PHOTOGRAPHS
This page is a 'Work in Progress' feature, showing previously unpublished photographs of jazz and blues artists from my collection. Comments are especially welcome on personnel identifications or additional information. If you have any similar original photographic prints to sell I'd love to hear from you!
Viola McCoy, c. 1924, autographed to music publisher Joe Davis
Bailey's Lucky Seven in Gennett's New York Studios, February 10, 1923. Probable personnel ( L-R):- Sam Lanin (pretending to blow clarinet), unknown, not Loren McMurray or Benny Krueger), Nick Lucas (not Eddie Lang as has been conjectured), Phil Napoleon (with back to camera), ?Tom Satterfield, Miff Mole, Jules Levy Jr. Note the cymbal on the stool in front of Lucas - played by Lanin?
RUMOLINO'S HOT BOYS BAND, FRANCE, C. 1924. L-R: ---- Dahl (American), Tony Rumolino (Italian), ----- Jalouseau? (French), Clarence J. Gransie (American, also recorded with Gorman's Novelty Syncopators, The Happy Six, Yerkes' Bluebird Orchestra, Art Hickman's New York London Five, Jack Howard's Metropolitans and Joe Lanin's Jazz Band), Paul Gason (Belgian), Billy Thorburn (British), the latter best known for his work with the Savoy Orpheans and later with The Organ, The Dance Band And Me.
BANDLEADER FRED SPINNELLY, C. 1927. Made some extremely rare and fine sides for Edison Bell Electron in London in 1927 and also worked in Italy.
DON REDMAN, c. 1935. A great candid shot taken backstage in his dressing room. Thanks to Vince Giordano for providing a date for this photo.
BENNY PEYTON'S JAZZ KINGS, LONDON, 1920. A photo from the mythically rare 'Dancing World' magazine of November 1920. L-R: Pierre De Caillaux, George Smith, Sidney Bechet (at rear), Joe Caulk, Fred Coxcito, Benny Peyton.
PAUL SPECHT AND HIS ORCHESTRA, NEW YORK, 1922. L-R: Frank Guarente, Archie Jones, Russell Deppe, Arthur Schutt, Specht, Chauncey Morehouse, Frank Smith, Harold Saliers, Johnny O'Donnell. The photo was signed by Specht to Philadelphia bandleader Robert Bennett, who made a few rare sides with his Frisco Syncopators in London in 1923. Note that Morehouse was a left-handed drummer!
Billy Arnold's American Novelty Jazz Band, London, 1920. L-R: Billy Arnold, Harry Johnson, Henry Arnold, Charles Kleiner, Billy Trittle (r.n. Trittlefitz), Charles 'Dinty' Moore. The Arnold brothers' real surname was Guldemann.
The Original Capitol Orchestra, London, 1923. Cartoon by 'Poli' from the Dancing World magazine. The personnel of the band changed during their tenure in England but the full identification of the band depicted is as follows:- --- Evans (bass), Bill Sell (drums), (there is debate over the actual surname - according to author/researcher Bruce Vermazen, a relative, the spelling should be Sell), Byron Webb (alto sax), Les Russuck (banjo) (often shown as Russick but all documentary evidence examined shows Russuck), Leon van Straten (viloin, director), John V. Sheppard (piano), Vic Sell (cornet), ---- Carter (sax), Richard MacDonald (trombone). The Sell brothers, were from Donnellson, Iowa and it has often been commented that Vic Sell's playing was very strongly influenced by such New Orleans trumpeters as Johnny De Droit and Albert Brunies. I now have evidence courtesy of Bruce Vermazen that Vic Sell spent the winter of 1921/2 with The Melody Makers, the resident band on the Streckfus line Mississippi paddle steamer 'Capitol' based for the winter season in New Orleans. According to an unidentified newspaper report:- " There were six men in the band, and they thought that they were pretty fair, but when they hit gay New Orleans, they discovered that they had vastly over-rated themselves, or rather the crowds that boarded the big excursion boat discovered it for them, and told the ship's officers they wanted none of this northern corn. "You see how it was," Vic said later. "We just had to, or get our notice, so every night when we pulled in to the dock, after the last excursion, we started hunting and listening. We made every dive in New Orleans, white, tan and black, and all the big night clubs. We listened to every band and every one that seemed to have something we liked, we watched and listened, then next morning we went onto the orchestra stand and the "Capitol" and hammered away till we could do it the way we thought it ought to be done." "... one night a fellow who said he was a purser off an English ship, listened and stood around half the evening. He came up and us if we'd all like to go to London. Of course we said yes - - just brushed it off... because we'd heard so much of that kind of talk. "... He said his ship was sailing next morning and that he'd see us when he came back, so we forgot about him. Then one day he did come back and he had the contracts. Six months at Rector's Cafe in London! Did we sign? I'll say we did!"
