Tag: Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra

In September of 1934, the Henderson band travelled to Montreal, where they played at the Palais D’Or for a week before returning to NYC to record two sessions for Decca. His band was hot – coming out of the Great Depression with steady gigs and recording sessions.

They had a reputation for putting on musically thrilling live shows which were not always adequately captured in their recorded output. This record is an exception.

The tune was originally titled “Yeah Man!” by songwriters Noble Sissle and J. Russell Robinson. It is a “rhythm changes” contrafact – using the same chord progression as “I Got Rhythm” By George Gershwin. Henderson recorded “Yeah Man!” in 1933. On this record, however, the song was re-titled as “Hotter Than ‘Ell” – with songwriting credit to Henderson himself.

It begins with a kind of blaring call and response between the band’s brass and reed sections – and quickly heats up with solos by the orchestra’s star players: Buster Bailey, Henry Allen, and Ben Webster.

0:00 Intro
0:36 Clarinet solo (Bailey)
1:00 Trumpet solo (Allen)
1:26 Tenor sax solo (Webster)
1:54 Ensemble
2:34 Tenor sax solo (Webster) and Coda

Only a few months after this session, nearly the entire Henderson band quit en masse. Many joined up with Benny Carter – a few others with the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. While Henderson cobbled together other musicians and continued to play live shows, his celebrated orchestra would not record again until March of 1936 – when they would record their biggest hit.

Recorded in New York City on September 25, 1934.
Released as Decca 555.

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, director
Russell Smith, Irving Randolph, Henry Allen – trumpet
Claude Jones, Keg Johnson – trombone
Buster Bailey – clarinet
Russell Procope, Hilton Jefferson – alto sax
Ben Webster – tenor sax
Horace Henderson – arranger
Lawrence Lucie – guitar
Elmer James – string bass
Walter Johnson – drums

Sources:
Hendersonia, Walter C. Allen, 1973
The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz, Jeffrey Magee, 2005

One of the most famous periods of the Fletcher Henderson band was the year that Louis Armstrong quit King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band moved to NYC to join the Henderson orchestra.

On Armstrong’s recommendation, arranger Don Redman looked through “a little book of manuscripts” that he and Oliver had written in Chicago. In it, he found a tune called “Dipper Mouth Blues” which was recorded by the Oliver band in 1923. He arranged it for Henderson band as “Sugar Foot Stomp”

The record was “among the best-selling records of late 1925.” In fact, the record was so popular that Columbia kept it in print for over 10 years. It was reportedly Henderson’s personal favorite recording of everything his orchestra produced.

Oddly, this record has some detractors: notably Gunther Schuller, who panned the recording and Redman’s arrangement. Armstrong, for his part, “plays Oliver’s solo nearly note for note” but with his own tone and character.

0:00 Intro – Saxes chorus
0:18 Brass chorus
0:32 Clarinet trio
0:51 Trombone solo (Green)
1:05 Trumpet solo (Armstrong)
1:49 Break
2:02 Coda

“Sugar Foot Stomp” would go on to be recorded as a beloved jazz standard by a great many bands in the 1930s and beyond, including Bob Crosby, Benny Goodman, Harry Roy, Artie Shaw, and Frank Trumbauer.

Recorded in New York City on May 29, 1925.
Matrix Ⓦ140639. Take 2
Released as Columbia 395-D.

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, director
Elmer Chambers, Joe Smith, Louis Armstrong – trumpet
Charlie Green – trombone
Buster Bailey – clarinet, alto sax
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax, arranger
Coleman Hawkins – clarinet, tenor sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo
Bob Escudero – tuba
Kaiser Marshall – drums

Sources:
Hendersonia: The Music of Fletcher Henderson and his Musicians, Walter C. Allen, 1973

The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz, Jeffrey Magee, 2005

Can you imagine the scene in early October, 1924 as the Henderson band gathered at the Happy Rhone Club on 143rd Street in Harlem to rehearse – and trumpeter Louis Armstrong walked in the room and met the whole band for the first time?

Kaiser Marshall said “The band was up on the stand waiting when he got there, and Louis walked across the floor. He had on big thick-soled shoes, the kind that policemen wear, and he came walking across the floor, clump-clump and grinned and said hello to all the boys.”

