The record changer (Jan-Dec 1951)

8 CHICAGO'S first JAZZ BAND ? TOM BROWN'S STORY as told to j. lee anderson I, Tom Brown, was the first to take a Dixieland band to Chicago and start this wide spread of jazz. Everyone else has been doing all the talking about jazz and I have kept still. Now it is my turn to talk. It all started this way: Back in 1913, a group of white musicians was playing regularly at the Young Men's Gymnastic Club dances in New Orleans, and on special occasions the dance team of Frisco and Loretta McDermott was brought from Chicago to do a show. They had a ballroom dancing act and also did a patsy dance with lit cigar and derby hat. Our band played their act so well that Frisco wanted us to go back to Chicago with them at that time. I told him that we had quite a few contracts signed but would consider his offer when these were finished. Then Frisco went back to Chicago and told Smiley Carbet, of Lamb's Cafe, what wonderful music the Brown Band had, and he wired us an offer to play at his place. The price was right and we accepted the job. That is how this dance team helped give our music a start. They were the first ones to tell Chicago about Brown's Dixieland Band. We arrived at Lamb's Cafe on May 15, 1915, and after a week, Lipschultz, the afternoon orchestra leader, came to me and said, "Brown, you are not union and we can't play in the same place with you." I told him to take it up with Smiley, who told him that we were making a hit and if he could not work with us to take his orchestra out. He did, but reported the matter to the union. So the union thought up a stunt to hurt us. They took a vulgar word, "jazz," that was used around 22nd Street in Chicago, and put a knock in the paper saying that the music at Lamb's was "Jazz Music." They thought that this would kill our go at Lamb's. Well, that night the crowd jammed in our place to hear what jazz music was, which made the boss very happy. He told me that he would like to put the word out in lights. I told Smiley that "Jazz" was a vulgar word but if he saw fit to put a word like that in lights to go ahead and do so. That's how our title was changed. The sign in front of Lamb's Cafe read, "Added Attraction— Brown's Original Dixieland Jazz Band Direct From New Orleans — Best Dance Music In Chicago." Anton Lada could not have had the Louisiana Five at the time when he worked at Bustanoby's Restaurant, Broadway and 39th Street, New York. You'll find it written that way in the jazz histories, but someone has their dates all wrong. We came up to Chicago in 1915 and LaRocca's band didn't leave N.O. until nearly six months later, so Lada could not have had Yellow Nunez until 1916. Nick LaRocca and his band have gotten the credit that we should have had, for we were first with that style of music. We started such a big thing that a cafe owner named Harry James, who ran the Casino Gardens, went down to the Crescent City just to get another band of five men like mine. The band he hired consisted of three pieces: Yellow Nunez, Henry Ragas, and Johnny Stein. Harry asked them to get "two more men like Brown has," so Yellow hired Nick LaRocca and Eddie Edwards and came up in 1916. We signed another contract at Lamb's for a longer stay, and had almost finished this contract when a New York agent by the name of Harry Fitzgerald heard of the success we were having in Chicago and came to offer us a run at the Century Theatre in New York. We worked eleven weeks for him before going into vaudeville as the Five Rubes. After vaudeville, we played a great many clubs. I remember the North Star Inn, Mike Fritzel's Arsonia Cafe, Al Tearney's Auto Inn, Schiller Cafe (all in Chicago); The House That Jack Built, Glenview, 111.; Bungle Inn, Niles, 111.; Vista Garden, Green Mill Garden, and Merry Garden — also in Chicago. Then there was Reisenweber's 400 Club and Rector's in New York; Beaux Arts Cafe and Martinique Cafe in Atlantic City; Cafe de Paris, Edwin Winn Carnival Productions, and a number of other good places. We once played for a prize fight in Chicago and Al Capone held my trombone case. (I have a picture of this.) We also played at Great Lakes Naval Training Station alongside of John Philip Sousa, and received applause from Sousa himself. Altogether our tour lasted several years. Ray Lopez, Larry Shields, Arnold Loycano, and William Lambert were in the band with me when we finally broke up. Ned Wayburn, a New York producer, wanted me to organize a one-hundred piece jazz band that would play like we were playing with five men. This was before Paul Whiteman came into the picture. I said that this kind of band was impossible. Everything would have to be written down, and the men that could read well would have a different style. Then Paul came along and did just that with his band. We were too early for recording. Only long hair musicians were recording then, Continued on Page 16) STAR STUDDED SHELLAC john mc andrew Probably the most sadly neglected instrument in jazz and commercially popular recordings is the violin. That it can be superbly integrated into both kinds of popular performances has been amply illustrated by the matchless Venuti, and to lesser degrees this has been echoed by Matty Malneck, Al Duffy, Blue Steele, Eddie South and others. But all of their efforts seem to have been in vain, for all we ever hear of the abused instrument is fiddles en masse combined with stupefying, limitless vocal choirs, usually behind a vocalist of uncertain dimensions. In earlier days, for those who were not satisfied that a dance band and vocalists would bring forth the full value of a song, it was the custom, when a piano solo recording failed to fill the need, to have a violinist of renown present his interpretation of the better songs of the day, accompanied by piano, or perhaps a trio or small orchestra. Delightful recordings of surprisingly melodious numbers were achieved by many violinists, particularly in the '20's, none of them, unfortunately, being Collectors' Items today, although some deserve to be. For Victor, with piano accompaniment, Renee Chemet played Because, Rose in the Bud, One Little Dream of Love, Song of Songs, Kiss Me Again; and in between his strictly classical chores, Fritz Kreisler did some wonderful discs such as Deep in My Heart, Dear, Indian Love Call, Blue Skies, Love Nest, Poor Butterfly and On Miami Shore, all of which were recorded classics of music despite not being, technically, classical music. On Columbia, Sascha Jacobsen did equally well with Indiana Moon, Just a Cottage Small, Russian Lullaby, One Alone, Only a Rose and Far-Away Bel. Amongst the most tasteful of this sort of recording was the series by Fredric Fradkin, the renowned concert violinist, with small orchestra backing giving the effect of a concert group featuring violin and utilizing mostly hit tunes of the day, the very antithesis of the lachrymose, multiple-violin gushings of the present-day Kostelanetz, Jenkins and Gould aggregations. Over a period of about a decade, Fradkin was invariably meticulously recorded by Brunswick, and his most memorable platters included I'm Waiting for Ships That Never Come In, Sleepy-Time Gal, Sometime, Honey, Cherie, I Love You, Memory Lane, Tonight You Belong to Me, {Continued on Page. id)