Lizzie Miles

Happy Birthday, Lizzie Miles 1895-1963...Born Elizabeth Landreaux on Bourbon Street, Miles was singing with Kid Ory, King Oliver and Bunk Johnson when she was just a teenager. She traveled the south performing in minstrel shows, vaudeville and the circus before moving to Chicago in the early 20's.

In Chicago she performed with Elgars Creole Orchestra, Freddie Keppard and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band before moving to New York in 1922. She made her first recordings of blues songs in New York which made her popular but she did not like to be called a "blues singer" since she sang a range of music styles. She performed with the Sam Wooding Orchestra and Piron's New Orleans Orchestra in New York before taking off for Europe.

She toured Europe from 1924-1927, performing in Paris at Louis Mitchell's nightclub Chez Mitchell and other venues. She returned to New York where she performed in clubs with several acts including bands led by Fat's Waller and Paul Barbarin. She would also continue to make recordings, most with lesser known players but some with King Oliver, Louis Metcalf, Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton.

In the 1930's she suffered a serious illness, left the music business and returned to New Orleans in 1940. She was convinced to return to performing but she refused to stand on the stage, standing to the front or to the side of it because she had sworn in prayer that she would never perform on stage again if she recovered from her illness.

In the 1950's she lived in San Francisco, performing at local clubs, moving back to New Orleans to record with several Dixieland and traditional jazz bands and making regular radio broadcasts. In 1958 she appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival and in 1959 she quit singing anything that wasn't gospel music. She died of a heart attack at the age of 68.

This song is about as suggestive as it gets!

Dance Marathons of the 1920's and 1930's

On March 30, 1923 the first official dance marathon in the U.S. took place at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. It was won by a 32 year old dance teacher named Alma Cummings who danced with six different partners (all younger than she) remaining in motion on the dance floor for 27 hours, ending in a flourish with a twirling waltz that thrilled her audience. One audience member observed that her achievement, "challenged the primacy of youth and the preeminence of male fortitude." Within weeks, the fad had swept the country.

Initially, women were the main record holders of most of the early contests, wearing out multiple partners in the process. In the early contests, records were usually not set by couples but by individuals who traded in their partners as they tired. Local dance academies across the country began holding marathons, McMillan's Dancing Academy in Houston, Texas being one of the first to capitalize on the dance craze monetarily. McMillan charged admission to spectators and gave large cash prizes to any record-breaking winners. He encouraged the dancers to entertain the crowds in any way possible but he also cared for and protected his contestants. But his example would go on to change the dance marathon from one of skill and endurance by an individual to something more sinister.



Other sports and entertainment entrepreneurs saw the money-making potential by commercializing and standardizing the contests. The contests became endless, grueling endurance marathons that could go on for months. They were no longer about a dancer's "15 minutes of fame" and more about making money for the promoters. This was non-stop entertainment with a Master of Ceremonies, live bands, specialty entertainment, audience participation, nurses and food servers. Rules dictated when participants could dance, eat, sleep, bathe and use the toilet. Contestants had a 15 minute rest period for every hour of dancing during which they could sleep, change clothes or get a massage (at their own expense).


Contestants sleeping in front of the public on "Cot Night"

The contests became more about physical stamina and endurance and had nothing to do with technical skill or dancing finesse. They were often called Walkathons because the participants didn't really have to dance, just cling together and shuffle their feet. Every so often they were made to dance a waltz, fox trot or Charleston or do a quick sprint around the floor earning the winners extra money and putting some of them out of the contest. If one of the contestant's knees hit the floor, the couple would be eliminated. Often the contests were stacked or rigged in favor of certain couples by the floor judges or the emcees who were hired by the promoter.


Knees to the floor

Audiences were encouraged to interact with the dancers, choosing favorites, making wagers, chatting with them and throwing money at them called "sprays" or "silver showers". Contestants sometimes were offered sponsorships by local businesses for a small stipend and wore their advertising on their clothing. Couples also sold autographed pictures to their fans, often for 10 cents a picture. During the Depression, some participants saw the contests as an opportunity for employment, meals and a roof over their heads. They were lured by promises of performance contracts, thousands of dollars and national fame. Some dancers became professionals and traveled from one marathon to the next. While some participants did find work as movie extras, very few found fame. Red Skelton and June Havoc were the exceptions.




