dance orchestras were ubiquitous on the radio throughout the 1920s, and WJR broadcasted dance orchestra sets by both local bands and from NBC. Other black orchestras to appear on WJR between 1927 and 1931 included Willeray’s Chocolate Soldiers, the Ebony

Nuggets, and the Egyptian Serenaders. WJR also programmed the NBC broadcasts of the

Ellington orchestra and the Vincent Lopez orchestra.

Examination of radio schedules in the Detroit Free Press shows that MKCP and other dance bands that broadcast on WJR most often broadcasted on “band remotes” from the

Graystone Ballroom. John Dunning describes these types of radio broadcasts as “live programs of popular music. . . . Usually broadcast in half-hour timeslots from hotels, restaurants, ballrooms, dance halls, or Army camps.”17 In the late 1920s, with telephone lines able to

17 John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 60.

74 transmit signals to distant locations, radio stations used band remotes to fulfill the demand for varied professional entertainment at minimal cost. Stations most often used remote broadcasts to fill dance band slots. Almost all the MKCP broadcasts from 1927 through 1931 were band remotes from the Graystone. For example, on Wednesday, September 25, 1929, the Detroit Free

Press announced “Graystone Ballroom to Hold Celebration” and that MKCP would play the ballroom’s reopening after extensive renovations:

A celebration, starting Friday and extending through Saturday and Sunday, will mark the fall opening of Jean Goldkette’s Graystone ballroom. In addition to dancing to music by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, there will be a stage revue. In the past two months Goldkette has spent $200,000 renovating the ballroom in modernistic effects, the entire decorations being fireproof and the dance floor of stone, laid over heavy springs to give a floating effect, when there is a large crowd of dancers on the floor.18

WCX-WJR broadcast MKCP for three sets during this celebratory weekend: on Friday,

September 27 at 12:00 AM, Saturday, September 28 at 12:30 AM, and Sunday, September 29 at

12:00 AM. The band remained at the ballroom for the 1929 fall season with regular WJR broadcasts. Only a limited number of their performances occurred in the WJR studio. For example, on December 14, 1929, they broadcast at 6:30 PM “in a special program from studio,” and at 12:30 AM “from the Graystone.”19

Band remotes provided several advantages to radio stations, music venues, and musicians. Douglas explains that this arrangement benefited both the radio station and the venue that had booked the band. Radio stations had access to live music,20 and the venue where the performance occurred would receive free advertising on the air:

18 “Graystone Ballroom to Hold Celebration,” Detroit Free Press, September 25, 1929, 14.

19 Detroit Free Press, Saturday, December 14, 1929, 8.

20 Although radio stations did not have to pay the musicians performing on a band remote, AFM president James Petrillo insisted that stations still keep a paid studio orchestra on standby. (Charles A Sengstock, That

75 Alliances quickly grew between radio stations and hotels, who competed over which dance bands or orchestras they could book. The stations got live music—some of it the finest of the period—and the ambience of a glamorous nightclub, and the hotels got free publicity. Some shows were fed by telephone lines back to the station for broadcast (this was called a remote), but others, exploiting the fact that hotel buildings were some of the tallest in town, put a transmitting tower on top and broadcast from the hotel itself.21

Another benefit of band remotes was that they aligned with radio and government policy to

privilege live, rather than pre-recorded, music. Morton explains that “network managers, aided

by government policy makers, enforced rules that prevented most recording activity in radio, and

convinced the public that ‘canned’ programs were a second-rate form of entertainment.”22

Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton also explain that in its policy making, the federal government

favored stations that featured live music:

In the U.S., the Department of Commerce [the government agency that first oversaw radio] granted preferential licenses to stations that didn’t use recorded music, since there was a feeling that playing records was a rather inferior style of broadcasting—mainly because live music gave far superior sound reproduction. In 1927 the industry’s new governing body, the Federal Radio Commission, reemphasized that phonograph performances were “unnecessary.”23

Finally, band remotes also provided a benefit to musicians: the opportunity to perform for a

region or even national audience beyond the venue. Sengstock explains that “bandleaders most

often were willing to accept a lower fee—sometimes union scale wages, even when a hefty

payroll meant taking a loss—to play a location with a good radio wire. The broadcast buildup

Toddlin' Town: Chicago's White Dance Bands and Orchestras, 1900–1950 [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004], 42.)

21 Douglas, 86. It is possible that the Goldkette orchestra broadcasts from the Book-Cadillac hotel took advantage of the transmitter on top of the building. By 1928 WJR had moved from the Book-Cadillac to the Fisher building but may have left the transmitter at the former location for remote broadcasts. (Michguide.com, “WJR AM 760 Detroit,” http://www.michiguide.com/8626/.)

22 David Morton, Off the Record: The Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 8.

23 Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey (New York: Grove Press, 2000), 24.

76 would enable them to collect big fees on the subsequent lucrative one-nighter tours.”24 Thus,

MKCP’s remote broadcasts from the Graystone mutually benefitted WJR, the NAC, and MKCP.

WJR was able to broadcast an outstanding dance orchestra, the NAC gained more exposure for its venue, and MKCP was able to play its music for a large listening audience beyond the

Graystone.

Listening to MKCP live on WJR

Radio stations were not able to study demographics of listeners until the 1930s, so it is difficult to assess who listened to MKCP on the radio during its broadcasts.25 However, a few clues exist suggesting the station’s reach and how listeners would interact with the broadcasts.

WJR’s could reach as far as Arkansas, Texas, and West Virginia. A letter written to the black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier by a listener from West Virginia shows that WJR’s signal reached there. The listener writes that he enjoys listening to MKCP on the radio, as well as

Henderson and Ellington:

If you want to give me an idea of Paradise kindly let me have an occasional idea of the whereabouts of the incomparable Duke Ellington, the renowned Fletcher Henderson, and the one and only McKinney's Cotton Pickers . . . these three constitute the radio world's idea of heaven.26

24 Sengstock, 43. 25 Loviglio explains that the practice of soliciting letters from listeners became more common in the 1930s: “Network strategies for determining the reach of radio signals, the size and characteristics of the audience, and the range of responses for sponsored programs initially involved similar efforts to encourage listener letter writing. It has been estimated that by the early 1930s, about two-thirds of all radio programs on NBC explicitly requested listeners to write to the station.” (Jason Loviglio, Radio's Intimate Public: Network Broadcasting and Mass- Mediated Democracy [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005], xxiv.)

26 Pittsburgh Courier, February 20, 1932, 2/1, cited in Christopher Wilkinson, Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia (1930–1942) (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 66.

77 Moreover, one finds examples of WJR soliciting listener interaction through the Free Press radio page. On October 21, 1928, the Free Press announced MKCP’s return to Detroit’s Graystone

Ballroom and WJR radio after a summer hiatus for touring and recording:

A program by the Cotton Pickers means that the staff at the radio has no time for anything but the telephones. There is always a constant stream of requests despite the oft- repeated announcement that such requests must be mailed in advance of the program. The band will be heard frequently over WJR throughout the season and will be a weekly feature of the Red Apple Club on WCX.27

With this announcement, WJR and the Free Press were trying to have all requests submitted prior to the broadcast, but were also likely trying to obtain audience feedback from listeners who did not own telephones.

WJR broadcast MKCP live from a venue where the band was performing for an audience of dancers is key to understanding the band’s radio presence. Listeners would have been able to hear both the band and noise from the audience of dancers. Listening to a band performing from a ballroom would have emphasized the concept of “liveness” for listeners. Auslander explains that because radio hides its source from the listener, broadcasters had to find ways to make sure listeners knew that music was performed live rather than prerecorded:

Radio does not allow you to see the sources of the sounds you are hearing. Radio’s characteristic form of sensory deprivation crucially undermined the clear-cut distinction between live and recorded sound, and listeners could not be certain the sounds they were hearing were being produced live as they were supposed to be. Since some stations, especially smaller ones, did sometimes broadcast recorded music, there needed to be a way of telling the audience what it was hearing.28

For a station like WJR, broadcasting a dance orchestra like MKCP from the Graystone, with all contingent live noise, banter, and entertaining aspects of the performance, would have not only

27 “Cotton Pickers, Home from Trip, Will Greet Fans,” Detroit Free Press, October 21, 1928.

28 Philip Auslander, “Digital Liveness: A Historico-Philosophical Perspective,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 34, no. 3 (2012): 4.

78 aligned with the policy of prioritizing live music, but would have also created an experience for

the radio listener of participating in a live event.

For listeners, listening to a “live broadcast” of MKCP from the Graystone was an active

experience rather than simply sitting and listening to music on a Victrola. Listeners would have

been able to imagine the live performance in the ballroom. They may have been listening not

only to the band, but to the experience of being a dancer listening to the band at the venue. In

connection to this, listeners might have danced in their homes to the MKCP remote broadcasts

and likely listened communally as a family.29 Loviglio explains that radio could create a sense of

place for listeners who tuned in:

Radio's ability to mimic or replace familiar social institutions was offered variously as a source of comfort and excitement. . . . Hundreds of programs were named for the galleries, studios museums, marquees, opera houses, theaters, showcases, soundstages, playhouses, schools, universities, and other cultural and educational institutions that served as sponsors or models for the programs.30

The Free Press often announces MKCP’s broadcasts as “from the Graystone,” indicating that

listeners could tune into a dance band set being performed at a famous ballroom was central to

the experience of listening to this band on the radio.

Summary of MKCP radio presence

Examination of the WCX-WJR schedule from 1927 to 1931 shows MKCP’s surprisingly

frequent presence on a station with a wide reach across the country (see Appendix 1). The band’s

29 For example, Rika Asai explains how radio shows like Let’s Dance could be a synesthetic experience for listeners and “the aural rather than visual nature of radio encouraged an entirely different kind of audience participation: it motivated the listeners themselves to dance.” (Rika Asai, ““From Operatic Pomp to a Benny Goodman Stomp!” Frame Analysis and the National Biscuit Company’s Let’s Dance,” in Music and the Broadcast Experience: Performance, Production, and Audiences, ed. Christina L. Baade and James Andrew Deaville [New York: Oxford University Press, 2016], 170.)

30 Loviglio, xix.

79 busy broadcasting schedule has previously gone unnoticed both because little attention has been paid to it in scholarship and because one would not expect a band who is now found less in the early big band literature to be so popular.

An announcement of the band’s first radio broadcast appears in the Free Press radio schedule on September 15, 1927 for the opening of the Graystone Ballroom’s fall season.31 For the remainder of 1927, the band appears on the radio schedule two-to-three times a week. During the fall of 1927, WCX-WJR broadcast only one set per evening. The band typically broadcast on

Thursdays and Saturdays, plus one other day during the week such as Monday or Wednesday.

Times are not consistent but tend to be thirty-minute to one-hour slots anywhere between 9 PM and midnight.

In October 1928 the Free Press announced MKCP’s return to the Graystone and to WJR from Detroit’s Edgewater Ballroom and some tour dates.32 The band resumed a regular schedule through the end of 1928, broadcasting one set per evening, three to four nights a week. Its weekly broadcasts typically occurred on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, or Thursday, Friday and Saturday, or every night from Wednesday through Saturday. The station still alternated

MKCP evening slots with white orchestras (often run by Goldkette), although one sees national programs like Amos ’n’ Andy taking prime time slots. For example, on Thursday, November 1,

1928, MKCP broadcasts for thirty minutes at 10:30 PM, preceded and followed by NBC affiliate shows. Owen Bartlett’s orchestra broadcasts from the Book-Cadillac hotel at 11:15 PM (see

Example 2.2).33 In the month of December, its schedule was inconsistent, but the band still

31 Detroit Free Press, September 15, 1927, 15.

32 “Cotton Pickers, Home from Trip, Will Greet Fans.”

33 Detroit Free Press, November 1, 1928, 17.

80 appears on the WJR schedule about three times a week. MKCP appears on the WJR schedule

frequently throughout 1929, but it abruptly appears less often on the broadcast schedule in

1930.34

MKCP, radio, and race

in his bio-discography of MKCP, John Chilton dismisses the significance of the band’s

presence on the radio because they had not been the first black band on the radio:

Todd Rhodes, in summarising the change in fortunes that the recording contract brought to the band, also pointed out that the band’s popularity was greatly increased when it began appearing regularly on radio programmes. “It was through Goldkette’s using every ounce of his influence that we broadcast on a national hook-up, since use of Negro bands on the air was in its pioneer stage. We were perhaps the first coloured band to broadcast—surely one of the first.” (Actually, black bands had been broadcasting since the early 1920s).35

Chilton’s observation that MKCP had not been the first black band to broadcast on the radio is

undeniable. However, black bands were programmed much less compared to white bands during

this decade, so Rhodes’s recollection of MKCP being one of the first is understandable. In the

1920s and ’30s, African American performers were less present on the radio than their white

counterparts. Chadwick Jenkins explains, “By 1927 . . . the network system, conscious of the fact

that they were broadcasting shows across the nation to regions even less accepting of blacks than

the segregated North, tightened restrictions on African American performers.”36 Furthermore,

Michele Hilmes observes that critics were uncomfortable with the African American roots of

34 I explore reasons for MKCP’s disappearance from WJR’s radio schedule in chapter five.

35 John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 19.

36 Chadwick Jenkins, “A Question of Containment: Duke Ellington and Early Radio,” American Music 26 (2008): 421–22.

81 jazz and preferred performances by white orchestras; thus, white bands such as Paul Whiteman’s received more air time than African American orchestras.37

During this decade the limited representation of black bands on the radio was a concern in the black community. In October 1929, Walter Barnes, a Chicago Defender columnist, complained about the lack of representation in relation to the purchasing power of the black community:

Broadcasting today has reached the point where it is one of the most outstanding and far- reaching mediums of advertising in the employment of musicians. This subject should rest upon the minds of all aspiring musicians. This field seems to be very small for our group.

A very few of our outstanding orchestras have been contracted for broadcasting engagements. For the short time these orchestras have been broadcasting they have developed an extensive radio audience. Of course, this almost neglible [sic] number which has been selected to broadcast represents the finest groups of musicians to be found anywhere, while others aspire to broadcasting fame may not be able to measure up to the high standards which have been established by the outstanding bands of the day. With such a few of our orchestras broadcasting, it seems that it has put us far in the background. I believe that there are a number of our orchestras fully equipped and capable of doing first class radio work, but lack the opportunity.

In the past some of the alibis which have been put over where Colored music was mostly desired in some of the larger ballrooms of the country was that they did not want Colored bands because the men seemed to be too friendly with the audience. This is pure bunk. But I would like to call attention to the fact that in a radio broadcasting station there is nothing but an unseen audience.

Our folks buy, in proportion, more radios and allied equipment and Victrolas than any other group and even this seems to be overlooked when it comes to giving out contracts for broadcasting. It seems to be the belief among whites that the Race is still in the cotton fields and cannot sing or play anything else but cotton songs and blues. This is a great mistake. We are music lovers and enjoy all types and forms of music. What we need and what we want to see is more representation in proportion to our buying power.38

37 Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 77–78.

38 Walter Barnes, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, October 12, 1929, I/6.

82 Barnes’s observation that “it seems to be the belief among whites that the Race is still in the cotton fields and cannot sing or play anything else but cotton songs and blues” called out the radio industry’s inability to cater to black audiences, suggesting that the networks failed to see the black middle class’s purchasing power as a profit opportunity. However, his observation also gestures towards the practice of constructing black musicians’ race for listeners in the entertainment industry, from recording and broadcasting to sheet music publishing.

Construction of blackness on the radio

With Barnes’s observation as a point of departure, this chapter works toward a critical reading of constructed blackness on the radio through MKCP broadcasts. Discursive construction of ethnicity is a known practice in early radio. Hilmes has explored how radio played a central role in “constructing a national norm of ‘whiteness’ that emphasized the differences between

‘black’ and ‘white.’”39 She points out that because of the aural nature of the medium, radio had to work harder to construct race than such a medium as film. She argues, “Even when black musicians were permitted to broadcast directly to the public, their performances were usually contained within program conventions and formats dominated by white culture that presented them as ‘exotic’ or explicitly marginal to normative practices.”40 Likewise, Chadwick Jenkins investigates this construction of race in the Ellington orchestra’s radio appearances from the

Cotton Club. He uses the concept of “containment” (from property covenants intended to maintain housing segregation) to explore how African American bands were depicted on the radio.41 In the case of Ellington, Jenkins argues that a journalist contained the band as clearly

39 Hilmes, xix.

40 Ibid., 78.

41 Jenkins, 416.

83 black: Variety columnist Abel Green would describe the orchestra with words like “hottest, torrid, lowdown, and heated” to code racially the band’s radio appearances.42

MKCP’s NAC management contained the band as black, southern, and rural for radio audiences when they assigned it the name “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers,” which would have evoked nostalgia for the rural south and Antebellum slavery and plantations to audiences. The use of this name may have also been an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of New York’s

Cotton Club. The name of the club referred to the venue’s central theme, which was “the re- creation of the grandeur of a Southern plantation.”43 NBC had been broadcasting Ellington’s orchestra from the Cotton Club, making the venue nationally famous through remote broadcast.

Thus, the name “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers” aligned with and likely capitalized on this cultural trope that had a long history in discourse on black culture and was still present in popular culture in the period.

MKCP band member Dave Wilborn explained to Chilton how the Goldkette management assigned this name: “[Charles] Stanton said ‘Why not say you come from the South and call yourselves McKinney’s Cotton Pickers?’ Well, the guys hollered like mad, the South was Uncle

Tom then. So he said ‘Well, just use it here and then change your name when you leave.’”44

However, Chilton explained that the band’s success under this name made changing it

“impractical.”45 The band’s previous name, “McKinney’s Synco,” also would have evoked

42 Ibid., 422–24.

43 E. Ron Horton, “Cotton Club, the,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 21, 2018. http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-1002262157.

44 Detroit Free Press, February 11, 1973, quoted in Chilton, 9.

45 Ibid.

84 blackness for listeners with the shortened form of the word “syncopation,” suggesting hot, syncopated music, however, I argue that the name “Synco” would have suggested a modern black music for listeners, whereas “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers” had specifically southern and rural connotations, thus offending the band member’s sensibilities more than the former name.

Another one of MKCP’s band members, trombonist Quentin “Butter” Jackson, observed that the NAC management gave them a name that constructed them as black because otherwise they might be mistaken for a white band. In an interview with Milt Hinton, he explained:

JACKSON. So Jean Goldkette sent him [Redman], sent and got him, Fletcher, to come to Detroit and he took this band and he augmented the band and made it 11 pieces and the band sounded so nice and, I guess, well, being a black band, too, if you listen to it on the air, you couldn’t tell whether it was a black band or white band, in a way. So they . . . HINTON. Intonation was so good. JACKSON. That’s right, and so they nicknamed it Cottonpickers, so they’d really know that it was a black band. [my emphasis]

Later in the interview, he again touched on this topic:

JACKSON. And the band sounded so pretty on the radio and everything, you wouldn’t recognize it as a black band, really, because they had so much finesse, so much quality. So they called it McKinney Cottonpickers, and the guys hadn’t even been South. 46

Both Jackson’s and Hinton’s observation that good intonation and a “pretty” sound would have been coded as “white” for listeners supports Berish’s explanation that “Americans heard music, including jazz, through a racial ideology designed to differentiate black from white.”47 It also shows that African American musicians understood the implications of this ideology for their performances, broadcasts, and recordings. Characteristics such as good intonation or a “pretty” sound would have transgressed racial boundaries for listeners.

46 Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1, 1976.

47 Andrew Berish, Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 13.

85 MCKP was not exceptional in its use of a name that constructed its blackness for

audiences. This was a common practice in the early days of big bands, some of which carried

names like “Ebony Nuggets” and “Chocolate Dandies.” Thomas J. Hennessey has observed how

black bands were often made to carry an “Uncle Tom” image for audiences:

Black bands were perpetually labeled as “hot” bands reflecting the happy-go-lucky, Sambo, and natural rhythm stereotypes that have been inflicted on blacks and particularly black entertainers for generations. Even the band names of the period, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Andy Kirk's Dark Clouds of Joy . . . and the Chocolate Dandies, reflected this image. Black musicians were aware of this.48

As Hennessey explains, black musicians used this practice to improve their business or to

conform to what white audiences considered to be acceptable forms of expression. However, not

all members of the entertainment community supported the practice. As part of the newspaper’s

agenda of racial uplift, Peyton criticized black bands’ use of “Uncle Tom” names:

This writer is in receipt of a letter from a saxophone player in a local jazz band in Chicago. This musician seems to be displeased because this writer mentioned the fact that the unit he is playing with is using an ‘Uncle Tom’ name as a seller for the orchestra. I am sorry, but facts are facts. It is very true there are many orchestras use the southern Uncle Tom names and are apparently getting away all right, but let me say to this young man: Paul Whiteman, Paul Ash, Abe Lyman, Leroy Smith, Fess Williams, Vincent Lopez, Erskine Tate and a hundred other first-class orchestras do not use these Uncle Tom names to sell themselves.

It is disgraceful, and I am still of the same opinion as I was before receiving this letter. To this gentleman I want to say: Get into a progressive channel of thought and take that red handkerchief off your head.49

Peyton even specifically complained about MKCP’s use of an “Uncle Tom” name, writing “the

band is too good to carry this southern atmosphere as their billing matter. . . . let us get away

from these Uncle Tom names.”50

48 Hennessey, 134.

49 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, June 9, 1928, I/6.

50 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, December 1, 1928, I/2. Despite Peyton’s critique of the use of this marketing ploy, Lawrence Schenbeck has observed a disconnect between the Defender’s

86 In addition to the use of a racialized name to denote MKCP as black, southern, and rural

on the radio, one also finds examples of racialized descriptions in the NAC management’s

promotional materials. The management company published a regular newsletter promoting

events at the Graystone Ballroom titled Graystone Topics. An article dated April 16, 1926

describing MKCP calls the band “the warmest lot of melody and mirth makers that ever

wandered from the sunny South” and describes its music as ranging from “old plantation songs

to the jazziest of jazzy songs of the hour.”51

Additionally, WJR frequently scheduled MKCP alongside white dance bands managed

by Goldkette and the NAC to reconstruct an audio version of a common ballroom practice: to

hire two bands, one white and one black, which alternated sets. This practice created a sort of

musical binary that highlighted the discursive differences between whiteness and blackness.52

WJR often alternated remote broadcasts of MKCP sets with Jean Goldkette’s Blue Room

orchestra or another white band, reenacting this practice. MKCP often appeared on the schedule

before or after a white band broadcasting from the Book-Cadillac Hotel. For example, on Friday,

September 23, 1927, the Free Press WJR-WCX schedule lists at 11:00 PM, “Blue Room

goal of “racial uplift” and the newspaper’s advertising practices. He shows that many of the recordings advertised in the newspaper use imagery evoking poor blacks in the antebellum south, and hypothesizes that this marketing approach shows a disconnect between the newspaper’s editorial goals and readership personal tastes. Also, black listeners used racialized verbal constructions to describe their favorite bands. For example, in a listener write-in contest in the Pittsburgh Courier, a listener praised Duke Ellington for his “weird jungle background which is so natural to our race and so much different to the opposite race.” (J.A. Bremer, Pittsburgh Courier, September 12, 1931, 11).

51 Graystone Topics, Vol. 1, No. 7, Saturday, April 16 [1926], from the offices of the Detroit Federation of Musicians, in Fred J. Mayer, “The Jazz Process: Brass Bands to Swing Bands. Music in Detroit, 1850–1930” (MA Thesis, Michigan State University, 1994), 59.

52 Thomas J. Hennessey explains that in these dances that juxtaposed a white and black dance band, each band would dispense a “distinct musical style.” (Hennessey, 133).

87 Orchestra, directed by Owen Bartlett, from the Book-Cadillac Hotel; McKinney’s Cotton

Pickers, from the Graystone Ballroom” (see Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule. Detroit Free Press, September 23, 1927, 8.

Similarly, On Thursday, October 6, the WJR-WCX program lists “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, from the Graystone Ballroom” at 11:00 PM, and “Jean Goldkette’s Blue Room Orchestra, directed by Owen Bartlett” at 11:30 (see Figure 2.5).

88

Figure 2.5: WCX-WJR Radio Schedule. Detroit Free Press, October 6, 1927, 17.

Radio, black music, and the domestic sphere

“Containing” black bands in the early days of radio served a specific purpose: to eliminate the risk of black music entering the white domestic sphere unnoticed and influencing

89 or “infecting” listeners.53 The idea of jazz or other black music entering the home had been a

central concern for American listeners during the 1910s and ’20s. Radio provided a means for

listeners to enjoy entertainment in the privacy of their own home rather than face the

inconveniences and expense of public entertainments. Douglas explores this cultural shift:

There also seemed to be the beginning of a shift in desire among some, especially in the middle classes, for the security, ease, and privacy of the home during leisure hours. Hurly-burly public entertainments—the theater, vaudeville, amusement parks, baseball, world’s fairs, the circus—had exploded onto the national scene in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often bringing people of differing classes, ethnic groups, and neighborhoods into common public settings. There were pleasures here . . . . But . . . also . . . annoyances—the crowding and shoving, the unwanted advances, the noise, the often foul smells of small theaters—that undercut such public pleasures. So it is no surprise that fans began to write about how, with radio, listeners “do not sit packed closely, row on row, in stuffy discomfort endured for the delight of music. The good wife and I sat there quietly and comfortably alone in the little back room of our own home that Sunday night and drank in the harmony coming three hundred miles to us through the air.” . . . . In the 1920s political isolationism seemed to intersect with, and possibly be driven by, the beginning of Americans’ century-long retreat into the private, domestic sphere, with the help of technologies like radio. Technical novelty, the thrill of hearing voices and music from so far away, hunger for entertainment and diversion, and the emerging desire to withdraw from public spaces, all these fueled the boom.54

Because of radio’s function as a domestic entertainment, the possibility that subversive material

such as music performed by African Americans could enter the home unnoticed was threatening

to white listeners. Radio held the power to maintain or disrupt social order because it entered the

homes and private lives of listeners. Hilmes argues that listeners asked “what would come out of

that miraculous set and into the living room: abominable jazz, transporting one's children away

into exotic and dangerous cultural spaces? Or the strengthening of family unity through shared

53 Discourse on black music shows a history of using medicomoral terminology like “infectious” or “poisonous.” Ronald Radano’s observation, “the ‘infectious’ nature ascribed to black rhythm is particularly revealing, for it focuses attention specifically on fears of material (human) transmission through the immateriality of sound” further suggests how white listeners might fear “immaterial” black sounds entering the home through the radio. (Ronald Radano, Lying up a Nation: Race and Black Music. [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003], 236).

54 Douglas, 65.

90 and culturally sanctioned experiences?”55 She cites a 1922 academic conference devoted to suppressing jazz in popular culture because of its racial associations:

The Ninth Recreational Congress, convened in October 1922 to declare a “war” on jazz, led by Professor Peter Dykeman of the University of Wisconsin and critic Sigmund Spaeth, among many other luminaries of the high-culture scene. To eight hundred delegates from the Playground and Recreation Association and Community Service held in Atlantic City, Dykeman defended some aspects of jazz but claimed that its danger lay in its undisciplined, racialized performers: “Jazz is the victim of its wild, modern devotees, who are as bad as the voodoo worshipers of darkest Africa.” He made the connection to radio and other mechanized means of musical reproduction that are able to evade the usual channels of cultural control: “We are in danger of becoming a nation of piano-pumpers, radio-rounders and grafonola-grinders. Those mechanical instruments, if unwisely used, are dangerous to the musical life of America.”56

Constructed race and transgressed boundaries: black music in the public sphere

Despite white listeners’ fear of black music entering the domestic sphere, listening to the radio at home also created a safe and culturally sanctioned space to consume black music:

Little Elizabeth would never be allowed to go to a local jazz club, but the radio could bring the club into her living room. The creation of national networks superseded local or more random organization in a potentially invasive way, yet established a centralizing structure that could work to control the most immediately threatening aspects of local diversity and maintain local separations. . . . Thus, radio's space-transcending qualities, combined with its location in the family circle, held out both promise and threat. 57

But was MKCP necessarily performing rural black music? Jackson’s recollection of the band’s racial ambiguity through its music merits restatement here: “if you listen to it on the air, you couldn’t tell whether it was a black band or white band . . . and so they nicknamed it

Cottonpickers, so they’d really know that it was a black band.”58 Jackson was not alone in the

55 Hilmes, 16.

56 Hilmes, 49.

57 Ibid., 16.

58 Jackson, interview.

91 opinion that MKCP sounded more like the white dance orchestras of the day such as Whiteman’s or Lombardo’s. In his Defender column, Peyton regularly expressed admiration for white dance orchestras of the period and lauded black bands who could imitate their precision and style, rather than rely on blues language and collective improvisation commonly associated with black musical styles in popular discourse at this time. For example, Peyton praised Whiteman for his symphonic interpretation of jazz: “to know Paul Whiteman is to understand at last the phenomenon of American jazz. Whiteman did not invent jazz—he specifically disclaims this— but he was the first to write an orchestral score for jazz, and from its inception some ten years ago right to the present he has been its acknowledged chief exponent all over the world.”59

Peyton similarly praised MKCP, calling the band “very polished”60 and happily noted “you do not hear blue notes or discolorings in their harmonic playing,”61 both musical elements that would have been coded as “black.”62 Thus, because some critics, musicians, and listeners associated precision and good intonation with white dance orchestras, they wrote that MKCP sounded closer to white dance bands of the period than to New Orleans or Chicago style collective improvisation.

WJR and MKCP management had to find ways to ensure MKCP’s blackness would be visible for white listeners. Without this containment, MKCP’s racially ambiguous sound on the

59 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, May 19, 1927, I/6.

60 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, November 19, 1927, I/6.

61 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, December 1, 1928, I/2.

62 For example, Wells describes how jazz-inflected dance bands like those of Ellington, Henderson, and Chick Webb would perform blackness for listeners: “for white audiences, black music's appeal was based on an authenticity built through the sonic and corporeal performance of difference. By emphasizing sonic otherness through exotic harmonies, rough timbres, and syncopated rhythms, black musicians like Webb sonically constructed a racial distance that established in the minds of white patrons a sense of undiluted, authentic blackness.” Wells, 53.

92 radio would have blurred the boundaries of racial separation in a manner threatening to white audiences at the time. Christopher Wells explains that “The Great Migration forced African

American social culture into . . . more ‘official’ public venues,”63 thus putting the African

American community on display for the white gaze in northern cities. His description of how black performers in 1920s Harlem nightclubs were primarily on display for white patrons provides an example of how live performance put blackness on display for a white audience in the North after the Great Migration:

Through enacted spatial practices, this Harlem became a primary site of American exoticism and redirected the gaze of minstrelsy, with its own constructions of the simple rural Negro, onto African Americans' new cultural center in the north. . . . Harlem was a place for extravagant, debauched nightlife that catered to white clientele often to the exclusion of Harlem residents. . . . White patrons enacted these fantasies within the segregated performance spaces that lined Harlem's main commercial thoroughfare on 125th street. These clubs catered exclusively to white clientele, offering them an experience of Negro entertainment and Harlem nightlife while maintaining the racial exclusivity they were accustomed to in downtown venues. The absence of black patrons maintained a clear distinction between “consumer” and “consumed,” casting “Harlem” and the black bodies within it as cultural commodities built through white fantasies and for white pleasure. The entertainment thus presented an exotic performance of dangerousness without offering the real subversive danger posed by integration.64

Wells explains that in 1920s black nightclubs in the Harlem neighborhood made an exoticized, constructed blackness visible for the entertainment of whites in a manner that felt subversive to white audiences but avoided the “real subversive danger” of integration. This kept the

“consumed” separate from the “consumer” through segregation, and this spatial distance was key to the practice of performed blackness.

63 Christopher Wells, “‘Go Harlem!’ Chick Webb and His Dancing Audience during the Great Depression” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2014), 47.

64 Wells, 49–50.

93 Radio provided an ideal vehicle to maintain this separation because listeners could consume black music within the safety of the domestic sphere. Through this separation created by radio, WJR was able to put African American music on display by broadcasting MKCP’s live performances. However, because radio broadcasts lack a visual dimension, radio had to work to construct the band members’ race for listeners.65 MKCP played music that sounded “white,” but even when transgressing the musical color line, radio broadcasts of the band still reinforced this hierarchy. Jason Loviglio explains that radio personalities who transgressed these boundaries simultaneously helped to reinforce them:

Radio’s aural representations of difference. . . . White men who “sounded black,” straight men who “sounded queer,” Americans who “sounded foreign,” and men and women, boys and girls, who sounded like each other—all these performances evoked intense pleasure and anxiety precisely because they seemed to put fixed social identities into play in highly public ways. But ultimately, these performances . . . also helped to reinscribe traditional boundaries of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality, reinforcing complex rules about who is entitled to the privileges of privacy and publicity.66

Thus, despite Barnes’s claim that “in a radio broadcasting station there is nothing but an unseen audience,” black performing musicians were not “entitled to the privileges” of keeping their race private, even in a medium that could potentially conceal it.

This concern influenced radio broadcasters and entertainment managers to make bands’ blackness visible to listeners to avert the risk of infiltration into the white domestic sphere and to maintain the boundary between “white” and “black” for listeners. MKCP required a name like the “Cotton Pickers” to denote them as southern, rural, and black, as radio broadcasts lacked the visual dimension to represent the band’s visual appearance. The use of these racialized names and marketing materials was not new; however, I argue that Jean Goldkette and the NAC

65 Hilmes xix.

66 Loviglio, xviii.

94 management specifically gave MKCP its name and racialized image because of the band’s participation in regular radio broadcasts. Even at the time of the band’s existence, band members like Jackson were aware of this. In order to engage in common culture, MKCP was constructed and marketed as a black band, lest it risk “infiltrating” the white domestic sphere and be mistaken for a white band. MKCP’s “white” sounding music and management’s construction of the band’s blackness embodies radio’s contradiction of inviting listeners to simultaneously transgress and police the boundary of racial difference.

