Little Ramblers: Those Panama Mamas, Prince of Wails, Varsity Eight: Copenhagen, Hard Hearted Hannah, Those Panama Mamas, Goofus Five: Choo Choo, Go 'Long Mule (Ernest Hare voc), California Ramblers: One Week Ago, Eliza, Look'a What I Got Now, Tessie Stop Teasin Me (Arthur Hall voc.), Doo Wacka Doo (Arthur Hall voc.) Southern Rose, Where the Lazy Daisies Grow, Somebody Loves Me.
Where hit tunes go to dance as jazz. The Ramblers in their various forms were a way of life, extensively recorded. Irving Brodsky and Rollini are credited with the arrangements. The ODJB taught horn players to include animal sounds in their repertoire, no worry with this crew. Prominent trickster Bill Moore presides and drummer Stan King adds vocal imitations. Bobby Davis on saxophone, with Rollini making it an elite reed section. Henderson learned much from this crew.
Male vocalists coming over from ragtime and vaudeville are Ernest Hare, Arthur Hall, also Billy Jones at times. Of course there was Cliff Edwards in 1924. The recording of notable male jazz singers is a later development probably starts with Armstrong and Cab Calloway. Fats Waller, Jimmy Rushing, Harry Mills, Donald Mills fill in the niche. The Mills Bros started around 1924. In this year we have Edwards and the kazoo singing of King or McKenzie, that led directly to the Mills Brothers barbershop breakthrough. Nothing insufficient about Hall, Hare, Jones et al. Just that the advanced jazz artistry takes off with Armstrong, Calloway and the Mills Bros. There’s Nick Lucas. There was Bert Williams until he died but he was more of a comedian although probably the best all around entertainer until Armstrong and Cab. Calloway more an icon than pure singer but his style was a pure jazz style, he had been a drummer. Waller was perhaps the most phenomenally successful during his abbreviated run but was prominently a comedian (although primarily talented in classical piano). Rushing probably is the dominant male lure jazz singer as the essential voice to the KC blues sound. Later on come hit makers like Joe Turner Nat Cole, Eckstein, Torme, Joe Williams, Tex Benecke, Herb Jeffries, Chet Baker, Al Hibbler, et al.
The women blues singers very early sang jazz, like Clara Smith, Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter, Eva Taylor, but male singers in that era like Sonny Greer or Clarence Williams were not heard much. Jolson and Cantor were not jazz or blues singers lacking the plausibility of a Marion Harris. Even during the run of such legends as Armstrong and Calloway or the Mills Brothers we tend to think more about the women as advancing the art: certainly Holiday, Fitzgerald and the Boswell Sisters. Eckstein, Hibbler seem like jazz specialists given the main stage is for male pop stars like Sinatra, Crosby and Nat Cole. The hotel bands in the 20s were denied association with the blues singers on records. This was corrected later. Nat Cole the singer was mainly lost as the superb piano player, backing up Lester Young. Instead he became the voice of the 50’s and a movie star.
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