Marketing Announcement - A Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary Of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026 by Steven A. Cerra

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

I’m delighted to announce that the Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary Of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026 by Steven A. Cerra is available as a paperback and an eBook exclusively through Amazon.com.

Just enter my name in the search book under “Books.”

I hope you’ll consider adding a copy to your Jazz library. With everyone so busy these days, the Reader is constructed so that each article can be read and enjoyed independently.

Commenting on the Jean Goldkette Orchestra in his Jazz Masters of the 30s [1972], trumpeter Rex Stewart wrote: “One of the great mysteries, as far as I am concerned, is why so little has been written about this most important white swing band.” The 38 essays and interviews in this anthology, some very rare, attempt to solve this “mystery” and also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, and two of the orchestras managed by his National Amusements Corporations: McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the Orange Blossoms which gained national prominence as the Casa Loma Orchestra. The music associated with these orchestras was extremely influential on the big band Jazz just coming into existence in the 1920s, yet all three of these outfits tended to be overlooked by Jazz critics, then and now, when they weren’t being openly hostile toward them. This companion seeks to redress their reputation.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

TABLE OF CONTENTS, pp. 7-8

Preface - Gunther Schuller, pp. 9-10

Prologue - Ruta Sepetys, pp. 11-17

Introduction - Steven A. Cerra, pp. 18-21

Chapter 1. Music In The Twenties: The Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Russel B. Nye, pp. 22-38

Chapter 2. The Jean Goldkette and Ben Pollack Orchestras by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 39-59

Chapter 3, The Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Brian Rust, pp. 60-61

Chapter 4. The Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Albert McCarthy, pp. 62-65

Chapter 5. The Jean Goldkette Band by Rex Stewart, pp. 66-71

Chapter 6. From Ragtime to Jazz: An Exclusive Interview of Steve Brown by Frank Gillis, pp. 72-85

Chapter 7. The Pioneer: Bill Challis by Gene Less, pp. 86-98

Chapter 8. Doc Ryder - “Goldkette’s Doc” by Jerry Kline, pp. 99-107

Chapter 9. Spiegle's Story by Jerry Kline, pp. 108-115

Chapter 10. Cincinnatus Afternoon: Spiegle Willcox by Gene Lees, pp. 116-123

Chapter 11. The  Scranton Sirens, the Dorsey Brothers and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra by Herb Sanford, pp. 124-130

Chapter 12. Bix Beiderbecke and His Time on the Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Digby Fairweather, pp. 131-135

Chapter 13. Bix Biederbecke and the Jean Goldkette Small Group Recordings by Dick Sudhalter, pp. 136-140

Chapter 14. Bix and Bill by Gene Lees, pp. 141-145

Chapter 15. Part One: Bix with Jean Goldkette - Richard Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt, pp. 146-156 

Chapter 16. Part Two: Bix with Jean Goldkette - Richard Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt, pp. 157-167 

Chapter 17. Part Three: Bix with Jean Goldkette - Richard Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt, pp. 168-179 

Chapter 18. Fiddler Joe [Venuti] by Gene Lees, pp. 180-186

Chapter 19. Eddie Lang [1902 -1933] - Richard Hadlock, pp. 187-199

Chapter 20. Frank Trumbauer: The Divided Self by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 200-205

Chapter 21. “Bix and Tram in the Goldkette Orchestra” from The Frank Trumbauer Story by Philip R. Evans and Larry F. Kiner, pp. 206-212

Chapter 22.  "The Jean Goldkette Orchestra 1926-1927" from The Frank Trumbauer Story by Philip R. Evans and Larry F. Kiner, pp. 213-222

Chapter 23. Bix Beiderbecke with Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra 1924-1927  [Retrieval RTR 79040 Jazz Nostalgia] insert notes by Richard M. Sudhalter, pp. 223-229

Chapter 24. Timeless Historical Jean Goldkette Bands 1924-1929 [CBC 1-184 Jazz] insert notes by Ate van Delden, pp. 230-237

Chapter 25. Dance Hits of the '20s In Stereo: Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra - Notes by Dom Cerulli, pp. 238-240

Chapter 26. Bill Challis’ The Goldkette Project as played by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks insert notes by Evan Challis, pp. 241-247