Although MKCP members and other African American musicians were not entitled to keep their race private on the aural medium of radio broadcasts, the visibility the band attained through these broadcasts was a defining opportunity for the band to reach a larger audience and its rise to national prominence. MKCP management may have made band members’ race visible to listeners, but the band and its music was also made audible to listeners, bringing the band to a new level of prominence.

Through its radio appearances, MKCP developed a following far beyond Detroit.

MKCP’s remote broadcasts from the Graystone Ballroom brought the band from regional to national prominence, showing the power that radio and ballrooms exerted during the late 1920s to launch a band to national fame. Because WJR broadcast MKCP’s dance band sets remotely while the band was performing for a live audience, radio listeners not only had the experience of listening to MKCP, they also had the experience of listening to MKCP live in front of an audience of dancers. Finally, because radio broadcasts lack a visual dimension, NAC management constructed the band’s blackness for its radio presence by assigning it a name suggesting its race. Although the band transgressed musical boundaries of what it meant to play music that was coded as essentially “black” or “white” during this period, its name and

95 management’s racialized constructions helped to reinforce the boundaries of racial difference for listeners.

96 Chapter Three

MKCP’s Recordings for Victor, 1928–31

In his bio-discography of MKCP, Chilton describes the beginning of the band’s contract

with Victor, after its first year of regular broadcasts from the Graystone Ballroom:

The Victor recording contract became a reality when Jean Goldkette persuaded LeRoy Shield, a Victor executive, to hear the band. . . . at the Edgewater Park summer ballroom. Shield was greatly impressed and arranged for the band to travel to Chicago in July 1928 for its recording debut.1

MKCP remained under contract with Victor from July 1928 through September 1931 and had

broad commercial success with its fifty-three sides for the label. The band’s contract with Victor

represents the height of the its success as a nationally famous dance orchestra. Although Victor

and its session organizers like Ralph Peer exploited black artists, MKCP’s recording contract

also provided benefit for the band and its musicians. It provided a new level of national visibility

which may have helped the band book more performances and bring more listeners to see the it

on tour. Additionally, recordings, which offer an amount of permanence, solidified MKCP’s

significance more than its radio broadcasts, which were ephemeral and not preserved.

Recording was also more immediately beneficial to the musicians. They likely were not

paid for their remote broadcasts from the Graystone beyond service fees for performing at the

ballroom, but they immediately profited off studio fees for recording. Finally, as the first

offerings in both the V-38000 “Red Hot Dance” series, as well as the 23000 race and hillbilly

series, MKCP played a significant role in Victor’s race record marketing allocations. Victor

advertised some of MKCP’s recordings in its mainstream (21000, 22000) series and others in its

race record series. The company’s decision to market the band in different series suggests that

1 John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of Mckinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 19.

97 Victor executives believed MKCP would sell well in the mainstream and race markets,

respectively.

Recordings as vernacular practice

I have adopted Arved Ashby’s description of recordings as “vernacular practice” in

classical music to frame this chapter, which historically contextualizes MKCP’s recordings.

Ashby describes historical musicology as “inflexible with regard to textual conceptions” and

hypothesizes that musicologists fear that “the musical work, the center of its disciplinarity for a

century, is fated to remain textually decentered.”2 I observe a similar inflexibility in previous

jazz scholarship. Jazz historians have traditionally constructed the recording as a musical work

and have analyzed it as “timeless and free of any particular . . . listeners” and “therefore open to

no vernacular practice.”3 Thus, I propose that Ashby’s framework, which considers recordings as

“vernacular practice,” provides a useful approach to explore the ontology of jazz records in

general and a crucial concept for analyzing and evaluating the sounds that emanate from

MKCP’s recordings in particular.

To understand how technological and business practices influenced MKCP’s recordings,

Adorno’s concept of “outside space” being “left as a sediment” inside the “interiorized musical

space” proves useful when considering the relationship between history and sound.4 Adorno

published this theory over a decade after Victor’s transition to electric technology and MKCP’s

contract with the company. However, the historical record shows that the two Victor engineers

2 Arved Ashby, Absolute Music and Mechanical Reproduction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 2–3.

3 Ibid., 2.

4 Theodor W. Adorno, Current of Music: Elements of a Radio Theory (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006), 85–86.

98 who installed the Western Electric technology in Victor’s studios, Joseph P. Maxfield and Henry

Harrison, held similar concerns while they developed the label’s electric recording technology.

Adorno described phonograph records as “recorded at a special time and a special place,”5 and

Harrison and Maxfield’s preoccupation with the acoustic properties of the studio shows that they

likewise conceptualized recording studios as “special.” The engineers’ goal to “simulate . . .

space relationships of the original” performance for the listener and to create a “sense of spatial

depth” were new to the recording industry. Emily Thompson has argued that acoustical treatment

of recording studios became a priority in the electric era: “no one paid attention to room

acoustics of recording studios until electric recording.”6 Thus, Harrison and Maxfield’s concern

with creating a “sense of spatial depth” for the listener was groundbreaking and prefigured

Adorno’s subsequent concern with how “empirical space” affects “musical space.”7 Harrison and

Maxfield played an influential role in Victor’s transition to electric recording and shaped the

company’s recording practices for the remainder of the 1920s. Their preoccupation with listener

experience invites analysis of how the “empirical space” of Victor’s technological and business

practices influenced the “musical space” of MKCP’s recordings.

MKCP records in Victor’s studios

MKCP had its first Victor recording session in Chicago in August 1928. Drummer Cuba

Austin recalled the musicians’ excitement when they took the train to Chicago for the band’s

first recording session:

5 Ibid., 76.

6 Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), 264.

7 Adorno, 83.

99 The boys were wild with excitement about recording, and on the train to Chicago there was a lot of drinking, laughing, and talking; everybody was in great spirits. We just kept walking and cutting up the length of the train through the entire night, most of us didn’t go to bed or get any sleep. Next morning we showed up at Victor in very boisterous spirits, and we trooped into the studio shouting and rarin’ to go.8

Despite the musicians’ excitement, Austin recalled that they struggled to get a good take and

“had a lot of trouble with the engineers.”9 Austin recalled that the sensitivity of the microphone in Victor’s Chicago studio created a challenge for the performers:

In those days, everybody took off their shoes and had a pillow under his feet, so the thud from beating the rhythm didn’t ruin things. Well, on “Milneberg Joys” [sic] the band was beating a fast rhythm, and then, bit by bit, the pillows kept sliding away. We ruined several takes that way.

Austin also recalled that time keeping presented problems for woodwind player Prince Robinson:

Don Redman hit on the idea of lashing Prince’s ankles and knees together with rope to hold him steady. We started another time and things went smoothly until Prince started a solo; then he began to bob up and down with his feet tied together, and finally gave up in the middle of it, looked up at Don and said, “Aw Don, I can’t play tied up like this.” But we finally got by with a good one.10

The band’s first session (July 11, 1928) contains one of its few rejected takes (“Sweet Sue, Just

You”), suggesting that MKCP had to scale a steep learning curve in the recording studio.

Similarly, in his oral history interview with Milt Hinton, Quentin Jackson remembered the challenges of recording with an electric microphone in Victor’s Camden studio on December 18,

1930:

It was made in a wooden box. Like a little wooden box with a little mic in it. . . . And that’s where I made “Come a Little Closer,” and you sang in this one mic. They had one mic is all. And it was a wooden box, a square wooden box and the little microphone was

8 Record Changer (November 1951), quoted in Chilton, 20.

9 Ibid.

10 Record Changer (November 1951), quoted in Chilton, 20.

100 about I’ll say not even two inches, maybe three inches in diameter. But it come over. How they did it I don’t know, but it came over.11

The transition from acoustic to electric recording two years previous to MKCP’s first session in 1928 had made recording much easier for musicians compared to singing or playing into the acoustic recording horn. Victor engineers had already been using electric technology for several years by the time MKCP began recording with the company and would have been comfortable with the process. However, electric recording was still a challenging task for artists in the recording studio. Morton explains:

The transition to electrical recording offered few benefits to artists, who had to work harder than ever. Although they could now put a little space between themselves, they were no more free to move or turn their heads than they were in the days of the recording horn. The sensitivity of the new microphones was such that the rustling of sheet music, the shuffling of feet, and even noisy breathing had to be curtailed.12

Electrical recording was also a challenging process for studio engineers, who had to manage sensitive microphones and debated how much to acoustically deaden the recording studio to minimize any type of distortion or added effect on the “sound image.” Engineers Maxfield and

Harrison were concerned with the nascent field of psychoacoustics and the domestic listening experience.13 Michael Chanan explains that the engineers were concerned about the sonic

11 Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1, 1976. Jackson’s description of a microphone housed in a wooden box matches a condenser microphone originally designed by General Electric and manufactured by RCA in 1929.11 Its Model 4A (nicknamed the “box brownie”), like other condenser microphones of the time, “required an amplifier enclosure, containing a vacuum tube amplifier very close to the microphone element in order to amplify the faint signal to a more distant phonograph pickup or radio transmitter.” The Model 4A housed both the amplifier and microphone in a wooden box. (“Microphones Part 2: The Electrical Era,” accessed November 28, 2017, http://www.thescreamingend.com/PHONOLAND/microphones2.html.)

12 Morton, 27.

13 Alexander Magoun posits the Maxfield and Harrison “initiated the field of psycho-acoustics, in which perception was as important as the phenomenon.” They presented their findings at an electrical engineering conference in 1926: “Harrison and Maxfield first examined the issue of what the listener heard from a record. Unlike their predecessors, from Edison to Eldridge Johnson, they defined phonographic perfection. It occurred ‘when the components of the reproduced sound reaching the ears of the actual listener have the same relative intensity and phase relation as the sound reaching the ears of an imaginary listener to the original performance would have had.’ Without two channels from the sound source to the listener’s ears, it would be ‘very difficult, if not impossible’ to

101 properties of recordings made with electric microphones and their effect on music They chose to acoustically treat the studio to minimize reverberation, under the theory that reverberation would further compound problems of the domestic listening experience:

Microphones did not do away with problems of balance but redefined them. In Maxfield's account, since the microphone (which he still calls the ‘pick-up’) is acoustically dead, the only method of controlling the balance is by the relative distances of the various instruments from the pick-up; and balance is immediately lost if any instrument changes its loudness. Worse still, since there is no sense of acoustic perspective (which he understood perfectly well to depend on some form of binaural or stereo recording), the result is that instead of the sounds of different groups of instrument blending, as they do in a concert hall, the loud instruments tend to drown out the weaker ones, again destroying the proper balance. The difficulty was not to be solved simply by using multiple microphones, since several microphones could mean several different sets of reverberation, producing unnatural side effects, such as phasing problems, which added to the fuzziness of the sound image. The problem was compounded by the vagaries of domestic listening, in which the sound could be further muddied—so the theory went— by the superimposition of the acoustical properties of one room upon those of another. Technically, therefore, the dead studio technique was correct, and engineers like Maxfield designed their equipment so that no distortion was introduced whose purpose was to compensate for errors within the system itself.14

By the time MKCP began recording for Victor, the engineers had acoustically treated the company’s studios to create recordings that catered to listeners’ taste for minimal reverberation.15 Although Maxfield and Harrison experimented with adding a small amount of

provide the necessary sense of location in a space of each sound source. But the engineers found that they could ‘simulate to a considerable degree . . . the space relationships of the original’ music through control of the acoustics in which recording took place. The reflection of sound off room surfaces and the varying times of reverberation depending on the location of the sound sources within the room gave the record listener ‘a sense of spatial depth.’ Building on Wallace Sabine’s research for ideal reverberation times for live performances, they experimented to find the ideal for recordings.” (Magoun, 225.)

14 Chanan explains that Maxfield was also concerned about the effect electrical recording would have on music: “Microphones play tricks that recording horns are not capable of, and the sound emerging from the loudspeaker parts company with the sound heard by a listener present in the studio. Since the listener to a broadcast or recording is increasingly unlikely to know what the artist (or even an artist like them) sounds like live, the sound coming from the speaker becomes the be-all and end-all of the process of reproduction, and new criteria appear for the evaluation of the result. These include a new emphasis on the stronger bass and sheer volume rendered possible by the new dynamic speakers.” Maxfield also noticed operatic singer developing a “half voice” for recording similar to crooning. (Michael Chanan, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music [London: Verso, 2000], 67–68.)

15 Secondary literature suggests that this concern with room acoustics first emerged with the transition to electrical recording and was less of a concern in the acoustic era. When making acoustic recordings, musicians had

102 reverberation to the studio’s acoustics to mimic the sound of a live performance, they still

preferred to keep this effect to a minimum:

Some perceived this new characteristic as a move toward greater realism and fidelity; it made a record sound more like a live performance heard in a concert hall. Others were troubled by the layering of different acoustical spaces that occurred when recorded reverberation was reproduced in a room that additionally contributed its own acoustical character. Even proponents of recorded room sound realized that a little reverberation went a long way, however, and electrified studios were soon swaddled with sound- absorbing materials.16

Thus, the amount of reverberation appropriate for a recording remained a matter for debate.

Maxfield maintained that a small amount of reverberation would appeal to listeners but

cautioned that the “studio for recording should still be considerably less reverberant than a room

intended for listening to live performances.”17 Audio engineers’ preoccupation with controlling

reverberation to create a sense of spatial dimension and acoustic liveness supports Adorno’s

assertion that “empirical space” affects a listener’s perception of music. One can hear Maxfield

and Harrison’s choice to deaden the acoustics of the studios in which MKCP recorded. The

band’s NYC and Camden recordings all have surprisingly little reverberation for recording in

such large studios.

MKCP recorded in several different Victor studios including its Chicago studio, several

of its New York studios, and its studio in a renovated church in Camden. MKCP’s first two

to stand as close to the horn as possible and create balance by controlling distance from the horn. “Larger groups, such as symphonic orchestras, were virtually impossible to record successfully. The goal of acoustic recording was to capture as much of the direct sound energy of the performance as possible, and there was little discussion about capturing (or eliminating) the sound of the studio itself.” (Thompson, 264.) Some recording scientists and studios, however, paid close attention to room acoustics. For example, as part of attempts to improve acoustic recordings rather than convert to electric or expand into radio markets, Victor engineer Harry Sooy began lining recording studios with monk’s cloth in order to record large ensembles effectively. (Magoun, 238). In the era of radio broadcast and electric recording, which required sensitive electric microphones, “the acoustic properties of the studio suddenly became significant.” (Thompson, 264.)

16 Thompson, 264.

17 Ibid., 266.

103 sessions for Victor on July 11 and 12, 1928 took place in its Chicago studio. This studio was relatively new, because two years prior, Victor records did not have a Chicago studio and conducted field recordings there instead. Jelly Roll Morton had recorded for Victor in September

1926 in the Webster Hotel Ballroom.18 However, all of MKCP’s Chicago recordings took place at the 952 North Michigan Avenue studio.19 After its first two sessions in Chicago, MKCP alternated between the company’s studios in New York and Camden for the remainder of its contract (see Table 3.1).

Table 3.1: MKCP NYC and Camden Recording Locations, 1929–31 Date Studio location April 8, 1929 Camden, NJ April 9, 1929 New York, NY November 5, 1929 New York, NY November 6, 1929 New York, NY November 7, 1929 New York, NY January 31, 1930 New York, NY. 28 West 44th St. February 3, 1930 New York, NY. 46th St. Studio July 28, 1930 Camden, NJ. Studio 1 July 29, 1930 Camden, NJ. Studio 1 July 30, 1930 Camden, NJ. Studio 1 November 3, 1930 New York, NY. Studio 4 November 4, 1930 New York, NY. Studio 4 November 5, 1930 New York, NY. Studio 1 December 17, 1930 Camden, NJ. Studio 1 December 18, 1930 Camden, NJ. Studio 1 February 12, 1931 Camden, NJ. Church Bldg. Studio 1 September 8, 1931 Camden, NJ. Church Bldg. Studio 2

The DAHR discography lists MKCP’s February 12, 1931 sessions as taking place in

Camden “Church Bldg. Studio 1” and the September 8, 1931 session as taking place in “Church

18 Allan Sutton, Recording the ’Twenties: The Evolution of the American Recording Industry, 1920–29 (Mainspring Press, 2008), 218.

19 Discography of American Historical Recordings, accessed November 28, 2017, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/.

104 Bldg. Studio 2.”20 Maxfield had overhauled the Camden church in 1927 by adding a “flat, sound- proof and false ceiling of burlap,” to minimize reverberation.21 As a result, MKCP’s Camden recordings have a relatively “dry” acoustic sound with almost no reverberation. Cheatham recalled MKCP’s final two sessions in Camden and the studio’s large size:

ALBERTSON. I see and you made a record with them— CHEATHAM. Yes. CHEATHAM. Camden. ALBERTSON. Camden in 1931. CHEATHAM. Yes. ALBERTSON. Which, as it turned out, was the last record— CHEATHAM. Uh-huh. ALBERTSON And what was the studio like in Camden? CHEATHAM. Well it was a very large place. It reminded me somewhat of the old Victor place, here. That’s a big, huge place. The studio was a very large room. CHEATHAM. You could almost put a band in there and not see it. It was just like a big warehouse type.22

All of the Camden sessions from 1930 and ’31 took place in the renovated Church building. In

Victor’s Church Studio, there were two studios set up with the Western Electric Recording

System—downstairs (Studio No. 1) and upstairs (Studio No. 2).23 Jackson recalled making the

December 17 and 18, 1930 sessions in the Church building:

HINTON. Where was that, Butter? JACKSON. At the old Victor HINTON. The first recording? JACKSON. We called it the church, with McKinney Cottonpickers HINTON. What year was that? JACKSON. That was 1930.

20 Ibid.

21 “Camden in Film Field: Some of the Equipment. The Synchronizing Begins,” The New York Times, August 26, 1928, quoted in Sutton, 170.

22 Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976.

23 Ben Kragting, Jr. and Harry Coster, “Victor’s Church Studio, Camden (1918–1935): Lost and Found?,” accessed June 25, 2018, http://www.vjm.biz/new_page_25.htm.

105 JACKSON. December 19 [recte December 18]. And that’s where I made “Come a Little Closer,” and you sang in this one mic. They had one mic is all.24

Written and oral histories show that engineers focused on studio acoustics and minimized reverberation to improve listener experience. They also reveal that the different locations where

MKCP recorded affected the sound of these recordings, as the Camden and NYC recordings have a more “dry” acoustic sound compared to the band’s early recordings in Chicago.

Listening to Victor’s recordings

In addition to the electric recording technology and acoustical treatment of studios, listener practices inform how empirical space could affect “interiorized musical space.” The new electric record players that went on the market in the second half of the 1920s produced a clear sound, loud volume, and additional bass. They were incompatible with acoustic era recordings, however, and record speeds were not yet standardized between companies, so 78s would sound different on players manufactured by different companies. Additionally, one cannot assume that all listeners preferred the sound of electric records to acoustic ones.25

When transitioning to electric recording techniques in 1925, Victor had begun producing new Victrolas that would play the new electric records with improved sound quality. On the company’s new domestic machine, called the Orthophonic Victrola, “an electromagnetic pick-up replaced the reproducing diaphragm, a loudspeaker took the place of the horn, and the phonograph now offered the same ‘smooth, uninterrupted flow of sound’ that radio listeners had

24Jackson, interview.

25 Jonathan Sterne argues: “we cannot automatically assume that wider frequency response is a necessarily desirable characteristic of sound reproduction. . . . listeners do not always or automatically understand improved technical specifications as resulting in ‘better’ sound. Examples abound of people preferring older sound- reproduction technologies to newer ones.” (Sterne, 277).

106 come to love.”26 Many listeners responded favorably to the new domestic loudspeakers, which

responded to the “flood of radio-generated public demand for more bass, more volume.”27

The new electric Victrolas were louder than acoustic machines. Cheatham recalled that

these new record players produced enough volume to serve as background music during a party.

In his interview with Chris Albertson, he explained the effect that this had on rent parties, in

which hosts could opt to play recordings rather than hire live musicians:28

ALBERTSON. And you don’t get a lot of volume on an old Victrola, and if you had a room with a lot of people, I don’t see how you could hear the music. CHEATHAM. Oh, you could hear it because they made some very fine record machines in those days. Remember when Victor came out with a small one. I remember and everybody would buy a portable and it was very, very loud. … I think there was a fellow named … The Black Eagle . . . he took the first one to Europe and I went over on the boat with him. He had the first one of those machines. And I went around with him to a couple places, night clubs, we’d sit it on the bar and everybody was so excited to hear such a machine, such volume. Of course, they didn’t have the volume that they have today in those days, Victor put out a very nice machine, everyone was buying them. And of course they played the records at these rent parties and you’d—well that was like background music.29

Despite the improved sound quality and volume of electric record players, Magoun

claims that “few phonograph owners appreciated the improved capacities of the record.”30 He

26 Thompson, 239.

27 Oliver Read and Walter L. Welch, From Tin Foil to Stereo: Evolution of the Phonograph, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: H. W. Sams, 1976), 239, quoted in Thompson, 239.

28 Rent parties were a practice in which people living in an apartment would host a party, and attendees would pay an entrance fee in order to help the hosts pay their rent. Jazz historians have traditionally described stride pianists as standard entertainment for these gatherings. For example, Scott DeVeaux and Gary Giddins explain: “Stride pianists found they could earn a livelihood by hiring out for Harlem ‘rent parties.’ These get-togethers, a social phenomenon of the 1920s, would congregate for food and music, making contributions to a communal kitty. As the average living room could not accommodate a band, the pianist had to be loud and steady enough to suit dancers and be heard over the volume of conversation.” (Scott DeVeaux and Gary Giddins, Jazz, 2nd ed. [New York: W. W. Norton, 2015], 98.) However, this interview shows that some rent party hosts would play recordings, especially when the new electric Victrolas with a louder volume entered the market.

29 Cheatham, interview.

30 Magoun, 219.

107 explains that recording speed, composition of discs, and production quality varied between record companies, and that listeners played recordings on “portable players and the phonographs made by hundreds of companies in the previous fifteen years.”31 Because record companies used different recording speeds and techniques, the records did not sound good when played on players manufactured by competing companies:

Records, while superficially interchangeable, continued to be recorded at anywhere from seventy-four to eighty-two rpm and with different characteristics of emphasis, depending on the types of microphone, amplifiers, and reproducing system used. Recording engineers applied their own techniques and preferences in recording, depending on room acoustics, microphone placement, and the point on the frequency range where they limited the amplitude—and dynamic range—of the soundwaves cut into the wax recording tablets. . . . it was hardly fair to consumers who did not have the luxury of multiple phonographs for their record collections.32

In addition to the varying speeds and sound quality of recordings produced by different companies, electric record players were sonically incompatible with acoustic records. Consumers who replaced an acoustic record player with an electric one found their acoustic records obsolete.33 Additionally, not all listeners preferred the sound quality of electrically produced records. According to Morton, “some consumers, used to the more mellow sound of acoustic recordings, rejected the bright sounding disks as too shrill.”34 Thus, as Maxfield and Harrison predicted, consumer listening practices could negatively affect the sonic experience.

Nevertheless, MKCP’s recordings were still popular with consumers and sold well in both the mainstream and race markets.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 289–90.

33 Ibid., 219.

34 Morton, 24.

108 Victor’s marketing practices

Victor’s marketing practices likely influenced the sales of MKCP records, and the

company’s practices can provide a context for which tunes the band recorded, and how it

straddled the mainstream and race markets. Several well-known producers, session organizers,

and talent scouts who worked for Victor served as session organizers for MKCP’s recordings. In

1923 and ’24, the major record labels had responded to the growing demand for jazz, blues, and

country music by hiring producer/talent scouts who traveled the country looking for new artists

to sign, record, and market.35 In the 1920s these producers did more than supervise the recording

process and make artistic decisions. They “scouted and auditioned talent, booked sessions,

engaged arrangers and session men, secured copyrighting and publishing for songs and, in some

cases, acted as record company executives, not just employees of the company or the talent.”36

Chilton writes that Victor producer LeRoy Shield was the first to hear MKCP and to set

the band’s first recording date with the label, and Shield appears as session supervisor on the

band’s November 23, 1928 session. Ralph Peer, the best known of Victor’s producer/talent

scouts, may have also assisted in managing MKCP’s contract with Victor.37 Peer is best known

for his development of hillbilly and roots artists, especially Jimmie Rodgers, but he also

managed other big bands, jazz artists, and blues singers at OKeh who followed him to Victor,

including Fats Waller, Benny Moten, Jelly Roll Morton, and Mamie Smith.38 Peer had worked

35 Sutton, 203.

36 David N. Lewis, review of Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music by Barry Mazor, ARSC Journal 46, no. 1 (2015): 46.

37 Chilton, 19.

38 Barry Mazor, Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2016), 79.

109 for General Phonograph Corporation in 1920 and subsequently served as Fred Hager’s assistant in Okeh’s studio. As Hager’s assistant Peer had accompanied him on recording expeditions to scout and record vernacular music performers across the country. He was skilled at identifying talent for the label to record. Sutton claims that Peer had played “a major role in Okeh’s development of the race, country, and ethnic markets.”39 In 1927 he moved to Victor as an independent producer and talent scout rather than as an employee of the company, and negotiated in his contract that he would only take mechanical rights for recordings by artists he produced as payment.40 Sutton explains, “The payoff for Peer would be that he, rather than

Victor, would hold the mechanical reproduction rights to any original compositions his performers recorded, as well as all artist-management rights.”41

MKCP’s connection to Peer can be found in the copyright records for Don Redman’s,

John Nesbitt’s, and Charles Stanton’s compositions that MKCP recorded. For example,

Redman’s compositions were copyrighted by Southern Music Publishing (see Table 3.2), a company belonging to Peer:

In January 1928 Peer founded the Southern Music Company to control rights to the compositions of his recording artists. Peer required his performers to sign two contracts, one of them granting him exclusive management rights and effectively taking away any say the performer might have in recording-contract negotiations. The other contract required performers to sign over rights to their original compositions to Southern Music, rather than to the record companies, along with a substantial cut of their royalties.42

Signing artists who performed original music that could be copyrighted was central to Peer’s business model. “While less astute talent scouts continued to sign traditional string bands and

39 Sutton, 205.

40 Mazor, 76–77.

41 Sutton, 206.

42 Ibid., 206.

110 balladeers, Peer insisted that his artists produce a steady stream of material that was sufficiently original to qualify for copyright.”43

Table 3.2: MKCP Southern Music Copyright Holdings Song Title Composer, Year Recorded “Put it There” Rhodes July 11, 1928 “Stop Kidding” Nesbitt July 12, 1928 “Cherry” Redman July 12, 1928 “Plain Dirt” Stanton November 5, 1929 “I’d Love It” Redman and Hudson November 6, 1929 “I’ll Make Fun for You” Nesbitt and Stanton January 31, 1930 “Then Someone’s in Love” Lew Pollack and Max Prival February 3, 1930 “Just a Shade Corn” Redman July 28, 1930 “Cotton Picker’s Scat” Redman and McKinney July 31, 1931

Southern Music’s copyright holdings confirm that the band members and manager

Charles Stanton who composed original music for MKCP to record signed their rights to their compositions over to Peer during the band’s contract with Victor. Southern published most original music by MKCP members under the Victor contract. This type of relationship between talent scouts and recording artists might seem exploitative on the surface. Sutton explains that

ASCAP and copyright law neglected musicians from marginalized groups: “Mainstream composers and publishers had a staunch protector in the American Society of Composers,

Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) . . . . Black and rural white songwriters, however, rarely qualified or applied for membership in ASCAP or had any knowledge of copyright law.”44

Peer’s business relationship with his artists, however, may have been fairer than those offered by other record companies and talent scouts. Peer insisted that he gave royalties and a percentage of the mechanical license fees to his artists. Mazor explains:

43 Ibid., 207.

44 Sutton, 204–5.

111 he saw to it that the songwriters were in fact contracted to receive royalties, and, more unusually still, he actually sent the money when it accrued. Never once, as so many in publishing firms and many involved with record companies would notoriously do over the years, did he buy 100 percent of the copyrights outright, a buyout, with the mechanical royalty “eaten whole.” Nor would he even once stick his name on a song as a coauthor, claiming some piece of the separate writer’s share of performance royalties, as so many would. Few of the hillbilly or blues artists would ever have been offered a royalty at all, let alone a deal like this.45

Thus, Redman and other MKCP band members who composed songs published by Southern

Music likely received royalties and a percentage of mechanical license fees for their compositions.

Peer is not listed as session supervisor on any of MKCP’s recordings, although that does not mean he was not present at the band’s sessions. Three different supervisors appear on

MKCP’s recording sessions between 1928 and 1931: LeRoy Shield, Loren M. Watson, and Eli

Oberstein. Biographical information is scant on the first two supervisors, save for Shield apparently first hearing MKCP and signing the band to Victor.46 Oberstein’s presence at

MKCP’s last three sessions, however, is notable. He went on to form the reissue label Varsity in

1937, which recorded such historically significant jazz musicians as Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter,

Coleman Hawkins, and Fats Waller.47

MKCP and Victor’s race and mainstream labels

Examining how Victor signed, developed, recorded, and marketed its artists reveals how it categorized MKCP within its artist catalogue. Chanan argues that the commercial activities of

45 Mazor, 81-82.

46 Chilton, 19.

47 Gordon Mumma, Howard Rye, and Chris Sheridan, “Recording,” The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., ed. Barry Kernfeld (London: Macmillan, 2002), 3:376.

112 radio broadcasting and recording contributed to the categorization of music styles.48 Although

MKCP was not exclusively marketed as a race band, the band recorded with Victor at a time when the label was focusing on marketing to the race and ethnic markets. Victor’s business practices may have influenced how listeners experienced MKCP’s recordings through its assignment of the 78s to its race record series (V-38000 “Red Hot Dance” series, and subsequent

23000 “race” and “hillbilly” series) or its mainstream popular music series (21000, 22000).

Comparing Victor’s race record marketing allocations with MKCP’s catalogue numbers begs the question as to whether Victor marketed MKCP as a race band, or if the band straddled the race and mainstream popular music markets.

Victor began selling race records relatively late compared to the other major labels. Rust explains that the company’s executives were disinterested in jazz before musical director

Nathaniel Shilkret’s promotion:

From June 1920 [Chief Artists’ Manager] Edward T. King exercised authority over what was and was not to be recorded and issued. Musical director Nathaniel (“Nat”) Shilkret, a man of outstanding talent, taste and personal charm, was sympathetic to jazz as the present-day connoisseur understands the term. But it was not until King resigned in November 1926 and transferred his allegiance to Columbia (much to the relief of many dance-band musicians) that Shilkret was able to produce dance records featuring high- grade hot jazz solos.49

Victor likely realized that it was losing market share to the race record market by 1928. The company’s competitors were producing race record series to capitalize on the growing race

48 Chanan, 64.

49 Brian Rust, The American Record Label Book, The Roots of Jazz (New York: Da Capo Press, 1984), 309.

113 record market, especially after Black Swan’s success earlier in the decade.50 Sutton explains that the race record market was growing but also becoming more diverse:

As the ’Twenties progressed, it became increasingly clear that the market for records by black artists consisted of not one, but several, segments. Black jazz, widely accepted by young whites, was rapidly finding its way into the mainstream. By 1929 even the prestigious Phonograph Monthly Review was regularly reviewing new releases by black jazz groups, often quite favorably. The most popular bands, like those of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, largely avoided being pigeonholed in the segregated race series and were promoted alongside their white counterparts in the standard catalogs.51

Sutton explains that in response to this growing race record market, for a few years Victor put black dance orchestras like Ellington’s on the “Red Hot Dance Tunes” series (V-38000) but ended this practice when the company realized that Ellington sold well in the mainstream market:

The first of Victor's segregated series—the V-38000s, dubbed “Red Hot Dance Tunes” and launched on January 8,—[1926]—was reserved for black bands and instrumentalists, although several white jazz bands made brief appearances in the series. Victor stars with proven cross-racial appeal, including Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, suddenly found themselves transferred to the V-38000 series, reducing their exposure to white customers. The Victor executives soon realized their strategic error and returned their most popular black artists to the standard series.52

Rust explains that this series might not have been initially successful because Victor had set its prices too high for the company’s race offerings:

Although the quality of most issues was superb, the quantity was restricted. By the time economic conditions suggested that 75 cents was too high for records appealing to a poorer market, about 500 had been issued. Many were withdrawn after a matter of months, with sales in the low three figures. Most never made it to the general catalog at all.53

50 David Suisman, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 231.

51 Sutton, 224.

52 Ibid., 225.

53 Rust, 309. John R. Bolig explains, “Victor had rules governing the number of copies that had to be sold if a record was retained in their catalog. From artist’s contracts we know that the number was relatively small, and a

114

Victor closed the V-3800 “Red Hot Dance” series by 1930 because of poor sales. The absence of

advertisements for Victor recordings on these series in black newspapers compared to ads for

Columbia and OKeh is noticeable, so it is possible that the series did not sell well because of

lack of advertising in black newspapers. For example, only one advertisement for Victor

recordings appears in the Defender between 1927 and ’34 (on May 19, 1928). However, the race

label Okeh regularly advertised in the paper.54 I hypothesize that Victor avoided advertising in

black newspapers such as the Defender because of their status as alternative newspapers.55 The

short life span on the “Red Hot Dance Tunes” series suggests that Victor failed to market these

78s effectively and missed an opportunity to engage fully the African American market.

