Tag: Fess Williams’ Royal Flush Orchestra

Another request – this time from a friend on TikTok – “Razor Edge” by Fess WIlliams’ Royal Flush Orchestra.

This one is a bit beat but I found it in the wild here in Iowa. It was part of a small collection of Brunswick inventory that were found in the basement of a drugstore near Oskaloosa, Iowa. I later found that this building had been a phonograph dealer back in the late 20s. Mostly electric dance band Brunswicks – mostly in great shape and some even still in dealer sleeves. Unfortunately they suffered some heat damage over the years.

This one was pretty well played and scuffed up – but it was the first Fess Williams record in my collection so there’s some sentimental value there!

I was just reading a passage in “Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya” where Duke Ellington was talking about the scene in Harlem in the early 20s. Duke said, “The earliest bands I can remember (about 1923) were those of Fess Williams, Wilbur Sweatman, Jack Hatton the trumpet-player, and the famous trumpeter, Johnny Dunn… There were many colorful hot spots scattered about Harlem, and no curfew to dampen the spirits or curtail early morning activities.”

Duke wasn’t kidding – in another passage, Lloyd Scott tells of the extraordinary battles of music that would sometimes go on at Harlem clubs – sometimes between as many as eight different bands. Scott said, “These battles were fiercely contested affairs for much prestige was at stake. Bands would have extensive preparation ahead of time for the largest of these battles and would fire their best in the way of arrangements at one another. One particularly brutal one was a victory over three bands – Fess Williams, Cab Calloway, and Fletcher Henderson. Our winning was clear cut but only after an all-night struggle which ended at seven o’clock Sunday morning.”

We can only imagine the intensity of those battles – and listen to this tune and wonder how much hotter Fess Williams might have played this number in the heat of battle in the early morning hours all those years ago.

Recorded in New York City on June 24, 1927.
Released as Brunswick 3596.

Credits
Fess Williams – clarinet, alto sax, director, arranger
George Temple, Kenneth Roane – trumpet
David “Jelly” James – trombone
Otto Mikell – alto sax
Perry Smith – clarinet, tenor sax
Henry Duncan – piano
Ollie Blackwell – banjo
Clinton Walker – tuba
Ralph Bedell – drums

Today on Halloween, we have Fess Williams’s Royal Flush Orchestra performing the excellent “Phantom Blues”.

Williams himself arranged this composition by Al Handler and Len Riley – and it is full of great playing. If this is what phantoms are listening to, well, maybe we have some fun to look forward to in the afterlife!

The Royal Flush Orchestra had opened at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem a year earlier and was the veritable house band there until 1928.

Williams himself was originally from Kentucky – and studied at the Tuskegee Institute in Cincinnati. He moved to New York in 1924 and formed the Royal Flush Orchestra a year later.

His birth name was Stanley Rudolph Williams, but when he taught students in Winchester, OH, after he graduated from Tuskegee, his pupils called him “Fess” – short for Professor.

Recorded in New York City on March 28, 1927.
Released as Brunswick 3532.

Credits:
Fess Williams – clarinet, alto sax, director, arranger
George Temple, Kenneth Roane – trumpet
David “Jelly” James – trombone
Otto Mikell – alto sax
Perry Smith – clarinet, tenor sax
Henry Duncan – piano
Ollie Blackwell – banjo
Clinton Walker – baritone brass
Ralph Bedell – drums