Autographed pictures of marathon couples


Marathon advertising


Deep into the Depression the dancers became a metaphor for the national pain experienced by the country. For the audiences, seeing the pain and exhaustion on the dance floor of people more hard up than they were made their own struggles more bearable. By 1935, The Billboard magazine claimed,"the average attendance at an evening's performance of a Walkathon is about 2500 people". Women made up of more than 75% of the audiences, becoming drawn into the spectacle by lurid tales of romance, hardship and heartbreak among the dancing couples. Promoters staged "Marathon Weddings" of contestants but most of the stories and "weddings" were stunts pulled to take advantage of the emotional attachment they created in the viewers. The Marathons became a combination of today's soap operas and "Survivor" for the 1930's audience.



As the marathons wore on for months, promoters found new and more brutal ways to torture the contestants to keep their audiences engaged. During the day contestants were allowed to stumble along together, sometimes reading, shaving, knitting, eating or doing other daily activities to stave away boredom while clinging to each other. Individuals would tie their wrists together and slip them around their partner's neck as a means to take turns sleeping without falling to the floor. Women carried their sleeping partners despite the differences in height and weight and it was observed that, "It was the women who kept up and the men who mostly faltered." Although no couple could win without equal partnership, marathons leveled the playing field for both partners in such a way that the strength, stamina and perseverance of the female participants was demonstrated publicly in a way that was new and empowering for some.


A dancer being attended to

At night, when bigger crowds were expected, live music was played and contestants were expected to dance, perform skits and were subjected to grueling contests designed to eliminate (and humiliate) as many of them as possible. "Grinds" were continuous dance periods with no rest. During the Grinds, the usual tricks for keeping your partner awake (slaps, pin pricks, pinches, shaking or talking) were not allowed and would continue until one or more couples were worn down to the ground, literally, by exhaustion.



Other endurance trials were employed as well. A typical program for contestants who had already danced for over 1,000 hours (about 41 days) looked like this:

Monday: Zombie Treadmills (one hour duration)
Tuesday: Figure-eight races (25 laps)
Wednesday: Elimination lap races (male contestants)
Thursday: Dynamite Sprints
Friday: Heel and Toe Derbies
Saturday: Elimination races (female contestants)
Sunday: The Argonne Forest

Zombie Treadmills involved blindfolded contestant teams, often chained or tied together, racing one another. These contests, called Sprints, were brutal and effective for quickly eliminating all but the top three couples and ending the marathon. The longest recorded marathon went on for 4,152 hours and 30 minutes, nearly over 5 1/2 months. The longest dance marathon without contests or athletic features took place in Chicago from 1930-1931 and lasted over nine months. The winner, Kay Wise, essentially danced, shuffled and walked for over 6,400 hours, wearing out partners in the process. The longest solo record goes to Nobel "Kid" Chissell who danced alone for 468 hours, nearly 20 days. June Havoc, an actor on Broadway and on film, who entered her first marathon at the age of 14 wrote of her experiences,"Our degradation was entertainment: sadism was sexy, masochism was talent."



Marathons were not popular everywhere. Many towns banned them early on but they were a powerful and popular form of entertainment. Movie theater owners protested that they lost business when marathons were staged in their towns. Church groups protested them on moral grounds (too much full body contact) and for humanitarian reasons. And the police felt the contests attracted too many undesirables. But for the people involved, it was hard to ignore the money to be made during difficult economic times. Newspapers, radio stations and sponsoring businesses made money from advertising, venue owners and municipalities made money from fees and licenses. Food venders made money off of the spectators and the contestants and nurses, floor judges, emcees and janitors found employment. Dance marathon historian, Carol Martin states that nearly every American city with a population of 50,000 or more hosted at least one endurance marathon.


Winners

By the late 30's the marathons began to dwindle, partly due to laws being passed and partly due to promoters struggling to find "virgin spots" where no marathons had been
staged. WW2 finally put an end to the contests as both participants and audiences went to work and to war.

Pearl Bailey

Happy birthday, Pearl Bailey 1918-1990...Actress, singer and appointed by Richard Nixon to be the "U.S. Ambassador of Love", Bailey was beloved for her warmth and personal magnetism as much as for her talent. Born in the same year and town as Ella Fitzgerald, Newport News, Virginia, she was singing and dancing at an early age, getting her first big break at age 15 after entering a talent contest at the urging of her tap dancing brother. Like Fitzgerald, she also entered the talent contest at the Apollo and won which put her on the vaudeville circuit in Pennsylvania.

