Jazz Cavalcade: The Inside Story of Jazz

By Dave Dexter Jr and Orson Welles

The inside story of Jazz written by one of America's foremost authorities. The former editor of DOWN BEAT and correspondent for METRONOME takes you behind the scenes in the first book of its kind on modern American music.

“Dave Dexter's Jazz Cavalcade is just about the best stuff I have ever read on the subject. Of all the writer-editors, Dexter is the most accurate, unprejudiced, and blessed with background.”—BENNY GOODMAN

David Edwin Dexter Jr. (November 25, 1915 – April 19, 1990) was an American music journalist, record company executive, and producer known primarily for his long association with Capitol Records. He worked with many important figures in jazz and traditional popular music, including Count Basie, Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, and Frank Sinatra.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Braunfell Books
• Release date: Feb 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781805231325

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© Braunfell Books 2023, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

DEDICATION 17

FOREWORD 18

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 19

1—Jazz and Dance Music 20

2—New Orleans: The Cradle Rocks 25

3—Chicago Takes Over 34

4—The Chicago Style Myth 40

5—Jazz in New York 44

6—Jazz in The West 56

7—Enter Swing 66

8—The Fourth Estate 81

9—Small Bands 88

10—Jazz On Records 93

11—Jazz On The Air 110

12—Jazz on the screen 114

13—Jazz Overseas 117

14—The Song Sellers 124

15—It Takes All Kinds 136

16—What of the future? 147

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 154

BOOKS 154

BOOKLETS 157

MAGAZINES AND PERIODICALS 159

JAZZ CAVALCADE

THE INSIDE STORY OF JAZZ

BY

DAVE DEXTER, JR.

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THE WOLVERINES(1923)

(Photo taken in the Gennett Recording Studio, Richmond, Indiana)

Front Row: Min Leibrook (Tuba), Bob Gillette(Banjo), Vic Moore(Drums), Dick Voynow (Piano), Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Al Gande (Trombone).

Back Row: Jimmy Hartwell(Clarinet) and George Johnson(Sax).

(Public courtesy of Herman Rosenberg)

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NEW ORLEANS RHYTHM KINGS (1925)

Left to right: George Brunies, Paul Mares, Ben Pollack, Leon Rappolo, Mel Stitzel, Volly de Faut, Lew Black and Steve Brown.

(Photo courtesy of Herman Rosenberg)

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THE CHICK WEBB ORCHESTRA

(Photo taken-at Apollo Theatre 1936)

Trombones: Sandy Williams, Nat Story; Trumpets: Taft Jordan, Bobby Stark, Mario Bauza; Saxes; Chauncey Haughton, Louis Jordan, Wayman Carver, Teddy McRae; Drums: Chick Webb; Guitar: Herbert Miles; Piano: Tommy Fulford; Director: Bardu Ali; Vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald and Charlie Linton.

(Photo courtesy of Herman Rosenberg)

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THE JIMMIE LUNCEFORD ORCHESTRA (1937)

Front Row—left to right: Sy Oliver, Paul Webster, Eddie Tompkins, Edwin Wilcox, Willie Smith, Dan Grissom, Joe Thomas and Earl Carruthers. Leader: Jimmie Lunceford.

Back Row—left to right: Russell Bowles, Elmer Crumbley, Eddie Durham, James Crawford, Laforet Dent, Al Norris and Moses Allen.

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DEDICATION

To My Son

STEVE TRENTON DEXTER

FOREWORD

By Orson Welles

LET’S FACE it. Jazz has made some dangerous friends.

There’s something of the opium eater in your jazz cultist. His enthusiasm affects him like a drug habit, removing him, it seems, from the uninitiated and less paranoid world about him, and encouraging many of the attitudes of full-blown megalomania. Mind, I don’t object to his keeping to himself any more than you do. I’m sure we both hope he does. But he shouldn’t be allowed to drag jazz with him down the rabbit hole.

His announced project, remember, was to clarify, to cast light on a darkened and confused scene. He’s actually increased the confusion, and what light he’s offered is a spooky enough and submarine phosphorescense illuminating no more than his own unpretty self.