After closing the V-38000 “Red Hot Dance Tunes” series in 1930, Victor started issuing

“race” and “hillbilly” recordings on the 23000 series. Like with the V-38000 series, MKCP also

initiated this series, and many of the band’s post-1930 recordings have the 23000 designation.

Thirty-six of MKCP’s fifty-one sides are on the V-38000 or 23000 series (see Appendix

B). However, fifteen of the band’s sides appeared on the mainstream 21000 and 22000 series.

John Bolig explains that the 21000 and 22000 series

included popular songs performed primarily by white artists, white bands and white orchestras. Many of the songs were featured in the earliest “talking pictures.” . . . For a while, jazz and sentimental songs were listed in the 22000 series, and a few black artists were also included.56

record could be deleted if less than 50 or 75 copies were sold in a three-month period.” (John R. Bolig, Victor Black Label Discography: Victor 25000, 26000, 27000 Series, [Santa Barbara: American Discography Project], 5:vii.)

54 One finds advertisements in the Defender for “The Chocolate Dandies,” which shared many MKCP personnel under the OKeh label.

55 Fred Carroll, Race News: Black Journalists and the Fight for Racial Justice in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 22.

56 John R Bolig, The Victor Black Label Discography: 22000, 23000, 24000, V-38000, V-38500, and V- 40000 Series (Denver: Mainspring Press, 2013), vii.

115

Victor’s sales catalogues reveal how the company marketed its race and mainstream

offerings. In its catalogues Victor often arranged recordings alphabetically by song title rather

than artist or genre, thus listing opera arias, dance hits, and other genres mixed together.

Additionally, these catalogues provide clues regarding how Victor’s marketing practices defined

musical style, because many of the dance record offerings are labeled either “F.T.” (abbreviation

for foxtrot) or “Stomp.” The company advertised both the mainstream 21000-22000 series and

the V-38000 series in the main catalogue: Victor’s September 1929 catalogue advertises several

MKCP sides alongside not only Ellington, Moten and Morton, but also Schumann and Verdi.57

Records are arranged in the catalogue by song title; the V-38000s are not separated into their

own category. On page 20 of the catalogue (see Figure 3.1), two MKCP recordings are listed as

V-38000s, along with Moten and Ellington recordings, but Moten’s “Kansas City Breakdown”

has a mainstream catalogue number in the 21000 series. Thus, Red Hot Dance Tunes series was

separated from the “mainstream” series in Victor’s catalogue and may have been available to

mainstream music stores that sold Victor’s records.

57 Low sales numbers for the “Red Hot Dance” series might also have contributed to the company’s decision to market these black dance bands in the mainstream catalogue, as well.

116 Figure 3.1: Victor Sales Catalogue, September 1929, 20.

While the V-38000 series was active from 1928 to 1930, Victor divided MKCP’s recorded output between the V-38000 “Red Hot Dance Tunes” race series and mainstream

117 market. MKCP recorded the first sides to be released on both the V-38000 series and the subsequent 23000 race and hillbilly series, suggesting that the band played a significant role in these marketing allocations. The V-38000 catalogue number recording of MKCP, which featured

“Crying and Sighing” on the A side and “Nobody’s Sweetheart” on the B side, came from the band’s second recording session in Chicago on July 12, 1928.58

Victor released three discs featuring MKCP on the mainstream 21000 series in the

October through December of 1928. All of these sides were recorded on MKCP’s first two sessions in Chicago in July 1928. These sides included catalogue number 21661, released in

October 1928, which featured Jelly Roll Morton’s song “Milenberg Joys” on the A side and

Spencer Williams’s song “Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble” on the B side. The catalogue number 21583 B

“Four or Five Times,” was released November 1928. The A side featured a different artist,

Hayes’s Louisville Stompers, another black artist who played jug band music and jazz.59 MKCP never shares sides with another band on the V-38000 or 23000 series, but they do appear opposite other bands in the 21000-22000 series. The third disc featuring MKCP with the 21000 allocation is catalogue number 21730, which features Redman’s own composition “Cherry” on the A side and “Some Sweet Day” by Ed Rose, Abe Olman, and Tony Jackson on the B side.

Everything MKCP recorded in 1929 was issued on the V-38000 “Red Hot Dance” series save for two numbers. These include “Will You, Won’t You, Be My Babe?,” which was released as catalogue number 22932 A in 1930 with “Rocky Road” on the B side, and “Wherever There’s

58 The Discography of American Historical Recordings only provides sales numbers for twelve of MKCP’s recordings.

59 Howard Rye, “Hayes, Clifford,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 25, 2018. http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000588200.

118 a Will, There’s a Way,” which was released as catalogue number 22736 A in 1931 with Blanche

Calloway on the B side.

Victor ended the V-38000 series in 1930, and instead began releasing race records on the

23000 series. As with the V-38000 series, the company initiated the series with MKCP recordings. Catalogue number 23000 included “Okay Baby” by Maceo Pinkard and William

Tracey on the A side, and “I Want a Little Girl” by Billy Moll and Murray Mencher on the B side. This may have been one of MKCP’s top-selling discs, with sales numbers topping 35,000.60

MKCP’s final two sessions, in February and September 1931, once again appear on the

22000 mainstream series. These include catalogue numbers 22628 with “It’s a Lonesome Old

Town” by Charley Kisco and Harry Tobias on the A side and “She’s My Secret Passion” by Val

Valentine and Arthur young on the B side, and 22811 with “Do You Believe in Love at Sight” by Gus Kahn and Ted Fiorito on the A side and “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” by Ted

Koehler, Billy Moll, and Harry Barris on the B side. Both recordings on the 22811 catalogue number (recorded September 1931) no longer had Redman as bandleader; rather Benny Carter had replaced him and provided both arrangements.61

Victor’s categorization of some black bands’ recordings in the V-38000s (1928-30) and

23000s (1930-34) and some in the mainstream category invites several questions. What were

Victor’s reasons for marketing the recorded output of these bands between its different series?

Did the executives consider some titles race music with others appealing to white audiences? The band’s recordings of “Four or Five Times,” “Hullabaloo,” and “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams”

60 The Discography of American Historical Recordings only lists sales numbers for twelve of MKCP’s recordings on the label.

61 Chilton, 61–2.

119 were relatively clear choices for the 22000 series. “Four or Five Times” was popularized as the theme song for Jimmy Noone and his Apex Club Orchestra.62 The mainstream series often featured songs that had been used in early talking pictures, and the song “Hullabaloo” by Walter

Okeefe Robert Emmett Dolan had been featured in the film Dancing Sweetie. This disc may have also been one of MKCP’s top-selling releases, selling over 29,000 copies. “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” had been popularized by Bing Crosby on his Victor recording from March 1931, six months prior to the MKCP recording. However, the reason for marketing the rest of MKCP’s

21000 and 22000 output as such is unclear. It is possible that MKCP’s recordings allocated to the

21000 and 22000 mainstream series may have been the band’s most requested songs on its radio remotes, though evidence supporting this theory is unavailable. It is also possible that session organizers decided which songs MKCP recorded, though evidence supporting this theory is also unavailable, other than Peer’s known preference that race and hilbilly groups under his supervision record of original music that he could copyright under Southern Music Publishing in order to earn royalties. The only song held by Southern Music to appear on the 21000 series is

Redman’s composition “Cherry.” All other songs held by Peer’s company appear on the V-

38000 or 23000 series.

Some of Victor’s other choices regarding how to allocate MKCP’s recordings are different than what might be expected based on current histories of this period. For example,

MKCP’s blues-influenced recordings, like the well-known “It’s Tight Like That” is on the V-

38000s, but so is the band’s only waltz (“Then Someone’s in Love”), which arguably might have appealed to white listeners. The strategy seems to defy currently accepted stylistic categories for

62 Popular Music: An Annotated Index of American Popular Songs, 1920–1929, ed. Nat Shapiro (New York: Adrian Press, 1969), 5:202.

120 other bands, as well. For example, the September 1929 catalogue lists the Moten orchestra’s recording of “Kansas City Breakdown” as 21693 (in the mainstream series). However, this is labeled as a “stomp,” where as many of the MKCP offerings are labeled as “F.T.” (foxtrot).

Record companies marketed foxtrots, such as those by the Whiteman band, primarily to white audiences. Furthermore, textual reasons for the assignment of some recordings to the mainstream series and some to the V-38000 “Red Hot Dance” or 23000 series are unclear. It is possible that some sides on the mainstream 21000 series were broadcast on the radio more often or especially popular in ballrooms during the period. After Victor closed the V-38000 series in 1930 and began the 23000 “race and hillbilly” series, like with the V-38000 series, there also does not appear to be any musical reason for why some recordings were catalogued in the race series and others in the mainstream series.63

Finally, Victor chose not to release two sides that MKCP recorded during its existence,

“Honeysuckle Rose” and “Blues Sure Have Got Me.” The label did not release these sides until subsequent reissues released after the band was defunct. For example, in February 1930, MKCP recorded two tunes featured in the musical Load of Coal by Andy Razaf and Fats Waller:

“Honeysuckle Rose” and “Zonky.” This suggests that Victor had plans to release both sides on one disc in its mainstream series. However, the company did not release “Honeysuckle Rose” during the band’s existence and released “Zonky” as V-38118 B with “If I Could Be with You

One Hour To-Night” on the A side. Both “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Blues Sure Have Got Me” provide key examples of the band’s musical style, so Victor’s decision not to release them is perplexing. I will analyze selections from these two recordings in the following chapter.

63 Bolig, vii.

121 The newspapers where Victor advertised MKCP’s recordings also provide clues regarding its marketing practices. An advertisement for selections from the Victor catalog appears in the mainstream Detroit Free Press on September 27, 1930, and includes MKCP offerings. These were advertised as on sale at Grinnell Bros., a Detroit music store (see Figure

3.2).64

Figure 3.2: advertisement for Grinnell Bros., Detroit Free Press, Saturday, September 27, 1930, 11.

64 Dan Austin, “Grinnell Brothers Music House,” historicdetroit.org, accessed April 3, 2018, http://historicdetroit.org/building/grinnell-brothers-music-house/.

122 MKCP’s popularity at Detroit’s Graystone was probably a reason to feature the band’s

records in the Detroit Free Press, a white newspaper. The two sides listed here, “Baby Won’t

you Please Come Home” and “Hullabaloo” were on the same disc and listed under catalogue

number 22511 (22000 series), and thus would have been intended for a mainstream audience.65

Like with the catalogue example presented above, MKCP’s recording appears next to recordings

in other musical styles: a recording of Saint-Saëns’s opera “Henry VIII” as well as Mozart’s

“Magic Flute.” This advertisement for MKCP recordings on the mainstream series demonstrates

that Victor marketed MKCP not only as a race band, but also as a crossover band for white

listeners.

Although MKCP straddled both the race and mainstream labels for reasons that are not

entirely clear, the band was clearly successful in both markets. By 1931 Victor executive Eli

Oberstein announced that “Ellington and MKCP had been the best selling dance bands on the

label in 1930.”66 Copies of MKCP’s recordings were likely sold in department stores in cities

across the country, giving the group a new level of national recognition. MKCP’s contract with

Victor represents the height of the band’s success as a nationally famous dance band. Although

Victor and its session organizers like Ralph Peer exploited black artists, MKCP’s recording

contract also provided financial benefit for the band and its musicians. It provided a new level of

national visibility that may have helped the band book more performances and bring more

65 Oral histories suggest that the African American community, which lacked significant representation in mainstream newspapers, was less interested in these newspapers. Cheatham recalls reading the Defender but not taking an interest in white papers, as they largely ignored news from the black community. Thus, a mainstream paper like the Free Press probably catered to a white audience. Cheatham, interview.

66 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935, Jazz History, Culture, and Criticism Series (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 132.

123 listeners to see the band on tour. Additionally, recordings, which provide a degree of permanence, helped solidify MKCP’s significance in jazz history.

124 Chapter Four:

MKCP on Record

With its regular radio broadcasts and recording contract with Victor, MKCP received frequent attention in the entertainment pages of black newspapers from 1927 to 1931. For example, Dave Peyton’s description of MKCP in his column “The Musical Bunch” praises the band for its balance between musicianship and entertainment:

McKinney’s organization is a unique one. There are many orchestras whose members are very fine musicians, but as a rule such fall short in entertaining features. Again, in the case of entertaining orchestras, the rule usually works the other way and their music is apt to show weaknesses. But McKinney’s is a truly two-way band. While every member is an artist musician and its ensemble work closely approaches perfection, it is without doubt the best entertaining dance music organization before the public today.

A few changes have been made in the personnel of the band since it played at Graystone last spring. Donald Redman, for four years one of the stars in Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, is now director, and under the magic of his wand the band has been molded into a musical unit of rare accuracy in time, perfect harmony and inimitable rhythm. He is a saxophone soloist of the highest order, a master conductor, and many of his musical arrangements are now being played by the country’s greatest orchestras.

Orchestras come and orchestras go, but McKinney’s Cotton Pickers is one of the few which can come and stay; the kind that grows in favor the oftener it is heard. At each succeeding performance it has something new to offer, always bubbling over with melody and mirth. They’re just a bunch of boys that never grow up, but boys who know their stuff and like to do it. Their mission is to put pleasure into people’s lives, and they do their work well.1

MKCP’s recording contract with Victor from 1928 through 1931 represents the height of the band’s success, its popularity in the press, and its status as a nationally recognized dance orchestra. MKCP experienced the positive benefits of its contract with the NAC and Victor, and capitalized on the growing race record market and broadening popularity of black music through

1 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, November 19, 1927, I/6.

125 increased visibility and income from recording and live performances. Musical analysis combined with critical reception will demonstrate a connection between reception and musical style. Coverage of MKCP in the black press, particularly in the major newspapers the Chicago

Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier, which had national distribution but were also within

WJR’s signal reach, will show a connection between African American critics’ and listeners’ musical taste and MKCP’s musical practices.

MKCP and its arrangers responded to the taste for a balance of precision and entertainment through arrangements that partitioned the brass section against the winds; contrasted timbres created by horns, the use of mutes, novelty instruments, and singers; and included stylistic variety and a bevy of improvising soloists. Redman skillfully presented these elements alongside each other and juxtaposed them by “arranging inside the strain,” and his stylistic juxtapositions carried cultural significance in the segregated music market. The quality of vocal styles on these recordings, particularly crooning and scat singing, by vocalists who doubled as instrumentalists in the band make MKCP’s vocal numbers high quality, essential to the band’s performances and quality examples of turn-of-the-decade vernacular vocal styles.

MKCP recorded and performed music that was popular with both black and white audiences, but comparison of musical examples with reception in the black press will show that the band’s music also aligned with the racial uplift narrative espoused by such black critics as Dave Peyton and Walter Barnes.

Musical analysis will suggest reasons that Quentin Jackson emphasized in an oral history interview that MKCP’s music was racially ambiguous, and “if you listen[ed] to it on the air, you couldn’t tell whether it was a black band or white band.”2 White-associated vocal styles such as

2 Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1, 1976.

126 crooning, as well as European music signifiers such as the use of the glockenspiel as well as chromaticism and whole-tone passages, were deliberately intended to invoke European modernism and would have transgressed musical-racial boundaries for listeners, thus necessitating that the band carry the name McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, “so they’d really know that it was a black band.”3

Transcribing and analyzing recordings

This chapter analyzes the only available evidence of MKCP’s music: recordings. As previously noted, a band’s recorded output can only represent its style to a limited extent.

Nevertheless, MKCP’s recordings are the only sonic evidence of the band and they can provide an astute listener with some clues regarding Redman’s, Nesbitt’s, Inge’s, and Carter’s arranging practices, as well as the band’s performance practices.

Analyzing the musical content of any record invites questions about the ontology the artifact itself. In the previous chapter I contextualized these recordings as “vernacular practice.”

In this chapter, I consider the relationship between recording and arrangement. Rather than considering a recording as a fixed text that presents a stable version of an arrangement by

Redman, Nesbitt, Inge, or Carter, I consider these performances to be “snapshots” of the band’s performances of its repertoire. MKCP might have performed longer versions of these arrangements in live contexts and the arrangements no doubt changed over time. Thus, rather than treating these recordings as fixed arrangements, I consider them a recording of an arrangement.

3 Ibid.

127 Within the analysis of a recording, the recording technology and sound quality of any given recording must also be considered. The commercially available reissues of MKCP’s recordings on LP or CD lack the sound quality of the original 78s. As discussed in chapter two, records produced by different companies required a different player and a different stylus for optimal sound quality. Moreover, many recordings were not recorded at precisely 78 RPM.4 I maintain that the companies that produced the MKCP reissues did not account for these variances. Thus, I listened to many of these recordings as high-quality digitized copies of the original 78s at the Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive at Syracuse University. Audio specialists familiar with the medium carefully digitized these recordings, which revealed characteristics that cannot be heard on the reissues such as nuances of timbre and vocal quality.

The difference between an original and a reissue of a post-1930 recording was striking, and I was surprised at the recording quality Victor achieved by 1930. Listening to these expertly rendered digitizations of the originals provided additional perspective to understand the band’s musical style as evinced by its recorded output.

I have transcribed all musical examples in this chapter from recordings, as the band’s original books are missing. Like analyzing recordings, transcribing from a recording also invites questions regarding the musical work, such as what purpose do transcriptions serve?, what can transcriptions represent?, what do transcriptions fail to represent? These questions have informed my transcriptions. The goal of these transcriptions is to better represent such characteristics as rhythmic patterns, long-range harmonic progressions, and orchestration variety in a familiar visual format, as these characteristics can be overlooked when listening to a recording.

4 “Disc Playback Speed,” Discography of American Historical Recordings, accessed December 10, 1930, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/resources/detail/58.

128 Transcription, however, is limited in what it can represent. For example, conventional Western notation cannot accurately represent timbre, the rhythmic subtleties of jazz improvisations such as playing ahead of or behind the beat, swing, rhythmic groove, and pitch bends.5 Thus, listening to these recordings should supplement each transcription. Many of the recordings analyzed here are available through Youtube, and while they are not the best sound quality, they can give the reader a sense of the band’s swing and overall effect created by shifts in timbres and styles.

In addition to my methodological approaches to recording and transcription, I draw from

Morroe Berger, Ed Berger, and James Patrick for insights on big band arranging from these years.6 They connect the practice of arranging for big bands to three historical phenomena: “1) arranging in earlier forms of syncopated music, 2) the continuation of interest in social dancing to such music and 3) the enlargement of ensembles into sections of brass and reed instruments.”7

Thus, rather than consider big band music as an autonomous art, Berger, Berger, and Patrick emphasize the social context of dancing and arranging in previous syncopated music genres as seminal factors in the formation of the genre.

These authors also argue that both Carter and Redman were the “most important architects of the solution” of how to balance formal unity and variety.8 They credit both composers with the shift in rhythmic styles from the 2/4 orientation of 1920s jazz to the 4/4 feel

5 While I use conventional Western notation for musical examples, the reader should keep in mind that I use articulations standard to jazz notation. This affects the meaning of the marcato articulation. In jazz, this articulation marking instructs the player to create separation between notes, like a slightly less separated staccato.

6 Carter replaced Redman as leader of MKCP, and the band’s last recording date features two of his arrangements. This chapter does not draw examples from these recordings, but they feature excellent musical content, performances, and sound quality.

7 Morroe Berger, Edward Berger, and James Patrick, Benny Carter: A Life in American Music, 2nd ed., Studies in Jazz (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press; Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers—the State University of New Jersey, 2001), 1:74.

8 Ibid., 71.

129 more common in 1930s big band music.9 The authors emphasize Redman’s and Nesbitt’s significance as a black arranger in the 1920s, quoting Carter’s recollection that they were the

“only black arrangers I’d heard of,” and “that there were only a few big ensembles of black musicians recording for major labels—Henderson, Ellington and McKinney’s.”10 This chapter draws on audience reception to explore MKCP’s recordings and aims to show the band’s importance as a nationally recognized dance orchestra.

Music criticism in the black press

By examining MKCP’s reception and that of other jazz-inflected dance bands, this chapter explores motivations behind the current canon of early big bands. Mark Everist has argued that “locations of reception overlap substantially with contingencies of value, and therefore . . . a theory of reception is fundamental to a diagnosis of canonic discourse.”11 He also cautions that every time a scholar manages through liberal critique to include a new composer in the canon, their critique turns conservative and they exclude others.12 I am not arguing to expand the canon to include MKCP or other less-discussed dance bands. Rather, I argue that exclusive focus on members of the canon has skewed scholars’ understanding of the musical culture of the late 1920s and early ’30s, but examination of MKCP and other less-researched jazz-inflected dance bands provides an entry point into this musical culture.

9 Ibid., 74.

10 Benny Carter, interview with Morroe Berger, quoted in Ibid., 74.

11 Mark Everist, “Reception Theories, Canonic Discourses, and Musical Value,” in Rethinking Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 401.

12 Ibid., 398.

130 This chapter employs newspaper columns by African American music critics, particularly the Chicago Defender column “The Musical Bunch,” which was written by Dave Peyton and subsequently Walter Barnes. This chapter also relies on listener write-ins published in the

Pittsburgh Courier from 1931. These two sources have proven valuable in exploring reception of

MKCP and contemporary jazz-inflected dance bands. I have chosen to focus on black newspapers as the framework to analyze MKCP’s music because I hypothesize a close cyclic relationship between black entertainment and criticism in the black press. As mentioned in the introduction, African American musicians such as Doc Cheatham reported that they commonly read black newspapers rather than mainstream papers because of their relevance to the black community. In turn, black newspapers like the Defender and the Courier were highly influential in the African American community and closely followed dance bands like MKCP in the entertainment pages. The Defender and the Courier may have frequently covered MKCP not only because the band was a nationally recognized dance orchestra and these papers had national distribution. However, these papers may have also reported on MKCP because WJR’s signal reached as far as Chicago and Pittsburgh so residents in these cities could hear the band on a regular basis, and after 1930 MKCP frequently toured both Pennsylvania and Illinois, making the band a regular in both cities’ local entertainment offerings.

Black newspapers like the Defender and the Courier were important to the African

American community because white papers denied black journalists a voice in their papers until the Civil Rights Movement and avoided reporting on stories of racial repression that were relevant to the community.13 In particular, “The Musical Bunch” column in the Defender

13 Fred Carroll, Race News: Black Journalists and the Fight for Racial Justice in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 22.

131 provided crucial news to working African American dance orchestra musicians. The column provided advice to aspiring musicians and informed working musicians about news in the dance band world. Both Barnes and Peyton were working Chicago dance band leaders and musicians who provided an insider’s perspective on the business. Doc Cheatham emphasized the importance of the Defender to working African American musicians, explaining “we thought that was a great paper,” and specifying that he did not read white newspapers because the communities were segregated:

CHEATHAM. Oh, absolutely, yes. Yes. Chicago Defender really gave you all the news of the entertainment in Chicago at that time. ALBERTSON. Right, and the white papers weren’t bothering with that. CHEATHAM. Bothered at all, didn’t mean a thing. . . . ALBERTSON. But did you read, for instance, white papers? CHEATHAM. Well, no, I didn’t really didn’t. I only read the Chicago Defender.14

From the 1910s through the 1930s, the Great Migration, combined with adoption of sensationalist journalism, caused an expansion of readership for these major black papers.15

Juliet Walker explains that by 1915 “the weekly Chicago Defender emerged as the most important black newspaper in the nation.”16 Though no longer at its 1915 peak of subscribers, the

Defender still had a circulation of 110,000 by 1930 and had a wide circulation across the United

States, including in the South.17 Moreover, as smaller black newspapers folded or were acquired under economic pressure of the Depression, large papers like the Defender and the Courier

14 Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976.

15 Carroll, 65.

16 Juliet E. K. Walker, “The Promised Land: The Chicago Defender and the Black Press in Illinois: 1862– 1970” in The Black Press in the Middle West, 1865–1985, ed. Henry Lewis Suggs (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 11.

17 Walker 40; Charles A. Simmons, The African American Press: A History of News Coverage during National Crises, with Special Reference to Four Black Newspapers, 1827–1965 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1998), 35.

132 expanded to replace them. As the major papers “saturated local markets, they turned elsewhere for new readers. They opened bureaus, bought out smaller weeklies, or simply sold additional newspapers in other cities.”18 Through this strategy, as well as renting out its presses for outside print jobs, the Courier, in particular, had become one of the largest black weeklies by the early

1930s. It even joined the Audit Bureau of Circulation in this period, which kept track of circulation numbers, giving the paper an “advantage over competitors when they solicited advertisers.”19 Thus, because of their status as national platforms, issues of the Defender and the

Courier provide a valuable resource for African American criticism that would have been read by a wide-reaching audience, including MKCP’s musicians.

Black newspaper criticism also provides a valuable framework for analyzing MKCP’s music because some black newspaper critics, such as Peyton, connected jazz and dance orchestras to the goal of racial uplift espoused by these papers. Lawrence Schenbeck claims that

Defender columnists saw jazz as uplifting because it provided opportunities for black excellence:

In the pages of the Defender, jazz, as part of the entertainment world, was seen in a positive light insofar as it had potential for material advancement but could be considered negative to the extent that it reinforced stereotypes about blacks. As a signifier in the black discourse on manhood, it appears to have been associated with economic opportunity rather than with narratives about cultural authenticity; that would come later.20

In addition to excerpts from “The Musical Bunch,” the Pittsburgh Courier’s 1931 listener write-in contest, which was meant to rank readers’ favorite black dance orchestras, also provides an avenue for analyzing reception of MKCP’s recordings. MKCP placed third in this contest,

18 Carroll, 77.

19 Ibid.

20 Lawrence Schenbeck, “Music, Gender, and ‘Uplift’ in the Chicago Defender, 1927–1937,” The Musical Quarterly 81 (1997): 349.

133 behind Ellington and Henderson, and placed above Cab Calloway and Noble Sissle. This positioning of these nationally recognized black dance orchestras alongside each other provides an opportunity to consider MKCP alongside characteristics of the other orchestras’ styles, and to contextualize MKCP within black jazz-inflected dance orchestras broadly.

The 1931 contest, which ran from August until the end of the year, was meant to determine the Courier readership’s favorite black dance band, generate interest in the contest, and sell newspaper subscriptions. The contest editor, Floyd G. Snelson, was a columnist for the newspaper and worked as a publicist for such bands as Henderson, Noble Sissle, Calloway,

Lunceford, and MKCP.21 Snelson encouraged readers to write to the paper and to vote for their favorite black dance band and explain why. The newspaper published the total votes for each band on a weekly basis throughout the contest. Additionally, each week it published three selected letters from subscribers and advertised a cash prize for the three best letters at the end of the contest.22

Although many of the published letters praise bands excessively, they also provide invaluable insight into these listeners’ musical tastes. They also document that many African

Americans listened to these bands on the radio. The places that listeners wrote from suggests that the Courier was selling copies far beyond Pittsburgh and connecting to a wide-ranging audience in the African American community. Letters from New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia were common, but one also finds letters from Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Florida and as far west as Colorado.

21 Pittsburgh Courier, September 19, 1931, 18.

22 Floyd G. Snelson, “Courier Contest Gets Under Way,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 15, 1931, 11.

134 The Pittsburgh Courier contest letters reveal trends in taste for particular musical characteristics, including precision, entertainment, and musicians’ ability to balance and blend as a group. However, many participants also valued bands for their extramusical characteristics such as bandleader personality and the national success of orchestras as examples of black excellence. Listeners who wrote to the paper appreciated black bands’ musical and commercial successes and respected bandleaders like Ellington, Henderson, and Calloway as representatives of African American achievement. While much music criticism focused on jazz and jazz- inflected dance band music from this era has been written by men, the Courier contest published many letters by women. Thus, this contest provides a rare opportunity to incorporate the opinions of black female listeners from the period.23

These accounts show that Peyton, Barnes, and the listeners who wrote to the Courier preferred a balance between entertainment and precision in dance orchestra music. Examination of these sources also reveals that these two critics and Courier readers considered the partitioned arrangement of brass and wind sections to be a modern development. In expressing the desire for

“precise” dance band music, some readers and critics defined New Orleans-style collective improvisation as a foil to the precise, partitioned big band arrangement. They considered precision in performance, the partitioned arrangement, and use of diverse musical styles in dance orchestra music to align with the project of racial uplift and positioned popular black dance

23 Before examining the characteristics that listeners heard in dance bands like MKCP, I must mention a problematic aspect of these articles and letters. Many of these letters describe primitivism and espouse essentialisms now considered to be problematic. Rather than focus exclusively on the issue of black music described as primitive and essential to race, which has already been explored by authors like Ronald Radano, I ask the reader to consider how audiences listened for entertainment, precision, and expressions of modernization in this dance band music in the late 1920s and early ’30s. For explanation of black musical essentialisms, see Ronald Radano, “Hot Fantasies: American Modernism and the Idea of Black Rhythm,” in Music and the Racial Imagination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); idem, Lying up a Nation: Race and Black Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

135 orchestras as more refined than other black vernacular musics like the blues or New Orleans- style jazz. Thus, reading an entertainment and precision construction in discourse from the period reveals a teleological construction in these descriptions of “modern” dance band music.

The “partitioned” arrangement

A musical characteristic repeatedly described and praised by Peyton and exemplified in

Redman’s arrangements for MKCP is the partitioned arrangement. Peyton commented on arrangements that partition the dance band into reed and brass sections, and ideally performed by ensembles that balanced these sections. The partitioned dance band sound had become popular by the end of the 1920s. Peyton credited this technique to the arranger Arthur Lange, who had published a popular dance band arranging treatise in 1926, Arranging for the Modern Dance

Orchestra:24

It was the musical arrangement, and I suppose most of the credit for this new style of popular ararngement [sic] should go to Arthur Lange, who was the first to indulge in symphonic arrangement.

These arrangements required real musicianship to handle them. It created a new school for the “ham” musician. They had to put on more speed or lose in the race. Some of the symphonic figures were as difficult as some passages in the grand opera score. This revolution in music invited symphonic players to the field and today it is America’s choice.25

In 1928 Peyton also credited Whiteman with popularizing the dance band arrangement: “To know Paul Whiteman is to understand at last the phenomenon of American jazz. Whiteman did not invent jazz—he specifically disclaims this—but he was the first to write an orchestral score for jazz, and from its inception some ten years ago right to the present he has been its

24 Arthur Lange, Arranging for the Modern Dance Orchestra (New York: A. Lange, 1926).

25 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, October 29, 1927, I/8–9.

136 acknowledged chief exponent all over the world.” He described successful African American dance band arrangers’ works, like those of Redman and Will Vodery, as partitioned, complex, and artful:

The expert arrangers, theorists, as a rule put the notes down on paper in partitioned effect for the sections of the orchestra. The players must be musicians to cut the stuff. Many times you run into grand opera figurations which require technical knowledge of the musicians [my emphasis].26

Peyton also characterized Whiteman’s partitioned dance orchestra arrangements as

“modern” and claimed that they filled a “need for rhythmic variety in the machine age,”27 supporting arguments by Joel Dinerstein and Andrew Berish that the partitioned dance band arrangement, played in a precise and clean manner, served as a metaphor for the assembly line, a sign of modernism and industrialization. Dinerstein draws a connection between divided labor and the “flow” of the assembly line and the divided sections of big band music, and explains how this new, modern music made collective improvisation seem dated: “Certainly big bands can also be seen as reflecting the mass production of music, and of reducing the jazz musician’s individual freedom to specialized function.”28 He proposes that this connection between dance band music, with its rhythmic flow and partitioned wind and brass sections, might have been an unconscious aesthetic in the late 1920s and 1930s. However, these excerpts from “The Musical

Bunch” column show that a prominent dance band critic like Peyton realized this connection consciously and regarded precise performance of partitioned arrangements as filling the “need for rhythmic variety in the machine age.”

26 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1928, I/6.

27 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, May 19, 1928, I/6.

28 Joel Norman Dinerstein, “Swinging the Machine: White Technology and Black Culture between the World Wars” (PhD diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2000), 7.

137 Peyton also positioned the partitioned arrangement as modern by associating it with precision in performance and contrasting this style with New Orleans-style collective improvisation. He wrote that “the beautiful melodies, garnished with difficult eccentric figures and propelled by artful rhythms, hold grip on the world today, replacing the mushy, discordant jazz music.”29 He used words such as “mushy,” “discordant,” and “din” to describe collective improvisation in the New Orleans and early Chicago styles. In contrast, he praised the precision of orchestras like MKCP, Henderson, and Sissle and often used collective improvisation as a foil for the professionalism of these bands. He frequently contrasted refined arrangements and collective improvisation in his columns. In October 1927, he historicized the arrangement and posited it as a development or improvement on jazz and collective improvisation:

There has been a revolution in music of the variety class in the last ten years. First we had ragtime, which set the world crazy; it was ruler for many years. Then came along jazz, somewhat of a modern syncopation that is sticking like a leech. The popular musicians of today are the versatile ones. We used to hear the leader say, “Key of B flat, boys, let’s go.” Away they would hit out on the designated tune, each musician playing what he thought would fill in the harmonic chord, and with a weird jazz break the piece would finish and the listeners would yell for more. This kind of jazz bands finally died out when the great Whiteman introduced his new syncopation with his great orchestra.30

He went on to describe “the proper kind of jazz” as “musical, invigorating; it is played artistically, and is void of the loud, discordant, barbaric atmosphere. In fact, this is the way modern syncopation should be handled. Play the score and stop faking.”