She quickly started performing at the better black nightclubs of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore moving on to featured vocalist roles with the big bands of Cootie Williams and Edgar Hayes. During the 40's she entertained the troops in U.S.O. shows and in 1944 had her first solo show at The Village Vanguard in N.Y. It was at the Village Vanguard where she began to develop her signature "throw away" style, engaging playfully with her audience.

In 1945 she began a 20 week run with Cab Calloway at the famed Zanzibar nightclub on Broadway. She would make her Broadway debut a year later in "St. Louis Woman", an all-black musical by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Her two numbers, "A Woman's Prerogative" and "Legalize My Name" were the hit of the show and won her the Donaldson Award for best newcomer that year. She would continue to return to Broadway throughout her career creating major characters in "House of Flowers", "Call Me Madame" and an all-black version of "Hello Dolly" in the title role. She also appeared in several popular films including "Carmen Jones", "Porgy and Bess", "That Certain Feeling" and "St. Louis Blues", a biography of W.C. Handy.

The part of Dolly Levi in "Hello Dolly" was the triumph of Bailey's career, running for 2 years on Broadway and then going on to a very successful national tour and earning her a special Tony award. The stress of performing so intensively took it's toll on a long standing heart condition and Bailey returned to performing in more intimate cabaret settings. In 1971 she had her own television show which lasted for a year and did voice-overs for animated movies and cartoons.

By the late 70's Bailey had authored five books ranging from children's books to autobiography to cooking even though she had not completed high school. In 1978 she enrolled in Georgetown University and graduated in 1985 at the age of 67 with a degree in theology. She continued to sing and act during the 80's as well as working as a special ambassador to the U.N. under presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, receiving the Medal of Freedom from Reagan in 1988 for her humanitarian work. She died of a heart attack after knee surgery in 1990.

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.

Pee Wee Russell

Happy Birthday, Charles "Pee Wee" Russell 1906-1969...Russell's clarinet style defied classification but Philip Larkin gave it a try, "No one familiar with the characteristic excitement of his solos, their lurid, snuffling, asthmatic voicelessness, notes leaned on till they split, and sudden passionate intensities, could deny the uniqueness of his contribution to jazz."

As a young boy, Russell tried several instruments including the violin, piano and the drums, before settling on the clarinet after seeing Yellow Nunez improvising on the instrument. He spent all of his free time learning the instrument and in the early 20's started playing in local dance and jazz bands and touring on riverboats and doing tent shows around St. Louis, Missouri. In 1924 he moved to Chicago where he played with Frank Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke and recorded his first sides with Red Nichols and his Five Pennies in 1929.

He worked with various band leaders, including Louis Prima, during the early 30's, finally landing a steady spot at "Nicks", a famous jazz club in Greenwich Village, in 1937. He played with Bobby Hackett's big band and with Eddie Condon, with whom he would play on and off for most of his career. He played in the all-star band put together by Condon for Fat's Waller's Carnegie Hall debut, also recording for the Commodore label under his own name and as a sideman.

In the 40's Russell's health began to weaken and by 1951 he was near death, brought on by heavy alcoholism and malnutrition. After weeks in the hospital, three blood transfusions and three square meals a day, Russell recovered to play on for another 18 years, including appearances with Art Hodes, Muggsy Spanier and performances at jazz festivals: the most famous being with Thelonius Monk at Newport in 1963.

Although he was offered jobs with some of the most famous big bands of the day, Russell preferred small group settings where he was unfettered to play in his own unique style. Although he was labeled a Dixieland musician because of the players he worked with, his style was considered ahead of it's time, and by some, the precursor to modern free jazz.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Happy Birthday, Sister Rosetta Tharpe 1915-1973...Tharpe is widely held as one of the the greatest gospel performers of her generation. A flamboyant performer who forayed into blues and swing, she shocked purists with her leap into secular music and inspired countless rock and roll guitar players with her windmill guitar strokes and blues stylings.

Born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she began playing guitar at age 4 and became proficient enough to perform along side her mother, a traveling missionary, at tent revivals throughout the south. When her family moved to Chicago in the late 20's she practiced the blues and jazz she had been exposed to on her travels in private, bending the notes and picking the guitar like Memphis Minnie. She only performed gospel music in public.

