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e it had been thought to have been the short based on nes P. Johnson's opera, "Yamecraw." Decca went so far to refer to it in the foreword to a James P. Johnson album, turned out, however, that Yamecraw, although of jazz terest, had Bessie neither in the cast nor on the sound track. The search for the elusive film continued. One day while digging through the archive files of RKO mmy Ernst, of Warner Brothers and Circle Sound, chanced ton a card marked "St. Louis Blues." On a hunch he tried trace it. No record of the cast and no copy of the film. All Bt was known was that it had been banned by censors and j a result RKO, who had acquired "St. Louis Blues" from lotophone, had in turn sold it.
Further research revealed that the short had been pur■ ased by an amusement company in the Southwest, which as exhibiting prints in Mexico and South America. An option on the sound track was quickly arranged and print sent to New York. One private showing proved rnst's hunch correct. ■l\ Circle immediately recorded the sound track, making four ajrfew historic sides of Bessie's Blues available to the public. • lortly thereafter an independent group of jazz lovers preprinted the Memorial Concert for Bessie Smith at which the ]|m was first shown to a jazz audience. Such contemporaries ;r|-: Bessie as Coot Grant and Sox Wilson, Chippie Hill, Eva ajraylor and Bessie's favorite accompanist, James P. Johnson, a!:.! sang or played her favorite tunes and told stories about J;Cr life. Immediately following the showing, Bessie's hus. and, Jack Gee, stepped to the footlights and, unable to hold . |ck his tears, told of Bessie's fatal automobile accident and ,lfr death due to Jim Crow hospital treatment in Clarksdale. tjrliss., in 1937. Ironically she was on her way to Hollywood . • make more pictures when she died.
It is to be hoped that the film "St. Louis Blues" will be ;.,.ade available to jazz groups all over the country. It is an •. Kperience worth many times the price of admission to a i oncert. Once again it would seem that the jazz world is reatly indebted to Circle Sound. And thanks are also due to •en Katz for presenting the Merhorial Concert to Bessie mith.
At the memorial concert, Coot Grant and Sox Wilson, vaudeville greats of Bessie's day (top) ; Bertha "Chippie" Hill sings the blues, accompanied by Albert Nicholas (center left) ; Jack Gee, Bessie's husband (center right) ; and below, blues-singer Eva Taylor, wife of Clarence Williams, and their daughter Irene, rehearse "Gulf Coast Blues," along with Maxie Kaminsky, James P. Johnson and Jimmy Archey. Pictures on opposite page are stills from "St. Louis Blues." Photos on this page by Jo Chasin.
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