Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (feat. the Rhythm Boys and Bix Beiderbecke) - Changes

This post shows two more highlights of 1927: Bix and Bing. Bix Beiderbecke was at his peak and Bing Crosby was introduced to a national audience for the first time.

First, Bing. In 1926, when Paul Whiteman was in Los Angeles he discovered a singing duo, one of whom was Bing Crosby. He offered the duo a job with his band (the most popular band of the era), added a third member and called the resulting trio the Rhythm Boys. Bing Crosby of course went on to become the most popular singer of the 20th century.

Now, Bix. In mid 1927, after his previous work with the Frankie Trumbauer and the Jean Goldkette Orchestras ended, Bix Beiderbecke joined the Whiteman Orchestra. Bix was the first white musician to master jazz performance and he was arguably the only trumpet player who could have gone toe-to-toe with Louis Armstrong at the time. Bix recorded most of his best work in 1927 (see his harmonically-advanced solo piano piece “In a Mist” and both “Singin’ the Blues” and “I’m Comin’ Virginia” with Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra). After that year his alcoholism began to affect his playing, eventually killing him in 1931.

To the song, then. “Changes” is one of the earliest Whiteman releases to feature the Rhythm Boys and (as far as I can tell) was the first to feature both Bix and Bing within the same 3-minute burst. The song seems a bit under-developed in form and neither the Rhythm Boys nor Bix turn in exceptional performances, but it’s still worth a few listens. Bing was only a few months from his breakthrough hit (still with Whiteman) and Bix’s solo, although not his best, was still better than almost any other cornetist could hope to play in 1927.

The Stranglers - Golden Brown (Live)

This song is a story of friendship between The Strangler’s lead vocalist Hugh Cornwell and his dear childhood friend.

At the time, Cornwell’s friend, an aspiring politician from Glasgow, was working as a lecturer in politics at Glasgow College of Technology. He ran for the Edinburgh South constituency in the UK general election of 1979, but lost to another candidate. He was feeling pretty down in the dumps after that, so Cornwell agreed to help out his old friend. Cornwell wrote and composed a song in support, depicting fond memories the two had in their youth. The song was a great success in that it pulled the band out of its slump, and resulted in the election of Cornwell’s friend into parliament the following year.

His friend was none other than Gordon Brown. Thanks to the release of Golden Brown, members of parliament reported they found Brown “more personable”. Brown has The Stranglers to thank for his rise to power as the eventual prime minister of the United Kingdom.

I’m just kidding, it’s about heroin and how awesome it is.

Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra (feat. George Gershwin on piano) - Rhapsody in Blue

Paul Whiteman, leader of the best jazz-influenced dance band of the ’20s, commissioned George Gershwin in 1923 to write a more challenging orchestral based jazz piece for his orchestra of jazz musicians to try. The request was pure self-promotion for Whiteman while young George Gershwin had little experience with such music. It seemed set up to be a valiant failure, but the result was no less than “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Gershwin himself conducted from the piano for the first ever recording of the song in 1924, but the audio recording technology was still poor. In 1927 he sat again at the piano with the Whiteman Orchestra to record the first definitive version of the classical/jazz song using new “electrical” recording technology (this version was definitive until Ferde Grofé re-arranged “Rhapsody” for piano and orchestra in 1942). In its entirety the piece runs about 19 minutes, but because of technological limitations of the recording discs, both early Gershwin arrangements are abridged to last only nine minutes.

By 1927, Gershwin had matured (for example his musical Funny Face, starring Fred and Adele Astaire, debuted in ‘27) and by then Whiteman had cherry-picked some of the best musicians in the country to fill out his band… more on this aspect tomorrow. This recording placed each firmly at the top of his respective cultural domain. Again, thank you 1927!

Al Jolson - Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo’ Bye!)

1927 brought us The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film to include (some) spoken dialogue. It starred Al Jolson, famous already for his work in vaudeville (especially blackface). The film itself suffers, but it’s importance remains in that it marked the end of the era of silent films and the beginning of popular ‘talkies.’

The very first words ever spoken in a full length feature film, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” were not in the script. Al Jolson said those words to continue a long-running joke after he’d interrupted the applause for operatic tenor Enrico Caruso in 1918 by running on stage and yelling “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” Jolson was notorious for his ego and if he weren’t the best-selling, most entertaining singer of his era, it would be easy to come down on him.

Helen Morgan - Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man

Like I said last week when I posted the 1932 recording of “Ol’ Man River,” Show Boat was the first true American musical. The biggest star of the original 1927 show was Helen Morgan, who played the character Julie. “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” is a turning point in the show because it begins another character’s inquiry into Julie’s racial heritage. How could an apparently white woman know a ‘black song’ (also notice the ‘black style’ of the song’s title)?