She married Thomas Thorpe, a preacher described as a "tyrant" in 1934 but left him and moved to New York with her mother four years later. In 1938 she recorded four sides for Decca with Lucky Millinder which became overnight hits but caused a furor among her church-going audience with their mix of sacred and secular music. She had originally signed a 7 year contract with Millinder with the understanding she would only do gospel music but that request wasn't honored. Tharpe found herself singing songs that often offended her gospel audience with their suggestive lyrics, shocking them further still by sharing a stage with scantily clad showgirls. But the recordings were an enormous hit with the secular audiences, introducing many of them to the gospel sound for the first time.

She was one of only two gospel artists who recorded V-discs for the troupes during WW2. Her recording of "Strange Things Happening Every Day" in 1944 with boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price was the first gospel song to make Billboard's Harlem Hit Parade Top Ten and is considered by some to be the first rock and roll record. Tharpe's biographer, Gayle Wald put it this way, "If this woman was doing this in the 1940's, then you have to go back and re-write the whole story of rock-and-roll, and rock-and-roll guitar playing specifically."

After Tharpe broke with Millinder she went back to singing more spiritual music, teaming up with another gospel singer, Marie Knight whose more subdued style was excellent counterpoint to Tharpe's theatrics. They recorded many popular records and toured the gospel circuit successfully together for several years. Tharpe's popularity was so great that when she married her manager, Russell Morrison at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C she attracted 25,000 paying customers, some bringing gifts, and played her guitar in her wedding dress from center field.

Her popularity took a downturn in the early 50's when the women recorded several blues songs, once again offending the church-going audience who perceived blues and guitar playing as the devil's music. Tharpe then toured Europe through the 60's where her following was still strong but she would never regained her popularity in the United States. Even though she was sited by many early rock-and-roll musicians as a primary influence (Elvis, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Gerry Lee Lewis among them) her contributions to music, and contemporary guitar playing in particular, were virtually forgotten by the general public at the time of her death in 1973.

Jean Goldkette

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.

Nat King Cole

Happy Birthday Nat King Cole 1919-1965...Born to a choir director mother and a church pastor father in Montgomery, Alabama, Cole started his piano training at the age of 4. He started classical training as a teenager but soon abandoned that for his passion, jazz. In the 30's he and his brother Eddie began playing in Chicago clubs and made their first recording under Eddie's name in 1936. Cole joined the touring company of "Shuffle Along" as a pianist staying on in Long Beach, California when the show closed there.

Cole and two other musicians formed the King Cole Swingers playing in clubs and bars and performing on radio throughout the late 30's. In 1943 they finally landed on the charts with the hit "Straighten Up and Fly Right", a song Cole wrote after being inspired by one of his father's sermons. Johnny Mercer recorded it for his new record company, Capitol Records and the record put both the musicians and the record company on the map. The iconic Capitol Records offices built in 1956 in Los Angeles would become known as "The House that Nat Built".

By the 50's Cole had become a successful solo performer recording hits such as "Nature Boy", "Mona Lisa", "Too Young", "Unforgettable" and "The Christmas Song". Although some jazz critics and fans accused him of selling out by making the pop recordings he continued to explore his jazz roots, recording an all-jazz album "After Midnight" in 1956.

That same year he became the first African-American performer to host a variety television show and for many white Americans, he was the first black person to be welcomed into their homes. The show was originally run on Monday nights for 15 minutes, later expanding to half an hour in 1957. But despite the support of NBC and many of the performers who appeared on his show working for scale (or for nothing) to help keep it afloat, "The Nat King Cole Show" was cancelled for lack of a national sponsor. Cole also made appearances in films, sitcoms and television shows. He played W.C. Handy in "St. Louis Blues" and played himself in the majority of films. His last film appearance was in "Cat Ballou", released after his death.

He was a heavy smoker of Kool brand cigarettes and believed that smoking up to three packs a day gave his voice it's distinctive silky baritone. He would often smoke several cigarettes in rapid succession before recording. He had been advised to give up smoking in 1953 after being treated for ulcers but did not comply. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964 and died a little more than a year later at the age of 45.