In March 1928 Peyton again revisited collective improvisation and positioned it as unrefined, this time arguing that New Orleans musicians had poor technique on their instruments:

29 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1928, I/6.

30 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, October 29, 1927, I/8–9.

138 Down on the levees of the Sunny South was the real beginning of jazz music. New Orleans can rightfully claim the birth of jazz…. They would select some tune the gang was familiar with and each person would blend in his or her part, producing counterpoints and fugues unconsciously. If they were playing instruments, rich, natural figures would come forth from the instruments. You would at times hear crude overblown tones; you could see the trumpeters with jaws poked out and a look of misery on their faces. Today most of our jazz trumpeters carry this hideous expression while playing. This crude style of jazz playing has developed into the world-famous jazz music.31

Examination of Peyton’s admiration of precise performance of partitioned arrangements and his juxtaposition of this aesthetic against collective improvisation as something from the past suggests that he regarded precise performances of partitioned dance orchestra arrangements as a modern musical phenomenon.

Peyton also expressed desire for technical mastery in dance orchestras. In October 1927 he had criticized jazz musicians who have not studied their instrument formally:

Because you can attract attention with a few weird eccentric tricks on your instrument, and the audience raves over it, does not make you a musician by any means. I know of players who don’t know a note on paper, but who have natural endowments and can play jazz music pretty well. They think they are stars, and don’t have to learn music correctly. They imagine they have graduated and received their diploma in the art. This class should be pitied. Their vanity has got the best of them and they believe they are the “hottest yet.”

The jazz age has made many of our musicians and it may go on and on for years to come. At the same time it will do no harm to attend some competent music school and keep up to the standard with your music. In jazz playing you allow yourselves to become careless, incorrect fingering in making non-theoretical figures soon cripples technique….

He went on to connect technical mastery to the goal of racial uplift. He praised Paul Whiteman

Orchestra’s well-trained musicians who were financially successful as a model to encourage

African American musicians to seek training and technical proficiency on their instruments:

Many of the famous jazz bands in America are made up with the best timber from the symphonic area. The lure of more money has drawn many of the white players to this atmosphere. Paul Whiteman has players in his band who receive as high as $500 a week for their services. They execute their instruments with unusual rapidity, due to the fact

31 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1928, I/6.

139 that they have technically mastered their instrument and have it under absolute command. After they once get on to the swing of jazz music they become stars, and the result was that they could demand real money, and if called upon to play any kind of music they were equipped to handle it as they had learned to properly play their instrument in the beginning.32

Peyton advised black musicians to practice good technique on their instruments rather than loose collective improvisation. In the network of words critics used to describe precise dance orchestras, one frequently also finds the word “perfection.” Peyton heard “perfection” in

MKCP’s performances at the Graystone and on WJR radio as early as 1927. A month after criticizing jazz musicians who forego training, Peyton praised MKCP, still in its first season at the Graystone, as one of the precise bands that was following Whiteman’s successful model. He wrote “every member is an artist musician and its ensemble work closely approaches perfection.”33 Thus, Peyton, a prominent African American music critic working at one of the nation’s most widely distributed black newspapers, used his platform to laud and express preference for well-rehearsed bands and technically proficient musicians such as those in MKCP.

In 1931 some listeners who participated in the Courier write-in contest also focused on ensemble balance between and within the brass and reed sections and technical mastery in performance of the partitioned dance orchestra style. They praised the Henderson and Sissle orchestras for their musicians’ ability to balance in performance. Sara Edwards Scott wrote to the

Courier “I have always cherished the time when I could tune in on my radio and hear Henderson and his orchestra, as they seem to fascinate me with their clear, even music, not with a bizarre effect or uneven din.”34 James L. H. Peck described Henderson’s saxophonists as “the fastest,

32 Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” October 29, 1927, I/8–9.

33 Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” November 19, 1927, I/6.

34 Sara Edwards Scott, Pittsburgh Courier, October 24, 1931, 11.

140 that execute the most difficult passages in perfect harmony.”35 Another listener wrote that the musicians in Sissle’s orchestra “play together, and not each one trying to outplay the other.” The listener went on to argue that “most dancers that have heard Noble do not like him because he does not play that lowest type of jazz commonly called ‘Barrel House music.’ They dislike him because his saxophones, cornets and trombones do not outblast the other or blow themselves to pieces. Instead he and his men play at ease.”36 H. W. English described the Lunceford orchestra as young but technically perfect, having undergone formal training: “They have reached a degree of perfection which is very remarkable, considering the youth of some of its members, who are just out of various collegiate institutions. In particular one of the cornetists who is an artist [of] perfect precision, technically.”37 Thus, listeners appreciated precise and balanced performance of these modern types of dance orchestras.

Newspaper accounts and oral histories show the importance of technical mastery for

MKCP and other dance bands of this period, and one aspect of precision, the partitioned arrangement, served as an expression of American modernism and black excellence. In turn, bandleaders like Redman favored partitioned arrangements over collective improvisation.

Dinerstein explains, “As for the stripping of ornament to create clean, flowing lines, big band arrangers eliminated the collective improvisation and raucousness of the New Orleans style in favor of smoothness, rhythmic flow, controlled masses (i.e., instrumental sections), and powerful motion.”38 MKCP strove to render technically precise performances of Redman’s and Nesbitt’s

35 James L. H. Peck, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, August 22, 1931, 11.

36 Mr. Kermitt, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, September 5, 1931, 11.

37 H. W. English, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, October 31, 1931, 11.

38 Dinerstein, 7–8.

141 arrangements over the airwaves, on record, and in live performance, and Peyton lauded the band as “a real modern syncopated orchestra.”39

For example, Redman used the following technique in the opening chorus of “To Whom

It May Concern” (see Example 4.1).40 The saxophones play an embellished version of the melody in unison, while the brass harmonize with punctuated interjections. He used a similar technique in his arrangement of “Rocky Road” (see Example 4.2). In the exciting “out chorus” of the band’s recording,41 the trumpets play a harmonized and syncopated version of the melody, and the saxophones respond with harmonized triplet figures for each phrase.42 This technique matches Peyton’s description of dance band arrangements as “partitioned”—“the expert arrangers, theorists, as a rule put the notes down on paper in partitioned effect for the sections of the orchestra.”43 Compared to collective improvisation associated with New Orleans jazz, arrangements such as these examples provided the precision lauded by some listeners and music critics such as Peyton during the big band era. Moreover, because Peyton associated this streamlined style of arranging with white orchestras like Whiteman’s, MKCP’s performances in

39 Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, December 1, 1928, I/6.

40 While much of MKCP’s output comes from the Tin Pan Alley repertoire, the band’s arrangements feature many characteristics that became standard in the Swing Era. Thus, I will use jazz terminology to analyze Tin Pan Alley repertoire. I use the term “chorus” rather than “refrain” for two reasons: first, to suggest the cyclic nature of repeating choruses in Redman’s arrangement, and second, the term “refrain” suggests a preceding verse, and none of MKCP’s recordings use the verse. I also refer to the “main strain” for the “A” section and “bridge or release” for the “B” section. For explanation of jazz formal structures and terminology, see Tom Piazza, Understanding Jazz (New York: Random House, 2005), 75–89.

41 The “out chorus” was an arranging convention in which dance bands played in a syncopated style at a louder volume to evoke “hot” playing and to create excitement at the end of a tune. (Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930–1945 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1989] 865).

42 These types of call-and-response textures are a significant characteristic of African American music.

43 Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” March 10, 1928, I/6. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Peyton advised musicians, “Many times you run into grand opera figurations which require technical knowledge of the musicians.” MKCP’s recording of “Come a Little Closer” matches Peyton’s observation. The interlude at the end of the first chorus quotes the famous theme from La Boheme at 0'57".

142 this style not only embodied the narrative of racial uplift, but also may have contributed to the band’s musical-racial ambiguity for listeners on the radio, thus requiring that management construct the band as black for white listeners.

Example 4.1: George W. Meyer, Sidney D. Mitchell, “To Whom It May Concern,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, December 17, 1930, Victor 23035, transcription of first eight measures of opening chorus, 0'09"–0'21"

Example 4.2: Joe Grey and Arthur Gibbs, “Rocky Road,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, November 3, 1930, Victor 22932, transcription of out chorus lead lines, 1'52"– 2'04"

143 Entertainment

In addition to precise performance of partitioned arrangements, entertainment elements were also a central part of the success of dance bands in the 1920s and ’30s. Peyton and the listeners who wrote to the Courier saw no conflict between dance band instrumentals and vocal numbers or dance routines. Rather, these sources plus oral histories from MKCP members reveal that comedy routines, dancing, and singing were common elements in dance orchestra performances. I have assembled a collection of musical and performance characteristics that appear in these sources under the broad category of “entertainment.” These include singers, dancing, comedy routines in a vaudeville style, and bandleader personality. Additionally, these newspapers often mention performance of musical primitivism, usually denoted by the words

“jungle” and “gut-bucket.” Peyton and the Courier readers who wrote in to the 1931 contest praised MKCP for its use of these entertainments. I will present examples of these characteristics from MKCP’s recorded output.

MKCP included vaudeville-style entertainment in their shows with several band members doubling as singers, dancers, and comedy actors. Oral history accounts also show the importance of singing, dancing, and comedy as an element of dance band performances. Wilborn recalled:

We had several comedy skits, Cuba [Austin] would dress up like a girl, and [George] Fathead [Thomas] would grab him by the arm and they’d dance around in a little routine called “I’m gonna dance with the guy that brung me,” also George Thomas had a routine where he would dress up like a preacher and give a sermon called “Amen, Amen.” He, Cuba, and Claude Jones had a tap-dance routine, which was really a serious thing when they got going, really fine. I would play the banjo behind my head. Fathead, Claude Jones, Don Redman and I were the vocal quartet, we were featured on our recording of “Four or Five Times.”44

44 Dave Wilborn, letter to John Chilton, quoted in John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 6.

144 MKCP’s drummer, Cuba Austin, was the most written about member to provide vaudeville-style entertainment during the band’s performances, and reviews and newspaper announcements suggest that he was one of the band’s main attractions. In 1927 Peyton praised Austin and other band members for their entertaining skits and humor:

Cuba Austin, percussionist, is still with the orchestra, and is still its chief comedian, and in both capacities he is without a rival. His skits and scintillating bits of jocularity are modest, natural and sprightly, a rare combination. He is ably supported in his pleasantries by other members of the band, chiefly Claude Jones, Dave Wilburn and George Thomas, fine vocalists all, and, with rare sense of humor.45

A year later Peyton again described Austin as “a novel feature with his eccentric style.”46 In

1931 another Defender column described Austin “doing usual comics with the drumsticks and eyes.”47 Quentin Jackson recalled Austin’s talent and antics in his interview with Milt Hinton for the Jazz Oral History Project:

JACKSON. You know, Cuba Austin came from a carnival. McKinney got him out of a carnival, and he used to be a dancer, he used to clown, he knew how to do funny things with the sticks, and he was, oh, he was very colorful. A very colorful drummer. He used to do a little—things on the stage, like we used to do a number called “School Days” and he used to put on a hat and go out front with his little books and sing “School Days” out in front. And he would spell at the end of “School Days,” a little thing he would do, he would spell o-n-e d-o-g, one hot dog. HINTON. Isn’t that something? JACKSON. You know, Mantan Moreland was his cousin. HINTON. Oh, I didn’t know that. JACKSON. That great comedian that used to make the Charlie Chan pictures? HINTON. Right. JACKSON. And Cuba taught him all the dances that he used to do. Cuba used to do them when he was on the carnival. So McKinney got him from a carnival to play with the band, the same way he did Nesbitt. He came from a carnival. 48

45 Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, November 19, 1927, I/6.

46 Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, December 1, 1928.

47 “Going Backstage with the Scribe,” Chicago Defender, March 14, 1931, I/5.

48 Jackson, interview.

145 The association of Austin with comedian Mantan Moreland provides an idea of Austin’s comedic style. Moreland was a black vaudeville comedian who performed in minstrel routines and appeared in many Hollywood films from the 1930s through the 1950s.49 In his film appearances Moreland performed routines with expert timing and danced in a particular comedic style.50 Jackson’s comparison of Austin to Moreland, and his mention that both came from the carnival tradition suggests the importance of physical comedy and visual elements in the

MKCP’s live performances. In order to be successful, MKCP needed musicians who not only performed music at a high level, but who were also able to provide vaudeville-style entertainment, dancing, and comedy routines. MKCP found success through more aspects of performance than “the intrinsic properties of a [musical] work.”51 Descriptions of Austin’s comedic routines and dancing provides a more complete picture of MKCP’s performance practices than recordings alone can provide.52

Bandleader personality was another critical element of dance-band entertainment during this period. The press and audience members often praised Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway for

49 Donald Roe, “Moreland, Mantan” Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century, ed. Paul Finkelman, Oxford African American Studies Center, accessed October 30, 2017, http://www.oxfordaasc.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/article/opr/t0005/e0830.

50 For example, see Moreland’s swing dance in the 1938 film Gang Smashers.

51 Lydia Goehr, “Writing Music History,” History and Theory 31 (1992): 187.

52 Charles Hiroshi Garrett observes a similar inability of jazz scholarship to deal with another entertaining bandleader and big band aligned with MKCP (particularly in the Courier write-in contest): Cab Calloway. Garrett summarizes Calloway’s stated interest in entertaining audiences with humorous lyrics and “communal call and response” but explains that “he is usually treated as a figure peripheral to the jazz canon, dismissed as more caricature than musician. To a certain extent, this has to do with the critical bias against any musical figures who blend humor, jazz, and popular entertainment.” By arguing for a reconsideration of the relationship between jazz and humor, Garrett provides an opportunity to reconsider the importance of humorous and entertaining vaudeville elements in the performances of jazz-inflected dance bands such as MKCP. (Charles Hiroshi Garrett, “The Humor of Jazz,” in Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries, ed. David Andrew Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Goldmark [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012], 60.)

146 their personalities as bandleaders. One finds examples of this in the 1931 Courier contest, with one listener describing Ellington as “the unseen winning personality.”53 Another praised Cab

Calloway as “the whole show. A good looking, snappy mannered fellow with loads of personality. Cab sells every number with his shouting and his dancing.”54 Audience members also saw a similar stage presence in Cab’s sister Blanche who also led a band during the 1930s.

One listener described her “dynamic personality” in a letter to the Courier.55

MKCP needed an engaging personality to lead the band, and Chilton hypothesizes that

Goldkette contracted Redman to front the band not only because of his skills as an arranger and saxophonist but also because of his bandleader personality:

The addition of Redman made a drastic change to the band’s presentation, for besides becoming musical director and chief arranger he also fronted the band, usually conducting it from the centre of the stage. For some time it had been obvious that Bill McKinney’s lack of showmanship was a distinct disadvantage at many of the ballrooms that the band worked in. Audiences tolerated him, but his lack of outgoing personality did little to win the crowds over. Redman on the other hand, was a bright smiling figure on stage, with a highly individual vocal style.56

Like with vaudeville-style acts, bandleader personality was an important aspect of dance band performance which is not apparent on recordings alone.

Dance bands during this period would also entertain audiences by featuring vocalists.

Singers served a crucial role in big band performance of the 1930s swing era, as Andrew Berish explains:

Female lead singers were de rigueur for dance bands well before swing achieved its great success; their presence was thought to be especially useful for attracting a young male audience. Contrary to the impression given in most writing on swing, it is impossible to

53 Eugenia Randolph, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, October 17, 1931, 11.

54 Joe Anwyll letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, August 22, 1931, 11.

55 Eulalia Johnson, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, October 17, 1931, 11.

56 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 10.

147 escape the fact that the repertoire of even the most respected and “hottest” swing bands (in the post-1935 sense of the term) included a huge variety of music, much of it like “Stardust on the Moon,” and distinctly closer in style in and spirit to the saccharine arrangements of such alleged enemies of swing as bandleaders Guy Lombardo and Abe Lyman.57

Though Berish focuses on the following decade, singers were also a crucial part of jazz-inflected dance band performance in the 1920s, as well. MKCP employed only male singers who often doubled as instrumentalists, but each singer had a distinctive vocal style. Singers who recorded with the band included saxophonist George Thomas, trombonist Quentin Jackson, guitarist/banjoist Dave Wilborn, and Redman himself. Newspaper announcements reveal that other singers such as Lois Deppe also performed and toured with the band. Several singing styles evident on MKCP recordings include crooning, scatting, and Redman’s Sprechtstimme style, which occupies a style between speaking and singing.58 These singers took advantage of the new electric microphone technology that had emerged with radio and electric recording. They sang close to the microphone and shaped their sound with this technology. Alan Sutton explains that in the acoustic era singers had needed “clear enunciation and volume above all else,” but these characteristics were no longer necessary and “did not translate well” to electric recording.59

Rather, emerging stars such as Rudy Vallee “helped develop the ‘close-up’ radio broadcast, where performers worked very close to the microphone in order to ‘produce an effect of artificial

57 Andrew Seth Berish, “Swinging Transcontinental: Modernity, Race, and Place in American Dance Band Music, 1930 to 1946” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2005), 16.

58 Although Schuller disparaged Redman’s vocal arrangements, he appreciated his singing style, describing them as “ingenuously disarming ‘spoken’ vocals . . . a far cry from the insipid croonings of the period.” (Schuller, 303.)

59 Allan Sutton, Recording the ’Twenties: The Evolution of the American Recording Industry, 1920–29 (Littleton, CO: Mainspring Press, 2008), 195.

148 intimacy as if the singer and the song are transported into the presence of the listener.’”60

Thomas, Redman, Wilborn, and Jones all sang close to the microphone to croon, scat, and employ idiomatic vocal techniques and timbres.

One distinctive technique featured on some MKCP recordings was scat singing, or vocalizing in a manner that mimics an instrument. In the 1920s Louis Armstrong had made scat singing famous with his recording of “Heebie Jeebies,”61 but Thomas was also a successful scat singer during this decade. Thomas and Wilborn made scat solos a feature on their MKCP recordings. Thomas performed a scat solo on “It’s Tight Like That” (1928) at 1'49" and

“Nobody’s Sweetheart” (1928) at 1'29". On the band’s recording of “Beedle Um Bum” (1929), he sings the melody with lyrics at 0'42", followed by a vocal quartet with Redman, Wilborn, and

Claude Jones at 1'00". He subsequently sings a scat solo at 1'50", as does Redman at 2'25".

Guitarist Dave Wilborn also used the technique as a singer on the recordings. He sings a scat solo on “You’re Driving Me Crazy” (1930) at 1'44" and a solo break before singing the lyrics to

“Zonky” (1930) at 1'45".

Another distinctive vocal style heard on MKCP’s recordings is Redman’s Sprechstimme style. He employed this vocal style on the band’s recordings of “Miss Hannah” (1929) and

“Blues Sure Have Got Me” (1930). Redman likely developed this style in response to the development of microphone technology. It would have required him to stand close to the microphone to create distinctive timbre of the band’s palette. Like with other popular vocal

60 Michael Chanan, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 2000), 60, quoted in Allison McCracken, “‘God’s Gift to Us Girls’: Crooning, Gender, and the Re-Creation of American Popular Song, 1928–1933,” American Music 17 (1999): 377.

61 J. Bradford Robinson, “Scat Singing,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, Accessed 10 December 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.

149 styles developed after the development of the electric microphone, by singing in this style

Redman “treated the microphone as an instrument in its own right.”62

MKCP’s recordings occasionally feature crooning which had become extremely popular by the time the band recorded with Victor. Alison McCracken describes the practice combining vocal technique, lyrics, and singer image:

Crooners, largely non-ethnically marked white men, sang intensely emotional music softly, using the microphone to create a sense of intimacy with their audiences. Unlike previous male singers, they presented themselves directly to women as objects of desire, and wooed them openly from the bandstands.63

From the late 1920s through the early 1930s, radio crooners were the most popular performers in

America. The most successful crooner, Rudy Vallee, had gained his popularity first on radio.64

Crooning became especially popular after the development of electrical recording and radio: “a singer could use an amplified microphone to convey a much more conversational and intimate tone than had been heard before in performance.”65 The close microphone work created an intimacy that imbued sexuality; McCracken describes crooners like Vallee as “disembodied spirits coming out of the darkness, their voices hushed and warm and too, too close.”66

McCracken observes that “because of his tremendous success, Rudy Vallee was widely imitated,”67 and MKCP in turn capitalized on the popularity of this singing style by featuring it

62 Michael Chanan, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 2000), 69.

63 McCracken, “God's Gift to Us Girls,” 365.

64 Ibid., 373.

65 Ibid., 372.

66 Ibid., 377.

67 Ibid., 381.

150 in performance and in the recording studio. Trombonist Quentin Jackson, MKCP’s most successful crooner, convincingly imitated Vallee and attracted William McKinney’s attention with his singing:

JACKSON. When I joined that band I was 21 years old. . . . And I come in the band to sing because George Thomas, the saxophone player, he was killed in an automobile accident. . . . And how that happened, I was with Zack Whyte’s and, and, of course, McKinney and them knew me, you know, from Springfield because the band originated there . . . . I was playing in Zack Whyte’s band in Wheeling one night so the guys asked me to come up and sing. So I said sure I’ll sing. So I went up and I sang the “Kiss Waltz” because the band played waltzes in those days too, you know. . . . When I got to the ending I got up on a high D-flat. And I held it and I broke the dance up. So McKinney said, well, and said—Todd Rhodes, rather, came to me and said, “McKinney wants to talk to you.” He said “Mack wants to talk to you.” I said “Okay.” So I said I wonder what he wants to talk to me about. The great McKinney Cottonpickers and I’m with Zack Whyte and he wants to talk to me? I never even dreamed that he would want me in the band. So I got in the car with him, we were riding up the street in the car, and McKinney told me, he said, “You know, Quent, how would you like to join the band?” He said, “You know, George Thomas”—they called him Fathead. Well, that was his nickname. . . . He played alto. Very good alto saxophone player. In fact, when Don wasn’t playing lead he played lead when they only used three saxophones. Naturally Don would play lead when they used four, you know. In fact that was one of the first bands to have four saxophones. HINTON. McKinney’s? JACKSON. That’s right. Don created a lot of things when it came to music, as far as that goes. Anyway, so I told him I would love to join the band.68

Jackson’s evokes Vallee on “Come a Little Closer” by singing close to the microphone in his falsetto register to recreate Vallee’s “conversational and intimate tone.” Moreover, he goes beyond Vallee’s tendency to not “quite reach the higher notes,”69 and provides sonic evidence of his exceptional vocal range with his closing high B[, adding to the band’s variety of timbres.

68 Jackson, interview. Jackson is now best known for his tenure with the Ellington Orchestra as a section trombonist, but first attracted McKinney’s attention with his vocal skills.

69 McCracken, “God’s Gift to Us Girls,” 379.

151 Because of its association with white male singers, crooning by a black vocalist merits discussion. Music criticism in the early 1930s tended to position white male crooners as effeminate and dangerous. McCracken explains:

Leading figures in the fields of religion, education, psychology, engineering, and science . . . quickly and uniformly condemned [crooners] as unfit representatives of American manhood. Crooners showed an unseemly degree of ardent emotion and vulnerability for white men, and they used microphones and amplifiers to artificially enhance their soft, trembling, often sensually breathy sounds.70

As a black crooner Jackson may have surprised listeners with his crooning because of its association with white singers, but they would not necessarily have considered it effeminate.

McCracken explains that “while everybody crooned in the 1920s, only white men would come to be criticized for it”:

The very fact that men of color with high-pitched or emotionally expressive voices were not similarly labeled as too feminine or homosexual during the attacks on crooning makes it very clear that the association between pitch and gender or sexuality was a way for the dominant cultural authorities to narrow the qualifications for white masculine performance in the mass media (and beyond).71

Because crooning was coded as a white male vocal style, by singing in this style Jackson transgressed the constructed musical boundaries of race, backed by arrangements which used some of the same stylistic signifiers as those of the Whiteman and Lombardo orchestras. This type of transgression by voices in radio performance “evoked intense pleasure and anxiety precisely because they seemed to put fixed social identities into play in highly public ways. But ultimately, these performances . . . also helped to reinscribe traditional boundaries of race,

70 Allison McCracken, Real Men Don't Sing: Crooning in American Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015), 3.

71 Ibid., 11.

152 gender, nationality, and sexuality.”72 By singing in this style, Jackson participated in the racial ambiguity he heard in the band’s performances, expressed in his observation that “if you listen to it on the air, you couldn’t tell whether it was a black band or white band.”73 However, even as he transgressed musical-racial boundaries with his voice, he understood that this transgression would require management to construct the band as black for listeners, “so they’d really know that it was a black band.”74

Musical variety as entertainment

In addition to the entertaining elements of vaudeville-style skits, bandleader personality, and vocalists, MKCP also employed instrumental variety to entertain audiences. This is evidenced on MKCP’s recordings, which feature a variety of timbres and musical styles.

Redman’s and Nesbitt’s arrangements for the band feature such varied musical styles as

Whiteman-esque foxtrots, hot choruses, collective improvisation, blues, and the “jungle” style.

They also make use of such unusual timbres as the glockenspiel, the vibraphone, and distinctive singing styles.

Performers and dance band arrangers created variety in performance and in the recording studio through use of unusual sounds and timbres. Common instrumental effects used by early jazz and dance bands included evocation of railroads, storms, the human voice, and barnyard animals.75 Additionally, dance bands used novelty instruments like whistles, the goofus, and the

72 Jason Loviglio, Radio's Intimate Public: Network Broadcasting and Mass-Mediated Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), xviii.

73 Jackson, interview.

74 Ibid.

75 Dinerstein notes the popularity of the “locomotive onomatopoeia” in African American dance band music as a symbol of modernization. (Dinerstein, “Swinging the Machine,” 4.)

153 klaxon horn.76 Magee has traced Redman’s interest in both conventional and novelty instruments.77 Two distinctive instruments that Redman used in his arrangements for MKCP’s recordings include the vibraphone and glockenspiel. The vibraphone had been invented in 1921 and became a popular novelty addition in dance bands by mid-decade but was not written for seriously until the mid 1930s.78 MKCP recordings often prominently feature the instrument including “Do Something” (1929), “She’s My Secret Passion” (1931), and “To Whom It May

Concern” (1930).

Redman typically used the glockenspiel as a decorative timbre in introductions, codas, and interludes in such arrangements as “Save It, Pretty Mama” (1929) “Shim-me-sha-wabble”

(1928), “Travelin All Alone” (1930), and “Come a Little Closer” (1930). He employed it even more prominently in his arrangement of “I Miss a Little Miss” where the glockenspiel accompanies the singer and subsequently accompanies a low clarinet solo (see Example 4.3) immediately before the exciting “out chorus.” Thus, Redman’s use of the glockenspiel in this arrangement juxtaposed varied timbres and textures.

In addition to creating timbral variety, glockenspiel in Redman’s arrangements may have served as a way to musically position the band’s performances with European music or align with the goal of racial uplift frequently espoused by Peyton. John Wriggle explains that the use of the piano chimes in dance band arrangements was meant to evoke bell sets or symphonic

76 Jeffrey Magee, “The Music of Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra in the 1920s” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1992), 78–85.

77 Jeffrey Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 40.

78 James Blades and James Holland, “Vibraphone,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, accessed 10 December 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.

154 percussion as a European musical signifier.79 Thus, through this type of musical sign, Redman’s arranging style aligns with Peyton’s repeated praise of symphonic musicians and arrangers such as Whiteman’s who employed symphonic elements.

Example 4.3: J. Fred Coots and Tot Seymour, “I Miss a Little Miss,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, November 5, 1930, Victor 23024, transcription of clarinet and glockenspiel solo, 2'45"–2'52"

MKCP’s arrangers also juxtaposed soloists with distinctive musical styles. Jeff Magee observes, “An arranging aesthetic that depended so much on variety and contrast required a cadre of distinctive soloists.”80 MKCP employed several musicians who have been discussed less in jazz history, but recorded evidence shows that they were talented soloists. These musicians, such as trumpeters Joe Smith, John Nesbitt, and Sidney de Paris, trombonist Claude Jones, and clarinetist Prince Robinson influenced well-known instrumentalists of the Swing era. Nesbitt often employed soloists in his arrangements to add “hot” elements.

MKCP featured several memorable trumpet soloists who played in contrasting styles.

Doc Cheatham recalled: “From Joe Smith, to Rex Stewart, to the trumpet player that did all the writing for McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, I forget his name, Nesbitt. All these guys were different.

79 John Wriggle, Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 116.

80 Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing, 67.

155 No two guys played alike. All up the line.”81 Descriptions of a few band members and their improvisational styles will illuminate how they added variety to the band’s records. I focus on examples by Sidney de Paris, Joe Smith, and Rex Stewart. De Paris and Stewart worked with the band only for a short time, but they left their mark on MKCP’s recorded output with their distinctive and memorable improvised solos.

De Paris occasionally recorded and performed with MKCP throughout the band’s existence. Although he was never a regular member, his well-crafted solo on the band’s recording of “Miss Hannah” merits examination. De Paris’s bluesy, rhythmically syncopated solo, though only eighteen measures long, shows evidence of thoughtful construction (see

Example 4.4). In his improvisation over the second main strain (A2), De Paris uses goal notes that resemble an Urlinie descent from 5 to 1 in B-flat major: his first phrase accentuates F in mm. 9–10, his next phrase oscillates between E[ and D in m. 12 and ends on D in m. 13, m. 14 begins on C, and in m. 15, where the harmonic structure resolves to B[ Major, he lands on B[ on the downbeat. Listeners might not have heard this structure and instead perceive his solo as blues-influenced, rhythmically syncopated, and an example of MKCP’s “wild savagery,”82 but this underlying structural prolongation suggests that musicians employed and complicated ideologies of racial difference even in their improvisations.

81 Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976.

82 Hugues Panassié, Hot Jazz: The Guide to Swing Music, trans. Lyle Dowling and Eleanor Dowling, (1934; repr., Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 206.

156 Example 4.4: John Nesbitt, Don Redman, “Miss Hannah,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, November 6, 1929, Victor 38102, transcription of Sidney de Paris trumpet solo, 1'35"–1'55"

$ = 200

Like de Paris, Rex Stewart was not a regular member but recorded with the band on several of its 1930 and 1931 sessions. He, too, left his mark on these recordings as an outstanding section player and soloist. Contrary to Schuller’s low opinion of MKCP’s late recordings, I find the band’s November 1930 and September 1931 sessions to be some of its strongest, and a contributing reason is because Stewart and Benny Carter played on both of these dates. Stewart is best known for his tenure in Ellington’s trumpet section but his playing on these sessions reveals his musical maturity at a relatively young age. Both Jackson and Cheatham remembered Stewart as a virtuosic but unconventional trumpeter:

157 JACKSON. Rex Stewart was one of the most fantastic trumpet players that I’ve ever known. He had so many tricks and he was very, very fast. You know, that’s who Roy [Eldridge] listened to in the beginning. That’s who Roy kind of patterned after to adopt his style, you see. And Rex used to cover the valves up—he would finger his horn and cover the valves up and use a lot of false fingering so the guys couldn’t tell what he was doing, you know.83

CHEATHAM. I thought Rex was one of the greatest—I never saw a man play like that, without using the proper fingering of his valves. He never used proper fingering of his valves to play anything, with any valve, it didn’t make any difference to him.84

Stewart left his mark on MKCP’s recorded output with his solo on “Rocky Road” (see Example

4.5). He played an entire chorus, which was rare on big band recordings in the short 78 RPM format. His solo includes blues melodic language, while his phrasing, use of rests, and rhythmic variety create a compelling and inventive improvised solo. Finally, his use of embellishments, trills, and wide vibrato all create a distinctive timbre.

Example 4.5: “Rocky Road,” transcription of Rex Stewart’s solo, 0'08"–0'20"

$ = 145

Unlike de Paris and Stewart, trumpeter Joe Smith remained with the band for two years— from 1929 to 1931—and was known for his lyrical solo work. Chilton described his sound as

83 Jackson, interview.

84 Cheatham, interview.

158 “mellow” in character,85 but Cheatham remembered his plunger work and his skill accompanying blues singers. He recalled that many instrumentalists were not interested in accompanying vocalists until Smith toured the TOBA circuit with blues singers:

Not until Joe Smith, when he came throughout the circuit with Ethel Waters, or Bessie Smith, one of those—I have to go back to that, then that’s when he played with a plunger, you know? He did all his work with a plunger, behind this blues singer. Then the musicians started waking up to see how—how it was a pleasure to play with the blues singer. That was done by Joe Smith. . . . He made it interesting to the musicians to play with them.86

An example of Smith’s contribution to MKCP’s discography appears in his solo on “Okay Baby”

(see Example 4.6). Smith plays a straight rendition of the melody rather than improvising. His avoidance of syncopation differentiates this solo from those with blues language or “hot” syncopation. However, one can hear Smith’s outstanding plunger work in this solo. His separated articulation of the quarter-note melody, rubato approach over the rhythm section’s steady accompaniment, exaggerated vibrato, pitch bends, and rapid plunger work evoke the style of a studio singer from the decade.

85 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 30.

86 Cheatham, interview. Ted Gioia also notes the popular demand for Smith within the top-ranked dance bands: “Many accounts suggest that Henderson, in fact, preferred the playing of cornetist Joe Smith, and that [Louis] Armstrong was hired only because Smith was unavailable.” (Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz [New York: Oxford University Press, 2011], 54.)

