Paul Whiteman

Happy Birthday, Paul Whiteman 1890-1967...Paul Whiteman's Orchestra was the most popular band of the 1920's and also the most controversial to many jazz fans and historians. Despite billing himself as "The King of Jazz", Whiteman's bands rarely played what is considered jazz today. For the most part he played commercial dance music and semi-classical works that blended jazz into the mix. Even though his music may have lacked any improvisation and seemed a weak imitation of the music the African-American bands were producing at the time, he had a genuine love for the genre, hiring many of the best white jazz musicians of the era and working with as many black musicians as the segregated times would allow.

Whiteman started his career as a classical viola player for the Denver Symphony in 1907, then the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1914. He lead a 40 piece military band during WW1 from 1919-1918, forming the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, a popular jazz-influenced dance band which played at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco after the war. In 1920 he moved his band to NYC where he made his first recordings for Victor Talking Machine Company, launching his career nationally and establishing himself as the most popular band director of the decade. At a time when most bands consisted of six to ten players, Whiteman's group could be up to 35 members strong. By 1922 he controlled 28 groups on the east coast and was making over a million dollars a year.

In 1924 he secured his place in history by commissioning George Gershwin to write "Rhapsody in Blue". It would become the band's theme song. The players he hired formed a virtual who's who of top white jazz musicians and singers of the time. Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Trumbauer, Eddie Lang, Bunny Berigan, Jack Teagarden, Joe Venuti, Wilbur Hall, Hoagy Carmichael, Bing Crosby, and Mildred Bailey, among others, all spent time in Whiteman's band as did Billie Holiday, Paul Robeson and Fletcher Henderson (as an arranger).

He provided music for six Broadway shows, made over 600 recordings, had 32 number one records, appeared on radio, made 7 films including "The King of Jazz", an early Technicolor film that pushed the recording and color technology of the time, and appeared on television in the late 1940's-early 1950's. By the end of the 1930's Whiteman's band had gone out of style and he became the musical director for ABC Radio Network, reforming his band from time to time. His last performances were in Las Vegas in the early 60's before retiring.