Don Redman said his first impression of Armstrong was that “he was big and fat and wore high top shoes with hooks in them, and long underwear down to his socks. When I got a load of that, I said to myself, Who in the hell is this guy? It can’t be Louis Armstrong. But when he got on the bandstand, it was a different story.”

This record is notable as Satch’s first session and first recorded solo with the Henderson band. He initially had some trouble with Henderson’s difficult “fancy” arrangements – but very quickly showed that he was a fast learner. He also showed the band that he had something to teach too – as his hot solos quickly began to infuse the orchestra with a new vitality and energy.

This novelty tune, “Go ‘Long Mule”, was a Henry Creamer collaboration with Shapiro and Berstein staff composer Robert King. The sheet music hyped it as “The Dawgonedest Fool Song Ever!” and it was full of barnyard humor that spanned 44 verses written in bumpkin dialect “which harks back to minstrelsy.” As such, the Henderson version has its instruments doing animal imitations and other novelty effects to heighten the absurdity.

All of which seems an underwhelming setting for the first recorded solo by Louis Armstrong for the Henderson orchestra – but somehow Satch manages to take these indecorous surroundings and turn it into a brilliant display of his melodic storytelling abilities.

This is highlighted by a sparse style of accompaniment designed to really showcase the soloist described by Rex Stewart as “Western Style”: “A heavy accented back beat on the second and fourth bars. When you soloed, it was called ‘taking a Boston’.” We can hear this style accompanying both Charlie Green’s trombone solo and Armstrong’s trumpet solo.

0:00 Intro into A and B sections (saxes)
0:47 Trombone solo (Green)
1:07 Stop time (clarinet, bass sax, brass)
1:23 B section (ensemble)
1:32 Trumpet solo (Armstrong)
1:48 Sax mouthpiece effects with clarinet melody
2:08 Muted trumpets
2:26 Clarinets
2:43 Coda (ensemble)

Recorded in New York City on October 7, 1924.
Released as Columbia 228-D.

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, arranger, director
Louis Armstrong – trumpet
Elmer Chambers Howard Scott – cornet
Charlie Green – trombone
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax
Cecil Scott or Buster Bailey (less likely) – clarinet, alto sax
Coleman Hawkins – clarinet, tenor sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo
Ralph Escudero – tuba
Kaiser Marshall – drums

Sources:
Hendersonia: The Music of Fletcher Henderson and his Musicians, Walter C. Allen, pp.124-125
The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz, Jeffrey Magee, pp.75-79

“Potomac River Blues”, written by Maceo Pinkard, was one of the first songs published by Down South Music Publishing, co., a subsidiary of Jack Mills, Inc. begun by Fletcher Henderson and Andrew Sissle in New York in 1923. The publishing house was devoted “exclusively toward the popularization of characteristic ‘blues’ novelties by foremost race artists, composers, and stage and record stars.”

The tune was first recorded in November 1923 for Paramount by Henderson accompanying vocalist Birleanna Blanks.

Here we have a fine performance by the pre-Armstrong Henderson band, released on the ornate Vocalion label on distinctive red shellac. These records were marketed as “Vocalion Red Records” as a way to visually stand out from other records. They moved back to standard black shellac sometime in 1925.

This recently-acquired disc completes my collection of the Henderson Vocalion Red records!

The performance is enhanced by a bass sax performance, believed to be Billy Fowler, which particularly comes alive during Don Redman’s clarinet solo. Fowler also engages in some elephantine galumphing, along with Hawkins on tenor sax at several points in the composition.

0:00 Intro (with Chambers cornet leading)
0:32 Cornet (Scott)
0:56 Reed ensemble
1:20 Clarinet (Redman)
1:44 Muted cornet (Chambers)
2:08 Tenor sax (Hawkins) and piano (Henderson)
2:34 Coda

Recorded in New York City on December 22, 1923.
Released as Vocalion 14740.

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, arranger, director
Elmer Chambers, Howard Scott – cornet
Teddy Nixon (?) – trombone
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax
Coleman Hawkins – tenor sax
Billy Fowler (?) – bass sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo
Kaiser Marshall (?) – drums

Do Doodle Oom is a very interesting acoustic recording of the early Henderson orchestra only about a month after Coleman Hawkins joined the group. Henderson said that he found Hawkins playing with Wilbur Sweatman’s band at Connie’s Inn, after having returned from a gig playing with Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds out West.