159

Example 4.6: “Okay Baby,” transcription of Joe Smith’s solo, 0'38"–0'53"

# = 130

Another element MKCP employed to entertain audiences was the use of varied musical styles. Peyton valued dance bands’ ability to perform in many different musical styles, including

“sweet” or “genteel” foxtrots, waltzes, “gutbucket” blues,87 and “hot” numbers. In 1928 Dave

Peyton had advised musicians to strive for this stylistic versatility in his weekly Defender column:

The trouble with most of our orchestras today is nonversatility. They have adapted themselves on one side of the fence or the other. If they can handle jazz music they fall short when the legitimate score is placed before them and if they are real standard music

87 Some of Magee’s taxonomy of stylistic categories appear in 1920s discourse. Listeners wrote to the Courier voicing their appreciation of “gut-bucket” music. (J. N. Birch, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, November 7, 1931, 18).

160 players they cannot handle the popular variety music. Of course we have superversatile orchestras, but they are few and far between. Bunch, if you are now in a jazz band do not give up on the proper study on your instrument. You may be called upon to render real service and to play good music. You cannot go wrong by practicing daily scale work. It keeps the mind alert and the fingers flexible.88

Similarly, listeners who wrote to the Courier in 1931 valued stylistic variety. For example,

Olivia Mae Thomas wrote to the Courier contest, “The [black orchestra] is considered superior only if it achieves the arduous feat of producing variety, melody, harmony and yet comprehensively expresses the jungles in a pronounced strident manner.”89

Jeffrey Magee’s stylistic categories provide a historically informed guide to explore

MKCP’s use of musical styles. He proposed a new stylistic framework for his study of the

Fletcher Henderson orchestra’s diverse recordings that moves beyond the jazz/commercial dichotomy. His taxonomy includes “genteel dance arrangements of popular songs, with frequently shifting instrumentation, a performing style that emulates the rehearsed polish of such orchestras as Paul Whiteman’s, and little to no hot jazz,” “blues fox-trots, that combine New

York dance music conventions and gutbucket blues traits,” and “hot dance arrangements, based on syncopated songs with jazz flavor, which offer a balance of jazz solos and ensemble playing, delivered in fast, peppy performances.”90 I loosely draw on Magee’s categories to identify the variety of styles that appear in MKCP’s discography, but I add to his list the “jungle” style and

“collective improvisation,” which MKCP occasionally referenced, evoking the raucous “din” that Peyton associated with the previous style of jazz.

88 Peyton, “The Musical Bunch, March 10, 1928, I/6.

89 Olivia Mae Thomas, letter to the contest editor, Pittsburgh Courier, October 10, 1931, 11.

90 Magee, “The Music of Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra in the 1920s,” 310–11.

161 MKCP frequently used “sweet” music elements, or what Magee calls “genteel” dance music, on its recordings. These typically feature the two-beat rhythmic style, and Victor labeled many MKCP recordings as “foxtrots” in its sales catalogues. This style was popular among both white and black audiences during the 1930s. Redman’s arrangement of “To Whom It May

Concern” provides a good example of the “genteel” dance music style. The arrangement, in the moderate, two-beat, danceable foxtrot tempo, presents the melody in a legato style without syncopation, a hallmark of this style (see Example 4.7). The brass play a harmonized quarter- note melody with no swing or syncopation. Lois Deppe sang with the band on this recording session, and his rendition features his clear enunciation and vibrato, and also avoids syncopation.

Example 4.7: “To Whom It May Concern,” transcription of brass lead line, 1'52"–2'13"

MKCP’s recording of “Come a Little Closer” is also in the “genteel” or “sweet” style in the two-beat foxtrot tempo. Jackson’s crooning evokes one of Rudy Vallee’s sweet jazz numbers. The clarinet trio, which plays the melody in the opening chorus (see Example 4.8),

162 employs swung eighth notes, but it also lands on strong beats one and three, avoiding the syncopated emphasis on beats two and four typical of the “hot” style.

Example 4.8: Frank Aquino and Jimmie Green, “Come a Little Closer,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, December 18, 1930, Victor 23035, transcription of first main strain of opening chorus (clarinet lead line and trumpet obbligato), 0'09"–0'22"

MKCP also recorded tunes in the “hot” style, which Magee describes as “based on syncopated songs with jazz flavor, which offer a balance of jazz solos and ensemble playing, delivered in fast, peppy performances.”91 Berish’s description of the style as “full of rhythmic excitement” provides an effective description of the “hot” element.92 The band’s recording of

“You’re Driving Me Crazy” is in the “hot” style. As one of the few arrangements by Ed Inge in the band’s recorded output, this recording is in a fast tempo, generating “rhythmic excitement.”

Redman’s spoken introduction invokes humorous novelty recordings like Jelly Roll Morton’s

“Sidewalk Blues.” The opening ensemble passage features syncopation essential to the style (see

Example 4.9). Dave Wilborn’s vocals at 1'15" only add to the excitement of this number.

91 Ibid., 310–11.

92 Andrew Berish, Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and 40s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 43.

163

Example 4.9: Walter Donaldson, “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, December 17, 1930, Victor 23031, transcription of ensemble tutti lead line, 0'09"–0'24"

Many of Nesbitt’s contributions to the band’s arranged repertoire also exemplify “hot” numbers because of their fast tempos. However, Nesbitt’s writing for these numbers, which include “Zonky,” “Crying and Sighing,” “Okay Baby,” and “Nobody’s Sweetheart,” features less syncopation than “You’re Driving Me Crazy.” Rather, these recordings feature many

164 improvising soloists who contribute “hot” syncopation. For example, Nesbitt’s arrangement of

“Nobody’s Sweetheart” features solo work by Jones and himself, as well as Wilborn’s scat solo mentioned above.

MKCP occasionally employed collective improvisation textures, which reference the previous style of New Orleans and Chicago improvised jazz, to generate additional excitement on a recording, particularly for its “hot” numbers. As demonstrated by Peyton’s criticisms above, this style had fallen out of fashion by the end of the decade and was considered raucous compared to well-rehearsed, partitioned arrangements, but MKCP occasionally used the texture effectively to “show off its remarkable energy.”93 For example, the second chorus of “Do

Something,” arranged by Nesbitt, features collective improvisation between himself and Jones.

Moreover, several examples from the band’s recordings also feature active clarinet obbligato reminiscent of the previous New Orleans and Chicago styles. Panassié observed

“Redman will have a hot clarinetist introduce breaks into the spaces between [melodic] fragments. In this way he builds up very great tension.” My analysis credits this technique to

Inge and Nesbitt more than Redman.94 The recording of “You’re Driving Me Crazy” provides an example (See Example 5.6). Inge accompanies the syncopated ensemble tutti with clarinet obbligato. Nesbitt’s arrangement of “Okay, Baby” provides another example. It demonstrates his use of sparse syncopated writing in his “hot” arrangements, but also reveals his use of improvised solos, particularly the clarinet obbligato, to generate excitement (see Example 4.10).

Nesbitt opened the thirty-two-measure out chorus of “Okay Baby” with tutti half notes and quarter notes on strong beats for the ensemble other than his accentuation of “big four” in

93 Panassié, Hot Jazz, 206.

94 Ibid.

165 measure 3 of the example,95 but alternated solos between himself and clarinetist Prince

Robinson.96 Both Nesbitt and Robinson employ “hot” syncopation in their solos, and Robinson’s solo evokes the clarinet obbligato through a bright tone quality and an opening phrase in the extreme upper register of the instrument.

95 In jazz and some other popular styles, “big four” refers to a strong metric accentuation of beat four.

96 Schuller praised Nesbitt for rarely using modulations, “including those banal whole-tone transitions to which most arrangers were so addicted. Indeed Nesbitt has enough variation and variety in his arrangements that he rarely sees the need for a modulation to a new key. I suspect he also valued the extra coherence a single key can give a performance.” However, Nesbitt modulates from B-flat to E-flat major for the out chorus, showing he did not avoid the technique entirely. (Schuller, The Swing Era, 308–9.)

166 Example 4.10: Maceo Pinkard, William Tracey, “Okay Baby,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, July 29, 1930, Victor 23000, transcription of first twelve measures of out chorus, ensemble lead line, Robinson solo, Nesbitt solo, 2'22"–2'32"

MKCP also recorded blues numbers and employed blues melodic language.97 The band recorded the famous blues “It’s Tight Like That” (Thomas Dorsey) in 1928 and recorded a

97 In jazz discourse “blues” can refer to both the three-phrase, 12-bar blues form and the use of the flatted third, flatted fifth, and flatted seventh, typically coupled with other stylistic devices like pitch bends and syncopation.

167 similar blues, “Selling That Stuff” (1929).98 Band members often used blues melodic inflections in their improvised solos. Although the band’s recording of “Come A Little Closer” displays many “genteel” foxtrot elements, trumpeter Clarence Ross employed blues elements like the flatted third, pitch bends, and timbre changes created by changing the position of his hand over a solotone mute in his obbligato accompanying the clarinet trio (see Example 4.8).

Another style that black dance orchestras employed was the “jungle” style. This style included such sonic elements as the tom-toms, plunger mutes in the brass section paired with the

“growl” technique, and blues motifs, as well as visual elements like racialized costumes that evoked a Westerner’s idea of African primitivism and exaggerated gesture in dance. The

“jungle” style provided a racialized musical construction of primitivism. MKCP was not known for playing in this style although they recorded one song that featured it, “Blues Sure Have Got

Me,” and Victor opted not to release it during the band’s existence. Listeners who wrote to the

Courier contest mostly associated the “jungle” style with Ellington and Calloway.

Ronald Radano and Ted Gioia have examined and presented criticism from the 1920s that describes black music as “jungle” primitivism.99 While this discursive practice constructed musical blackness, both white and black audiences valued it. The Courier write-in contest published numerous accounts praising Ellington and Calloway’s primitivism (see Table 4.1). For example, Betty Crouse wrote “I never grow tired of [Ellington’s] primitive Negro melodies and rhythm.” She praised the band’s “remarkable understanding of the barbaric jungle harmonies”

98 The band’s recordings of “It’s Tight Like That” and “Selling That Stuff” contain many similarities, including comedic vocal interjections by Austin. Redman may have borrowed heavily from the former arrangement for the latter.

99 Radano, “Hot Fantasies”; idem, Lying Up a Nation; Ted Gioia, “Jazz and the Primitivist Myth,” The Musical Quarterly 73 (1989): 130–43.

168 and mentions that the rhumba “really is the broken rhythm of the African jungle flavored with

Spanish melody is the latest craze of the modern dance band.” She goes on:

The queer rhythms of the rhumba are emphasized by the use of the tom-tom, a primitive Negro instrument; of the gourd, another product of the jungle, and of the clavis [sic], which is simply one stick beaten with another. The very fact that Duke Ellington has distinguished himself with the dispensation of the original music of native African design makes him absolutely the peer of the music world. In his line he has proved the superiority which rightfully belongs to the famous “King of Negro Jazz.”100

Similarly, Alberta Ransome of Detroit praised Calloway’s band for its

peculiar cadence—a half barbaric timber [sic] in his syncopation—that gets under the skin of the most fastidious of the music intelligentsia, as well as the normal music lover. . . . It has that luring, stirring rhythm—compelling, urging, barbarously, captivating and as full of wild splendor as the dancing girls of Cleopatra’s court.101

Other listeners described this music as “eccentric,” “savage,” “native,” “natural,” “barbaric syncopation,” “sensual,” “primitive,” and “madness.”102 Some listeners regarded “jungle” music as a foil to the “refined” and “precise” sound of bands like MKCP, Henderson, Lunceford, and

Sissle. Some listeners went so far as to compare Sissle’s “refinement” to Ellington’s “jungle” music.

These racialized descriptions of “jungle” music on the surface seem to espouse problematic essentialisms of how blackness has been historically performed for white audiences.

However, one also can find connections to the literary work of the New Negro movement, particularly that of Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, both prominent cultural figures during

100 Betty Crouse, Pittsburgh Courier, November 14, 1931, 11.

101 Alberta B. Ransome, Pittsburgh Courier, November 21, 1931, 11.

102 For more on the connection between blackness and medicomoral terminology, see Tom Lutz, “Curing the Blues: W. E. B. Du Bois, Fashionable Diseases, and Degraded Music,” Black Music Research Journal 11 (1991): 137–56.

169 this period. For example, in his essay “The Negro’s Contribution to American Art and

Literature,” Locke writes:

There are two distinctive elements in the cultural background of the American Negro: one, his primitive tropical heritage, however vague and clouded over that may be, and second, the specific character of the Negro group experience in American both with respect to group history and with regard to unique environing social conditions. [my emphasis]103

Similarly, in his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Hughes described jazz as

“one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the

Negro soul—the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world,” and expressed admiration for artists who used African motifs in African American art.104 Thus, while white audiences may have viewed the performance of “jungle” music as an expression of exoticism or primitivism, black listeners who were culturally aware of the New Negro movement may have valued the music’s purported connection to a shared African heritage.

103 Alain Locke, “The Negro’s Contribution to American Art and Literature,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 140 (November 1928): 234.

104 Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain,” quoted in Poetry Foundation, accessed June 28, 2018, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69395/the-negro-artist-and-the-racial-mountain.

170 Table 4.1: Pittsburgh Courier Letters to the Contest Editor Discussing “Jungle” Music

Name, Date Favorite Quote orchestra Alexander Ellington “Duke” has that savage twine which is present in the popular Wilkins “Blues of Today.” The people are getting away from the higher September 26, form of music. They are craving for “hot” music, which only the 1931 “Duke” is able to give them. People are getting native—they want the savage-like music. You have only to watch a dance floor full of dancers to see that “hot music” is the only thing that sways the emotions of the people.” “Duke” Ellington is not playing jazz, but is playing the natural feelings of the people. And popular music is the real feelings of the people. Augustus M. Ellington . . . has that elusive something few other bands are able to Wood, nuture—rhythm. His national radio hit, “Mood Indigo,” so October 3, distinctly original, is the last word in barbaric syncopation. With 1931 this original, spontaneous rhythm Duke is much imitated but not equaled. Betty Crouse, Ellington . . . never grow tired of his primitive Negro melodies and November 14, rhythm. Their remarkable understanding of the barbaric jungle 1931 harmonies, which points out that the rhumba, which really is the broken rhythm of the African jungle flavored with Spanish melody is the latest craze of the modern dance band. The queer rhythms of the rhumba are emphasized by the use of the tom-tom, a primitive Negro instrument; of the gourd, another product of the jungle, and of the clavis [sic], which is simply one stick beaten with another. The very fact that Duke Ellington has distinguished himself with the dispensation of the original music of native African design makes him absolutely the peer of the music world. In his line he has proved the superiority which rightfully belongs to the famous “King of Negro Jazz.” Alberta B. Calloway There is a peculiar cadence—a half barbaric timber [sic] in his Ransome, syncopation—that gets under the skin of the most fastidious of November 21, the music intelligentsia, as well as the normal music lover. 1931 It has that luring, stirring rhythm—compelling, urging, barbarously, captivating and as full of wild splendor as the dancing girls of Cleopatra’s court.

Compared to the Ellington and Calloway orchestras MKCP was not known for this style, but the band’s recording of “Blues Sure Have Got Me” is nevertheless a compelling example of the “jungle” style. With a slow tempo and minor mode, the brass tutti perform the melody with a

5–4–1 motif common to blues melodic language (see Example 4.11a) and with a similar melodic

171 shape as Bubber Miley’s trumpet solo on Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-O” (1927) as well as “St. James Infirmary” (1930) (see Examples 4.11b and c), which had been recorded by several popular black musicians during the same period. The saxophone introduction on the recording

(see Example 4.12a) evoke the dynamics and harmonic progression of “East St. Louis Toodle-O”

(see Example 4.12b), suggesting a further Ellington influence. Following the brass tutti, Redman speaks the lyrics on the second chorus, creating an eerie and intimate timbre.

Example 4.11a: Charles Stanton, Don Redman, “Blues Sure Have Got Me,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, July 29, 1930, Victor Vi 40-0116, transcription of opening brass tutti lead line and saxophones, 0'10"–0'20"

$ = 100

Example 4.11b: Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, “East St. Louis Toodle-O,” recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, March 14, 1927, Brunswick E21872, transcription of Bubber Miley’s solo, 0'10"–0'24"

$ = 160

172 Example 4.11c: “St. James Infirmary,” recorded by the Cab Calloway Orchestra, December 23, 1930, JSP 328, transcription of brass melody, 0'20"–0'34"

$ = 130

Example 4.12a: “Blues Sure Have Got Me,” transcription of introduction, 0'00"–0'09"

$ = 100

173 Example 4.12b: “East St Louis Toodle-Oo,” transcription of introduction, 0'00"–0'12"

$ = 160

Arranging inside the strain

MKCP not only created entertainment for listeners through a variety of timbres and musical styles, but also positioned and juxtaposed these against each other within a single arrangement or even within a single chorus. Arrangers such as Redman and Nesbitt often presented these varied styles and timbres within the format of a sectionalized arrangement.

Jeffrey Magee has addressed this aspect of Redman’s arranging style while he was with the

Henderson orchestra, and an inspection of MKCP’s recorded output shows that Redman continued to use this approach in his arrangements for MKCP. Nesbitt and Inge similarly used this technique. Magee explains that arrangers in the 1920s called the technique of frequently shifting instrument combinations “arranging inside the strain.”105 Because audiences wanted to hear variety, arrangers would frequently alternate soloists or featured different instruments

105 Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing, 39.

174 within one chorus of an arrangement.106 Magee quotes Paul Whiteman’s arranging treatise, which specified “the new demand is for change and novelty . . . after the tune is set the instrumentation shall be changed for each half chorus.”107 The following examples show that

Redman not only changed instrumentation each half chorus but also juxtaposed instruments to create compelling timbre combinations within each strain of a chorus or during interludes.

Moreover, Redman also frequently juxtaposed contrasting styles that carried racial overtones.

These types of juxtapositions served as the musical equivalent of Walter Barnes’s, the critic who replaced Peyton for “The Musical Bunch,” argument that “it seems to be the belief among whites that the Race is still in the cotton fields and cannot sing or play anything else but cotton songs and blues. This is a great mistake. We are music lovers and enjoy all types and forms of music.”108

One way that Redman would arrange “inside the strain” was by presenting a variety of timbres in one passage. Magee has observed Redman’s use of “heterogenous sound tendency,” described by Olly Wilson as “a kaleidoscopic range of dramatically contrasting qualities of sound (timbre).”109 Redman’s introduction to his arrangement of “Come a Little Closer” (see

Example 4.13) demonstrates this “kaleidoscope” of timbre through his use of distinct instrument combinations. The opening phrase evokes the sound of a clarinet trio but is actually two clarinets with the first trombone. The trio plays the melody in triadic harmonies, and the second trombone

106 Magee, “The Music of Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra in the 1920s,” 89.

107 Whiteman, Paul, and Mary Margaret McBride, Jazz, (1926, repr., New York: Arno Press, 1974), 67–68, quoted in Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing, 40.

108 Walter Barnes, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, October 12, 1929, I/6.

109 Ollie Wilson, “Black Music as an Art Form,” Black Music Research Journal, 3 (1983): 3, quoted in Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing, 40.

175 and tuba interject in m. 3 with bell tones. The passage ends with glockenspiel embellishment in m. 5. Not only does Redman shift focus between three contrasting instrumental groups in five measures but also uses the inventive technique of pairing the first trombone with the clarinets, thus creating a distinctive timbre.

Example 4.13: “Come a Little Closer,” transcription of introduction, 0'00"–0'09"

Redman also arranged “inside the strain” by juxtaposing contrasting musical styles, such as the “genteel” or “foxtrot” style with “hot” syncopation or blues melodic inflections. This type of juxtaposition carried meaning within the context of 1920s discursive racial constructions, which constructed “hot” jazz as essentially black and “sweet” or genteel music as essentially white and associated with the Whiteman and Lombardo orchestras. Redman’s skillful juxtapositions challenged the assumption that black bands could only perform African American

176 musical styles. Moreover, he also negotiated and balanced these popular styles to appeal to a broad national audience.

Examples of this type of juxtaposition abound in MKCP’s recorded output. In his arrangement of “Honey Suckle Rose,” Redman employs this technique to the extreme: he shifts both instrumentation and musical styles every four measures in the first chorus (see Example

4.14). Like “Blues Sure Have Got Me,” Victor did not release this recording during MKCP’s contract with the company, but it still provides an outstanding example of Redman’s ability to juxtapose contrasting styles. The first four measures in all these main strains feature the saxophones, who depart from the melody and play bimodal triplet figures against the rhythm and brass accompaniment. Note Redman’s use of A-flat minor triads in the saxophone against a B7 chord in m. 1 and a G7 chord in m. 3. The A-flat minor triad includes upper extensions of both chords (6–1–3 in the case of B7 and [9–3–[6 in the case of G7), but Redman skillfully takes advantage of bimodal implications contained in the upper extensions of these chords to construct the saxophones’ melody. Additionally, Redman departs from the original chord changes with his chromatic reharmonization of this passage. Rather than retain the oscillation between predominant and dominant of the original version of the melody, he employs [7 chords shifting chromatically upward by semitone. Taken together, his use of chromaticism and bimodal implications evokes Whitemanesque symphonic jazz more than the “wild negro spontaneity” attributed to African American jazz musicians during this decade, and rather contributes to the band’s sonic racial ambiguity by aligning itself with European modernist music like that of

Debussy.110

110 Hugues Panassié The Real Jazz (New York: Barnes, 1942), 29. John Wriggle has written about Redman’s interest in whole-tone scales, chromaticism, and upper extensions, a hallmark of his arranging style. He traces these musical interests back to Claude Debussy and explains that other black composers who aligned with

177 Measures 5–8 of each main strain contrasts with the previous stylized passage. Redman returns to the familiar chord progression of the original tune, and Nesbitt provides a blues- inflected interpretation of the melody (using [5 and [3) in the style of Armstrong while accompanied by the rhythm section and sparse saxophone voicings.

musical modernism by employing these sounds included Will Vodery, Will Marion Cook, and William Grant Still. (Wriggle, 93–103).

178

Example 4.14: Andy Razaf and Thomas “Fats” Waller, “Honey Suckle Rose,” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, February 3, 1930, Victor 58546, transcription of Redman head arrangement and Nesbitt trumpet solo, 0'00" to 0'14"

This juxtaposition also appears in the band’s recording of “To Whom It May Concern”

(see Table 4.2). After the “sweet” brass soli, which avoids syncopation (discussed above), Ed

Cuffee plays a syncopated, eight-measure trombone solo, which is followed by an active,

179 syncopated saxophone soli. After this soli, eight measures of syncopated brass ensemble work gestures briefly to a “hot” out chorus.

Table 4.2: “To Whom It May Concern,” orchestration diagram of 1'52"–2'47"111

A (8 mm.) A (8 mm.) A (8 mm.) A (8 mm.) B (8 mm.) “Sweet” brass “Sweet” brass Trombone solo Saxophone soli “Hot” brass ensemble ensemble ensemble

Redman not only presented alternating “white”- and “black”- coded musical styles in temporal succession, he also sometimes presented them simultaneously. The clarinet melody for

“Come a Little Closer” is a good example of the band’s “sweet” or “genteel” style (see Example

5.5), and Clarence Ross’s trumpet obbligato shows how soloists frequently interspersed blues melodic material in different musical styles, creating a compelling juxtaposition of musical styles. Like the above two examples, Redman’s layering of “sweet” melody and “hot” obbligato challenged the assumption that African Americans were restricted to musical styles and characteristics considered “essential” to their race.

Nesbitt employed a similar technique of layering “white”- and “black”-coded musical elements in his arrangements for the band. The discussion of “Okay Baby” above provides an example: for the out chorus of the arrangement he wrote the melody in simple quarter-notes without syncopation for the tutti ensemble and traded improvised passages with clarinetist

Robinson (see example 4.10). He also juxtaposed saxophones and brass in the opening chorus of his composition “Stop Kidding” to similar effect (see example 4.15). In the second half of the first chorus, the saxophones play the whole-note melody with “genteel” vibrato over the bright duple meter. However, Claude Jones interjects with figures in a swing rhythm at the end of each

111 In this arrangement Redman deviated from the AABA form of the tune’s chorus and presented four consecutive main strains.

180 phrase. In measure 9 of the passage, the rest of the brass enter with loud, aggressively articulated figures.112 The brass section’s brash timbre, coupled with the blistering tempo, contrast strongly with the saxophone section’s lyrical melody.113

112 Schuller finds this passage particularly exciting because Nesbitt ends the chorus with a six-measure phrase rather than the typical eight measures. However, I read the passage as an exciting but relatively straightforward phrase elision. Schuller may have been working to make his case regarding Nesbitt’s metric inventiveness, which does manifest in the arranger’s use of hemiolas and odd-measured phrases later in the arrangement. (Schuller, 310.) Schuller claimed that Nesbitt used these types of phrase elisions to create structural coherence in his arrangements, which he prized in big band recordings: “Part of Nesbitt’s talent lay in the ingenious way in which he linked and overlapped choruses, the one leading logically to the other, material from the tail end of one providing the connecting link and forming the basis for the next.” (Schuller, 305.)

113 Although Nesbitt arranged more of the band’s recorded up-tempo numbers than Redman, the two arrangers had similar styles which suggest cross influence. For example, “Stop Kidding” contains whole-tone and chromatic passages in the style of Redman. Schuller argues that by 1930 Nesbitt was the more original arranger while Redman was “derivative,” but I hypothesize that the two arrangers influenced each other. (Schuller, 304.)

181 Example 4.15: John Nesbitt, “Neckbones and Saurkraut (alternate title ‘Stop Kidding’),” recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, July 12, 1928, RCA B & W 741 808, transcription of second half of opening chorus, solos and lead lines, 0'21"–0'36"

# = 140

182

MKCP’s recording contract with Victor from 1928 to 1931 and the band’s popularity in the press was the height of the band success and demonstrated its status as a nationally recognized dance orchestra. These analyses of MKCP’s recordings and comparisons to criticism in the black press have shown that by using contrasting timbres created by novelty instruments and singers, contrasting styles, and contrasting soloists presented in partitioned arrangements and juxtaposed through the technique of “arranging inside the strain, MKCP and its arrangers responded to critics and listeners’ taste for precision and entertainment

The band recorded and performed music that was popular with both black and white audiences, but contextualizing examples from MKCP’s recordings with Dave Peyton’s column and listeners who wrote in to the Courier has shown that the band’s music also aligned with the racial uplift narrative espoused by black newspapers, and the band’s stylistic juxtapositions carried cultural significance in the segregated music market.

183

Finally, these analyses have shown that MKCP’s music at times crossed the boundaries of musical signifiers coded as “black” or “white.” White-associated elements such as crooning as well as Redman’s European music signifiers such as the use of the glockenspiel as well as chromaticism and whole-tone passages, were deliberately intended to invoke European modernism and would have thus transgressed sonic racial boundaries for listeners.

184 Chapter Five

MKCP’s Touring Activity and Decline (1930–34)

The stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression affected MKCP’s prospects

as a nationally recognized radio broadcasting and recording band. Beginning in 1930 MKCP’s

broadcast schedule tapered off dramatically (see Appendix A). In 1930 the band played only four

dates in January and one in April. In February 1931 the Free Press announced that MKCP had

returned to Detroit after a year. On March 1 it played a 2:00 PM broadcast on the “Theater

Hour.” 1 The band played nine broadcast dates in July. In 1932 it broadcast only five times in

January, two dates in February, eleven dates in June and early July, and nine dates in December.

MKCP ceased appearing on WJR after 1932.

Additionally, MKCP left Goldkette’s management sometime in 1931, and thus was no

longer committed to a regular residency at the Graystone Ballroom as they had been in the

1920s.2 Chilton cites a money disagreement between Goldkette and McKinney for this

separation.3 This is possible, but it is also possible that Goldkette and the NAC were struggling

financially and were trying to relieve themselves of assets. Lars Bjorn explains that the

Depression, as well as the growing popularity of movie theaters, hurt Detroit ballrooms such as

the NAC-owned Graystone in the 1930s.4 After 1930 the black cabarets in Detroit’s Paradise

1 Detroit Free Press, March 1, 1931, 46.

2 Lars Bjorn, “Black Men in a White World: The Development of the Black Jazz Community in Detroit, 1917–1940,” Detroit in Perspective 5, no. 1 (1980): 9.

3 John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 49.

4 “Even though the Great Depression hit the city of Detroit more seriously than the rest of the nation, its effects on the local jazz community were neither uniform nor totally negative. The business of the major ballrooms slowed, but this was a temporary phenomenon off-set by major changes in the entertainment business. The Depression dealt a deathblow to vaudeville theaters, but the underlying source of the problem was competition from the moving picture shows.” (Bjorn, 8.)

185 Valley replaced the ballrooms on Woodward Avenue, such as the Graystone, as the city’s most

popular entertainment center.5 Additionally, Goldkette would file for bankruptcy by 1935.6

Although MKCP appeared very little on WJR after 1930, it began a busier touring

schedule in the new decade and shifted its focus to working mostly as a regional touring dance

orchestra. This might have been advantageous for the group in some ways—it had been

restricted from extensive touring under Goldkette’s management.7 The recently built numbered

highways made it possible for bands to tour more often and greater distances after 1930.

However, a busy touring schedule for territory bands suggested hardship. Rather than play week-

long or month-long engagements in one city, dance bands (and especially black bands) had to

string together tours of exhausting one-nighters during the Depression.8 MKCP’s busy touring

schedule in 1930 would have prevented it from regularly broadcasting on WJR.9

In addition, Victor did not renew MKCP’s recording contract in 1932. This hurt the

band’s ability to market itself and remain in the public eye.10 Victor’s decision not to renew

MKCP’s contract was likely due slumping sales across the industry rather than lack of popularity

of MKCP, as Eli Oberstein had announced that Ellington and MKCP had been Victor’s best-

5 “During the 1930s the most important change in the Black jazz community was the gradual shift from big ballroom to small cabaret bands. This change in size and source of employment reflected the growth of the black- and-tan cabaret and the emergence of Paradise Valley as the major entertainment spot in the city. . . . The rise of Paradise Valley and the cabarets had an impact on the major ballrooms. The Graystone was the only major ballroom that regularly employed local Black jazz bands during the decade.” (Bjorn, 9.)

6 Detroit Free Press, January 29, 1935, 1.

7 John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 27.

8 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935, Jazz History, Culture, and Criticism Series (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 129.

9 I explore MKCP’s touring activity in the following chapter.

10 Hennessey, 132.

186 selling dance orchestras in 1930.11 The Depression had a chilling effect on the recording industry

in general. David Morton explains that the Depression

immediately halted growing record sales. . . . The situation was so dire that Columbia and Victor both went into receivership and were sold to new owners. Sales that had hovered between $70 and $75 million from 1926 to 1929 fell almost 39 percent the next year, then plummeted to only $6 million in 1933.12

Michael Chanan claims that RCA saved Victor by taking it over in 1929 before the stock market

crash, but the company still struggled:

Victor’s take-over by RCA at the beginning of 1929 saved it from the effects of the Wall Street Crash. But the Depression blocked the recovery of the record industry, and sales of records and record players plunged. . . . Annual record-player sales in the United States declined from nearly one million in 1927 to a mere forty thousand in 1932.13

Millard maintains that the effect of the decline in record sales was especially pronounced for the

race and ethnic markets:

The Depression affected the sales of ethnic and race records first, because their audiences were devastated in the economic downturn. African American artists were among the first to be dropped by record companies when sales dried up. . . . As record sales dropped even further, recording activity was cut down to the absolute minimum—only to complete contractual obligations of signed artists. RCA Victor issued no catalogue at all in 1931, and many of its big-name recording stars were dropped. The management was now frantically cutting costs wherever they could and told studio engineers to cut down recording to one take per selection.14

Thus, the collapse of the recording industry and its effect on a company such as RCA Victor

likely explains why MKCP’s contract was not renewed.

11 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935, Jazz History, Culture, and Criticism Series (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 132.

12 David Morton, Off the Record: The Technology and Culture of Sound Recording in America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 28.

13 Michael Chanan, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 2000), 65.

14 A. J. Millard, America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 165–66.

187 One finds that after 1930 many dance orchestras shifted to a more active touring schedule. Walter Barnes observed this change in “The Musical Bunch” column in 1931:

Times have changed—and now, bands, I mean big bands, are now taking to the road rather than hold one stand indefinitely. There’s more money on the road and in barnstorming, even in one-night jumps. As I said before, radio has so popularized good music that the smaller towns want and are willing to pay to hear good bands in person.”15

After the end of the 1920s, MKCP ended its residency at the Graystone and began extended touring. MKCP mostly toured the Midwest and eastern states (like western New York), but also made a trip to the West Coast in 1931. In his interviews for the Jazz Oral History Project,

Quentin Jackson recalled traveling “from coast to coast” with MKCP. Newspaper and oral history documentation of MKCP’s tours provide an entry point into understanding the band’s activity. For example, an article in the Kansas City Call from 1931 shows that while on tour

MKCP played all sorts of venues and had a “Great Record in Theatres, Dance Halls, College

Proms, on Radio.”16

This chapter explores MKCP’s touring activity in major ballrooms and also examines performances in other venues like movie theatres and college auditoria in the early 1930s.

Newspapers advertisements and announcements reveal that MKCP performed in many different areas. They not only traveled to major cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Kansas City, but also visited smaller cities like Reading, Pennsylvania; Muncie, Indiana; and Binghampton, New

York. This chapter will survey MKCP’s touring activities, including the cities where the band toured and the types of venues where it performed. It will also explore both the challenges and benefits of working in a regional touring dance orchestra band during this period, and connect

15 Chicago Defender, March 28, 1931, I/5.

16 The Call, April 24, 1931, n.p.

188 MKCP’s schedule to an understanding of the new state highway infrastructure and centralization of band management practices that made extended touring possible.