Harry James

Happy Birthday, Harry James 1916-1983...His exotic beginnings as the child of an acrobat mother and band leader father for the traveling Haag Circus gave Harry James a strong work ethic and sparkling personal charm. He was playing snare drum for the circus at the age of 6 and learning trumpet from his exacting father. The long hours of practice paid off eventually with James becoming one of the most outstanding instrumentalists of the swing era with a distinctive tone and superior technical proficiency. His ability to sight read on the spot earned him the nickname "The Hawk". The joke was that if a fly landed on his sheet music, Harry James would play it.

He began his career in 1931 playing in local bands in Beaumont, Texas at the age of 15. He caught the ear of Ben Pollack and joined his band in 1935 and even auditioned for Lawrence Welk's band but was told he played too loud which was not the Welk style. He headed up Benny Goodman's brass section starting in 1937 but by 1939 wanted to go off on his own. With Goodman's backing, he debuted his own big band, Harry James and His Music Makers in Philadelphia in 1939. He would tour with his band into the 1980's.

James had an ear for talent, finding Frank Sinatra working as a singing waiter and giving him his first big break as well as boosting the careers of other singers such as Dick Haymes, Kitty Kellan, Connie Haines and Helen Forrest. He played in 16 films including "Swing Fever" and "The Benny Goodman Story". Among his many popular recordings were "Ain't She Sweet", "Ciribiriban", "You Made Me Love You" and " I've Heard That Song Before", featured prominently in Woody Allen's film "Hannah and Her Sisters".

He was married three times-once to Betty Grable-and owned several race winning thoroughbred racehorses. He played his last concert with his band in Los Angeles in 1983, just nine days before his death from lymphatic cancer.

Les Brown

Happy Birthday, Les Brown 1912-2001...Bandleader, saxophonist, clarinetist and composer, Brown was best known for leading his big band Les Brown and his Band of Renown for nearly 70 years. He got his start as a student at Duke University with his group Les Brown and his Blue Devils playing on campus and touring in the summer up and down the east coast in 1936. While some students returned to continue their education, a few stayed on and would continue to tour becoming the Band of Renown in 1938.

RCA-Victor Records helped him get an engagement at the Edison Hotel in New York and in 1940 he played the New York's World's Fair, adding a young Doris Day as vocalist. At the end of WW2 in 1945 he released "Sentimental Journey" putting Doris Day on the map and becoming the unofficial homecoming theme for many returning from the war. Some of the 10 number one hits recorded by the band were "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm", "Mexican Hat Dance", "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" and "Leap Frog".

The band also appeared in shorts and feature films including "Seven Day's Leave", "Rock-A-Billy Baby" and "The Nutty Professor" with Jerry Lewis. They performed with Bob Hope on radio, stage and television for almost 50 years and Tony Bennett, who was "discovered" by Hope, made his first public appearance with the band. The band did 18 USO tours for American troupes around the world and were the house band for the Steve Allen Show (1959-1961) and The Dean Martin Variety Show (1965-1972) giving them the opportunity to play with nearly every major performer of their time.

Les Brown, Jr. took over the band after his father's death in 2001. They continue to perform throughout the world and have a regular big band show in Branson, Missouri.

Ina Ray Hutton

Happy Birthday Ina Ray Hutton (nee Odessa Cowan) 1916-1984...Hutton lead the Melodears, one of the first all-female swing bands to be recorded and filmed and headed up other bands as well from the 1930's to the 1960's. She passed as white throughout her musical career but when she was a child her family was listed as colored and mulatto by the U.S. Census Bureau when they were using those terms. Hutton was lauded by the local African-American newspaper of her South Side Chicago neighborhood for her dance performances but by the time she was in her teens mention of her disappeared. Some accounts point to the fact that at that time she was discovered by a white vaudeville producer and her career took a more professional turn.

In 1930, Hutton made her Broadway debut with Gus Edwards at the Palace Theater in N.Y. As Ina Ray at age 16, she was a featured singer and dancer in George White's "Melody" and at 17 she joined the Ziegfeld Follies. When she was just 18, the manager Irving Mills put together an all-female band and made her the leader. Mills changed her last name to Hutton at that time to take advantage of the popularity of millionairess Barbara Hutton. The band was called Ina Ray Hutton and her Melodears.

The band toured for five years and Hutton acquired the nickname "The Blonde Bombshell of Rhythm" for her sexy, energetic conducting style and her frequent costume changes (all of them slinky, strappy gowns). Hutton and her Melodears were subjects of several shorts filmed for Paramount including "Accent on Girls" and "Swing Hutton Swing" and also appeared in some feature length films. The group disbanded in 1939.