The most valid objections, however, are not to his personality. It is not what he is but what he does. In place of the jazz musician he has erected and, I’m sorry to say, effectively sustained the melodramatic image of a weird and reefer-ridden merry-andrew. In point of fact, jazz musicians are mostly serious professionals and are always embarrassed by the attentions of our cultist—whose attitude, if you’ve noticed, is at once uncomfortably proprietory and woefully abject.

I find that most real jazzmen agree with me that the positive worst of his efforts is this aficionado’s tireless attempt to make a secret, a private sort of Rosicrucian mystery, of a brand of American music which is—God knows—essentially public and, I’m sure, potentially popular. The appointed tasks of this fanaticism include the self-righteous underlining of the difference between jazz and pop, and even jazz and jump. These distinctions are important, but our friend’s approach is destructively snobbish, and the result is an unlucky deepening of the gulf between inspirational hot music and its popular derivatives.

Well, here’s a book by Dave Dexter which cheerfully avoids the chi-chi of the specialist.

You’ll find nothing in it of that sentimentality and spurious mysticism which muddy many earlier treatments of the same subject. I must warn you that it gives space to several musicians who are not true practitioners of jazz, and it has many a good word for the rich relatives of pure hot music. (For ‘relatives’ read ‘bastards’). I find myself in some disagreement with a few of Mr. Dexter’s evaluations, but I salute the book for its wholesome approach and for its painstaking documentation.

The cultists are going to hate Jazz Cavalcade. I like it because a square can understand it, and because it isn’t for the long-haired.

Beverly Hills, California

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TO THE hundreds of professional musicians who have so generously assisted with the compiling of facts, figures and philosophies expressed within the pages which follow, the heartfelt and grateful thanks of the writer are sincerely extended. Space limitations deem it impossible to mention, by name, all of the jazzmen—leaders and sidemen alike—who cheerfully gave their help. The names and the activities of these musicians, and many others, will be found within the sixteen chapters comprising Jazz Cavalcade.

To Glenn Burrs, publisher of Down Beat; to Carl Cons and John Hammond, with whom I at one time was happily associated in publishing the magazine, Music and Rhythm, and to the musicians Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, Red Nichols and Zutty Singleton in particular I am privileged to pay special tribute for allowing the publication of certain incidents, headlines and other material, and for patiently recalling names, dates and places figuring in the wondrous story of American jazz music.

To Lou Schurrer, an artist who loves jazz and has accomplished much in its behalf as a result of his drawings and cartoons, may I say thank you for the suggestions and support given me. To Charles Edward Smith, along with his colleagues Frederic Ramsey, Jr., William Russell and Charles Payne Rogers, and to Charles Delaunay in France I bow respectfully for the assistance which their respective works, The Jazz Record Book and Hot Discography, lent me in checking band personnels and information pertaining to several of the records discussed within the pages of Jazz Cavalcade.

Acknowledgment also is made to the Misses Auriel Macfie and Merrilyn Hammond, and especially to Miss Mickie Redburn, whose helpful and considerate work in shaping up the mass of notes and manuscript paper proved invaluable to a hack writer making his first attempt to produce something in book form which, in its small way, may serve to further the cause of jazz music.

D. D.

1—Jazz and Dance Music

JAZZ MUSIC has come a long way since its inception a half century ago in and near New Orleans. Past the crude period in which native American Negro work songs, religious music and traditional spirituals characterized its infant years, jazz has proceeded hesitantly and imperceptibly at times, swiftly and confidently at other periods, through many colorful eras. Yet today it remains essentially the same exciting and invigorating music that it was at birth.

Only in recent years have we in the United States become conscious of this musical idiom. Incredible although it may appear, now that Americans have belatedly awakened to jazz and jazzmen, it is a paradoxical and unfortunate fact that the men who created and furthered the art have, even now, been accorded only pitifully scant recognition. In England, in France, in Holland and in a score of other foreign lands live untold thousands whose Godlike reverence of American performers is incomparable to the apathetic situation which existed here in the States until comparatively recently.

