Here we have one of the crown jewels of the last recording session of the fabled Kansas City jazz band led by Bennie Moten. Moten’s orchestra first recorded in 1923 and in nine years released 80+ sides for the Okeh and Victor labels.
But by late 1932, deep in the early years of the Great Depression, the band’s fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. They hadn’t recorded since April of 1931 – but had been through a dramatic reorganization that brought on many new talented players – while seeing several Moten old timers such as Woody Walder and Harlan Leonard leave the group.
In the winter of 1931, they brought on bassist Walter Page who had led a legendary band in Kansas City called the Blue Devils. Page had made the transition from tuba to string bass – and his mastery of the instrument – along with the addition of a handful of Blue Devils alumni – helped transform the sound of the Moten orchestra.
In late 1932 the band was coming off a long spotty tour of the midwest and east coast where bookings were short (often only a single night) before Moten would have to travel ahead to hustle up their next gig. While the band waited word where their next performance would be, they subsisted on “hot dogs, sardines, crackers, soda pop, and bootleg whiskey.”
In December they booked a show at the Pearl Theater in Philadelphia – and record with Victor in Camden while they were there. But the band was flat broke and “very hungry”. As Eddie Barefield told it in a 1960 interview with Jazz Review:
“While we were working our show we were tabbing everything. We didn’t have any money, so we charged our rent, our clothes, our whiskey… Payday came and Bennie didn’t get any money. He owed Steiffel [the theatre owner] so much money that he didn’t have any coming in. I pawned a suit and my clarinet, and we wound up standing in front of the Pearl, broke. We had to get to Camden to record, and along comes this little guy Archie [Robinson] with a raggedy old bus, and he took us there. He got us a rabbit and four loaves of bread, and we cooked rabbit stew right on a pool table. That kept us from starving, and then we went on to make the records.”
They recorded ten songs that day – starting with this one: a firecracker Barefield composition arranged by Eddie Durham that has Count Basie riffing on Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in the intro before a torrent of solos are unleashed, starting with Barefield playing a hot guitar break, then a trumpet solo by Hot Lips Page, an alto solo by Durham, a piano solo by Basie, a clarinet solo by Durham, and many other short hot breaks throughout the final section that drive the unstoppable momentum toward its inevitable conclusion.
Throughout, the composition is punctuated with riffy lines from the brass and reed sections – a harbinger of the swing sound that would later take over jazz in the mid to late 1930s. It’s a colossal sound with a bold energetic feel. I guess that rabbit stew was just what the doctor ordered.
An discussion and excellent musical breakdown of this recording by Jeff Barnhart and Dan Barrett can be found at The Syncopated Times: https://syncopatedtimes.com/bennie-motens-kc-orch-1931-32-the-birth-of-swing/
Recorded in Camden, New Jersey on December 13, 1932.
Originally released as Victor 23384 and reissued as Bluebird B-6032.
Credits:
Bennie Moten – director
Hot Lips Page, Joe Keyes, Dee Stewart – trumpet
Dan Minor – trombone
Eddie Durham – trombone, guitar, arranger
Eddie Barefield – clarinet, alto sax
Jack Washington – alto sax, baritone sax
Ben Webster – tenor sax
Count Basie – piano
Leroy Berry – guitar
Walter Page – string bass
Willie McWashington – drums
Sources:
Jazz and Ragtime Records (1897-1942), 6th Ed. Brian Rust
Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop – A History, Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix
Jazz Style in Kansas City and the South-west, Ross Russell
Bennie Moten’s KC Orch 1931-32: The Birth of Swing, Jeff Barnhart with Dan Barrett, May 30, 2024
https://syncopatedtimes.com/bennie-motens-kc-orch-1931-32-the-birth-of-swing/
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