From the Cotton Fields to the Cotton Club
Jazz from every direction, in every shape and form.
The Hawk
For most of the 20th century, saxophone was the instrument the public most associated with jazz. But it didn’t start that way: pianists and trumpeters were the music’s first stars. Then Coleman Hawkins came along in the 1920s and put the tenor sax in the spotlight. During his decade with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, Hawkins used his large, expressive tone and encyclopedic knowledge of harmonies to become the first saxist to attain true jazz fame.
The Territory Bands
In the late 1920s every American city worthy of the designation was represented by a high-profile big band or two — or more. The bands were unified by jazz, but there was a wide range of individual sounds as their music reflected differing personal creative approaches, as well as distinct regional characteristics.
But you definitely didn’t have to be in the big city to hear quality jazz in a live setting. Many of the best and brightest big bands were on the nation’s byways and back roads, taking the music directly to the fans, wherever they might be. An expanded version of the Midwest, stretching into Texas to the south and Colorado to the west, was the center of the territory band stomping grounds. Bands such as Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy, Walter Page and His Blue Devils, and the Bennie Moten Orchestra played almost every night of the year.
Jazz Messengers
With the territory bands staging what amounted to musical tent revivals everywhere they went, the nationwide jazz explosion took on an almost evangelical feel. Radio, where jazz was becoming increasingly popular, and records, where jazz sales continued to spiral up, were also spreading the message and broadening the market by making the music available to fans even when live performances did not.
But the bands on the road every night were the most important jazz messengers. Many bands, which either didn’t get the opportunity or didn’t have the time to take advantage of it, went unrecorded, passing into jazz history purely on word-of-mouth memories. All, however, were instrumental in expanding the national audience for jazz while also keeping it a music of and for the people. Jazz, in essence, became the soundtrack for life during the “Roaring Twenties,” an economically prosperous period that was blissfully unaware of the Great Depression lurking around the corner.
Big, Bigger, and Too Big
Jazz big bands have come in all sizes. Some of the earliest were some of the smallest, sometimes only eight or nine pieces. But when bandleaders became convinced reed instruments sounded better playing prearranged harmonies, something that required at least three saxes and three brass instruments, the bands expanded. They continued to grow through the swing era, finally reaching a size twice that of the pioneers, before realizing that more volume didn’t mean better music.
The Novelty Bands
You can always tell when something is a hit in American culture. The bandwagon loads up rapidly and all manner of unlikely spin-offs soon compete with the original. Jazz was no exception. A wide array of unusual concept bands exotically embellished the efforts of the mainstream groups. Some, like the long-haired House of David cult, which supported itself via its baseball team and jazz band, were on the road as much as the most successful territory bands. Particularly popular were all-female bands such as the Indiana-based, but deceptively titled, Parisian Redheads, who (whether natural or not) were at least redheads, or “bricktops” in swing slang.
Some Came and Stayed
Other, much more distinguished and important bands were also competing for public attention. On the surface many of their unlikely leaders seemed almost as unusual as those in the novelty bands. There was a bespectacled young Jewish boy named Benny Goodman (whom we’ll return to in a couple of lessons), a tall Texan trombonist named Jack Teagarden, and a white saxist from Illinois named Frank Trumbauer. Each would ultimately rise to fame, and, in the case of Goodman, the future “King of Swing,” glory, as well.
Others Came and Went
McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, from Ohio, was a prime example of an excellent and influential big band of the era whose success and reputation didn’t extend too many years beyond the period. Drummer William McKinney had retired from playing to devote his full attention to leading a big band, and he assembled a great one. Its signature sound was one of unusually tight ensemble work in the service of advanced arrangements by the brilliant Don Redman, who McKinney had hired away from the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. It ruled the Detroit scene and challenged the success of better-known big bands, including that of Duke Ellington. But by 1934 it was defunct.