Oral histories and newspapers document that black musicians who worked in territory bands lived difficult lives on the road. Nevertheless, MKCP’s popularity on tour provides a case study for Andrew Berish’s argument that touring also provided new opportunities for African

American musicians during the Depression.

Time period and materials

MKCP’s tours from January 1930 through December of 1933 were the most extensive for the band. MKCP had toured some before 1930, but then spent more time at the Graystone during the years 1927 through 1929. Chilton explains that in the late 1920s, “the band [members] were being offered engagements at leading ballrooms all over the states, most of these offers were declined by McKinney’s management simply because of the band’s unfailing ability to draw capacity crowds at the NAC’s own Graystone Ballroom.”17 Quentin Jackson’s recollection corroborates Chilton’s assertion: “When we’d be in the Graystone, you know, which we would go in there and stay for weeks and months, we would broadcast over WJR all the time, you see.”18 The Free Press radio schedule also shows that MKCP was on WJR, and thus at the

Graystone, for extended periods between the fall of 1927 and the end of 1929, but the band disappears from the WJR schedule abruptly in the beginning of 1930, suggesting the hardship of the Depression and that it subsequently began touring more often.

17 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 27.

18 Quentin Jackson, interview with Milt Hinton, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1, 1976.

189 MKCP’s shift from a longtime engagement at the Graystone to a busy touring schedule also aligns with a broader shift in 1930s dance band employment. In the new decade many ballrooms began hiring dance orchestras for shorter engagements rather than book a long-term resident band.19 MKCP’s tours during these years align with this trend. Most of the band’s touring activity occurred before mid-1933. Prior to the splintering of the band in 1934, the years

1930–1933 provide an effective sample to examine the band’s touring activities and the life for black musicians on the road during the early Depression.

Newspaper advertisements

Newspaper advertisements and announcements reveal MKCP’s touring schedule, but they also present several challenges. Some advertisements announcing MKCP performances could have been for other bands using the McKinney name for promotional purposes. For example, on April 5, 1930, an announcement regarding the band’s upcoming performance at the

Pythian Temple in Pittsburg reads “the phenomenal popularity of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers has prompted the use of the name ‘Cotton Pickers’ by unscrupulous managers of ordinary orchestras.”20 Some ads feature the name “McKinney’s Original Cotton Pickers” or “Original

McKinney’s Cotton Pickers.” On June 10, 1930, the Muncie Evening Press announced, “the feature will be McKinney’s Original Cotton Pickers from Milwaukee.”21 Either this Milwaukee band used the McKinney name to boost its popularity, or the newspaper mistook MKCP’s home base. On the following evening, however, the (Muncie) Star Press published a second

19 Hennessey, 128.

20 Pittsburgh Courier, April 5, 1930, 6.

21 Muncie Evening Press, June 10, 1930, 8.

190 announcement and correctly identified the band as from Detroit.22 Newspapers may have

published variants on the band’s name with the word “original” with scare quotes (see Figure

5.1) because of various bands employing the McKinney name or at the request of MKCP’s

publicist Floyd Snelson.23

In identifying advertisements and announcements for MKCP, I have examined

newspaper advertisements and announcements chronologically to trace tour routes

geographically, and traced verbiage mentioning the band’s home base of Detroit, its record

contract with Victor, or descriptions of its famous band members, such as Redman and drummer

Cuba Austin.24 Instances in which multiple newspapers advertised geographically distant

performances on the same night, or where one tour date would have been geographically distant

from several others that seem to form a tour itinerary are suspect. For example, announcements

appeared in two newspapers for performances on the same day: one in Richmond, Indiana, and

the other in Reading, Pennsylvania. The Richmond Item announced MKCP’s performance at the

city’s Athletic Park on June 11,25 but the Reading Times advertised the band playing at the

Orpheum with Bessie Smith on June 9, 10, and 11 at 8:30 PM.26 Although no times had been

announced for the Richmond performance, the band could not have made the nearly twelve-

hundred mile round trip after the evening performance on June 10 in Reading to appear the next

22 Star Press, June 11, 1930, 6.

23 The Pittsburgh Courier identified columnist Floyd Snelson as an entertainment publicist with MKCP as one of his clients. An ad for Snelson’s services appeared in the Courier on September 19, 1931, and listed MKCP as a satisfied customer. (Pittsburgh Courier, September 19, 1931, 18).

24 For more on drummer Cuba Austin’s involvement in the band as an entertainer, see chapter four.

25 Richmond (IN) Item, June 5, 1930, 3.

26 Reading (PA) Times, June 9, 1930, 13.

191 day in Muncie and then return for the June 11 evening performance in Reading. In addition, these Reading dates conflict with a inter-fraternity dance in Muncie, Indiana, on June 10th. The performances in Richmond and Muncie are the legitimate ones for MKCP for three reasons: 1) the geographic proximity of the two cities, 2) the Richmond ad for the Athletic Park on June 10 advertises MKCP as “Victor recording artists,” and 3) no oral history or newspaper reviews mention any MKCP performances with Bessie Smith.

In addition to the above-mentioned criteria, I also hypothesize that standardized advertisements using the same images and verbiage that begin to appear late in the band’s career also suggest legitimacy. In January 1931 an advertisement for the band’s tour dates began to appear in multiple newspapers, using a cartoonish, minstrelized depiction of the band (see Figure

5.1). This advertisement design may have been created by either band management or Snelson, and its appearance in a newspaper suggests a legitimate performance.

192 Figure 5.1: Advertisement for MKCP performance, Eau Claire Leader, January 13, 1931, 7.

Although I have been able to piece together some tour itineraries and have found many announcements for MKCP’s performances across the country, gaps still exist. I may have missed some small, local newspapers in my research. Nevertheless, I found so many announcements for the band’s performances that the newspaper research presented here provides a comprehensive, if not complete picture of MKCP’s touring activities from 1930 through 1933 and allows some conclusions to be made.

Touring bands and state highway infrastructure

The state numbered highways made it possible for bands to tour more often and greater distances after 1930. This modern infrastructure project facilitated MKCP members’ travel and

193 music distribution because it helped “get them more places faster.”27 The United States

underwent a major infrastructure project that was jointly funded by states and the federal

government only a couple of years before MKCP and other territory bands started to tour

extensively. Federal numbered highways became a domestic policy priority to facilitate better

military transportation. Before the construction of numbered highways, long distance road travel

was time consuming, confusing, and often dangerous. State scenic highways, like those denoted

by the Great Lakes to Florida Highway Association, frequently changed names, had multiple

names at the same time, or were poorly marked.28 For example, the Lincoln Highway

Association denoted a cross-country series of roads for navigation but marked its highway with

painted rocks.29 In 1919 a military convoy crossed the United States to demonstrate the difficulty

of cross-country road travel and to advocate for paved roads to improve defense against potential

threats from Japan and Mexico.30 This trip was a surprising challenge for the convoy: it took

about two months, trucks in the convoy frequently got stuck in ditches, and navigation presented

a challenge.31 After the military convoy demonstrated the challenges of cross-country travel

without paved roads, Congress passed an act in 1921requiring cooperation between states and the

federal government to build the numbered highway system.32

27 Ibid.

28 Jessey Gilley, “The Great Lakes-to-Florida Highway: A Politics of Road Space in 1920s West Virginia and Virginia,” Southeastern Geographer 54, no. 1 (2014): 10.

29 Thomas L. Karnes, Asphalt and Politics: A History of the American Highway System (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 47.

30 Ibid., 42.

31 Ibid., 48–53.

32 The construction of national road infrastructure was not without controversy. For example, farmers did not want roads built because they worried that transportation near their communities would ruin their rural lifestyle and spread immorality and Bolshevism. States also saw federal roads as a violation of states’ rights. (Ibid., 82–85.)

194 The numbered highways made it possible for bands to tour more often and greater distances after 1930. With a few exceptions, regional touring bands and territory bands west of

Kansas City did not begin traveling long distances by car or bus until the second half of the

1920s, after the numbered highways were built. MKCP only began touring extensively in 1930.

Ten years previously, the band’s tours by bus and by Packard caravan would have been unimaginable. The development of touring bands that took advantage of numbered highways demonstrates that federal involvement in national modernization created new entertainment opportunities.

MKCP touring activities: locations and venues

A survey of the advertisements and announcements from various newspapers provides a snapshot of MKCP’s touring activities and personal challenges (see Appendix C). These sources provide a foundation for the analysis below. Many of MKCP’s tour routes took the band to upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and northern Ohio. The band also made many stops around Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania.33 By tracing tour stops in newspapers and arranging them chronologically, one can see that these stops often fit together as a tour of the Midwest—a route that includes western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. For example, MKCP toured mostly in Pennsylvania in March 1930, relatively early in its most active touring period, pieced together from area newspapers (see Table 5.1). Notice

33 The reason for MKCP’s frequent touring in Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh may be due to the Great Migration to industrialized northern cities and the industrialization of the state. Pennsylvania, western New York, and northern Ohio around Lake Erie might have provided large audiences with disposable income to enjoy dancing as a leisure activity. Additionally, like Chicago and Detroit, Pittsburgh was one of the destinations of the Great Migration from the 1910s to 1930, which provided employment for African Americans in industrial jobs previously unavailable to them. (Peter Gottlieb, “Rethinking the Great Migration: A Perspective from Pittsburgh,” in The Great Migration in Historical Perspective, ed. Joe William Trotter, Jr. [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991], 70).

195 how all dates were within a day’s drive of each other. Additionally, note how frequently the band moved from one city to another—many of these stops were only one-nighters.

Table 5.1: MKCP Tour Spring 1930 Date City Venue March 15, 1930 Uniontown, PA Gallatin Gardens March 18, 1930 Allentown, PA Community Center March 19, 1930 Reading, PA Bach’s March 21, 1930 York, PA Valencia Ballroom March 28, 1930 Asheville, NC [Beaux Arts Ball] April 1, 1930 Binghampton, NY Geo. F. Johnson Pavilion April 2, 1930 Berwick, PA West Side Park April 5, 1930 Pittsburgh, PA Lando Theatre April 7, 1930 Pittsburgh, PA Pythian Temple

The number of MKCP tour dates in the Midwest suggests the band was popular in this region of the country and could attract large crowds. Thomas Hennessey has proposed several reasons why bands like MKCP found success in the Midwest. He observes that in the Midwest dancing was an important recreation. After industrialization and the Great Migration of the early twentieth century, cities such as Detroit, Toledo, and Cleveland had large African American populations from which black bands could draw a profitable audience. Additionally, WJR’s signal reached these areas, so MKCP may have been well known in these regions through its radio broadcasts. Finally, these Midwestern cities were close to each other geographically, making travel between them easier than cities in the Great Plains or on the West Coast.34

MKCP performed in a variety of venues while on tour—not only in ballrooms and dance halls, but also on college campuses, in movie theaters and at multi-use venues, and as part of stage shows and for such events as the Indianapolis 500. Hennessey observes that in the late

1920s and early ’30s, ballrooms began to hire more touring bands (rather than local bands) to

34 Hennessey, 110.

196 draw large crowds: “Many ballrooms and nightclubs around the country also began to shift from

continuous extended engagements by local bands to appearances by national touring bands

ranging in duration from one night to two weeks. Both changes increased the power of band

managers and the reach of national bands while hurting local territory groups.”35 Though MKCP

played many ballrooms and dance halls on tour, by the 1930s some large ballrooms in

industrialized cities had fallen on hard times, not only because of the Depression but also

because of talking pictures.36 The ballrooms that remained provided a lucrative income source

for touring instrumentalists. Quentin Jackson recalls the large size of crowds that came to see the

band:

HINTON. How much was a dance hall? How much did it cost to get in to dance in those days? JACKSON. 50 cents. HINTON. Wow. JACKSON. 75, you know. It’s according to the band. HINTON. You would have to have at least a thousand people to have a good night. JACKSON. Oh, sure, but they always had a good night. In those days when McKinney’s band played anyplace it was packed all the time, every place you played. In fact, there were so many ballrooms over the country in those days, you see.

One finds a broad range of advertised prices for MKCP’s ballroom engagements up to

$2.00. For example, The Tennessean advertises the band’s upcoming performance on November

13, 1932 with white audience tickets at $1.10, and black audience tickets at $.80.37 MKCP

played ballrooms across the Midwest like the Pythian Temple and Syrian Mosque in Pittsburgh,

the Indiana Roof Ballroom in Indianapolis, the Madrid Ballroom in Louisville, the Mapleview

35 Ibid., 128.

36 Bjorn, 8.

37 In 2018 these prices would have been $18.19 and $13.23, respectively. The Tennessean, November 13, 1932, 13.

197 Ballroom in Canonburg, Pennsylvania, and the Valencia Ballroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The band also played dance dates in multi-use venues in some smaller cities such as the

Hendersonville City Gym in North Carolina.38 Christopher Wilkinson has observed that in the

South smaller towns typically booked dances in multi-use venues, especially for black

audiences.39

Unlike the popularity of ballrooms, college dances have been discussed less often in

studies of dance bands. In his book on Jimmie Lunceford, Eddy Determeyer observes that big

bands that played “hot” jazz were popular among college audiences: “The nation’s universities

and colleges were the only havens where undiluted hot dance music still prospered. These

institutions were fast becoming a major factor in the dance band business: the shortage of jobs

stimulated young people to study and to spend more time at school.”40 Newspaper

advertisements document that MKCP played many college dances (see Table 5.2). On March 17,

1930, the Reading Times advertised that MKCP had been “selected for nearly all the largest

college dances in the East and Middle West. Everybody goes wild over them.”41 In March 1931,

the Defender emphasized MKCP’s popularity at college dances: “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers is

38 Asheville Citizen-Times, July 14, 1933, 8.

39 Christopher Wilkinson, Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia (1930–1942), American Made Music (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 170. Additionally, Hennessey has observed that dance dates in improvised venues in the South could be dangerous: “In the Southeast, dances often took place in tobacco barns and other improvised locations. Many permanent clubs and juke joints were fire traps.” (Hennessey, 129).

40 Eddy Determeyer, Rhythm Is Our Business: Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 44. Determeyer’s mention of “undiluted hot dance music” is problematic within my discussion of jazz-inflected dance band music, but his observation of the popularity of jazz-inflected dance bands at college dances is still relevant.

41 Reading Times, March 17, 1930, 11.

198 the most popular collegiate band from coast to coast. They have played proms in practically all the leading universities in the ‘Big Ten’ as well as in the East, including Cornell.”42

Table 5.2: MKCP Selected College Dance Date Announcements Newspaper Event type Indianapolis Star, March 20, 1930 Indiana University Prom Ithaca Journal, November 11, 1930 Dartmouth Hop Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 23, 1931 Intercollegiate Dance Detroit Free Press December 22, 1933 University of Detroit Ball

One practice occasionally heard at both ballroom dates and college dances was the alternation of sets by a white band and a black band. Hennessey explains that in this type of dance format each band dispensed a “distinct musical style.”43 MKCP occasionally performed in alternation with white bands. For example, at the February 1930 Ithaca Junior Prom, the band alternated sets with Mal Hallet’s band, a white dance band.44 Later that year they alternated sets with Dick Coy at the Dartmouth Hop.45

Another venue that commonly booked touring dance orchestras was movie theatres.

James Kraft observes that even during the silent era, the house orchestra had to do more than simply accompany the film. Movie houses featured a variety of entertainment for audiences, alternating live music, vaudeville acts like comics or dancers, and a set of popular tunes played by the movie theatre orchestra between films.46 Preston Hubbard observes: “During the 1920s live musical performances at first-run theaters became an exceedingly important aspect of the

42 Chicago Defender, March 7, 1931, I/5.

43 Hennessey, 133.

44 Ithaca Journal, February 4, 1930, 5.

45 Ithaca Journal, November 11, 1930, 5.

46 James P. Kraft, “The ‘Pit’ Musicians: Mechanization in the Movie Theaters, 1926–1934,” Labor History 35 (1994): 72.

199 American cinema. It almost became a case of the tail wagging the dog.”47 Although the advent of sound films slowly pushed movie theatre orchestras out of work, larger movie houses still hired live entertainment to alternate with films.

Like ballrooms and dance halls, movie theaters that featured live music hired national acts in the 1930s. In the 1920s movie theatres had often hired local bands in residence to provide entertainment between and after sound films. By the turn of the decade, however, movie theaters started hiring more traveling bands than house bands “that could play a week or two and then move on.”48 Hennessey explains that the famous movie house on Chicago’s south side, The

Regal, was originally “supplementing films with stage shows and its house orchestra led by Fess

Williams or Dave Peyton.” But by 1931 “jazz bands with national reputations such as

McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the orchestras of Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Fess Williams, and

Lucky Millinder dominated the Regal bills . . . . This trend was national.”49 Performers during the 1920s recalled playing movie theatres between and after features. For example, Kansas City musician Ernie Williams remembered that “when the pictures come on this house band would sit down and play the pictures, and the show band [TOBA band] would play the show

47 Preston Hubbard, “Synchronized Sound and Movie-House Musicians, 1926–29,” American Music 3 (1985): 429.

48 Hennessey, 128.

49 Ibid.

200 [afterward].”50 Additionally, in his autobiography Jazz from the Beginning, Garvin Bushell remembers playing after movie features in TOBA theatres while on the road with Ethel Waters.51

MKCP also played at independently owned movie theatres and toured movie theatre chains. They also played the Lando Theater in Pittsburgh in April 193052 and the Regal Theater in Chicago at the beginning of 1931.53 In March 1931 the theater chain Publix booked MKCP for a tour. Because this was the first time that Publix had booked a black band, the black press took notice. The Defender mentioned the tour twice that month. Walter Barnes wrote: “McKinney’s

Cotton Pickers, manned by William McKinney, moved into the Michigan theater, Detroit, last week for a seven-day stand. This marks the first time that Publix has placed a Race band in this spot. The management of the theater has painted the town red with pluggers for the band, even selling McKinney’s records in the lobby of the de luxe [sic] house.”54 Later that month, the

50 Ernie Williams, interview with Nathan W. Pearson, quoted in Pearson, Goin’ to Kansas City (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 15. The bracketed phrases are Pearson’s notes. The TOBA (Theater Owners’ Booking Association) was a management system to organize tours of African American vaudeville troups across the country. Thomas Riis and Howard Rye describe the organization as “an organization formed in January 1921 by two white theater owners based in Tennessee—Milton B. Starr of Nashville and Sam Revin of Chattanooga—in order to manage vaudeville bookings for African-American performers efficiently.” Many jazz musicians and African American entertainers worked tours on the TOBA circuit in their careers in the 1920s. (Thomas Riis and Howard Rye, “Theater Owners’ Booking Association,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 29, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000445700).

51 Garvin Bushell and Mark Tucker, Jazz from the Beginning (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 36.

52 Pittsburgh Courier, April 5, 1930, 19.

53 Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1931, 12. Additionally, Clovis Semmes has written about the elaborate and extensive facilities in the Regal theater on Chicago’s south side. (Clovis E. Semmes, “Charitable Collaborations in Bronzeville, 1928–1944,” Journal of Urban History 37 [2011]: 975–991).

54 Walter Barnes, “Orchestral Doings,” Chicago Defender, March 7, 1931, I/5.

201 newspaper announced, “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers went Publix again last week, opening at the

Paramount Theater, Toledo, Ohio.”55 The Call also mentioned the tour in April.56

MKCP also participated in major events for particular cities. For example, MKCP played the Madrid Ballroom in Louisville for the Kentucky “Derby eve” in 1930.57 The band also played a “Speedway Ball” in Indianapolis in the same month, likely related to the Indianapolis

Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 race.58

Touring benefits

Despite the multitude of challenges that might have discouraged performers from traveling with a regional band, many musicians recalled enjoying their time on the road. Riis observes that for performers in TOBA shows in the 1920s, “rugged conditions, segregation in public facilities, harassment, and low salaries failed to stop determined young performers.”59

Berish argues that although performers faced the discomfort of displacement while traveling, this line of work gave them new opportunities:

Performing so frequently and in so many different places these musicians had an unusually intensive taste of the power of musical performance to forge new relationships. Those who completely adopted the dance band lifestyle also experienced the new mobility of the era made possible by new roads and the explosive growth of the automobile industry. The increasing geographic spread of the country, along with large- scale internal migration and urbanization, made ideas of “place” particularly important during these decades. And because the very structure of the dance band industry necessitated intense and almost constant movement, musicians were at the vanguard of this historical experience. Here the freedom of the road and the self-inventing power of

55 Chicago Defender, March 28, 1931, I/5.

56 The Call, April 24, 1931, n.p.

57 Courier-Journal, May 12, 1930, 5.

58 Indianapolis Star, May 25, 1930, 63. The first Indianapolis 500 race took place in May 1911.

59 Riis, 243.

202 music combined to offer a unique experience of the promises of American modernization.60

While on the road with Ethel Waters, Bushell reminisced that despite poor accommodations for the band, “conditions of traveling didn’t bother us too much . . . . being young, we didn’t care.

We were having a ball on the road.”61 Jackson recalled that when touring with MKCP, his age helped him to ignore these problems. He explained: “you’re young then. You don’t think about those things.”62 Some of the reasons touring bands might have been attractive work for musicians included the opportunity to make money, to improve as performers, to learn from other seasoned musicians, and to become part of the national music scene.

Many black musicians wanted to work in regional bands because they tended to provide relatively lucrative work. Berish explains, “Many musicians, black and white, gained cultural and financial advantages from this travel.”63 This work was one of the few lucrative employment options for the members of the black community, as many career paths were closed to African

Americans in the 1920s and ’30s. Lawrence Schenbeck explains, “Dance-band work was particularly attractive to working-class black men, who might otherwise have had to push a broom somewhere at a much lower wage, given the economic constraints imposed by racism.”64

Cheatham recalled, “Being a musician in a dance band was one of the best paid jobs for blacks at

60 Berish, 6.

61 Bushell, 36.

62 Jackson, interview

63 Berish, 41.

64 Lawrence Schenbeck, “Music, Gender, and ‘Uplift’ in the Chicago Defender, 1927–1937,” The Musical Quarterly 81 (1997): 203.

203 the time.” He remembered regularly earning enough extra money to send home to his parents.65

Likewise, Stewart recalled that musicians “welcomed these road trips, because we were paid even more money on the road.”66

Regional touring bands like MKCP also served as a sort of school, training ground, or rite of passage for young musicians. John Wriggle explains that musicians “have repeatedly referenced territory bands’ legacies as a technical training environments, models of musical entertainment and achievement, or embodiments of professional success.”67 This training led some musicians to earn a spot in the most prestigious black bands of the early 1930s, the

Ellington and Calloway bands.68 Cheatham recalled that the reason he returned to the United

States from Europe the day of the stock market crash, and the reason he left his first regional touring band engagement that he had when he returned, was because he knew that he wanted to play with MKCP:

CHEATHAM. We did one-night stands all over everywhere, Iowa and Chicago, jumping out of cars and I stayed with that band until I got an offer to go to the Cotton Pickers and that’s where I wanted to be. ALBERTSON. Now that must’ve been very exciting. CHEATHAM. That was the band I wanted in the first place, that’s one reason I came back, I wanted to see if I could get with that band. ALBERTSON. Now did you replace Langston Curl in the Cotton Picker’s band? CHEATHAM. Yes. I replaced Curl. And Bennie Carter and I went at the same time. ALBERTSON. Now Bennie Carter was the leader of the band?

65 Cheatham, interview.

66 Stewart, 24.

67 John Wriggle, “Chappie Willet, Frank Fairfax, and Phil Edwards’ Collegians: From West Virginia to Philadelphia,” Black Music Research Journal 27 (2007): 17.

68 Booking agencies and venues used a rating system to rate dance bands that extended from major national bands, followed by AAA bands down to A bands. Musicians always hoped to work with the best rated bands. Hennessey explains that by the 1930s the rating system included the “major leagues,” or national bands like Armstrong, MKCP, Lunceford, and Basie, and AAA included bands like Moten, Les Hite, and Zach Whyte. (Hennessey, 135.)

204 CHEATHAM. He was the leader, he replaced Don Redman at the same time I replaced Curl.69

Cheatham recalled wanting to join MKCP for musical reasons: “I came back to the states because I was listening to recordings of the Cotton Pickers band and I fell in love with that band while I was in Europe. . . . I felt as though I needed improvement.”70 Other musicians were also eager to join MKCP during this time. Saxophonist Benny Carter left Chick Webb’s band to join

MKCP.71 Trombonist and singer Quentin Jackson was also eager for the opportunity to play with

MKCP because he wanted to learn from Redman. He knew the band’s reputation and had fond memories of his time learning from such band members as bandleader Don Redman and trumpeter Rex Stewart:

It was a great experience and I learned a lot from Edward Cuffee, too. . . . I used to practice with him and I learned a lot from Mr. Redman because Mr. Redman knew every instrument in the band and if you didn’t know, he would take your horn and show you. He could. You know, he knew just how to write because he knew how every position on the trombone, how it laid, trumpet, alto saxophone, and all that. I’ve seen him take a saxophone player’s horns and they have a tough passage and he would watch them finger it and he would tell them no. He said, “You finger it this way,” you know, and it would be a faster way of fingering, an easier way. I’ve seen him do that, you know. And that’s when I started playing the second trombone and I started to really learn how to play low notes, and I love low notes, you know. And I learned a lot from Mr. Redman to that extent, you see. He was like a teacher.

These recollections document that despite the challenges that came with travelling, musicians were also eager to join touring dance bands because they brought lucrative work and opportunities to learn the craft of playing in a jazz-inflected dance band.

69 Cheatham, interview.

70 Ibid.

71 Berger and Carter, 107–8.

205 California trip and decline

Although most of the band’s activity occurred in the Midwest, MKCP toured the West

Coast in 1931. The band stopped in Kansas City both traveling to and returning from

engagements in California. The band also stopped in Utah and St. Louis on the return trip. In

addition to a six-week stay at Sebastian’s Cotton Club in Culver City, California, the band also

played promotional radio dates and Stanford University’s prom. On the return trip through

Kansas City, MKCP played a battle of the bands opposite the Bennie Moten Band, a blues-

influenced territory band based in Kansas City that would eventually move to New York City.72

Black newspapers like the Defender covered the band’s West Coast tour. The black press

frequently reported on MKCP’s success on this tour in its entertainment pages (see table 5.3).

Many of these articles praised the band. For example, in the Defender’s “Coast Codgings”

column, Harry Levette claimed that the band “has taken the West by storm. The patrons of this

famous club [Sebastian’s], greatest in the West, are crazy about this mirthful melange of

masterful melody makers.”73

Table 5.3: Press Coverage of MKCP West Coast Tour Newspaper Date Content Kansas City Call April 24, 1931 Review of MKCP Paseo Hall performance on April 16 “McKinney’s Booked for April 18, 31, I/5 “M.C.A. will take the band on a two-weeks Coast Trip,” tour to California, playing both theatrical and Chicago Defender dance engagements.” “The band will replace Les Hites and his recording unit at Sebastian’s Cotton Club at Culver City, where Louis Armstrong held sway for more than a year. Les Hites is planning a tour of the eastern territory. McKinney’s group move in on April 23.”

72 This battle of the bands will serve as an example of the homogenization of the “arranged” big band sound in the conclusion.

73 Harry Levette, “Coast Codgings,” Chicago Defender, May 16, 31, I/5.

206 “Coast Codgings as May 2, 1931, I/5 “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers opened at the doped by Harry Levette,” Sebastian Cotton Club with a bang last Chicago Defender Friday. Mail will reach them at the Dunbar hotel, 41st and Central Ave.” “Coast Codgings as doped May 16, 1931, “Sebastion [sic] Cotton club will for six by Harry Levette,” I/5 weeks be the home of McKinney’s Cotton Chicago Defender Pickers, who has taken the West by storm. The patrons of this famous club, greatest in the West, are crazy about this mirthful melange of masterful melody makers.” “Coast Codgings as doped May 23 1931, I/5 “After making a sensational journey cross- by Harry Levette” country, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers opened Chicago Defender and are now on their fourth week at Sebastian’s Cotton club, Culver City, Calif. “After two more weeks the Cotton pickers unit is bound for some more time for Publix coast theaters, according to Charles V. Horvath, booking manager. William McKinney, business manager, writes the combo is getting its mail at 4025 Central Ave., Los Angeles.” “Coast Codgings as doped May 30 1931, I/5 “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers are making a by Harry Levette,” hit, both at Sebastian’s Cotton club and on the Chicago Defender air.” Oakland Tribune June 7, 1931, 45 Appearing on KLX Wednesday and Thursday, June 10–11 Will play senior prom at Stanford. Odgen Standard- June 14, 1931, 26 Announcement for performance at Roman Examiner (Ogden Utah) Gardens June 17 “Dance Gossip by June 5, 1931 Returning to Kansas City, will play at Paseo E.W.W.” Hall Monday, June 29 Kansas City Call Kansas City Call June 26, 1931 Advertisement for battle of the bands: MKCP vs. Bennie Moten Band St. Louis Star June 20, 1931, 8 Performing June 30 at Forest Park Highlands

MKCP’s tour management caused problems for band morale on its trip to the West

Coast. During the 1930s band management for many touring dance bands became more centralized. Some bands chose to manage their tour schedules themselves, while others hired managers. “As tours became longer, tour stops became more frequent, and bands traveled greater

207 distances, managing a tour schedule in house became more and more difficult.”74 In the early to

mid-1920s, bandleaders had handled booking on their own, but by the end of the decade,

booking ballrooms, theaters, radio, and recording dates necessitated managers.75 This inspired

Irving Mills’s system of booking and the formation of booking companies like Music

Corporation of America (MCA), which managed MKCP’s West Coast tour. Some musicians saw

these booking agencies as beneficial for touring bands. Rex Stewart recalled that they made life

easier for touring musicians: “Gradually, a few booking agents turned up on the scene. Along

with Charlie Shribman, the next big operator was Ed Fishman, who started branching out. . .

. For groups that went on the road in later years with the aid and assistance of Music Corp. of

America, Joe Glaser, and others, life was much simpler than for the Henderson band back in the

twenties.”76

Despite the advantages of hiring a booking agency to manage a tour, these agencies could

also restrict access to venues and business for some performers. Booking managers were

typically white, creating a racial power dynamic between management and black bands during

this period: “Black musicians were competing in an increasingly national marketplace where

white gatekeepers and bureaucrats controlled their access to both black and white audiences.”77

74 Hennessey, 127. Similarly, Rex Stewart recalls mistakes that occasionally occurred while on the road with the Henderson band in the mid 1920s: “For Fletcher and his wife, Leora, these trips were a lot of hard work. Our tours preceded the days of booking agents. Therefore, the Hendersons wrote many letters, sent loads of telegrams, and telephoned all over the eastern seaboard to coordinate the trips and consolidate bookings. Even with all the advance planning, sometimes there would be a goof, such as the time we jumped from Louisville to New York, only to be met by Mrs. Henderson saying, ‘Fletcher, what are you doing here? You’re booked in Lexington tomorrow night.’ So we gassed up immediately, stopped by the bootlegger’s and got some whiskey, and hit the road for Lexington, Kentucky.” (Stewart, 24–25.)

75 Hennessey, 127.

76 Stewart, 25.

77 Hennessey 127.

208 In June 1930 the Defender commented that the consolidation of independent theaters (for both live shows and film) into chains, coupled with the centralization of booking agencies, had put many musicians out of work on the local level: “The merging of theater chains and the desperate plight of independent booking agencies and playhouses were given last week by Variety for the large number of performers who are idle.” The Defender quoted Variety: “Reported hard times among New York vaudeville circles has hit the Negro players harder than it has their ofay brothers and sisters.”78 The Defender’s concern over the centralization of white-owned booking agencies demonstrates that while these new management companies may have made tour organization easier for bandleaders, they also created a racial dynamic that disadvantaged black performers.

MKCP’s contract with MCA reflects this shift toward centralized professional management. No longer under Goldkette management, MKCP booked its 1931 tour to California through MCA. In April 1931 the Defender announced, “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, after a short tour over Publix time and now back in Detroit, will relinquish booking rights as a Jean Goldkette unit to assume with Music Corporation of America.”79 Apparently booking through MCA did not make this tour easier for MKCP, because many band members complained about poor management during this trip. Chilton explains that the booking agent, Pat Moore, used band revenue to bring his own family with him for the tour but refused to give band members a raise and booked the band for more engagements on the tour than members desired. Austin explained to Chilton:

When we left there (Sebastian’s), the band wanted to go home. But by then we had a booker and agent named Pat Moore (who also used to announce our radio programmes).

78 “Hundreds of Performers Seek Bookings in Vain,” Chicago Defender, June 21, 1930, I/5.

79 Chicago Defender, April 18, 1931, I/5.

209 We were tired after the grind at Sebastian’s, but Moore took us to San Francisco for some engagements and then we found out he had us down for a long trip all up the West Coast.80

Quentin Jackson also explained to Chilton that the other manager, Charles Horvath, “became more and more convinced that there was a conspiracy afoot against him.”81 Redman left the band once it returned from the West Coast, and Benny Carter replaced him. Carter, however, subsequently left the following year because “there were too many managers.”82 Thus, management’s poor coordination of MKCP’s tour contributed to the band’s decline.