In 1940 Hutton went brunette and headed up an all-male band which also appeared in feature films and toured until 1946. In the 1950's the all-female format was still popular and Hutton put together another band for television, including her own Emmy award winning Ina Ray Hutton Show. The show aired on the West Coast for 4 years and for one summer season on NBC. She continued to sing and lead bands until her retirement in 1968.

The Savoy Ballroom

On March 12, 1926 the legendary Savoy Ballroom opened it's doors for the first time. Located at 596 Lenox Ave between 140th and 141st Streets in Harlem, New York, the ballroom took up one city block and could accommodate 4,000 people with two band stands, a pink interior, carpeted lounges, mirrored walls, colored lights and a spring loaded dance floor. During a year's time over 70,000 people would visit making an annual profit of $250,000 in it's peak years when admission was from 30 to 85 cents. The dance floor would have to be replaced every three years from the constant beatings from "Happy Feet". There were 90 permanent employees ranging from musicians, waiters, cashiers, administrative assistants and porters to tuxedo wearing bouncers and hostesses who would show you the latest dance steps.

The owners were white entrepreneurs Jay Faggen and a reputed gangster, Moe Gale and it was managed by African-American real estate businessman Charles Buchanon. Unlike many ballrooms of that era, the Savoy had a no-discrimination policy. On any given night the black/white ratio could be from 85% black/15% white to 50/50. People were judged by how well they danced and not by the color of their skin, a remarkable thing in pre-civil rights times.

The Savoy was the birthplace of the Lindy Hop (among many dance fads) and the northeast corner of the dance floor was dominated by the best dancers. To the people downtown it was known as the "Home of Happy Feet" but to the dancers of Harlem it was known as "The Track" because of the dance floor's elongated shape. It was the home of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, the most celebrated dancers of the era, many of whom went on to professional careers on Broadway and in Hollywood.

Over 250 name and and lesser known bands played at the Savoy with house bands that included those lead by Fess Williams, Chick Web, Erskin Hawkins and Al Cooper's Savoy Sultans. The double band stand allowed for seamless, continuous music as one band took up where the other band left off. A huge draw was the "Battle of the Bands", the most famous being between Chick Webb's house band and Benny Goodman's band when they were both at their peak of popularity (Webb won).

The Savoy closed it's doors in 1958 and despite efforts to save it and the nearby Cotton Club, it was demolished to make way for a housing project.

Bix Beiderbecke

Happy Birthday, Bix Beiderbecke 1903-1931...Controversy swirls around some of the facts about Beiderbecke's life but there is no doubt about the influence he had on jazz. Louis Armstrong said about him in 1971, "Every note he blew was so beautiful--I like that "Singing the Blues." Nobody else gonna blow that like he did. I never did play that tune because of Bix. I didn't want nobody to mess with it. Tell the whole world there will never be another Bix Beiderbecke." His purity of tone, unique improvisations, struggles with family and jobs and early death by alcoholism made him one of the early legends of jazz.

As a child in Davenport, Iowa, he showed early promise on the piano. By the age of seven he could play almost anything he heard by ear and by the age of 10 he was slipping away to play the calliope on the excursion boats on the riverfront. When he was 15 his brother brought home a Victrola and several records including "Tiger Rag" by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Bix was hooked. He taught himself to play the coronet by ear, adopting a non-standard fingering which some historians connect with his original sound.

When he was 18 he was sent away to boarding school. Until recently the standard take on that action was that his parents disapproved of his playing music, however, it has come to light that he was arrested on a charge of molesting the 5 year old daughter of a neighbor and his family may have sent him away to stay out of controversy. The charge was dropped but his biographer Jean Pierre Lion speculated that the arrest might have led to Beiderbecke feeling, "abandoned and ashamed...and a suspect of perversion." Other biographers and fans dismiss the importance of the event. Nevertheless, boarding school didn't suit him and he was soon thrown out for skipping class to go hear jazz bands and drink.

He joined and recorded with the "hot jazz" Wolverine Orchestra in 1923 and also began taking piano lessons from a young woman who introduced him to the works of Eastwood Lane whose style influenced Beiderbecke's only recorded piano piece "In a Mist." He joined Jean Goldkette's orchestra in 1924 but his "hot jazz" style of improvisation and inability to read music eventually lost him the job. That didn't stop him from recording on his own, putting out "Toddlin Blues" and "Davenport Blues" with members of Goldkette's band.

