GROUP
Original Memphis Melody Boys
Gennett - Produced 1923 on 2 April at Richmond, Indiana

PERSONNEL
Murphy Steinberg (cnt); Unknown (tmb); Phil Wing (reeds); Art Kassel (reeds); Charlie Bezimek (tenor); Otto Barberino (violin (a)); Elmer Schoebel (pno);
Lou Black (bjo); Steve Brown (brass bs); Frank Snyder (drms); Billy Meyers (vcls (b)).

TRACKS
There’s No Gal Like My Gal; Wonderful Dream (a); Blue Grass Blues;
Make A Monkey Out Of Me (b).

PERSONNEL
Murphy Steinberg (cnt); Jesse Barnes (tmb); Phil Wing (reeds); Art Kassel (reeds);
Charlie Bezimek (tenor); Otto Barberino (violin); Elmer Schoebel (pno); Lou Black (bjo); Steve Brown (brass bs); Frank Snyder (drms).

TRACKS Blue Grass Blues; House Of David Blues.

PERSONNEL
Murphy Steinberg and Paul Mares? (cnt); Jesse Barnes (tmb); Phil Wing (reeds); Art Kassel (reeds);
Elmer Schoebel (pno); Lou Black (bjo); Bobby De Lys(drms).

TRACKS
Lots O’ Mama; The Black Sheep Blues; Cotton Pickers' Ball

PERSONNEL
Murphy Steinberg and Paul Mares?(cnt); Jesse Barnes (tmb); Phil Wing (reeds); Art Kassel (reeds);
Elmer Schoebel and Mel Stitzel (pno); Lou Black (bjo); Bobby De Lys (drms).

TRACKS
Black Sheep Blues; Black Sheep Blues (a); Lots O' Mama (b); Lots O’ Mama; Sobbin’ Blues

PERSONNEL
Murphy Steinberg (cnt); Jesse Barnes (tmb); Phil Wing (reeds); Art Kassel (reeds);
Elmer Schoebel (pno); Lou Black (bjo); Frank Snyder (drms); (Roy Kramer may have replaced one of the reeds men).

TRACKS
Buddy’s Habits

PERSONNEL
Unknown (cnt), Santo Pecora? (tmb); Unknown (reeds one); Al Siegel (pno); Unknown (bjo & drms)

TRACKS
Ringside Blues; House Of David Blues (a); House Of David Blues

PERSONNEL
Unknown (cnt), Santo Pecora? (tmb); Unknown (reeds one); Al Siegel (pno); Unknown (bjo & drms); Otto Barberino (violin)

TRACKS
Sooke Hey Hey; Sooke Hey Hey (a); Blue Grass Blues; Blue Grass Blues (a);
So Long To You and The Blues

PERSONNEL
Frank Cotterell (cnt); Jimmy Lord (cl); George Johnson (tenor) Dudley Mecum (pno ldr); Joe O’Brien (bjo); Ralph Snyder (drms)

TRACKS
Angry; How’s Your Folks and My Folks

Early Chicago Jazz
1923 - 1928 VOL. 2

Early Chicago Jazz
1923 - 1928 VOL. 2

GROUP
Albert Short and his Tivoli Syncopators
Vocalion - Produced 1923 in March at New York, N.Y. (a), the other 3 in May of that year.

PERSONNEL
Unknown (2 cnts, tmb, bjo, brass bs, drms); Wayne King and another (reeds); Del Delbridge (pno); Someone (vcl (a)).

TRACKS
Wolverine Blues (a), Bugle Call Rag, Sobbin' Blues, Long Lost Mamma

PERSONNEL
Rick Adkins and S.J. Stocco (tpt), Angelo Cavallo (tmb), Don Mangano (reeds), Anthony Ciccone (reeds violin), Paul Biese (reeds violin ldr),
Jules Buffano (pno arrg), Dick Ede (bjo), Mike Perrone (brass bs) Clarence Bittick (drms),

TRACKS
Blue Evening Blues, Cinderella Blues,

PERSONNEL
Unknown (2 tpt, tmb, 3 reeds one doubles on violin (b), pno, brass bs, bjo) Bob Conselman? (drms)

TRACKS
I’m All Broke Out With The Blues (b), Slippery Elm (a)

PERSONNEL
Unknown (cnt, tmb, 2 reeds, pno, bjo) Joe Gish (brass bs ldr)

TRACKS
Milenberg Joys

PERSONNEL
16 October 1923
Murphy Steinberg and another (cnt), Jesse Barnes (tmb), Roy Kramer (reeds), Art Kassel (reeds); Art Kahn (pno ldr),
Earle Roberts (bjo), Unknown (brass bs), Vic Berton (drms)

7 December 1923
Unknown cornet of 16 October replaced by Frankie Quartell, Clark Whipple 2nd piano added

5 September 1924 and 20 January 1925
Johnny Wolf and pos Frankie Quartell (tpt) Unknown (tmb) Roy Kramer (reeds)
Unknown (alto, cl, tenor, pno, bjo, brass bs), Art Kahn (pno ldr), Jack "Peacock" Kelly (drms)

27 and 28 July 1926
Johnny Wolf and Austin Edwards (tpt), Clarence Freitag and Caesar Perrillo (tmb), Roy Kramer (reeds) Russ Crandall (reeds) Harold Kooden (reeds), Art Kahn (pno ldr), Harold Stokes (pno accordeon), Earle Roberts (bjo), Al Armer (brass and string bs), Jack "Peacock" Kelly (drms), Charles Kaley (vcl (d))