This song, along with another great Show Boat tune “Bill,” will forever be associated with torch singer Helen Morgan. I find it unfortunate the way rock and roll seems to have sliced 20th century popular music into two groups: Elvis and later (of which many Americans - even younger generations - are aware) and pre-Elvis (of which many people are sadly ignorant). For the two songs I mentioned, Helen Morgan deserves at least a little lasting recognition in our collective cultural memory!

Jim Jackson - Jim Jackson’s Kansas City Blues, Pts. 1 & 2

The importance of this song can not be understated. First of all, “Jim Jackson’s Kansas City Blues” was one of the biggest ‘race records’ of late 1927 and 1928. It has been argued that the song was the first million-selling record ever (although a number of other songs also have that claim). Such a hit from that early date already makes it important, but the song’s influence kept growing.

The melody of song was reworked repeatedly. Most notably, a direct line can be traced from “Kansas City Blues” through Charley Patton’s 1930 “Going to Move to Alabama,” finally turning up as the basis for Hank William’s “Move it On Over” from 1947. Both the melody and the style of that song were in turn used by Max Freedman and James Myers in 1952 when they wrote “Rock Around the Clock” for Bill Haley. Haley finally recorded the song in 1954 and released it as a single B-side. In 1955 “Rock Around the Clock” was played over the opening credits to the film Blackboard Jungle, after which it finally became the genre-defining hit we remember it as. ”Kansas City Blues” was also the inspiration for Wilbert Harrison’s 1959 rock and roll hit “Kansas City.”

Among the lyrics were a number of lines with interesting significance. “It takes a rocking chair to rock / a rubber ball to roll / Nice looking teasin’ brown to satisfy my soul” was only the third recorded instance of the terms “rock” and “roll” together and only the second to possibly carry a sexual connotation. The next verse begins: “T is for Texas, T’s for Tennesse.” Only a month and a half after Jim Jackson recored “Kansas City Blues,” Jimmie Rodgers recorded “Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)” which itself became a huge hit and helped “hillbilly music” (eventually called country music) take off.  The fact that those lyrics show up in both songs shows the role that ‘floating lyrics’ and stock phrases played in blues and folk music as it developed before and during the early years of recording.

Finally, I have no proof of this, but I see the popularity of this song possibly having an influence on the city of Kansas City becoming a hot-spot for jump blues and blues shouters in the 1940s (Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner were from Kansas City while regional blues shouters like Wynonie Harris from Omaha and Jimmy Rushing from Oklahoma City made Kansas City a prime destination). Since “Kansas City Blues” was such a big hit I can see the song as just one of those things that imbedded subconsciously in the minds of the people who heard it…

Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues

In the course of music history, some years have been credited for greatly altering the musical and cultural landscape. Such years include 1956 (rock and roll/Elvis), 1964 (British invasion), 1977 (punk), and 1991 (grunge). I am here proposing that the most important jump for recorded music and its cultural impact, across genres and formats, was 1927, although people may not have realized it at the time. In the next week, I will post songs and video from blues to Broadway, Hollywood to jazz that show how fantastic 1927 was for American music and how influential that music would be in the long run.

First, although blues music is notorious for riffing on lyrics pulled from the verse of another song, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s recording of “Match Box Blues” was the first to carry that title. And a good country blues song it is. Jefferson was one of the most sought after blues musicians of the 20s. He recorded three versions of “Match Box Blues” in 1927 for two record labels. Now, I admit that the song didn’t drastically change music at the time, but any song that was covered by the Beatles eventually proved its influence.

By 1957 the Rockabilly craze in Memphis had spawned a good number of covers of old blues songs. Carl Perkins only had vague recollections of the lyrics to “Matchbox,” but in typical blues fashion he made up his own over a Jerry Lee Lewis boogie-woogie rhythm.

The Beatles recorded the song a number of times, with the most familiar being a Ringo-sung 1964 recording from the UK Long Tall Sally EP and the US Something New LP. Comparing the Beatles version to the original, of course the rhythm was stronger and the recording clearer, but the basic melody and song structure remained quite similar to Blind Lemon Jefferson’s song from 1927.

Michael Jackson & Freddie Mercury - State of Shock

This song almost topped the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released in 1984, featuring the vocal talents of Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger.  However, the original recording of this song dates back to 1983, a jam session with Jackson and Freddie Mercury.

Mercury was visiting Jackson for the first time, at Jackson’s massive house in Encino.  For his part, Freddie spent the day being alternately impressed with and bemused by his gracious host.  On a tour of the house, Freddie and his personal assistant were treated to such sights as MJ’s bedroom (his bed, a mere mattress on the floor— “I prefer to be closer to the earth,” an actual quote), the in-home cinema that doubled as a functioning church on Sundays, and the mud-filled llama pen.

While Mercury was also inspired by MJ’s work ethic in the studio, he later remarked, “All that money and no taste, dear.  What a waste.”