1926 Centuries of Sound
-
- Music History
At Centuries of Sound I am making mixes for every year of recorded sound. The download here is a cut-down 30 minute mix, for the full two-hour version please come to centuriesofsound.com to stream, or patreon.com/centuriesofsound for downloads and a host of other bonus materials for just $5 per month.
MP3 sample download | Patreon | Apple | Mixcloud | Spotify | Castbox | Stitcher | Radiopublic | RSS
We’ve been waiting for a year like this for a long time; when the limitations of technology and the music business would finally be advanced enough to get out of the way and let the music speak for itself. It could not have come at a more fortuitous time – the jazz age is right at the point of moving from fun novelty to full-blown art-form, country folk is undergoing a wave of exploration, and vaudeville and the speakeasies are soaking up and celebrating all the developments of this exciting era.
We start the mix with one of the founding fathers of jazz, and mentor to Louis Armstrong, King Oliver. Here with his new Chicago-based group the “Dixie Syncopators” he plays high-octane dance tune “Deep Henderson” – the group would continue a residency at the Plantation Cafe until it burned down in 1927.
Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’ was one of the first orchestral pieces given the full electrical recording treatment – it really brings home what a revolution has happened in sound recording in the last couple of years. The piece started at the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, and the premier was held during its final weeks in 1918. It’s hard not to feel that ‘Mars’ is inspired by the incomprehensible, industrial carnage of those grim years.
Plenty is written about the “blues roots” of American music, but this year we have plenty to demonstrate that “church roots” or “gospel roots” might be just as important. The Birmingham Jubilee Singers were organised by Charles Bridges, a trainer of gospel quartets from Alabama. The group included the extremely deep voice of one Ed Sherrill. “He Took My Sins Away” is a particularly strong example of the innovative a capella techniques practised in churches in the Southern states of the USA. Reverend J.M. Gates one of the most prolific preachers of the pre-war era, recording over 200 sermons. Death’s Black Train Is Coming” was recorded in front of his participating congregation in Mount Calvary Baptist Church for Columbia Records after their state-of-the-art electric recording system was shipped down especially for this purpose – it sold more than 35,000 copies.
New Orleans Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton is another of the founding fathers of jazz. By 1926 he was recording with a group called The Red Hot Peppers. Doctor Jazz is one of the best examples of the early New Orleans jazz sound, using counterpoint, pre-written stop-time breaks and improvised solo passages – truly a feast within a few minutes, and the pinnacle of this particular sound.
“Masculine Women! Feminine Men!,” performed here by journeyman singer Irving Kaufman, often turns up on lists of the earliest queer records, though it should be stressed that this is accidental. The lyrics are intended as a sardonic look at changing fashions, but the effect is detached and wry rather than offended, leading to a reasonable implication that things like sexuality and gender are ripe for exploration, generally not a big deal, and basically fine to play with – a nice introduction to the changing social mores of the time.
The craze for female blues is on the wane by 1926, but Ethel Waters has stuck around, this time without her backing band. “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor” is a folk blues, dating back to the 19th century, but its status as a standard only became fixed with this recording.
There is plenty to say about Duke Ellington elsewhere, just to note here
At Centuries of Sound I am making mixes for every year of recorded sound. The download here is a cut-down 30 minute mix, for the full two-hour version please come to centuriesofsound.com to stream, or patreon.com/centuriesofsound for downloads and a host of other bonus materials for just $5 per month.
MP3 sample download | Patreon | Apple | Mixcloud | Spotify | Castbox | Stitcher | Radiopublic | RSS
We’ve been waiting for a year like this for a long time; when the limitations of technology and the music business would finally be advanced enough to get out of the way and let the music speak for itself. It could not have come at a more fortuitous time – the jazz age is right at the point of moving from fun novelty to full-blown art-form, country folk is undergoing a wave of exploration, and vaudeville and the speakeasies are soaking up and celebrating all the developments of this exciting era.
We start the mix with one of the founding fathers of jazz, and mentor to Louis Armstrong, King Oliver. Here with his new Chicago-based group the “Dixie Syncopators” he plays high-octane dance tune “Deep Henderson” – the group would continue a residency at the Plantation Cafe until it burned down in 1927.
Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’ was one of the first orchestral pieces given the full electrical recording treatment – it really brings home what a revolution has happened in sound recording in the last couple of years. The piece started at the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, and the premier was held during its final weeks in 1918. It’s hard not to feel that ‘Mars’ is inspired by the incomprehensible, industrial carnage of those grim years.
Plenty is written about the “blues roots” of American music, but this year we have plenty to demonstrate that “church roots” or “gospel roots” might be just as important. The Birmingham Jubilee Singers were organised by Charles Bridges, a trainer of gospel quartets from Alabama. The group included the extremely deep voice of one Ed Sherrill. “He Took My Sins Away” is a particularly strong example of the innovative a capella techniques practised in churches in the Southern states of the USA. Reverend J.M. Gates one of the most prolific preachers of the pre-war era, recording over 200 sermons. Death’s Black Train Is Coming” was recorded in front of his participating congregation in Mount Calvary Baptist Church for Columbia Records after their state-of-the-art electric recording system was shipped down especially for this purpose – it sold more than 35,000 copies.
New Orleans Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton is another of the founding fathers of jazz. By 1926 he was recording with a group called The Red Hot Peppers. Doctor Jazz is one of the best examples of the early New Orleans jazz sound, using counterpoint, pre-written stop-time breaks and improvised solo passages – truly a feast within a few minutes, and the pinnacle of this particular sound.
“Masculine Women! Feminine Men!,” performed here by journeyman singer Irving Kaufman, often turns up on lists of the earliest queer records, though it should be stressed that this is accidental. The lyrics are intended as a sardonic look at changing fashions, but the effect is detached and wry rather than offended, leading to a reasonable implication that things like sexuality and gender are ripe for exploration, generally not a big deal, and basically fine to play with – a nice introduction to the changing social mores of the time.
The craze for female blues is on the wane by 1926, but Ethel Waters has stuck around, this time without her backing band. “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor” is a folk blues, dating back to the 19th century, but its status as a standard only became fixed with this recording.
There is plenty to say about Duke Ellington elsewhere, just to note here