The song “Copenhagen” was written by Indiana bandleader Charlie Davis as an homage to his sousaphone player’s favorite chewing tobacco. When the band performed the newly written piece in Indianapolis in April 1924, the seven members of The Wolverine Orchestra were in the audience listening. Within a few weeks, the Wolverines became the first band to record the composition in a session for Gennett that was released in June.
Melrose Brothers publishing quickly prepared a stock arrangement of the piece based on the Wolverines record – which was published in August of 1924. The title page of the arrangement stated: “This arrangement is RED HOT as written. Play what you see and the horns will start smoking.”
On September 8, the Benson Orchestra of Chicago recorded a very popular version for Victor. A week later, Charlie Fry and his Million Dollar Pier Orchestra – who had been playing with the Benson Orchestra in Atlantic City during the summer – released this version. Coincidentally, between these two sessions, the Wolverine Orchestra began a residency at the Cinderella Ballroom in New York City.
In the last three months of 1924, ten additional versions were recorded by bands including Fletcher Henderson, California Ramblers, and Arkansas Travelers.
Fry’s version stuck closely to the stock arrangement, with an extra clarinet and sax solo for good measure – since they were recording on Edison, maybe they figured had a little extra time since Diamond Discs could hold nearly 4 minutes of music compared with a little over 3 minutes for a standard 10″ shellac disc.
0:00 Intro (ensemble)
0:17 Clarinet solo
0:30 Tenor Sax solo
0:43 Ensemble
1:00 Clarinet solo
1:13 Tenor Sax solo
1:26 Ensemble
1:43 Trumpet solo
2:01 Ensemble
2:17 Tuba solo with banjo
2:43 Ensemble
Recorded in New York, New York on September 15, 1924.
Released as Edison 51406-L
Charlie Fry – Director, Alto Saxophone, Violin
Julian Kurtzman, Theo Wohleben – Trumpet
Oscar Moldaur, Ray Thwaite – Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone
John Baviton – Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone
Ben Morgan – Trombone
Ray Allen – Piano
Herman Schmidt – Tuba
Frank Kriell – Banjo
Fred Niehardt – Drums
All the credit for the excellent information about the history of “Copenhagen” goes to the very informative article “Revisiting Fletcher Henderson’s ‘Copenhagen’” by Jeffrey Magee in the Journal of the American Musicological Society , Spring, 1995, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 42-66
http://www.jstor.com/stable/3128850
Leave a Reply