TRACKS
Bit By Bit You’re Breaking My Heart, Sobbin’ Blues, Bahama (a), Blue Evening Blues (a), Off and Gone (b),
Some Of These Days(c), I Ain’t Got Nobody (d), Hoodle Dee Doo Dee Doodoo (e)

PERSONNEL
Andy Pedulla and Bill Mach (tpt); Frank Lhotak (tmb); Eddie Obermiller (cl); Stanley Norris (reeds);
Art Cope (reeds violin); Benny Sans (pno) Unknown (bjo); Harry Tropper (brass bs ldr); Tony Monico (drms)

TRACKS
When Sweet Suzie Goes Stepping By (a), Tin Roof Blues (b)

PERSONNEL
Unknown (tpt, tmb, alto, bs cl, tenor, violin, pno, brass bs, drms), Frank Lhotak? (tmb), Bill Haid (bjo gtr ldr),
Diana Dell (vcl (+)), Frank Wells (vcl (b ~))

TRACKS
A Good Man Is Hard To Find (a +), Shake It Down (b ~), Weary Weasel (b)

PERSONNEL
Unknown (tpt, 2 reeds, violin, pno, brass bs, drums) Bill Haid? (gtr), Diana Dell (vcl)

TRACKS
Some Of These days.

Suspected Bill Haid’s Band in October 1928 at Chicago, Illinois, and H. Greenwood (vcl (a)) Paramount.
My Old Girl’s My New Girl Now (a), Roll Up The Carpets

Anyone, now relatively few in numbers, acquainted with wind-up gramophones, playing 78s and cylinder records, will be aware of the great achievement made, mastered by John R. T. Davies in creating the sound quality of these Timeless Historical Early Chicago Jazz two-album recordings.

Although Thomas Edison had patented his cylinder phonograph in 1877 and as it lasted a year past when the Midnight Serenaders, Tin Roof Blues (Jazzin’ Babies Blues) tune was recorded in 1928 by Paramount heard on Vol. 2, and the others by Timeless Records, that, RCA Victor on 26th of February, 1917, recorded Livery Stable Blues (Barnyard Blues) by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB) rejected by Columbia sometime earlier, the world is all the poorer in not having Ragtime, Vaudeville songs and a run-through of American music, interim, to when in 1920 Crazy Blues by Mamie Smith and Creole Trombone by the Ory Sunshine Orchestra in 1921 numbers came to the light of day.

Timeless Records has given the title of its double album the name Early Chicago Jazz - that being so, making it difficult for any jazz aficionado to contradict that choice. When one comes to listen to these unique recordings, it comes to mind V.S.O.M. (Very Special Ole-type-jazz Music) advocating a variety of different styles provoking healthy disagreement in formulating an idea, which in effect is a distinctly variable art form. Any jazz group or jazz artist without nomenclature, title or name becomes a nonentity lacking any commercial value.

The closure of Storyville, New Orleans on the 17th of November 1917 by the U.S. Navy Department put many musicians out of work and so they began to move North to settle in places such as the South Side district of Chicago known as the Loop, turning it into a thriving black community.

Chicago responded to the jazz age and America of the "roaring 20s" of downtown bootleging gin created by the prohibition law, the flappers, the Charleston jives, rent parties, Café dens, multiple ballrooms and clubs run by both black and white proprietors.

Jazz records soon began to direct focus on instrumental musical entertainment, dancing where the females clasped hands behind the necks of their male partners whose hands grasped tightly in variety the ample cheeks of their dance-floor lady's derrières. Timeless Early Chicago Jazz recordings are of a sedate later period.

Early minstrel shows evolved into song and dance routines, into vaudeville into Coon songs ending in jazz bands playing in all-night black and tan clubs replete with appropriate beverages and syncopations. James Lincoln Collier writes how in 1922 Louis Armstrong joined the Creole Jazz Band led by cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, when he returned from San Francisco to the Lincoln Gardens formerly Royal Gardens in Chicago. "Original members of the Creole Jazz Band were: cornetist Freddie Keppard, (Chicago pianist Dave Peyton in 1911 recalls seeing the group), violinist Jimmy Paleo, trombonist Eddie Vinson, clarinettist Louis "Big Eye" Nelson and New Orleanian Bill Johnson on strings." It was Johnson who eventually established the 1,000 dancer floor-spaced Lincoln Gardens as a place for jazz music.

Out of the King Oliver, Jimmy Noone, the Dodds’ brothers and other New Orleanians, the Chicagoans, came about by a number of youths, the "Austin High School Gang" who perfected their kind of jazz listening to those masters of it, so how then does one comfortably describe Chicago Jazz?

Can it be New Orleans, Dixieland, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory or whatever kind of jazz?

Each of the two Timeless CDs carry an interesting, comprehensive, discography booklet, with detailed liner notes by Ate van Delden, from which I’ll note one quote only, namely: "The best way to define Chicago Jazz is as jazz recorded in the Chicago area".

I shall not argue against those sentiments.

"The interplay of African-American musical traditions with Chicago’s urban institutions influenced the most creative jazz in the city during the twenties." W. H. Kenney.

For the 50s and over, and in particular Americans, who will find nostalgia in these albums, and who will enjoy 150 minutes, of relaxing jazz music to listen to.

For the 25s to 50s, there is an abundance of literature out there to grab hold of and get themselves acquainted with, to obtain a greater understanding of this unique content of jazz on offer here on Timeless Records.

For the teenagers to 25s, then why not follow in the footsteps of the Chicagoans, learn from these albums and create their very own kind of jazz music, giving it a title, calling it the name of the place where they live - but give it a name, a title - whatever.

This double album is right in line for all of them.

Listen to it, for it really is - very fine period jazz music.

Ian King
Kings Jazz Review
Tuesday 25 June 2002