Chapter 27. McKinney's Cotton Pickers by Thurman and Mary Grove, pp. 248-258

Chapter 28. Many Stars in Famed Sepia Ork; Goldkette Men Jammed in Band by Buddy Howard, pp. 259-260

Chapter 29. McKinney's Cotton Pickers (1928-1930) The Band Don Redman Built by Dan Morgenstern, pp. 261-264

Chapter 30. Part One - McKinney's Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton, pp. 265-276

Chapter 31. Part Two - McKinney's Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton. Pp. 277-286

Chapter 32. Part Three - McKinney's Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton, pp. 287-296

Chapter 33. Part Four - McKinney's Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton, pp. 297-303

Chapter 34. Don Redman - The Frank Driggs Interview, pp. 304-312

Chapter 35. The Casa Loma Orchestra by Albert McCarthy, pp. 313-318

Chapter 36. The Casa Loma Orchestra by Gunther Schuller, pp. 319-328

Chapter 37. Casa Loma Stomp by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 329-347

Chapter 38. Glen Gray - The Best of the Big Bands The Casa Loma Orchestra - Will Friedwald, pp. 348-351

Dance Hits of the '20s In Stereo: Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra - Notes by Dom Cerulli

© Introduction. Copyright ® Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected, all rights reserved.

There are a number of things that please me about this recording - it’s very existence, for one.

I mean, who would have thought to revisit the music of a Roaring Twenties big band thirty years after it ceased to exist?

Another is the fact that it contains actual quotations from an interview with Jean Goldkette conducted by one of my all-time favorite writers about Jazz - Dom Cerulli.

I’m also gratified by the fact that Dom’s notes reveal considerable information about the background of Jean and the orchestra and this along with its music in the form of new arrangements by the accomplished Sy Oliver creates and LP that served to introduce a new generation to the music of the Goldkette Orchestra, a ground breaking outfit in the history of big band Jazz. 

Jean Goldkette died in March, 1962.

Here are Dom Cerulli’s liner notes to the LP Dance Hits of the '20s In Stereo: Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra Featuring Lou Hurst with Debbie and The Diplomats with Arrangements by Sy Oliver was released in 1959 on RCA Camden [CAS 548]. 

“By way of introduction to a new generation of listeners and dancers, here is Jean Goldkette - one of the old time great names in the field of American public music.

With this album, the pianist-bandleader revisits some landmarks of an illustrious career that spans nearly 45 years. It began in Valenciennes, France where he was born in 1899, and started to bear fruit shortly after Jean came to the United States in 1911.

Goldkette, whose band would one day include such legendary jazzmen as Bix Biederbecke, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, Jimmy McPartland, Frankie Trumbauer and Hoagy Carmichael, is a bit of a legend himself. He became a professional musician at the age of 16, two years before the union’s minimum age requirement.

“When they turned me down because I was too young,” he recalls, “a friend told me to go back and tell them I was 18. I returned to a different union man, and that night I was on the job.”

In those days, Paul Whiteman had the magic name. And Jean recalls a time when Whiteman and some of his band members came into a restaurant in Chicago where he was playing piano. As Whiteman and his crew enjoyed supper, Goldkette vainly tried to muster up enough courage to introduce himself to the maestro. Years later, Whiteman featured many of the Jazz artists who got their start with Goldkette’s fabulous band.

And what a band! Variety termed it the “greatest band of all time.” Metronome called it “The band that rocked the nation.”

It came into being because of a debt. In 1923, Goldkette was given the key to the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit because the management couldn’t meet the band’s payroll. “I would rather have had the money,” Jean grins, “but I took a chance and opened it myself .. with my own band on the stand. I thought the five cents a dance policy was bad and changed to straight admission. Bands had been playing in cafes, but I figured it would be better for them if they played ballrooms [capacities ranged from 3,000 to 5,000] where they could maintain their overhead and play their music for dancers.”

“Well, I will revolutionize things by changing this dance hall into a ballroom. In a short time the Graystone Ballrooms all over the country changed their name to Graystone, and ballroom owners came to study my methods. Actually, I had no methods … just common sense.

