The most strikingly original and authoritative voice on cornet since Louis Armstrong, Leon ‘Bix’ Beiderbecke set the example for a generation of aspiring white jazz players during the 1920s. His meteoric rise to fame was followed by a dramatic fall from grace that led to his ultimate death from alcoholism at the age of just 28 in 1931. A Self-Taught Genius ...
The cornet is very similar to the trumpet in looks and playing technique. It is thought to have been invented by the instrument maker Jean-Louis Antoine in the 1820s. Antoine, who worked for the Parisian firm Halary, was one of a number of makers experimenting with the new valve technology that was revolutionizing brass instruments at the time. His ...
(Trumpet, cornet, guitar, 1915–76) After Bobby Hackett was praised in Down Beat by Boston critic George Frazier in 1937, he headed to New York and settled into a group of neo-traditional players loosely associated with Eddie Condon. Although a lifelong fan of Louis Armstrong, Hackett’s gentle, fluid lyricism made him a more logical descendent of ...
(Guitar, 1902–33) Philadelphia native Salvatore Massaro joined the Mound City Blue Blowers in 1924 and by the mid-1920s had become jazz’s first in-demand session guitarist, backing various blues and popular singers. A single-note virtuoso, he was also jazz’s first guitar hero. In 1926, Lang teamed up with high-school pal Joe Venuti for some classic guitar-violin duet sessions ...
(C-melody and alto saxophone, 1901–56) Known as ‘Tram’ by his colleagues, Trumbauer was a player of impeccable technique who had a major influence on many saxophonists in the 1920s (notably Benny Carter and Lester Young). He first recorded in 1923 with the popular Benson Orchestra of Chicago and by 1926 was playing alongside cornettist and kindred spirit Bix Beiderbecke ...
(Trumpet, 1907–91) Part of the Chicago-based Austin High School Gang, along with Bud Freeman, Frank Teschemacher, Jim Lannigan and Dave Tough, McPartland was inspired by recordings of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Bix Beiderbecke, who he replaced in the Wolverines in 1925. He joined Ben Pollack’s band in 1927 and recorded with the McKenzie-Condon ...
(Instrumental group, 1926–34) Formed in 1926 by drummer Bill McKinney (1895–1969), this Ohio-based big band improved significantly after hiring arranger Don Redman from Fletcher Henderson’s band in the summer of 1927. For the next four years, until Redman left in 1931, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers rivalled both Henderson’s and Duke Ellington’s orchestras for ensemble precision. The band’s trumpeter and ...
(Violin, bandleader, 1890–1967) Erroneously dubbed ‘The King Of Jazz’ by press agents, Whiteman led his first dance band in San Francisco in 1918. Arriving in New York in 1920, he assembled some of the city’s top musicians and gained popularity with hits such as ‘Japanese Sandman’ and ‘Whispering’. In 1924 his orchestra premiered George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In ...
(Clarinet, 1906–69) Great musicians are often judged by the reach of their influence on others, but Charles Ellsworth Russell’s clarinet was one of a kind, so personal and eccentric that it offered little to any would-be disciples. He arrived in New York in 1927 from the Midwest, where he had played with Bix Beiderbecke and other Chicago-area ...
(Soprano saxophone, clarinet, 1897–1959) A child prodigy who left school at the age of 16 and worked with various bands around New Orleans, the Creole clarinetist thrilled audiences and players alike with his soaring tone, forceful attack, penetrating solos, dazzling facility and unusually fast vibrato. In 1917, Bechet and King Oliver played together briefly ...
Jazz was the by-product of cultures coming together in New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century. The music, along with some of its greatest practitioners, moved north by 1917. That year Storyville, the red-light district, was forced to close and jazz musicians headed north to Chicago, where jazz matured into a fine art form. ...
The 1920s was, without doubt, the Jazz Age. Workers and the newly burgeoning middle class turned into consumers due to relatively higher wages. The international political advantages that came from having just won a major war buttressed a ‘lost generation’ of artistic types, who took up residence in Europe. New moral codes, sophistication and cynicism abounded. Some ...
As if at the convenience of history, the stock market crash in the final weeks of 1929 severed the 1920s from the 1930s. The breach was economic but its consequences were pervasive, sweeping away economic values and social illusions, and affecting all aspects of life for Americans and Europeans alike. America’s compliant 1920s middle class became the 1930s ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.