Nina Mae McKinney, autographed to bandleader Lew Stone
Bandleader Jimmy Joy, who made several fine records in the mid-late 1920s.
Art Hickman's New York London Five, London 1920. L-R: George Fishberg, Jack Howard, Clarence Gransie, Keith Pitman, George Klein. They made a number of fine records for HMV in 1920-21 and one side for Edison Bell Winner as Jack Howard's Metropolitans. The band had nothing whatsoever to do with bandleader Art Hickman - the group had been assembled by band contractor Harry A. Yerkes and they 'licensed' the Hickman name, as his records were already well known in England.
Paul Whiteman's Saxophone Sextette, c. 1922. L-R: Keith Pitman, Al Mitchell, Bradford 'Batty' DeMarcus, F. Wheeler 'Waddy' Wadsworth, Gene Fosdick, Loren McMurray. Loren McMurray's pioneering role as a jazz saxophonist and his untimely death at the age of 25 is the subject of an article by me at the VJM's Jazz & Blues Mart website - www.vjm.biz/articles.htm
Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians, c. 1929. It appears to date to slightly later than the 1928/9 Brunswick recordings but presumably includes most if not all of the men who appear on the records (though none of them have three trumpets!). Indefatigable researcher Chris Hillman suggests William "Bullet" Bradley as the trombonist rather than Ed Burke and that Cicero Thomas is the right-hand of the three trumpeters, which would put it before the band split in Autumn 1929. The other trumpeters are most likely Ben Thigpen & George Wright. However Albert McCarthy in his book 'Big Band Jazz' (where a poor copy of the above photo is reproduced) says that Thigpen did not join the band until Autumn 1929, replacing Thomas! Any help in identifying the musicians would be most welcome!
Louis Armstrong's Orchestra rhythm section, c. 1935. Luis Russell, piano, Paul Barbarin, drums, Pops Foster, bass, Lee Blair, guitar.
Red Nichols & His Orchestra playing in an unidentified church in Kansas City, 1933. L-R: Ernie Mathias, tpt; ?Frank Simione, sax; Frank Sacco, tpt; Joe Cataline, sax; Fred Morrow or Teddy Klein, sax; Alex Polacsy, tbn; ?June Rae or Frances Stevens, vcls; Red Nichols, cnt; Bill Lower, bb; Tony Sacco, gtr; Charles Riddick, pno.
Silent Film queens Laura La Plante, Marian Nixon and Ena Gregory 'stand in' with Carlyle Stevenson's Bon-Ton Ballroom Orchestra on its visit to Universal Studios, c. 1924/5. The Stevenson band recorded several fine sides on the West Coast for the Hollywood and Sunset labels.
Here's another recording studio mystery photo. It's the Columbians Dance Orchestra, a Columbia studio dance band comprising older 'house' musicians and young dance band players. The photograph was taken at the Columbia studios in the Gotham Bank Building, Broadway and 59th Street, New York, in c. October 1921 and the director is ace saxophonist Clyde Doerr. The only musicians I can identify with any degree of certainty apart from Clyde Doerr are Hymie Farberman, trumpet (4th from left) and banjoist Harry Reser. The drummer holding a cymbal in front of Farberman may be Columbia staff musician Edward Rubsam, whose career at Columbia went back to the company's earliest days. Loren McMurray may be the first saxophonist on the left and Rudy Wiedoeft may be to his right, but it is not easy to tell in this profile shot. Note the music clips hanging from the ceiling, suspended from laterally-strung wires so that they can be easily repositioned.
Here's a somewhat battered, but historically important, photo of Ted Lewis and His Band, broadcasting from the makeshift-looking Union Trust Co.'s radio station in Cleveland, Ohio, at 7pm on Tuesday, 24th October 1922. Ted and the band were on tour with the Greenwich Village Follies when they took time out to make an early appearance on the radio. The personnel from left to right is:- Frank Lhotak, Harry Raderman, Frank Ross, Ted Lewis, Harry Barth, John Lucas, Dave Klein, Walter Kahn.