“For the first time I could have my band play as I liked and I started experimenting. I was looking for something and I didn’t know what. I traveled and listened to bands, and whenever I heard a good musician, I’d offer him a chair in my band. Being the bandleader and the ballroom manager made this kind of experiment possible. Our theme song was There’ll Be Some Changes Made, so many men came in and out of the band. I kept this up for almost three years.”

During the era of popular music, Goldkette recalls, every ballroom and cafe manager had his own ideas about how a band should play. One might insist that everything be done by an ensemble, loudly, and with no solos. He was paying for a full band, and a full band he would get. Another might have liked staccato music with every arrangement being played staccato.

“When I became my own boss,” Goldkette smiles, "I was responsible to nobody. I felt the thing to do was to leave the band alone. After all, I had hired the best musicians I know. I had hired them because of their talents. It would have been an insult for me to make them play in any way other than their own. These men were left alone express to themselves… and that was the guiding genius behind my band.”

Goldkette’s orchestra, in addition to being musically exciting, astounded its audience by playing without a leader. Jean, who made the band a profit-sharing outfit,  felt that the band members were good enough musicians to play without “ a smiling gigolo-type standing in front, beating time.”

And that’s the way the band went into New York’s famous Roseland. It was sensational. Goldkette actually lost money on transportation and expenses to secure the booking. Later, of course, he gained it back through the overwhelming response to the new music.  There was very little dancing on opening night, as patrons jammed the floor along with virtually every musician of importance in the city. Everyone, but everyone, wanted to get a load of this band from Detroit which had made those wonderful Victor recordings.

The band eventually became top heavy in the salary department, and broke up. Its stars scattered throughout other bands. , and many went on to become leaders themselves. In addition to the Jazz players, other fine musicians such as Fred Farrar, Charles Margolin, Don Murray, Fud Livingston, Chauncey Morehouse, Steve Brown (who recorded the first bass solo on Dinah), Danny Polo, Glen Gray, Pee Wee Hunt, Russ Morgan, Don Redman, Victor Young, Johnny Green, Charlie Woolcott, Bill Challis, George Crozier and Carroll Hurley played an important part in the band. Other notable Goldkette sidemen were trombonists Bill Rank, Spiegle Wilcox and Loyd Turner; cornetists Sterling Bose, Ray Lodwig; pianists Bill Krentz, Itzy Riskin, Paul Mertz, Sammy Prager; saxists “Doc” Ryker, Owen Bartlett; banjoist Howdy Quicksell.

After the stock market crash in 1929, Jean came to New York and rehearsed a band which included Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Charley Spivak, but he couldn’t get a radio network to audition the group and that dream collapsed.

In fact, Goldkette always has some sort of band going for him until the late ‘30s. He was the guiding force behind the organization of McKiinney’s Cotton Pickers and organized his own management agency. In 1946, he organized a band for a year or so, but dropped it to concentrate on his own career as a concert pianist.

He first appeared with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra when Geroge Gershwin was unable to make an engagement. Since that icebreaker, he has been a steady concert circuit feature as a pianist and guest artist with symphony orchestras. In addition to playing on the concert stage, Jean’s days have lately been spent in the establishment of the National Artists Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging young talent in all the arts and helping them to mature oas accomplished artists.

For this album’s look at those wonderful 1920’s, Jean assembled a band with such present day greats as: Jimmy Maxwell, Yank Lawson, Doc Severinsen and Mel Davis, trumpeter; Will Bradley, Jack Satterfield and Urbie Green, trombones; Toots Mondello, Dean Kincaide, Hank D’Amico, Milt Yaner and Al Klink, reeds; Chauncey Morehouse, drums; Ward Lair, string bass; Irving Brodsky, piano; George Barnes, banjo and guitar; Joe Venuti violin solos as interpreted by Felix Orlewitz.

The arrangements of Dinah and My Pretty Girl were transcribed note for note from charts played by the original band in the 1920s. The other tunes, although never recorded by Goldkette, belong to his era and are here revived in authentic style by the remarkably skilled Sy Oliver.

In all, this is a nice introduction to an old familiar face, and one not too much changed over the years. Jean is as enthusiastic about his music as he ever was. And also by way of introduction, he’s still swinging.”

Recorded at Webster Hall, NYC

Recording Engineer: Ray Hall