King George VI admittedly treasures his enormous collection of jazz recordings, and it is common knowledge, throughout Great Britain, that he entertains himself and his royal family with his Gramophone concerts almost every evening, after dining, in the hallowed chambers of Buckingham Palace.{1} He evinces only a slight interest in classical music. The good King is not alone in his liking for American jazz. He is, rather, an extraordinary example of the many persons of every age and race, every religion and color, who obtain extreme pleasure and entertainment from jazz. The Duke of Windsor is even more noted than King George VI for his devotedness and loyalty to jazz; when he abdicated his throne and left Great Britain his well-rounded collection of recordings traveled with him in the royal party.

Many of the most authoritative treatises, histories and discographies regarding this fascinating subject have been produced, peculiarly enough, by Europeans. Down through the years an inestimable amount of literature has arisen, much of it as a result of the efforts of sundry jazz enthusiasts abroad. The end of World War II in August of 1945 served notice that considerable additional contributions on the subject will regularly become available again now that censorship, mailing, paper stock and related problems no longer prohibit international exchanges.

America is fast arising from its lethargic attitude toward jazz, however. National magazines (Esquire, Look, Pic, etc.) have begun to devote attention to the art. Radio and motion picture industry leaders who struck out on three straight pitches, before the war, attempting to present jazz are now preparing for another trip to the plate. The natural effect of this welcome and fairly sudden renaissance is thus providing a long-needed stimulus to a legion of musicians and scholars alike.

And just what is jazz?

A variety of terms have been used, through the years, to define the music. Until after the start of World War I it was uncertainly referred to as jass, and years later—in the middle 1930s when it underwent a violent modification and attracted millions of new followers—it became swing music. Even now the term swing is commonly confused with the original designation. Boiling it down to an understandable definition, the majority of the popular music heard on the radio, on records, in ballrooms, in night clubs and generally speaking, wherever America’s popular bands and orchestras perform, is obviously dance music.

There are 139 millions of Americans within these 48 states. Probably less than one per cent of this bristling, busy population actually employs the terms jazz and dance music properly. Most people consider Sammy Kaye and Guy Lombardo to be leaders of jazz orchestras. Even the so-called concert programs of Paul Whiteman and Fred Waring are popularly assumed to fall within the realm of jazz.

Jazz musicians and connoisseurs know better.

Virtually all of America’s big name orchestras purvey simple, 4/4 tempo dance music. Each organization has its own device, a musical trick which easily establishes the identity of its conductor. Kay Kyser achieved his success appearing as a band-leading comedian. He also had his orchestra’s arrangements constructed for radio and recording identification so that the title of each song was announced in the first few measures of the introductory passages by a vocalist. This was another of Kyser’s tricks. Coupled with his quick puns and homespun North Carolina jokes, it was enough to bring his orchestra fabulous grosses of more than $1,000,000 annually.

Yet Kyser’s music is considered jazz by a legion of Americans!

Kyser is no jazzman. He is a showman. He likewise is a shrewd merchant. He makes no claim for a K.K. shelf in Jazzdom’s Hall of Fame. He has a product to sell and he never lacks customers. If he were operating a shoe store he undoubtedly would be equally as successful. His stock is dance music—coupled with clever ballyhoo and humor—and to castigate him for his activity would be as short-sighted and stupid as to protest Henry Kaiser’s mass marketing of a radical new low cost automobile. Kay Kyser is in business. He is not an artist and doesn’t claim to be.

Jazz fanatics who belittle the simple dance music of the Kysers, Lombardos, McCoys and Kayes also often fail to consider the potent influence of jazz—real jazz music—on the saccharine schmalz product of the commercial orchestras. Kyser’s music is far better now than it was five years ago. Sammy Kaye in late 1945 was forced by his public to modify his unexciting music and make it sound somewhat like the great jazz groups of this post-war age. Many others have abandoned their Lombardo-styled units and reorganized with modern swing aggregations. Even Lombardo hired another trumpet!

One might consider, too, the many hundreds of studio orchestras featured in radio stations and on motion picture sound stages. The composing genius of Duke Ellington, the impeccable solo musicianship of Benny Goodman and the adroit use of a rhythm section as pioneered by Earl Hines are only a few of the currents flowing from the surging river of pure jazz which are surely and relentlessly shaping the course of tomorrow’s dance music.