Touring difficulties

Despite the above mentioned benefits of touring with a regional touring dance orchestra,

African American bands like MKCP had to face many challenges. Racism was a constant threat for African American musicians while on the road. Historians and musicologists have documented incidents of racism that black touring bands experienced during the Jim Crow era.

Hennessey emphasizes the difficulties that discrimination created for black touring musicians, explaining that they “could never be sure when prejudice would deny them a place to eat or sleep in the North” and that they “knew that Jim Crow would always severely limit their access to public accommodations in the South.”83 Although Jim Crow laws made travel difficult in the

South, the North could also pose problems for touring black musicians, as many facilities in the

North were still segregated. In his memoir Garvin Bushell recalls that even in New York City,

80 Cuba Austin, interview with John Chilton, quoted in Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 35.

81 Quentin Jackson, interview with John Chilton, quoted in Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 37.

82 Morroe Berger, Edward Berger, and James Patrick, Benny Carter: A Life in American Music, 2nd ed., Studies in Jazz (Lanham: Scarecrow Press; Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers—the State University of New Jersey, 2001), 1:108.

83 Hennessey, 129.

210 blacks were restricted to balcony seating at all theatres except the Lafayette until 1927.84 Even the Graystone, MKCP’s home ballroom in Detroit, was a whites-only venue in the late 1920s.

Bjorn explains, “Racial segregation pervaded Detroit dancing establishments in the 1920s,” and throughout venues in the city “there were only limited colored nights, so black bands played mostly for white audiences.”85 Venue managers employed a similar practice in southern venues like Nashville’s Hippodrome, which advertised MKCP’s visit on November 14 reserved for whites, and the following night, November 15, for blacks.86

Black performers from the North and South viewed Jim Crow laws differently, as African

Americans who lived in the South were more accustomed to this social code. Doc Cheatham explained that many black musicians from the North disliked touring in the South, but because he was raised in the South, he knew what to expect.87 Likewise, Thomas L. Riis observes that

“doing traveling shows in the South was something to be feared by a non-southerner,” but “even for black southerners familiar with the strictures of Jim Crow, travel in the South was difficult.”88

African American traveling musicians could also face racially motivated violence while on tour. Bushell recalled that “many performers carried pistols because the cops didn’t protect

84 Bushell, 36.

85 Bjorn, 4.

86 Riis explains that white theaters in the South booked a night for black audiences if the act was popular enough. (Thomas L. Riis, “Pink Morton’s Theater, Black Vaudeville, and the TOBA: Recovering the History, 1910– 30,” in New Perspectives on Music: Essays in Honor of Eileen Southern, ed. Eileen Southern, Josephine Wright, and Samuel A. Floyd [Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1992], 232).

87 Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham, interview with Chris Albertson, Jazz Oral History Project, April 1976.

88 Riis, 239.

211 African Americans.”89 MKCP experienced violence while on tour in the South in late 1932. Both

The Call and the Defender reported this incident. The Call explained that while in Shreveport,

Louisiana, “Joseph Moxley, a saxaphonist [sic] with the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, formerly of

Kansas City, Mo., now of Detroit, was beaten here Saturday morning, Nov. 5, by an officer of

the law to whom he said ‘yes’ instead of ‘yes, sir,’ in reply to a question asked him by the

policeman.”90

Discrimination and segregation also affected daily living conditions for black touring

bands. Travel was difficult for all touring bands, but segregation in both the North and South

made touring more difficult for black bands than for their white counterparts. Finding

accommodations for black musicians was a challenge in the 1920s and ’30s. Thomas Riis

observes that accommodations presented a constant problem for black shows traveling the

TOBA circuit:

Finding adequate accommodations in small towns—and even in larger cities—was seldom easy. Two of the more successful theaters on the TOBA southern route, the Douglass (in Macon) and the Belmont (in Pensacola) ran hotels adjacent to the theaters for the benefit of performers and their audiences. Segregated trains and restaurants were a constant source of anxiety and harassment. Athens had no black-owned hotel. While rooming houses might have been found to shelter an occasional comedy team or vocal quartet, housing a cast of a dozen or two would have taxed the resources of even the most ingenious manager. The practical solution for groups that boldly chose to tour the South, especially in towns the size of Athens, would have been to buy and furnish their own railroad cars.91

89 Bushell, 33.

90 The Call, November 18, 1932, 3/B.

91 Riis, 239. Riis’s essay on the Theater Owner’s Booking Association provides a detailed picture of the association’s history, management structure, and touring conditions. I have not found evidence that MKCP worked on the TOBA circuit other than Jackson and Cheatham’s allusion to TOBA dates in the Jazz Oral History Project. Newspaper research shows that MKCP played a tour of the south in to Texas, Nashville, and Louisiana late in 1932. This tour may have included TOBA stops, though the advertisements I have found from Texas and Nashville were not TOBA stops, because they catered to white audiences. TOBA theatres were typically black theatres. Bushell recalls “I never saw a white person in the TOBA theaters.” (Bushell, 35). Nonetheless, the TOBA merits mention in any discussion of touring conditions for black musicians in the 1920s and 1930s. Conditions on this circuit were

212

When black musicians could not find accommodations while on tour, they had to accept improvised housing or go without. Bushell recalls how he and other musicians improvised accommodations while on tour:

If you had to walk the streets all night or sleep in a church, you did it. Sometimes we couldn’t get a room and we’d have to call up the black preacher. He’d say, “Well, you can sleep over in the church. I’ll send the janitor down and he’ll open it up. You can sleep on benches there until you get ready when your train comes in.”

We also stayed in black hotels and in people’s houses. In Dayton we stayed in a rooming house, I remember. Or they’d have a family picked out.

Accomodations in Negro neighborhoods could be lousy—with bad food and a lot of bedbugs.92

As MKCP did not have Pullman cars, band members likely had a similar experience while touring in the South and sometimes in the North. Despite the frequent praise MKCP received for their college dance dates, the band likely struggled to find accommodations for these university engagements. Hennessey mentions that for “prom dates,” black musicians had to stay in homes near campus because they could not stay on campus.93

Transportation also created hardships for touring bands. Although the numbered state highway system had been built, the interstate highway system did not yet exist during the years of MKCP and regional touring bands in the late 1920s and early 1930s.94 Rex Stewart, who played with MKCP in the 1930s, remembered poor traveling conditions when he toured with the

notoriously difficult. Ernie Williams, Jackson, and Hinton recalled recasting the acronym as “Tough on Black Asses.” (Williams, interview with Pearson, 15; Jackson, interview with Hinton).

92 Bushell, 36.

93 Hennessey, 132.

94 However, the numbered state highway system had been built by 1930.

213 Henderson band. He recalled traveling “not over superhighways but bad roads. The guys in the band really earned the extra loot. We paid our dues.”95

Newspapers and oral histories report that MKCP sometimes traveled by car and other times by bus. In April 1931 the Kansas City Call announced that the band was traveling to the

West Coast “with 8 cars, including 2 Packards, and an enclosed truck for the instruments.”96

Chilton explains that the band had better transportation in 1930, but for the 1931 trip to the West

Coast it took cars:

Uncomfortable travelling arrangements added to the disgruntlement; in the East the band had been accustomed to comfortable bus travel (or the use of limousines) but for most of the 1931 tour an instrument truck carried the equipment, and three Ford cars were used to transport the personnel, each musician taking a turn at the wheel.97

Band management and touring revenue also influenced the quality of accommodations and transportation while on tour. The Ellington and Calloway orchestras, who were arguably the most popular and well-managed touring black bands of the period, could afford Pullman cars, which were safer and provided both transportation and accommodations for the musicians.98 Doc

Cheatham recalls that he preferred working for the Calloway band over MKCP for this reason.

Traveling with the Calloway orchestra “wasn’t like the Cotton Pickers, or the Alabamians where you were riding busses, a —old raggedy busses, break down every few miles. Sleeping in the buses, eating cold cuts, being run out of places, being run out of town and all this stuff. With Cab

95 Rex Stewart, Jazz Masters of the Thirties (New York: Macmillan Co., 1972), 25.

96 The Call, April 24, 1931, n.p.

97 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 37.

98 Ellington and Mills were known to be excellent band managers. (The Duke Ellington Reader, ed. Mark Tucker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 140).

214 it was first class all the way. Slept on Pullmans’ side track to sleep.”99 In contrast, Quentin

Jackson recalls traveling by bus with MKCP as an improvement over his previous gig with the

Zach Whyte orchestra: “In Zach’s band we traveled in automobiles and some of those cars if you would see them, you wouldn’t believe. Those cars. I drove the baggage car, a little baggage car.

It was a four-cylinder Dodge. It couldn’t go over 50 miles an hour and I drove it once all the way from Camden, Ohio, to Philadelphia over the mountains.”100

Touring by car was not only difficult and taxing for musicians, but it could also be unsafe. Bands that traveled in caravans of cars with little sleep were at risk for car accidents.101

Hennessey explains, “After the late 1920s, automobile accidents were accepted as an occupational hazard.”102 MKCP endured two fatal car accidents during their tours in the 1930s.

In the fall of 1930, the band’s popular singer George “Fathead” Thomas died in a car accident while trumpeter Joe Smith was driving.103 Chilton explains that although management had chartered a bus for the band, Joe Smith drove Kaiser Marshall’s Buick, and George Thomas rode with him. Chilton reconstructed the incident from conversations with Cuba Austin:

On the final section of his drive from Springfield, Massachusetts to Bridgeport in Connecticut, Joe Smith realized that he was behind schedule and greatly increased his

99 Cheatham, interview with Albertson.

100 Jackson, interview with Hinton.

101 Even bands who traveled in busses were at risk for accidents. Rex Stewart recalled an incident with a bus breakdown while with the Henderson band. “We had given up the caravan of cars and were riding a chartered bus. We got caught in an early spring freeze in the mountains of New Hampshire. The bus was unheated, and we had no overcoats; so we improvised by using newspapers. We’d place a newspaper between the undershirt and shirt, and another layer between the shirt and jacket. It kept us warm, but when the bus broke down climbing a mountain, we had to get out and push. Unaccustomed as we were to exercise, it was a real backbreaker pushing that bus up the mountain. To climax the situation, the top of the mountain was covered with ice, and hot as we had become pushing the bus up, we cooled off with fright as the bus slithered down the other side of the mountain. (Luckily, the bus was unharmed, and we were soon off and away again.)” (Stewart, 25).

102 Hennessey, 129.

103 The Call, April 24, 1931, n.p.

215 speed. He further accelerated near a railway crossing to avoid being delayed by the crossing’s gates. As he did so, the automobile went out of control—with fatal consequences, for in the resultant accident George Thomas was critically injured.104

MKCP had another fatal accident two years later. On October 21, 1932, the Kansas City

Call announced, “Crowd Hears McKinney’s Band, Unaware of Tragedy” and reported that although band member William Kinsey had died in an accident on the band’s trip to Kansas City, the band still “came through in typical ‘on with the show’ style.”105 The Defender also wrote about this accident: “William Kinsey, singer and member of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers dance orchestra, was instantly killed here Monday morning when the instrument truck collided with a car. James Peters, another member, received minor cuts and bruises.”106

The increased frequency of tour dates also made touring difficult and affected band morale. By 1930 bands began changing cities more often and traveling longer distances.

Hennessey observes, “As the jumps between towns became longer, the musicians found themselves living totally on the road, eating and sleeping in their buses or cars for weeks at a time. This was particularly true for black bands.”107 Oral histories from MKCP band members and other contemporary musicians document this. For example, Kansas City musician Ernie

Williams reflected that longer engagements of a week or more were easier for musicians than one-nighters: “When you’re doing one nighters [it’s] bad, . . . hard [on the] soul, too. . . . But

104 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 32.

105 The Call, October 21, 1932, n.p.

106 The Chicago Defender, November 5, 1932, I/5.

107 Hennessey, 129.

216 when you stay weeks you have a good time.”108 Likewise, MKCP drummer Cuba Austin complained about the number of one-nighters MKCP played in the 1930s:

There isn’t anything that can ruin a band quicker than a booker who keeps jumping it all over the country for one-nighters. You play from nine to three, then hop in a bus and ride. You pull into the next stop around sunset the next day. No time to get a rest in bed, or even to clean up and get the grime off you. You get a hot meal someplace and then it’s back on the stand.109

Life on the road and difficulties of traveling made homesickness and burnout common among these musicians. One understands the quick turnover rate that MKCP and other touring bands experienced by 1932. Berish explains that for many regional band musicians “the relentless travel caused great anxiety, making it difficult for them to sustain personal relationships outside the circle of musicians with whom they spent so much time.”110 For example, communicating with family at home while traveling proved difficult while on tour.

Black touring musicians sometimes notified the Defender of their whereabouts to receive mail while on the road, as Cheatham recalled in his interview with Chris Albertson:

ALBERTSON. And you also, people used to get their mail CHEATHAM. Oh, surely. ALBERTSON. right through—at the Chicago Defender? CHEATHAM. Absolutely, yes.

Some musicians eventually quit touring bands like MKCP because they wanted to be with their family. Benny Carter left in 1932 because of management issues, but he also recalled being tired of the touring schedule and wanting to be home with his wife and daughter.111

108 Williams, interview with Pearson, 15. Pearson’s notes in brackets.

109 Cuba Austin, interview with John Chilton, quoted in Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 37.

110 Andrew Seth Berish, “Swinging Transcontinental: Modernity, Race, and Place in American Dance Band Music, 1930 to 1946” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2005), 41.

111 Berger and Carter, 108.

217 The centralization of MKCP management through MCA provided opportunities for the band managers to withhold, to deny, or to shortchange musicians. Thus, timely payment or receipt of payment was also a source of anxiety and instability for touring musicians. MKCP musicians who spoke about the band’s ill-fated tour in 1931 and permanent breakup in 1933 cite a combination of too much touring and delayed or denied payment as the reasons for disbanding.

Redman recalled that on the band’s trip to California, “The boys wanted a raise, because their name was a big attraction then, but they were turned down. On that trip to the Coast, the management brought the announcer from Detroit and his whole family and a couple of other guys and their families along on vacation, paid for with the Cotton Picker’s money. The guys in the band couldn’t get a five dollar raise.”112 Additionally, Cheatham recalled that at one point

(probably in late 1931 or early 1932), management had not paid the band so one band member took drastic measures to recoup back payment:

The bass player was the first to leave, so he took all—somehow or other he got hold to the music. He took all the music and hid it. So we didn’t have anything—we could’ve faked, but McKinney wanted his music. That was why the band broke up and this bass player kept the music and called Mac and says Mac you want your music you got to pay me what you owe me . . .

And Mac sent him the money so he told him the music right up in my attic so you go get it. She says, I’m gone. So he left. And that’s when the band broke up. Bennie left and I left.113

112 Don Redman, interview with Frank Driggs, in The Jazz Review, November 1959, quoted in Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 35.

113 Cheatham, interview.

218 In May 1932 the Pittsburgh Courier announced that a warrant had been issued against bassist

William Taylor114 for stealing the entire MKCP book.115

MKCP’s decline

After the difficult and poorly managed California tour in spring 1931, the band

experienced a high turnover rate from the summer of 1931 through 1933. Redman left in summer

1931 and took several of the key members with him to form his own band in New York. Chilton

explains that Ed Inge (reeds), Langston Curl (trumpet), Buddy Lee (trumpet), and Ed Cuffee

(trombone) left with Redman during the remainder of 1931.116 McKinney got cornetist Rex

Stewart, trumpeter “Doc” Cheatham, saxophonist Elmer Williams, and Benny Carter as

saxophonist, arranger, and Redman’s replacement, and also convinced trumpeter Joe Smith to

return to the band after a hiatus.117 These personnel appeared on the last few MKCP recording

sessions in 1931. However, in 1932, after the end of the band’s recording contract and a

continuously difficult touring schedule, Carter, Stewart, Cheatham, and trombonist-singer

Quentin Jackson left in 1932.118 Trumpeter Roy Eldridge and his brother, saxophonist Joe

Eldridge joined the band for a short time in 1933.119

That summer after complaints of poor management, a difficult touring schedule, and

delayed or withheld payments, the band got rid of William McKinney as bandleader and

114 This refers to the bassist Billy Taylor. Jackson recalled his excellent musicianship having a good relationship with him. (Jackson, interview).

115 Pittsburgh Courier, May 28, 1932, 16.

116 Chilton, McKinney’s Music, 38-39.

117 Ibid., 38-40.

118 Ibid., 51.

119 Ibid.

219 continued to book dates as the “Original Cotton Pickers” under drummer Cuba Austin’s leadership.120 McKinney, however, formed a group of Detroit locals under the “McKinney’s

Cotton Pickers” name and contracted his new band for a regular engagement at Detroit’s Club

Maxine. From early 1934, newspaper announcements of conflicting MKCP engagement dates demonstrate that multiple groups of former MKCP members were all performing under the same name. For example, on January 10, 1934, the Detroit Free Press published an advertisement for the new Club Maxine, which presented a nightly variety show as well as McKinney’s Cotton

Pickers “under personal direction of Wm. McKinney.”121 A review of this new show, published two days later in the same newspaper, claimed “the new policy is to present a complete dinner show nightly,” supporting Chilton’s explanation that McKinney and some musicians using the name were in residency at the club.122 However, on January 9, the Indianapolis Star had published an ad announcing MKCP’s upcoming residency at the Indiana Roof Ballroom beginning January 12. Both newspapers continued to publish conflicting advertisements throughout January suggesting that both McKinney bands performed simultaneously. Thus, the various “McKinney’s Cotton Pickers” and variants of the name become too complicated to track after the end of 1933, and cannot answer the questions regarding where the band toured, how frequently it toured, conditions for band members, or audience reception.

MKCP was not the only regional touring dance orchestra to fall apart in the early 1930s.

The Depression’s effect on the recording industry and live performance fees proved to be insurmountable challenges for many black orchestras in this decade, even for those who had

120 Chilton, 51.

121 Detroit Free Press, January 10, 1934, 17.

122 Detroit Free Press, January 12, 1934, 17.

220 success prior to the Depression. Andrew Berish explains that Edward’s Collegians “could not overcome the economic pressures of the Depression—orchestras led by Benny Carter, and even veteran Fletcher Henderson, had also disbanded by the close of 1934.”123

Like many dance orchestras and entertainers, MKCP’s prospects as a nationally recognized radio broadcasting and recording band were dashed due to the stock market crash of

1929 and subsequent Depression. MKCP was rarely broadcasted on WJR after 1930. Because of the Depression’s effect on the recording industry, Victor did not renew MKCP’s recording contract after 1931. Like many dance orchestras of the period, MKCP toured extensively after

1930, shifting its focus to working as a regional touring dance orchestra. This type of travel was made possible by the state numbered highway system built in the previous decade, but the band was unable to weather the challenges of traveling on the road, poor management, the economic

Depression, and its lack of national visibility it had previously enjoyed through radio and recording.

123 Andrew Berish, “‘I Dream of Her and Avalon’: 1930s Sweet Jazz, Race, and Nostalgia at the Casino Ballroom.” Journal of the Society for American Music 2, (2008): 18.

221

Conclusion: Towards a New Historiography of the Swing Era

Although MKCP did not survive the economic challenges of the Depression and the

rigorous touring schedules of the 1930s, it had a lasting influence on the best known bands of the

Swing Era. The popularity of the band on radio, its contract with Victor, and its busy touring

schedule in the early 1930s solidified its influence on the arrangers and big bands that rose to

prominence later in the decade. More broadly, MKCP provides an example of how the popularity

of dance orchestras on the radio in the 1920s and ’30s, the emergence of race records during the

1920s, and the increased touring of dance bands after 1930 contributed to the blending of

regional styles into a more uniform national style, laying the groundwork for the national

popularity of big bands and the “arranged big band sound” in the second half of the 1930s.

Hennessey observes that even as early as 1929 “across the United States ballrooms were looking

for the arranged big band sound”1 that became the dominant style of the Swing Era in the second

half of the 1930s.

One example of the homogenization created by these technological changes was the

competition and cross-influence between MKCP and the Bennie Moten orchestra, a territory

band based in Kansas City. Douglas Daniels and Mark Rice argue that the Moten orchestra took

on a new sound, influenced by other bands they heard, like MKCP, once they began traveling in

the late 1920s. Rice explains that until 1927 the band had been relatively isolated, but as more

black bands began to visit Kansas City on tour in the late 1920s, the Moten orchestra had more

1 Thomas J. Hennessey, From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and Their Music, 1890– 1935, Jazz History, Culture, and Criticism Series (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 135.

222 competition.2 Moten added more band members to play additional arrangements and abandoned

collective improvisation for an arranged sound. Additionally, in 1930 the Moten band toured to

the Northeast and heard the new lindy style in Harlem. After this tour, Moten fired half of the

band’s members and hired new musicians who could learn and emulate this style.3 Daniels

observes that this increased touring activity prepared the Moten band for a battle of the bands

with MKCP in Kansas City. “Moten explained that, before their East Coast tour, the band

members had lacked confidence in their abilities, but after their reception in New York City, they

felt ready to handle a band with a reputation like McKinney’s.”4 He explains that in advertising

for the event, the two bands “were billed as the ‘Greatest Band Battle Yet Staged’ and a ‘Fight to

[the] Finish.’”5 Thus, through touring different parts of the country and exposure to other big

bands through listening and competitions such as this one, dance bands like Moten and MKCP

began to emulate each other and to formulate a national “arranged” style. The technologies of

radio, recording, and the recently built interstate highway system allowed MKCP’s music to

travel long distances beyond the boundaries of the band’s home city of Detroit. These

technologies caused cross influence between dance orchestras and created a major shift in the

national experience for both performers and audiences alike.

In 1927 McKinney and Goldkette had hired Redman to bring the sound he developed

arranging for the Henderson orchestra to Detroit. By leading MKCP through its most successful

2 Marc Rice, “Prelude to Swing: The 1920s Recordings of the Bennie Moten Orchestra,” American Music 25 (2007): 270.

3 Ibid., 271–73.

4 Douglas Henry Daniels, One O’clock Jump: The Unforgettable History of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 142.

5 Ibid.

223 years, Redman had the platform to further influence arrangers of the Swing Era who wrote for

the decade’s best known bands, including those of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Cab

Calloway. Andy Kirk explained in an interview that Redman’s addition of the fourth saxophone

to MKCP’s reed section provided the option to add an additional chord tone:

Back in the 1920s . . . everything was based on triads and dominant chords. Then some bands, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers among them, added a sixth. . . . To get a full sound, they added a fourth sax, not doubling, but filling out the chord. I remember clearly that, when I first heard this change, it actually bothered my ear a little.6

Wriggle explains that this interest in the added sixth scale degree facilitated by the fourth

saxophone was a harbinger of the growing interest in the use of upper extensions by arrangers.7

He also observes Redman’s famous 1931 composition “Chant of the Weed,” recorded soon after

leaving MKCP to form his own band, as an important precedent to Swing-era arranging

techniques found in the work of Chappie Willett, who wrote for Cab Calloway, Gene Krupa, and

Duke Ellington, among others.8

Similar to Wriggle, Mary Lou Williams, who played with Andy Kirk but also wrote for

Benny Goodman’s orchestra in the 1930s, cited Redman as an influence. Ted Buehrer has found

similarities between Williams’s composition “Mary’s Idea” and the MKCP recordings of

“Cotton Picker’s Scat” and “Hullabaloo.” He also observes similarities between Williams’s

6 Andy Kirk, interview in Gene Fernett, Swing Out: Great Negro Dance Bands (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993), 37.

7 John Wriggle, Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 72–73.

8 Ibid., 112–15.

224 “Travelin’ that Rocky Road” and the MKCP recording “Rocky Road.”9 Williams was working in

Kansas City during MKCP’s heyday so it is likely she heard the band on the radio and on record.

Although Benny Carter does not cite Redman as an influence on his work, he still

emphasized the arranger’s importance. He recalled that during the 1920s Redman and Nesbitt

were the “only black arrangers I'd heard of.”10 Berger, Berger, and Patrick explain the

significance of MKCP in the late 1920s recording industry, “We have to remember that there

were only a few big ensembles of black musicians recording for major labels—Henderson,

Ellington and McKinney’s.”11 Thus, it makes sense that through MKCP’s radio broadcasts,

Victor recording contract, and live performances, such a prominent black dance orchestra would

have influenced performers and arrangers who were starting their careers in the 1920s and would

become prominent figures in the Swing era in the following decade.

Additionally, many of the musicians who played with MKCP went on to join the

prominent black big bands of the Swing Era, taking with them the sounds they had developed

during their time together with MKCP. Redman and Carter went on to lead their own bands and

write for prominent bands of the Swing Era. Redman wrote arrangements for Jimmy Dorsey and

Count Basie.12 After disbanding his own group, Carter went on to work as a staff arranger for the

9 Mary Lou Williams, Selected Works for Big Band, ed. Theodore E. (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2013), xxii-xxiv.

10 Morroe Berger, Edward Berger, and James Patrick, Benny Carter: A Life in American Music, 2nd ed., Studies in Jazz (Lanham: Scarecrow Press; Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers—the State University of New Jersey, 2001), 1:74.

11 Ibid.

12 John L. Clark, “Redman, Don(ald Matthew),” Grove Music Online, accessed June 30, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-1002257932.

225 BBC dance orchestra in 1936–38 and found success in England and continental Europe.13 Rex

Stewart went on to become one of the famous members the Ellington orchestra. “Doc” Cheatham

had success with Cab Calloway’s orchestra in the 1930s. Claude Jones left MKCP to join the

Henderson orchestra, and subsequently also worked in the Calloway orchestra during the 1930s.

Quentin Jackson worked worked with Calloway in the 1930s, as well, and eventually became a

member of Ellington’s orchestra. Tracing the careers of MKCP’s musicians demonstrates that

the band served as an effective training ground for musicians who went on to play influential

roles in the sound of the Swing Era.

This study has demonstrated that MKCP found success in the late 1920s through its

residency at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom under Jean Goldkette, WJR radio broadcasts, and a

recording contract with Victor. MKCP’s status and function shifted during its existence. It

started as a regional broadcasting dance band, and quickly gained status as a nationally

recognized dance orchestra and Victor recording artist. However, the band left Goldkette

management, curtailed its radio presence, and also lost its recording contract with Victor in the

early 1930s. Like many bands during this period, MKCP shifted its focus to working as a

regional touring dance orchestra during the early depression, and the rigorous touring schedule,

lack of media visibility, and poor management led to the band’s end by 1934.

MKCP has been discussed less than its contemporaries, the Ellington, Henderson, and

Calloway Orchestras, but adding this band to the narrative demonstrates a cross influence

between bands, musicians, and arrangers that contributed to the style of the Swing Era.

13 Edward Berger, “Carter, Benny,” Grove Music Online, accessed June 30, 2018, http:////www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo- 9781561592630-e-2000076600.

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Schenbeck, Lawrence. “Music, Gender, and ‘Uplift’ in the Chicago Defender, 1927–1937.” The Musical Quarterly 81 (1997): 344–70.

Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

———. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Semmes, Clovis E. “Charitable Collaborations in Bronzeville, 1928–1944.” Journal of Urban History 37 (2011): 975–91.

Sengstock, Charles A. That Toddlin’ Town: Chicago's White Dance Bands and Orchestras, 1900–1950. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

Simmons, Charles A. The African American Press: A History of News Coverage during National Crises, with Special Reference to Four Black Newspapers, 1827–1965. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1998.

Smulyan, Susan. Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting 1920–1934. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.

232 Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

Stewart, Rex. Jazz Masters of the Thirties. New York: Macmillan Co., 1972.

Sudhalter, Richard M., and Philip R. Evans. Bix: Man & Legend. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1974.

Suisman, David. Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Sutton, Allan. Recording the ’Twenties: The Evolution of the American Recording Industry, 1920–29. Littleton, CO: Mainspring Press, 2008.

Thompson, Emily. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

Tomlinson, Gary. “Cultural Dialogics and Jazz: A White Historian Signifies.” Black Music Research Journal 22 (2002): 71–105.

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Treitler, Leo. “The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present.” In Rethinking Music, edited by Nicholas John Cook, 356–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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Tucker, Sherrie. “Deconstructing the Jazz Tradition: The ‘Subjectless Subject’ of New Jazz Studies.” In Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and Its Boundaries, edited by David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett and Daniel Goldmark, 264–84. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

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Wells, Christopher. “‘Go Harlem!’ Chick Webb and His Dancing Audience During the Great Depression.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 2014.

Wilkinson, Christopher. Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia (1930–1942). American Made Music. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012.

Wriggle, John. Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.

———. “Chappie Willet, Frank Fairfax, and Phil Edwards’ Collegians: From West Virginia to Philadelphia.” Black Music Research Journal 27 (2007): 1–22.

233 RECORDINGS

Aquino, Frank, and Jimmie Green. Come a Little Closer. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 23035. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Coots, J. Fred, and Tot Seymour. I Miss a Little Miss. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 23024. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Donaldson, Walter. You’re Driving Me Crazy. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 23031. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Ellington, Edward Kennedy “Duke.” East St. Louis Toodle-O. Recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Brunswick E21872. 78 RPM disc. 1927.

Grey, Joe, and Arthur Gibbs. Rocky Road. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 22932. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Meyer, George W., and Sidney D. Mitchell. To Whom It May Concern. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 23035. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Nesbitt, John. Neckbones and Saurkraut (alternate title ‘Stop Kidding’). Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. RCA B & W 741 808. 78 RPM disc. 1928.

Nesbitt, John, and Donald Redman. Miss Hannah. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 38102. 78 RPM disc. 1929.

Pinkard, Maceo, and William Tracey. Okay Baby. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 23000. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Razaf, Andy, and Thomas “Fats” Waller. Honey Suckle Rose. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor 58546. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

Stanton, Charles, and Donald Redman. Blues Sure Have Got Me. Recorded by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. Victor Vi 40-0116. 78 RPM disc. 1930.

St. James Infirmary. Recorded by the Cab Calloway and his Orchestra. JSP Records 328. LP. 1930.