He joined Frankie Trumbauer's Orchestra in 1925 and for the rest of his career Beiderbecke and Trumbauer remained close, Trumbauer becoming a supporter and father figure to the younger man. It was during this time he recorded his solo masterpiece "In a Mist" as well as some of his best work with Trumbauer and guitarist, Eddie Lang. He brushed up enough on his sight reading to re-join Goldkette's band for another brief stint before signing up as a soloist with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra.

Whiteman's orchestra was the most popular band of the 1920's and Beiderbecke enjoyed the money and prestige of playing for such a successful outfit but it didn't stop his drinking. By 1929 his drinking began to catch up with him. He suffered from delirium tremens and had a nervous breakdown while playing with Whiteman. He was sent back to Davenport to stay with his family and was eventually placed in rehab with Whiteman continuing to pay him full salary with a promise to save his seat in the band for him. Whiteman famously kept his seat empty in Beiderbecke's honor but he never returned to play with the band again.

In 1930 he returned to New York to make a few recordings with his friend Hoagy Carmichael under the name Bix Beiderbecke and his Orchestra. But mainly he stayed in his room in a Queens boarding house drinking a lot and working on three beautiful solo piano pieces he would never record. He died at the age of 28 from an alcoholic seizure.

Georgia White

Happy Birthday, Georgia White 1903-1980...Her early life is a mystery but by the late 1920's she was singing the blues in Chicago nightclubs. Her first recording "When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles with You" was made with Jimmy Noone's orchestra in 1930. Her next foray into the studio began in 1935 for Decca and for the next six years she made over 100 recordings, more than any of her Women of Blues rivals, Lil Johnson, Merline Johnson and Memphis Minnie during that time.

Like many recording artists of the time, she also recorded under a pseudonym, Georgia Lawson. Her songs were often mildly risque with titles such as "I'll Keep Sittin' On It (If I Can't Sell It)", "Hot Nuts", and "I Just Want Your Stingaree" which she recorded with a warm and amused presentation. Her primary accompanists during the Decca recordings were pianist Richard M. Jones and guitarist Lonnie Johnson.

In the 40's she formed an all woman band which never recorded then went on to perform with Bumble Bee Slim and Big Bill Broonzy as his pianist in his Laughing Trio. She returned to performing in clubs in the 1950's with her last known performance in Chicago in 1959.

Glenn Miller

Happy Birthday, Glen Miller 1904-1944...Glen Miller's reign as the most popular bandleader in the U.S. came somewhat late in his career and lasted a very brief 3 1/2 years, but during that time he dominated popular music and was still selling gold records with reissues of his music 40 years after his death. Miller developed a distinctive sound using a high pitched clarinet playing the melody, doubled by a saxophone section playing an octave lower which produced a series of hits that stand today as definitive examples of swing music. Jazz fans weren't always enthusiastic about his overly rehearsed, highly disciplined band which left no room for spontaneity or improvisation, but Miller himself would say he lead a dance band, not a jazz band.

He got his start in high school with the Boyd Senter band then joined Ben Pollack's band in Los Angeles 1924 after dropping out of collage to become a professional musician. In 1928 he moved to New York, working as a session musician and arranger, joining the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra for a year in 1934 as an arranger and on trombone, moving on to Ray Nobles' band as a player and arranger at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, at the same time studying theory and composition with Joseph Shillinger.

Miller began recording on his own with pick up bands in 1935, forming his own, not very successful, bands in 1937 and 1938 until he got his big break with an engagement the summer of 1939 at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York. Glen Island was a major swing venue with a live radio broadcast giving his band extensive exposure. From that point on the band's popularity soared scoring them 17 Top Ten hits in 1939, 31 Top Ten hits in 1940, 11 in 1941 and 11 in 1942. He also made two films during this period, "Sun Valley Serenade" and "Orchestra Wives".

in 1942, although he was too old for military service, Miller talked his way into a commission with the Army Air Force during WW2. He would go on to create a service band, playing at war-bond rallies and military camps while continuing to do a weekly radio show. He took his band to Great Britain, playing for the troops and doing radio shows then planned to continue on to Paris when his single engine UC-64 Norseman disappeared over the English Channel on December 15, 1944.