Queen Josephine
When jazz landed in Europe in World War I, it found an especially appreciative audience in France. But nothing, then or now, could compare to the frenzy of excitement that hit Paris in the fall of 1925. That’s when sultry dancer Josephine Baker arrived with the all-black musical Revue Negre. Whether mesmerizing fans with her “jungle jazz dances” or just out walking her pet cheetah, Baker fascinated the French and became their most sensational celebrity.
Heebie Jeebies
Once Louis Armstrong was on center stage in the jazz revolution he wouldn’t leave it for decades. By the mid-1920s, Armstrong was undoubtedly a star performer. He made the most of his increasing time in the spotlight by doing much more than just blowing his horn better than the competition. He sang, danced, and clowned his way into still wider popularity while transforming jazz from an ensemble activity to a soloist-dominated art form.
Nonsense Makes Sense
Armstrong really shook up things again in February 1927 when he recorded “Heebie Jeebies,” his first legitimate hit record. The song, from one of the classic sessions of the legendary Hot Five, was distinguished by one verse during which Satchmo sang melodic nonsense, substituting invented “vocalese” for the actual lyrics. It wasn’t the first time scat singing, as the wordless vocals were soon dubbed, had been recorded, but it was arguably the most creative attempt, with Armstrong’s energetic improvisation approximating the innovations of his trumpet style. It was also undeniably the most popular attempt.
Satchmo Paves the Way for Other Scat Singers
“Heebie Jeebies” became an anthem for the coolest of the cool in the jazz community, generating an entire subculture devoted to its cryptic sensibilities. It also trained the ear of the jazz public for later and more elaborate scat explorations by singers as diverse as Ella Fitzgerald and Bobby McFerrin.
The instrumental style improvisations Armstrong had toyed with only briefly were soon given serious attention by vocalists interested in pursuing their possibilities. Their success with the new form gave jazz yet another means of musical expression, one that would still be popular 60 years later, as groups like Manhattan Transfer continued the tradition.
Cotton Club: Walk on the Wild Side
As surreal as it was sophisticated, the white-only Cotton Club, with its Southern plantation look, presented the most extravagant productions to ever feature African-American entertainers. The gangster-owned-and-operated nightclub was the hot spot for the social elite as they took a walk on the wild side with the lavish floorshows. America wouldn’t see anything comparable until Studio 54 appeared on the disco scene in the 1970s.
Jungle Music
There aren’t a lot of undeniable facts when it comes to the subjective world of art and entertainment, but jazz has several that go unchallenged. The music’s birthplace in New Orleans is a given, as we saw in Lesson 1. Equally irrefutable is the fact that the jazzed-up Harlem nightclub scene in the 1920s was the hottest on the planet.
The Cotton Club
The Cotton Club, where Duke Ellington would open a four-year run in December of 1927, was the most legendary, or, perhaps, considering the nightclub’s reputation, the most infamous. Yet it had strong competition.
Figure 4-1: Ellington and his orchestra on stage at the Cotton Club (1929).
The enormous popularity of the clubs, combined with the demographics of their fans, predominantly upper-class arts types, gave jazz an exponential jump in both significance and influence. Almost every visiting European composer or painter made a trip to Harlem to check out the sophisticated, yet uninhibited, action. Their reactions were ultimately expressed in their art — such as Henri Matisse’s classic “jazz” series of paintings and the works of composers such as Maurice Ravel, Aaron Copland, and Dmitry Shostakovich — further broadening the range of jazz’s cultural impact.
Elaborate Stage Productions
What took place at the Cotton Club were not just stage shows but multidisciplinary spectacles, the likes of which have never been seen again. The elaborate stage productions, complete with props worthy of a Hollywood epic, featured large casts of rigorously rehearsed singers and dancers. But it was jazz that provided the soundtrack for the action. The music for the shows juxtaposed propulsive “primitive” rhythms, or so the classical critics called them, with amazingly intricate and sophisticated jazz melodies. If that sounds like a thumbnail description of Duke Ellington’s music, you’ve been paying attention.