234

Appendix A Items of relevance in the Detroit Free Press, 1927–35 MKCP radio broadcasts, MKCP write ups and advertisements, other miscellaneous items All radio broadcasts on WJR unless noted otherwise All radio broadcasts are of MKCP unless noted otherwise

Date Page Time Details Thursday, September 15, 1927 15 10:00 PM “Opening of the Season at the Graystone Ballroom” Friday, September 23, 1927 8 11:00 PM Shared bill with Blue Room orchestra at Book-Cadillac Saturday, September 24, 1927 11 9:00 PM Wednesday, September 28, 1927 5 11:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, September 29, 1927 15 12:00 AM from the Graystone Saturday, October 1, 1927 13 9:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, October 6, 1927 17 11:00 PM from the Graystone

Saturday, October 8, 1927 13 10:15 PM from the Graystone

Thursday, October 13, 1927 15 10:15 PM from the Graystone 235 Saturday, October 15, 1927 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, October 20, 1927 17 10:15 PM from the Graystone Saturday, October 22, 1927 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Monday, October 24, 1927 13 9:00 PM Thursday, October 27, 1927 17 10:15 PM Saturday, October 29, 1927 13 10:15 PM Saturday, November 5, 1927 13 10:15 PM from the Graystone Monday, November 7, 1927 13 9:30 PM Friday, November 11, 1927 12 10:00 PM Monday, November 14, 1927 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, November 12, 1927 11 10:15 PM Wednesday, November 16, 1927 14 10:00 PM Part of a Variety Program Thursday, November 17, 1927 15 11:00 PM Shared Bill with Blue Room Orchestra

Friday, November 18, 1927 9 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, November 19, 1927 13 10:30 PM Wednesday, November 23, 1927 15 10:30 PM Thursday, November 24, 1927 11 11:30 PM Saturday, November 26, 1927 11 10:30 PM Wednesday, November 30, 1927 15 10:30 PM Thursday, December 1, 1927 16 11:30 PM Friday, December 2, 1927 28 10:15 PM Saturday, December 3, 1927 13 10:30 PM Monday, December 5, 1927 13 10:30 PM Thursday, December 8, 1927 15 11:30 PM Friday, December 9, 1927 13 10:00 PM, 10:15 PM Saturday, December 10, 1927 13 10:30 PM

Thursday, December 15, 1927 15 11:30 PM 236 Friday, December 16, 1927 15 10:00 PM Saturday, December 17, 1927 13 10:00 PM Thursday, December 22, 1927 12 11:30 PM Friday, December 23, 1927 13 10:00 PM Saturday, December 24, 1927 11 10:00 PM Thursday, December 29, 1927 13 11:30 PM Friday, December 30, 1927 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, December 31, 1927 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, January 5, 1928 18 11:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, January 6, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 7, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Monday, January 9, 1928 11 11:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, January 12, 1928 15 11:00 PM Shared Bill with Goldkette, from the Graystone

Friday, January 13, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 14, 1928 11 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, January 19, 1928 13 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 21, 1928 13 10:00 PM and Soloists from the Graystone Saturday, January 28, 1928 11 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, February 2, 1928 15 11:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, February 3, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, February 4, 1928 11 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, February 9, 1928 15 11:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, February 10, 1928 13 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, February 11, 1928 11 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, February 16, 1928 15 11:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, February 17, 1928 13 10:30 PM from the Graystone

Saturday, February 18, 1928 11 10:00 PM, from the Graystone 10:15 PM 237 Thursday, February 23, 1928 13 11:00 PM “Musical Program featuring Negro History Month Presented by the Thinkers Club and the Bertha Hansbury School of Music” Saturday, February 25, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, March 1, 1928 13 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, March 3 , 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, March 8, 1928 13 11:30 PM McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (NY) Saturday, March 10, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, March 15, 1928 13 11:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, March 16, 1928 13 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, March 17, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, March 22, 1928 13 8:00 PM Willeray’s Chocolate Soldiers Friday, March 23, 1928 15 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, March 24, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone

Wednesday, March 28, 1928 10 10:30 PM from Goldkette’s Graystone Ballroom Thursday, March 29, 1928 11 10:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, March 30, 1928 15 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, March 31, 1928 15 10:00 PM, “from the Graystone” 11:30 PM Wednesday, April 4, 1928 17 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, April 7, 1928 13 10:00 PM, from the Graystone 11:30 PM Wednesday, April 11, 1928 0:00 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, April 12, 1928 15 8:00 PM Willeray Chocolate Soldiers Friday, April 13 1928 15 10:00 PM, from the Graystone 11:30 PM Saturday, April 14, 1928 10:00 PM, from the Graystone 11:30 PM

Friday, April 20, 1928 13 11:30 PM from the Graystone Ballroom Saturday, April 21, 1928 13 10:00 PM, from the Graystone 238 11:30 PM Tuesday, April 24, 1928 17 9:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, April 25, 1928 17 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, April 27, 1928 10 10:30 PM, from the Graystone 11:30 PM Saturday, April 28, 1928 13 10:00 PM, 11:30 from the Graystone PM Thursday, May 3, 1928 15 10:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, May 10, 1928 15 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, May 12, 1928 13 9:00 PM from the Graystone Sunday, July 8, 1928 4 “Ad Men Gather for Conclave” MKCP playing moonlight dancing party on a boat Sunday, October 21, 1928 16 “Cotton Pickers, Home from Trip, Will Greet Fans” Friday, October 26, 1928 17 11:30 PM

Saturday, October 27, 1928 13 9:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, November 1, 1928 17 10:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, November 2, 1928 13 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 7, 1928 19 11:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, November 8, 1928 17 10:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, November 9, 1928 17 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 14, 1928 21 11:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, November 15, 1928 19 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, November 16, 1928 14 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 21, 1928 23 11:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, November 22, 1928 15 11:15 PM from the Graystone Friday, November 23, 1928 17 11:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, November 29, 1928 17 10:00 PM from the Graystone

Friday, November 30, 1928 13 9:30 PM from the Graystone

Saturday, December 1, 1928 8 10:00 PM from the Graystone 239 Thursday, December 6, 1928 10 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, December 7, 1928 11 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, December 8, 1928 12 10:00 PM from the Graystone Monday, December 10, 1928 9 10:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, December 13, 1928 13 10:00 PM from the Graystone Saturday, December 15, 1928 11 10:30 PM from the Graystone Monday, December 17, 1928 12 10:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, December 20, 1928 14 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, December 21, 1928 12 10:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, December 22, 1928 5 10:00 PM from the Graystone Tuesday, December 25, 1928 4 11:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, December 27, 1928 8 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, December 28, 1928 5 12:00 PM from the Graystone

Saturday, December 29, 1928 5 10:00 PM from the Graystone Monday, December 31, 1928 7 10:00 PM from the Graystone Tuesday, January 1, 1929 18 12:00 AM from the Graystone Thursday, January 3, 1929 10 12:00 AM from the Graystone Friday, January 4, 1929 8 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 5, 1929 9 12:00 AM from the Graystone Sunday, January 6, 1929 13 “Builds New Studio at Graystone,” NAC and Goldkette build new studio at Graystone Monday, January 7, 1929 9 12:00 AM Tuesday, January 8, 1929 10 12:00 AM Thursday, January 10, 1929 4 12:00 AM Friday, January 11, 1929 13 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 12, 1929 4 12:00 AM from the Graystone Monday, January 14, 1929 8 12:00 AM from the Graystone

Tuesday, January 15, 1929 8 12:00 AM from the Graystone 240 Wednesday, January 16, 1929 24 12:30 AM from the Graystone Thursday, January 17, 1929 11 12:00 AM from the Graystone Friday, January 18, 1929 4 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 19, 1929 12 11:00 PM from the Graystone Monday, January 21, 1929 8 11:30 PM from the Graystone Tuesday, January 22, 1929 15 12:00 AM from the Graystone Wednesday, January 23, 1929 4 12:30 AM from the Graystone Thursday, January 24, 1929 11 12:00 AM from the Graystone Friday, January 25, 1929 16 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, January 26, 1929 4 12:00 AM from the Graystone Monday, January 28, 1929 13 11:30 PM from the Graystone Tuesday, January 29, 1929 17 12:00 AM from the Graystone Wednesday, January 30, 1929 9 12:00 AM from the Graystone

Thursday, January 31, 1929 4 12:00 AM from the Graystone Friday, February 1, 1929 8 11:30 PM from the Graystone Saturday, February 2, 1929 12 12:00 AM from the Graystone Saturday, June 8, 1929 9 9:30 AM on WAFD Sunday, June 9, 1929 12 8:30 PM on WAFD Thursday, June 13, 1929 9 9:00 AM on WAFD Sunday, June 16, 1929 12 11:30 PM on WAFD Saturday, June 22, 1929 4 9:30 AM on WAFD Wednesday, July 10, 1929 4 11:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, July 12, 1929 8 Ad for “Sanders Chocolate Soldiers on WJR” Wednesday, July 17, 1929 15 12:00PM on WAFD Saturday, July 20, 1929 7 9:30AM on WAFD Monday, July 22, 1929 8 9:30AM Duke Ellington

Saturday, July 27, 1929 9 9:30AM

Wednesday, July 31, 1929 8 12:00PM on WAFD 241 Sunday, September 8, 1929 78 “Texas Calls Detroit Bandleader Away” MKCP on tour and summer at Island Lake Wednesday, September 25, 1929 14 “Graystone Ballroom to Hold Celebration” MKCP playing for fall opening Friday, September 27, 1929 5 12:00 AM Saturday, September 28, 1929 9 12:30 AM from the Graystone Sunday, September 29, 1929 12 12:00 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, October 1, 1929 5 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, October 2, 1929 13 12:30 AM from the Graystone Thursday, October 3, 1929 12 12:30 AM from the Graystone Friday, October 4, 1929 10 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, October 8, 1929 12 12:30 AM from the Graystone Wednesday, October 9, 1929 15 12:30 AM from the Graystone

Thursday, October 10, 1929 13 12:00 AM from the Graystone Friday, October 11, 1929 17 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, October 15, 1929 12 12:30 AM from the Graystone Wednesday, October 16, 1929 5 12:30 AM from the Graystone Thursday, October 17, 1929 12 12:00 AM from the Graystone Friday, October 18, 1929 8 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, October 22, 1929 20 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, October 23, 1929 11 12:30 AM from the Graystone Friday, October 25, 1929 11 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, October 26, 1929 4 12:30 AM from the Graystone Sunday, October 27, 1929 11 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, October 29, 1929 11 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, October 30, 1929 7 12:30 AM from the Graystone

Saturday, November 2, 1929 2 12:30 AM from the Graystone

Sunday, November 3, 1929 19 12:30 AM from the Graystone 242 Tuesday, November 5, 1929 14 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 6, 1929 20 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, November 9, 1929 8 12:30 AM from the Graystone Sunday, November 10, 1929 14 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, November 12, 1929 17 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 13, 1929 4 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, November 15, 1929 16 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, November 16, 1929 4 12:30 AM from the Graystone Sunday, November 17, 1929 13 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, November 19, 1929 10 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 20, 1929 10 10:00 PM from the Graystone Friday, November 22, 1929 10 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, November 23, 1929 7 12:30 AM from the Graystone

Sunday, November 24, 1929 10 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, November 26, 1929 14 11:30 PM from the Graystone Wednesday, November 27, 1929 8 10:00 PM from the Graystone Thursday, November 28, 1929 5 12:30 AM from the Graystone Friday, November 29, 1929 11 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, November 30, 1929 4 12:30 AM from the Graystone Sunday, December 1, 1929 10 12:30 AM from the Graystone Tuesday, December 3, 1929 10 11:30 PM from the Graystone Thursday, December 5, 1929 10 11:06 PM from the Graystone Friday, December 6, 1929 12 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, December 7, 1929 5 6:30 PM “from a Special Program in the Studio” 12:30 PM “from the Graystone” Sunday, December 8, 1929 13 12:30 AM from the Graystone

Tuesday, December 10, 1929 14 11:30 PM from the Graystone

Thursday, December 12, 1929 18 11:06 PM from the Graystone 243 Friday, December 13, 1929 8 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, December 14, 1929 8 6:30 PM “from a Special Program in the Studio” 12:30 AM “from the Graystone” Sunday, December 15, 1929 13 12:30 AM from the Graystone Wednesday, December 18, 1929 8 11:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, December 20, 1929 10 12:30 AM from the Graystone Satuday, December 21, 1929 4 6:30 PM, 12:30 AM Sunday, December 22, 1929 8 12:30 AM from the Graystone Wednesday, December 25, 1929 4 11:30 PM from the Graystone Friday, December 27, 1929 7 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, December 28, 1929 7 6:30 PM Saturday, December 28, 1929 12:30 AM from the Graystone

Sunday, December 29, 1929 7 12:30 AM from the Graystone Friday, January 3, 1930 5 12:30 AM from the Graystone Saturday, January 4, 1930 3 6:30 PM, 12:30 AM Sunday, January 5, 1930 10 12:30 AM from the Graystone Sunday, January 12, 1930 8 12:45 AM Fred Bergin and his Vagabonds replace McKinney’s at the Graystone Wednesday, April 30, 1930 10 12:00 AM Saturday, September 27, 1930 11 Ad for MKCP Victor recordings Sunday, February 15, 1931 13 Announcement: back after over a year Saturday, February 28, 1931 16 Playing with review “What a Night” Sunday, March 1, 1931 12 2:00 PM MKCP on the Theater Hour Sunday, March 1, 1931 46 Ad: playing the Michigan Theatre between features Monday, March 2, 1931 8 Same ad

Tuesday, March 3, 1931 22 Same ad 244 Wednesday, March 4, 1931 17 Same ad Thursday, March 5, 1931 11 Same ad Thursday, March 19, 1931 8 12:00 AM Thursday, March 26, 1931 11 12:00 AM Thursday, March 26, 1931 2 Announcement: playing University of Detroit J-Hop Friday, July 3, 1931 1 Ad: playing Graystone Gardens dance tomorrow (July 4th) Saturday, July 4, 1931 12 1:00 AM Sunday, July 5, 1931 7 12:00 AM Wednesday, July 8, 1931 10 12:30 AM Thursday, July 9, 1931 8 12:00 AM Friday, July 10, 1931 8 12:30 AM Saturday, July 11, 1931 5 1:00 AM Wednesday, July 15, 1931 4 12:00 AM

Thursday, July 16, 1931 5 12:00 AM Friday, July 18, 1931 20 12:30 AM Thursday, January 21, 1932 15 10:45 PM Friday, January 22, 1932 15 12:30 AM Saturday, January 23, 1932 13 1:00 AM Friday, January 29, 1932 15 12:30 AM Saturday, January 30, 1932 15 1:00 AM Wednesday, February 3, 1932 15 11:45 PM Redman’s Orchestra on WXYZ Thursday, February 4, 1932 17 10:45 PM Friday, February 5, 1932 20 12:30 AM Saturday, February 6, 1932 4 11:15 PM Don Redman's Orchestra on WXYZ Wednesday, February 10, 1932 15 11:45 PM Don Redman's Orchestra on WXYZ Wednesday, March 23, 1932 8 Announcement: Stage show for the film Are You Listening at the

Fisher Friday, March 25, 1932 8 Are You Listening ad 245 Saturday, March 26, 1932 8 Are You Listening ad Sunday, March 27, 1932 32 Are You Listening ad Wednesday, March 30, 1932 13 Are You Listening ad Wednesday, June 1, 1932 17 12:00 AM Thursday, June 2, 1932 17 12:30 AM Cotton Club orchestra, Sissle’s orchestra, Earl Hines orchestra also on Friday, June 3, 1932 19 11:15 PM Wednesday, June 8, 1932 17 12:00 AM Thursday, June 9, 1932 19 12:00 AM Friday, June 10, 1932 14 11:15 PM Wednesday, June 15, 1932 15 12:00 AM Thursday, June 16, 1932 16 12:00 AM Wednesday, June 29, 1932 8 11:45 PM

Thursday, June 30, 1932 17 11:15 PM Friday, July 1, 1932 16 11:15 PM Sunday, December 4, 1932 44 11:30 PM Wednesday, December 7, 1932 20 12:00 AM Friday, December 9, 1932 24 11:00 PM Saturday, December 10, 1932 11 12:30 AM Wednesday, December 14, 1932 17 12:00 AM Thursday, December 15, 1932 17 11:45 PM Friday, December 16, 1932 24 11:00 PM Saturday, December 17, 1932 17 12:30 AM Wednesday, December 21, 1932 22 12:00 AM Tuesday, February 28, 1933 10 “Redman’s Band to Open at the Michigan Friday,” Announcing Redman orchestra’s concert at the Michigan. Includes chorus line and comedians.

Friday, December 22, 1933 15 MKCP playing University of Detroit Ball

246 Friday, January 5, 1934 11 Ad: playing at Club Maxine (colored revue) Friday, January 12, 1934 17 Review of the revue: includes tap dancers and singers. New policy concerns dinner and complete show. Friday, January 19, 1934 17 Club Maxine ad Friday, January 26, 1934 18 Club Maxine ad Friday, January 26, 1934 19 Club Maxine ad Wednesday, January 31, 1934 15 Club Maxine ad Tuesday, February 6, 1934 19 10:30 PM Thursday, February 8, 1934 19 Club Maxine ad Thursday, February 8, 1934 9 10:30 PM WXYZ Friday, February 9, 1934 21 Club Maxine announcement Friday, February 16, 1934 19 Club Maxine announcement Tuesday, February 20, 1934 8 10:30 PM WXYZ Wednesday, February 21, 1934 8 10:30 PM WXYZ

Friday, February 23, 1934 10 10:30 PM WXYZ Tuesday, February 27, 1934 15 10:30 PM WXYZ Friday, March 2 , 1934 18 Club Maxine announcement Wednesday, March 7, 1934 19 10:30 PM WXYZ Friday, March 9, 1934 21 Club Maxine announcement (new main revue talent – now a white show) Friday, March 9, 1934 18 10:30 PM WXYZ Saturday, March 10, 1934 8 Club Maxine Ad Friday, March 16, 1934 11 MKCP leaving Club Maxine after performance Sunday for East Coast Tour Friday, March 16, 1934 21 11:30 PM WXYZ Saturday March 17, 1934 17 11:30 PM WXYZ Sunday, March 18, 1934 10 ad: farewell show at Club Maxine Sunday, March 25, 1934 13 Ad: playing between features at the Colonial Wednesday, March 28, 1934 14 Ad: playing between features at the Colonial Friday, March 30, 1934 10 Ad: playing between features at the Colonial 247 Sunday, September 30, 1934 12 Colonial announcement: booked for return engagement (back from tour) Wednesday, January 29, 1935 1 Jean Goldkette files for bankruptcy

Appendix B MKCP Victor Recordings1

Mainstream series catalogue numbers bolded. Issue dates and sales numbers provided where available. Sides with a different artist on opposite side footnoted. Sides issued more than a year after session in red.

Song title Catalogue number Matrix number Session date Release date Sales “Four or Five Times” 21583 B2 46093-23 July 11, 1928 November 1928 “Put It There” V-38025 A 46094-2 July 11, 1928 “Crying and Sighing” V-38000A 4 46095-2 July 11, 1928 “Milenberg Joys” 21611 A 46096-2 July 11, 1928 October 1928 “Cherry” 21730 A 46098-2 July 12, 1928 December 1928 “Stop Kidding” V-38025 B 46099-2 July 12, 1928 “Nobody’s Sweetheart” V-38000B 46400-2 July 12, 1928

“Some Sweet Day” 21730 B 46401-2 July 12, 1928 December 1928 “Shim me sha wabble” 21611 B 46402-3 July 12, 1928 October 1928 248 “It’s Tight Like That” V-38013 A 48619-2 November 23, 1928 “There’s A Rainbow Round My Shoulder” V-38013 B 48620-3 November 23, 1928 “It’s a Precious Little Thing Called Love” V-38051 A 51084-2 April 8, 1929 “Save It, Pretty Mama” V-38061 A 51085-2 April 8, 1929 “I Found a New Baby” V-38061 B 51086-2 April 8, 1929 “Will You, Won’t You, Be My Babe?” 22932 A 51087-1 April 8, 1929 1930 2,436

1 All information presented here comes from Discography of American Historical Recordings.

2 B side was “Blue Harmony” / Clifford Hayes; Louisville Stompers.

3 Corrected from Chilton who wrote 26093-2. (John Chilton, McKinney’s Music: A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (London: Bloomsbury Book Shop, 1978), 56).

4 Beginning of V-38000 series

“Beedle Um Bum” V-38052 A 51204-1 April 9, 1929 “Do Something” V-38051 B 51205-1 April 9, 1929 “Selling That Stuff V-38052 B 51206-2 April 9, 1929 “Plain Dirt” V-38097 A 57064-2 November 5, 1929 “Gee, Ain’t I Good to You” V-38097 B 57065-1 November 5, 1929 “I’d Love It” V-38133 A 57066-2 November 6, 1929 “The Way I Feel Today” V-38102 A 57067-1 November 6, 1929 “Miss Hannah” V-38102 B 57068-2 November 6, 1929 “Peggy” V-38133 B 57139-3 November 7, 1929 “Wherever There’s a Will, There’s a Way” 22736 A5 57140-2 November 7, 1929 1931 4,399 “I’ll Make Fun for You” V-38142 A 57140-3 January 31, 1930 “Words Can’t Express” V-38112 A 58544-1 January 31, 1930 “If I Could Be with You One Hour To- V-38118 A 58545-2 January 31, 1930 Night” “Honeysuckle Rose” 401-109 58546-1.2 February 3, 1930 “Then Someone’s in Love” V-38142 B 58547-1 February 3, 1930 “Zonky” V-38118 B 59140-1 February 3, 1930

“Trav’lin’ All Alone” V-38112 B 59141-2 February 3, 1930 “Hello” 23031 A 63196-2 November 5, 1930 6,837 249 “Just a Shade Corn” 23012 A 64002-2 July 28, 1930 6,275 “Okay Baby” 23000 A6 64004-2 July 29, 1930 35,142 “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” 22511 A 64004-3 July 28, 1930 October 1930 29,943 “Blues Sure Have Got Me” 40-01167 64005-2 July 28, 1930 March 1945 “Hullaballoo” 22 B 64006-3 July 28, 1930 “I Want a Little Girl” 23000 B 64007-2 July 30, 1930

5 Blanche Calloway was on the B side. Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. “Victor 22736 (Black label (popular) 10-in. double- faced),” accessed June 24, 2018, https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/object/detail/20284/Victor_22736.

6 This was the first disc in the of the 23000 series

7 This side was not released when the band was active. “78 Discography for RCA Records - 40 prefix series,” Global Dog Productions, accessed July 12, 2018, http://www.globaldogproductions.info/r/rca-40-series.html.

“Cotton Picker’s Scat” 23012 B 64008-2 July 31, 1930 “To Whom It May Concern” 23035 A 64055-2 December 17, 1930 8,077 “You’re Driving Me Crazy” 23031 B 64056-2 December 17, 1930 “Come a Little Closer” 23035 B 64058 December 18, 1930 “Talk to Me” 22640 B8 64605-1 November 3, 1930 May 1931 4,671 “Rocky Road” 22932 B 64606-1 November 3, 1930 “Laughing at Life” 23020 A 64607-2 November 4, 1930 16,562 “Never Swat a Fly” 23020 B 64608-1 November 4, 1930 “After All, You’re All I’m After” 23024 64609-2 November 5, 1930 10,900 “I Miss a Little Miss” 23024 64610-2 November 5, 1930 “It’s a Lonesome Old Town” 22628 A 67934-1 February 12, 1931 April 1931 11,945 “She’s My Secret Passion” 22628 B 67935-1 February 12, 1931 “Do You Believe in Love at Sight” 22811 A 68300-2 September 8, 1931 5,793 “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” 22811 B 70495-1 September 8, 1931

250

8 Casey Jones and Blanche Calloway were on the A side of this disc.

Appendix C MKCP Tour Dates, 1929–1933

Common newspaper abbreviations: PC = Pittsburgh Courier, KCC = Kansas City Call, CD = Chicago Defender, DFP = Detroit Free Press Date City Venue Source May 13, 1929 Pittsburgh, PA Pythian Temple PC, April 27, 1929, 7 September 19, 1929 Pittsburgh, PA Pythian Temple PC, September 14, 1929, 5 January 6, 1930 Kansas City, KS Paseo Dance Hall KCC, January 3, 1930, n.p. January 13, 1930 Kansas City, KS Paseo Dance Hall KCC, January 10, 1930, n.p. February 4, 1930 Ithaca, NY College Dance Ithaca Journal, February 4, 1930, 5. February 10, 1930 Pittsburgh, PA Pythian Temple PC, February 8, 1930, 1. February 1930 Cincinnati, OH Greystone Ballroom Cincinnati Enquirer, February 23, 1930, 58. March 1930 Indianapolis, IN Indiana Roof Ballroom Indianapolis Star February 18, 1930, 12.

March 15, 1930 Uniontown, PA Gallatin Gardens Morning Herald, March 8, 1930, 8. March 18, 1930 Allentown, PA Community center Morning Call, March 13, 1930, 19. 251 March 19, 1930 Reading, PA Bach’s Reading Times, March 17, 1930, 11. March 21, 1930 York, PA Valencia Harrisburg Telegraph, March 21, 1930, 17. March 28, 1930 Asheville, NC Beaux Arts Ball Asheville Citizen Times, March 28, 1930, 7. April 1, 1930 Binghampton, NY Geo. F. Johnson Pavilion Press and Sun-Bulletin, April 1, 1930, 8. April 2, 1930 Berwick, PA West Side Park Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, April 1, 1930, 13. April 5, 1930 Pittsburgh, PA Lando Theater PC, April 5, 1930, 6. April 7, 1930 Pittsburgh, PA Pythian Temple PC, March 22, 1930, 9. April 18, 1930 Peoria, IL Dance Burlington Hawk-Eye, April 18, 1930, 11. April 22, 1930 Bloomington, IL Inglaterra The Pantagraph, April 20, 1930, 8. May 1930 Louisville, KY Madrid Ballroom Courier-Journal, May 12, 1930, 5. May 21–22, 1930 Bloomington IL Bon-Go Park The Pantagraph, May 11, 1930, 8. May 25, 1930 Indianapolis, IN Speedway Ball Indianapolis Star, May 25, 1930, 63.

May 30, 1930 St. Louis, MO Coliseum St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 28, 1930, 31. June 10, 1930 Muncie, IN Roberts Hotel The Star Press, June 11, 1930, 6. June 11, 1930 Richmond, IN Athletic Park The Richmond Item, June 5, 1930, 3. June 14, 1930 Marion, OH Rainbow Garden Marion Star, June 6, 1930, 12. June 20, 1930 Franklin, PA Sugarcreek Pavilion The News-Herald, June 13, 1930, 5. June 23, 1930 Canonsburg, PA Mapleview Ballroom The Daily Notes, June 20, 1930, 13. June 26, 1930 Indiana, PA Cliffside Park The Indiana Gazette, June 21, 1930, 2. June 27, 1930 Connellsville, PA Shady Grove Park The Daily Courier, June 25, 1930, 2. June 30, 1930 Franklin, PA Canadohta Pavilion The News-Herald, June 28, 1930, 5. July 22, 1930 Lansing MI Lakeside Park Lansing State Journal, July 12, 1930, 17. August 1, 1930 Berwick, PA Fernbrook Park Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, July 29, 1930, 20. August 22, 1930 Franklin, PA Canadohta Pavilion Oil City Derrick, August 20, 1930, 20. August 29, 1930 Indiana, PA Fernbrook Park The Indiana Gazette, August 26, 1930, 3. September 11, 1930 Franklin, PA Canadohta Pavilion Oil City Derrick, September 2, 1930, 7.

September 1930 Massillon, PA Moonlight Ballroom The Evening Independent, September 11, 1930, 9. 252 October 16 Meyersdale, PA Crystal Park Ballroom The Republic, October 9, 1930, 6. October 25 Murphysboro, IL Danceland The Daily Free Press, October 24, 1930, 2. October 29 Reading, PA Bach’s Reading Times, October 28, 1930, 11. October 31, 1930 Harrisburg, PA Valencia Evening News, October 31, 1920, 20. November 1, 1930 Harrisburg, PA Valencia Harrisburg Telegraph, October 23, 1930, 15. November 14, 1930 Ithaca, NY Dartmouth Hop Ithaca Journal, November 11, 1930, 5. November 20, 1930 Pittsburgh, PA Bears’ Club PC, November 15, 1930, 2. November 29, 1930 Mansfield, OH Coliseum News-Journal, November 19, 1930, 18. December 4, 1930 Binghampton, NY Geo. F. Johnson Pavilion Press and Sun-Bulletin, December 2, 1930, 8. December 19, 1930 Cincinnati, OH Cincinnati Country Club Cincinnati Enquirer, December 30, 1930, 5. January 3-9, 1931 Chicago, IL Regal Theater Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1931, 12. January 10, 1931 Champaign, IL Robeson Roof The Pantagraph, January 9, 1931.

January 15, 1931 Eau Claire, WI Fournier’s Eau Claire Leader, January 13, 1931, 7. January 16, 1931 Appleton, WI Cinderella Ball Room The Post-Crescent, January 9, 1931, 19. January 21, 1931 Ithaca, NY College Dance Ithaca Journal, January 21, 1931, 5. January 22, 1931 Murphysboro, IL Danceland Coe College Cosmos, January 22, 1931, 2. January 25-February 1 Indianapolis, IN Indiana Roof Ballroom Indianapolis Star, January 4, 1931, 53. March 1931 Detroit, MI Michigan Theater DFP, February 28, 1931, 16. March 9, 1931 Bloomington, IL Coliseum The Pantagraph, March 7, 1931, 3. March 11, 1931 Murphysboro, IL Danceland The Daily Times, March 4, 1931, 5. March 1931 Toledo, OH Paramount Theater CD, March 28, 1931, I/5. March 28, 1931 Mansfield, OH Coliseum News-Journal, March 22, 1931, 26. April 5, 1931 Bloomington, IN IU Prom Indianapolis Star, March 20, 1930, 5. April 16, 1931 Kansas City, KS Paseo KCC, April 10, 1931, n.p. June 1931 Oakland, CA Persian Gardens CD, June 27, 1931, I/5. June 1931 Oakland, CA Stanford Prom Oakland Tribune, June 1, 1931, 45. June 1931 San Fransisco, CA Trianon Ballroom CD, June 27, 1931, I/5.

June 17, 1931 Odgen, UT Roman Gardens Odgen Standard-Examiner, June 14, 1931.

June 26, 1931 Kansas City, KS Paseo Hall KCC, June 26, 1931, n.p. 253 June 30, 1931 St. Louis, MO Forest Park Highlands St. Louis Star, June 20, 1931, 8. July 4, 1931 Detroit, MI Graystone DFP, July 3, 1931, 1. July 23, 1931 Lansing, MI Pleasant Lake Lansing State Journal, July 25, 1931, 5. July 24, 1931 Lancaster, OH Crystal Dance Pavilion Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, July 23, 1931, 5. July 26, 1931 Findlay, OH Green Mill News-Messenger, July 25, 1931, 2. July 27, 1931 Salem, OH Liberty Park Dance Hall The Salem News, July 25, 1931, 4. July 28, 1931 Franklin, PA Sugarcreek News-Herald, July 24, 1931, 16. August 16, 1931 Akron, OH Lake Brady Ballroom Akron Beacon Journal, August 15, 1931, 9. August 19, 1931 Indiana, PA Cliffside Park The Indiana Gazette, August 15, 1931, 6. August 21, 1931 Benton Harbor, MI Woodward’s Pavilion The News-Palladium, August 15, 1931, 12. August 26, 1931 Waverly Beach Appleton, WI The Post-Crescent, August 14, 1931, 21. August 29, 1931 Munster, IN Madura’s Danceland The Times, August 28, 1931, 8. September 2, 1931 Brookville, PA Centennial Ballroom Jeffersonian-Democrat, August 27, 1931, 1.

September 7, 1931 Berwick, PA Fernbrook Park Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, September 3, 1931, 22. September 11, 1931 Battle Creek, MI Masonic Auditorium Battle Creek Enquirer, September 6, 1931, 19. September 29, 1931 St. Paul, MN Coliseum Star Tribune, September 29, 1931, 11 September 30, 1931 Mason, IA Garner Opera House The Mason City Globe-Gazette, September 29, 1931, 13. October 2, 1931 Burlington, IA Military Ballroom Burlington Hawk-Eye Gazette, September 27, 1931, 5. October 7, 1931 Cincinnati, OH Greystone Cincinnati Enquirer, September 30, 1931, 12. October 26, 1931 Pottsville, PA Ritz Shamokin News-Dispatch, October 23, 1931, 14. Late October-Early November Philadelphia, PA Pearl PC, October 31, 1931, 19. 1931

November 5, 1931 Harrisburg, PA Valencia Harrisburg Telegraph, November 5, 1931, 15. Thanksgiving 1931 Pittsburgh, PA Motor Square Ballroom PC, November 21, 1931, 19. 254 December 1931 Columbus, OH Litchferd Winter Garden PC, December 5, 1931, 18. December 1931 New York Loew State Theater PC, January 2, 1932, 15. December 22, 1931 Franklin, PA High Hatters Club News-Herald, November 11, 1931, 10. December 23, 1931 Battle Creek, MI Masonic Temple Battle Creek Enquirer, December 10, 1931, 2. December 25, 1931 Pittsburgh, PA William Penn Hotel Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 23, 1931, 12. January 1932 Cleveland, OH Graystone PC, January 2, 1932, 15. February 5, 1932 Lansing, MI Michigan State Dance Lansing State Journal, January 22, 1932, 11. March 1932 Chicago, IL Oriental Theater CD, February 27, 1932, I/5. March 4-6, 1932 Indianapolis, IN Indiana Roof Ballroom Indianapolis Star, March 6, 1932 March 16, 1932 Battle Creek, MI Masonic Temple Battle Creek Enquirer, February 25, 1932, 6. March-April 1932 Detroit, MI Fisher Theater DFP, March 26, 1932, 8.

April 6, 1932 Mansfield, OH Coliseum News-Journal, April 3, 1932, 16. April 9, 1932 Greensburg, PA Coliseum Indiana Gazette, April 9, 1932, 27. April 11, 1932 Pittsburgh, PA Syrian Mosque PC, April 9, 1932, 17. April 23, 1932 Harrisburg, PA Madrid Ballroom Harrisburg Telegraph, April 20, 1932, 15. May 22, 1932 Findlay, OH Green Mill Gardens The News-Messenger, May 20, 1932, 13. August 30, 1932 Louisville, KY Inn Logola The Courier-Journal, August 26, 1932, 16. September 9, 1932 Kansas City, KS Winnwood Park KCC, September 2, 1932, 2-B. September 18, 1932 Findlay, OH Green Mill Gardens The News-Messenger, September 16, 1932, 7. September 1932 Cleveland, OH Golden Pheasant Night CD, September 17, 1932, I/5. Club September 25, 1932 Fremont, OH Rainbow Garden The News-Messenger, September 23, 1932, 14. October 1932 Kansas City, KS Paseo KCC, October 14, 1932, 3-B. November 5, 1932 Shreveport, LA Crystal Ballroom The Times, November 10, 1932, 23.

November 14-15, 1932 Nashville Hippodrome The Tennessean, November 13, 1932, 23. Early December, 1932 Detroit, MI Graystone PC, December 3, 1932, 16. 255 December 24, 1932 Flint, MI Christmas dance CD, November 5, 1932, I/5. December 31, 1932 Harrisburg, PA Madrid Ballroom Harrisburg Sunday Courier, December 25, 1932, 5. February 18, 1933 Port Huron, MI Arabian Ballroom The Times Herald, February 17, 1933, 6. February 19, 1933 Lansing, MI Coral Gables Ballroom Lansing State Journal, February 16, 1933, 12. March 8–12 and 15–19, 1933 Indianapolis, IN Indiana Roof Ballroom Indianapolis Star, March 23, 1933, 10. March 25–31, 1933 Louisville, KY Madrid Ballroom The Courier-Journal, March 24, 1933, 11. April 4, 1933 Piqua, OH Winter Garden The Piqua Daily Call, March 31, 1933, 12. April 21, 1933 Lansing, MI Coral Gables Ballroom Lansing State Journal, April 21, 1933, 20. May 1, 1933 Pittsburgh, PA Pythian Temple PC, April 29, 1933, 16. May 2, 1933 Canonsburg, PA Mapleview Park The Daily Republican, May 3, 1933, 3. May 18, 1933 Allentown, PA Mealey Auditorium The Morning Call, May 13, 1933, n.p. May 19, 1933 Ithaca, NY Navy Day Ball Cornell Star-Gazette, May 18, 1933, 11. June 1, 1933 Shamokin, PA Lakewood Shamokin Daily News, May 29, 1933, 10.

July 8, 1933 Baltimore, MD Forest Gardens The Baltimore Sun, July 7, 1933, 24. July 15, 1933 Hendersonville, NC City Gym Asheville Citizen-Times, July 14, 1933, 8. July 1933 Baltimore, MD Forest Gardens The Baltimore Sun, July 23, 1933, 59. December 1933 Detroit, MI Univ. of Detroit Ball DFP, December 22, 1933, 15.

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