This tune was first recorded by the Henderson band for the Vocalion label in early August of 1923 as “Do Doodle Oom”. Recorded a month later for Columbia, the label misspelled the song title as “Do Doddle Oom”.

Elmer Chambers’ cornet leads us through the intro of this Porter Grainger and Henderson co-composition. At 1:13 Don Redman’s clarinet and Coleman Hawkin’s sax take over – trading riffs in a kind of call and response. At 1:55 the song takes a dramatic left turn – the beat picks up and Hawk’s baritone sax drives the rhythm section into a frenzied funk.

Details

Recorded in New York City on Thursday, September 13, 1923.
Released as Columbia A3995.

Credits

Fletcher Henderson – piano, director
Elmer Chambers – cornet
Teddy Nixon – trombone
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax
Coleman Hawkins – clarinet, tenor sax, baritone or bass sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo
Kaiser Marshall – drums

Sources

Hendersonia, Walter C. Allen, p. 71

Henderson’s orchestra first recorded the Gene Rodemich song “Shanghai Shuffle” in October of 1924 for Pathé-Perfect, which was their second recording session with new cornetist Louis Armstrong, who had just moved to New York from Chicago, where he had been playing with King Oliver.

Here we have a slightly later version of the tune from a November session with Vocalion. The title is an Eastern-inspired dance band number – but as soon as Armstrong enters the ring at 0:59, the whole center of gravity changes and for over thirty glorious seconds, we are taken on a wild melodic ride. It’s tough to imagine the shock of how good – and novel – Armstrong’s approach was when this first came out. It still sounds fresh over 100 years later!

0:00 Intro
0:25 Ensemble
0:59 Trumpet solo (Armstrong)
1:32 Clarinet trio
1:50 Trombone solo (Green)
2:05 “Whoopee Hey Hey” (Redman) and Coda

An interesting bookend to this session is that the day before, on November 6, Armstrong recorded “Everybody Loves My Baby” with Clarence Williams’ Blue Five and on November 8, Armstrong recorded “Of All the Wrongs You Done to Me” with the Red Onion Jazz Babies.

It should be noted that the original lyrics to this tune are cringe and awful. Thankfully, both Henderson versions are instrumentals.

Recorded in New York City on November 7, 1924.
Released as Vocalion 14935.

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, director
Elmer Chambers, Howard Scott, Louis Armstrong – trumpet
Charlie Green – trombone
Buster Bailey – clarinet, alto sax
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax, arranger
Coleman Hawkins – clarinet, tenor sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo
Ralph Escudero – tuba
Kaiser Marshall – drums

1936 saw the Henderson band at the height of its popularity – with the massive hit “Christopher Columbus” and an active association with the Benny Goodman band. They spent much of the fall touring the midwest, playing to large crowds at college campuses and hotels in St. Paul, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Evanston, Lawrence, and Chicago.

Despite the popularity the band enjoyed, some were quite critical of the band. John Hammond wrote in Downbeat (March 1937) that “The rhythm section has gone to pot” and “the trumpets have thin forced tones”. He harshly concluded: “How is it that Fletcher can never imbue a band with proper discipline, for this band, which has some of the finest musicians in the city, is just as ragged as the lowliest dance relief band.”

Hammond called Henderson “the greatest arranger in the country” but questioned his ability as bandleader. He said of his group that they “possessed not an atom of swing, personality, or vitality.”

Hmmm. What do you think? My take on this recording of “Rhythm of the Tambourine” is that it’s snappy, swingin’ and has a good mix of interesting ensemble passages and soloists, such as Emmett Berry’s trumpet solo at 1:05, Chu Berry’s tenor solo at 1:34, and Jerry Blake’s short but fiery clarinet solo at 2:22.