Jazz gains in strength every year. The infant nears maturity. Its influence on music the world over can in no way be overestimated.

The layman’s ear becomes better developed. And just as more men and women enjoy the broadcasts of the symphony now, compared to a decade ago, more and more laymen have learned and will learn to distinguish between good and inferior popular music. The future will beckon smilingly upon creative artists who place aesthetics above showmanship; it will be easier for an Ellington to win homage. The nimble salesman of musical tricks will find fewer customers.

It is true that dance music, in the past, has unfailingly proven more remunerative than jazz. The Yankee Dolla’ is a powerful incentive to a young musician. It likewise is true that a jazz musician will live frugally—performing for a smaller and more appreciative audience—rather than collect a larger paycheck by offering musical tricks which require no high degree of musicianship. Almost anyone can don a funny hat and shout gags into a microphone.

The point is this: a jazzman relies upon his music alone. The dance band man resorts to strange and often unmusical weapons in order to attract the public’s fancy. As art, it is doubtful if Horace Heidt’s trained police dog, Fred Waring’s neon-covered saxophones and Alvino Rey’s doll Stringy (operated through Rey’s guitar with a shocking assist from a 110-volt electric circuit) will prove as permanent and valuable to mankind as, say, the Ellington transcription of his own masterful New World A-Comin’ opus.

Infrequently a superb jazzman like the late Thomas (Fats) Waller will happen along and win a certain amount of acclaim with the public while simultaneously maintaining his exalted position among the jazz purists. Waller’s kind—a clown whose musicianship was of a calibre never to be questioned—comes few and far between, unfortunately.

So much for dance music. Its relation to jazz is hardly as close as the public—and too many classical musicians and critics of the Deems Taylor mould—so regularly assumes it to be.

Like swing, the word ragtime is another term which, for many years, was mistakenly used to describe jazz. Dixieland and blues are still others which have been incorrectly applied. Today, it is generally agreed, these actually are all sub-titles under the main heading of jazz and are properly employed when describing types of jazz, much as boogie-woogie also is a cognomen used in classifying a definite form of music which serves, with others, to make up this fascinating art form.

Ragtime was probably the first term used to describe jazz music, and was properly employed to designate a certain syncopated style of playing which was expounded by all the pioneer pianists. Certain traces of ragtime still appear evident, frequently, in the music of today. Dixieland is not identified with the piano. It is an ensemble style which was first developed by Nick LaRocca and the Original Dixieland Jass Band. Few are the groups existing today which feature this exciting and rhythmic jazz form, but of all the organizations which emphasized Dixieland music, the Bob Crosby orchestra of 1935-42 was best able to perform and popularize the style. More recently Eddie Miller’s band in California (which features several of the Crosby group’s star musicians) has attempted, not so successfully, to continue in the same tradition. Boogie-woogie is almost exclusively a manner of playing solo piano, and is inextricably related to ragtime music, although in recent years several bands have successfully orchestrated boogie-woogie figures and it now appears obvious that the style is not limited to an individual performer. A fast-moving left hand, playing eight beats to a measure instead of the conventional four, distinguishes boogie-woogie from other jazz forms.

So much, then, for nomenclature. The term hot jazz is redundant. It implies, as Hugues Panassie in The Real Jazz suggests, that there are two distinct kinds of authentic jazz in existence. There can be no argument with Panassie on this point. There is but one kind of jazz no matter if it is described as hot, white, cold or clammy. When in doubt, punt.

Jazz is a music with its own peculiarities and history. It is easily identifiable. And yet no one—musician or critic alike—has composed an ideal definition of jazz! It is agreed that jazz was conceived by the American Negro. It is also known to have originated in the South in the period following the Civil War, with New Orleans as the center of its birth and early development. No one denies that American Negroes, working in the fields and on the levees and along the dusty roads, and in labor gangs and relaxing at parties and at other gathering places throughout the Delta country, in some manner (and without being aware of their inventiveness) combined their work songs with their religious and pleasure music and wound up with a new music which is