Armstrong (with C. Williams, E. Taylor, Bechet, C. Green, B. Christian): Coal Cart Blues, Henderson: What-Cha -Call Em Blues, Sleepy Time Gal, Lovie Austin and her Blues Serenaders (with Priscilla Stewart): Charleston Mad, Charleston South Carolina, Bix and his Rhythm Jugglers: Toddlin' Blues, Mound City Blue Blowers: Gettin' Told, University Six: Then I'll Be Happy, 5 Birmingham Babies: Indigo Blues, NORK: Everybody Loves Somebody Blues, Henderson: Me Neenyah, Spanish Shawl, Clara Smith: When My Sugar Walks Down the Street, 5 Birmingham Babies: As Far as I'm Concerned, University 6: Fallin' Down, Cliff Edwards: Fascinatin' Rhythm.
Microphones brought the music alive in ‘25. Most of these were recorded through the new technology. All the better to hear Armstrong, Hawkins, Rollini, Bechet. Redman’s arrangements. NORK, Bix. Accounts indicate some resisted the microphone as giving too distinct a sound but after 100 years it’s hard to quarrel with the fidelity. This pretty much brings us up to date and out of the archaeological acoustical era pre-1925.
Jazz rode on the coattails of the fox trot and the blues and vice versa. There’s a gap between Bix as polyphonic jazz and Henderson as the fox trot King. A Henderson associate Clara Smith adjusts just enough to sing an unmistakable jazz song and it still comes out blues. Clara had the more modern sound of the blues bunch. Also by 1925 if you have been following this series Henderson had nothing left to prove. He could have retired that year with a prolific portfolio and gone back to chemistry but he remained a musical force well into the future.
No episode should lack some Rollini. Listen to Cliff Edwards and try to figure out how he did it. Remiss not to mention his resurgence in B Westerns as Ukulele Ike and as the A- list J. Cricket.
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