Recorded in New York City on March 2, 1937.
Released as Vocalion 3487

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, director
Dick Vance, Russell Smith, Emmett Berry – trumpet
George Washington, Ed Cuffee, J. C. Higginbotham – trombone
Jerry Blake – clarinet, alto sax
Elmer Williams, Chu Berry – tenor sax
Lawrence Lucie – guitar
Israel Crosby – bass
Walter Johnson – drums
Benny Carter – arranger

During the winter of 1933, Fletcher Henderson was negotiating via John Hammond with British bandleader Jack Hylton to bring his orchestra to London for a series of engagements there and in Europe. Plans were made for Hylton to hear the band at the Roseland – but he didn’t show up. A new date was set and he arrived two hours late – but left promising to make arrangements to bring the whole outfit to Europe. Henderson’s band had been through some lean depression years, so this was a big morale booster.

Unfortunately, Hylton never made good on his promise. He did, however, negotiate a personal contract with Coleman Hawkins – and this Victor session was his last with the band – after eleven years with Henderson. Hawkins sailed for Europe right after this recording session, where he stayed for five years.

This European let-down – coupled with accusations of non-payment by band members – gradually led to the breakup of the band. By November of 1934, all but three had quit the Henderson band to play with Benny Carter’s orchestra. He didn’t record another session until March of 1936.

This Victor session included some of my favorite late-period Henderson works: This tune, Hocus Pocus, Harlem Madness, and Tidal Wave. “Phantom Fantasie” is a quasi-symphonic composition by Russ Morgan played with a chill groove by the Henderson band.

In it, we are serenaded by a piano solo from Mr. Henderson himself, as well as a tenor solo from the Hawk. Two takes were recorded – the first was unissued, though it is said to exist as a test pressing.

Recorded in New York City on March 6, 1934.
Released as Victor 24699.

Fletcher Henderson – piano, director
Russell Smith, Joe Thomas, Henry Allen – trumpet
Claude Jones, Keg Johnson – trombone
Buster Bailey – clarinet
Russell Procope, Hilton Jefferson – clarinet, alto sax
Coleman Hawkins – tenor sax
Bernard Addison – guitar
John Kirby – string bass
Vic Engle – drums
Russ Morgan – arranger

Sources:
Hendersonia, Walter C. Allen
Jazz and Ragtime Records, Brian Rust, 6th Ed.

One of my favorite of Henderson’s Red Vocalions: the first recording of W. C. Handy’s “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” that features one of the most inspired and legendary trombone solos of early jazz by Big Charlie Green.

Jazz Scholar Phil Schaap wrote a wonderful essay delving into the esoterica of mysteries surrounding this tune – and I link to it below:
https://www.philschaapjazz.com/essays/the-gouge-of-armour-avenue-a-legendary-trombone-solo-and-a-pronunciation

In it, we learn that “gouge” is pronounced as in “price gouging” – not “googe” as in “Scrooge” – and that Green’s solo was likely not an improvisation at all but was pre-composed. By who, we may never know.

In any case, it is massive, epic, and sounds fresh every time I hear it.

Recorded in New York City on July 31, 1924.
Released as Vocalion 14859

Credits:
Fletcher Henderson – piano, arranger, director
Elmer Chambers Howard Scott – cornet
Charlie Green – trombone
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax
Coleman Hawkins – clarinet, tenor sax, baritone sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo
Ralph Escudero – tuba
Kaiser Marshall – drums

“Gulf Coast Blues” was recorded several times by the Henderson band. The first was on May 16 as Henderson’s Hot Six in a rejected session for Columbia. The same week, a session for Paramount yielded another version that was also released on Puritan, Famous, and Harmograph. Next up was a session for Pathé Actuelle in early June that was also released on Perfect. On June 7, a session for Columbia resulted in another version.

This session for Vocalion was the 5th and last recording of “Gulf Coast Blues” by the Henderson orchestra. The session produced two takes (11662 and 11663), both of which were issued.

On this tune we hear some excellent early bass sax playing by Billy Fowler (?), along with a showcase of Don Redman on clarinet and alto sax and Elmer Chambers on cornet. The tune lives up to its name and with each chorus the playing seems to get progressively bluesier.

Recorded in New York City circa June 25, 1923.
Released as Vocalion 14636.

Fletcher Henderson – piano, arranger, director
Elmer Chambers – cornet
Teddy Nixon – trombone
Don Redman – clarinet, alto sax
Billy Fowler (?) – tenor sax, bass sax
Charlie Dixon – banjo