Happy Birthday Jean Goldkette 1893-1962...Goldkette emigrated from France in 1911 as a classical pianist but by the 1920's he had over 20 jazz bands working under his name. The band most remembered now is his main unit which recorded for Victor from 1924-1929. The band included, at various times, Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Eddie Lane, Frankie Trumbauer and Pee-Wee Russell among others and gave many of it's members their first experience with a professional band.
Rex Stewart, a member of Fletcher Henderson's band during that time, praised Goldkette's band for it's original arrangements and strong rhythm which he said made it the best dance band of it's day and "the first original white swing band in jazz history". Goldkette's band defeated Fletcher Henderson's in a Battle of the Bands contest in New York.
Goldkette also co-owned the Graystone Ballroom with Charles Horvath and ran his entertainment company, Jean Goldkette's Orchestra's and Attractions, out of the still-standing Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit. But by 1927 Goldkette had over extended himself and when he couldn't make payroll, Paul Whiteman hired away most of his top musicians. Later recordings by his band were never as exciting as the ones made before 1927.
Goldkette also helped to organize McKinney's Cotton Pickers and The Orange Blossoms which would later become the Casa Loma Orchestra. He left jazz in the 1930's to become a booking agent and a classical pianist, filing for bankruptcy in the mid-30's. He later founded The American Symphony Orchestra which debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1939.
After a career lasting 50 years, he died in Los Angeles at the age of 69.
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