Why are there no members of
the world famous Jenkins Orphanage Band in the South Carolina Entertainment and Music Hall of Fame? The Hall has such
luminaries as Andie McDowell (we still watch “Groundhog Day” despite her being
in it), Leeza Gibbons (celebrity-news reader) and Vanna White (the only professional
letter-turner in the Hall of Fame.) The
Hall also counts as members Rob Crosby, Bill Trader and Buddy Brock. (Yeah, I
know, you’ll probably have to Google them to find out who they are too.)
I am not saying that any of
these people don’t deserve to be in the Hall, they probably do. But not to the
exclusion of more deserving artists. I would like to nominate several artists
currently not in the Hall who influenced and enriched American culture in more
deserving ways than interviewing celebrities on “Entertainment Tonight” or
being eye candy for a game show.
From the 1890s to the 1940s
the Jenkins Orphanage Band traveled across the United States and across Europe
performing on street corners, on Broadway and for royalty. Members of the
Jenkins Band were instrumental in transforming the music performed during 19th
century minstrel shows into blues, ragtime and ultimately, jazz. My nominees are:
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EDMUND
THORNTON JENKINS
Born
- April 9, 1894, Charleston, South Carolina
Died-
September 12, 1926, Paris, France
His father, Rev. Daniel
Jenkins operated the Orphan Aid Society (a.k.a. the Jenkins Orphanage) which
operated a boy’s brass band as a fundraising tool, as a kind of minstrel show
on the sidewalks of towns up and down the East Coast. Called “Jenks” by
everyone, he received private piano lessons from a white man in Charleston, Mr.
Dorsey, and quickly mastered the piano, clarinet and violin. His father
insisted that he work as a music instructor for the Jenkins Band, and also
travel with them. Jenks resented having to lead a group of ragamuffin orphans
who mugged, strutted and played-the-fool during their street performances. He
felt it was beneath. He wanted to play serious music. The kids, of course, made
fun of the prim and dandified Jenks.
In 1910 Jenks enrolled in
Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia to study music. Two years later he was forced by his father
to leave college in order to accompany the Jenkins Band to London, where it was
a featured act at the Anglo-American Expo. When the Expo came to an abrupt
close, due to the outbreak of World War I, Jenks convinced his father to pay
his tuition to the Royal Academy of London. For seven years Jenks excelled in his
studies, winning awards for composition, and becoming a master in several
instruments. During his time at the Academy he composed “Charlestonia: A
Rhapsody.”
After graduation he moved to
Paris where he became one of the most sought after musicians in the most
popular Parisian nightclubs. Paris was “jazz mad” in the 1920s and for several
years Jenks embraced the glamorous, hedonistic life of Paris. However, in 1925
he began to compose an opera, “Afram” and expanded and orchestrated
“Charlestonia: A Rhapsody” which he conducted successfully in Belgium with a
full orchestra. In July 1926, he was
admitted to a Parisian hospital for appendicitis. He contracted pneumonia and
died on September 12, 1926, cutting short the career of a promising young black
composer. He is buried at the Humane Friendly Cemetery in Charleston, SC.
Watch/listen here: "Charlestonia: A Rhapsody." (composed by Edmund Thornton Jenkins.
TOMMY
BENFORD
Born
– April 19, 1905, Charleston, West Virginia.
Died – March 24, 1994,
Mount Vernon, New York.
Benford became the Jenkins
Orphanage Band’s ace drummer. In 1920 he was playing in New York City and gave drumming
lessons to a young wunderkind named Chick Webb. In 1928, he was the drummer for
some of the most influential jazz music ever recorded as part of Jelly Roll
Morton’s Victor Records sessions.
During the Depression Benford
moved to Europe and for the next 30 years recorded hundreds of songs with more
than a dozen bands. His most famous recording session was with Coleman Hawkins,
Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grapelli and Bennie Carter, released as Coleman
Hawkin’s All-Stars.
He continued to play music
until his death in 1994, a career that spanned seventy years.
JABBO
SMITH
Born
- December 25, 1908, Pembroke, Georgia.
Died,
New York City - January 1991.
Raised in the Jenkins
Orphanage, he quickly became one of the best Jenkins Band musicians during the
years of 1915-1924. Brash and flamboyant, he was a natural performer. At age 17 he was playing in New York City at
Smalls Paradise, the second most popular club in Harlem (most popular was the
Cotton Club.) He became the hottest trumpet player in the city, which is like
being the hottest guitar player in the hottest rock and roll band (think Eric Clapton,
Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen.)
In 1927 he recorded one track
with the Duke Ellington orchestra (“Black and Tan Fantasy”) filling in for the
ailing Bubber Miley. Duke offered him a permanent job with the Ellington
Orchestra, which Jabbo turned down because Duke only offered $90 a week, and
Smith was making $150 with the Paradise Orchestra.
In 1928-29 Jabbo played with James P. Johnson
(composer of the song “Charleston”) and Fats Waller in the Broadway show Keep Shufflin. When the show closed in
Chicago Jabbo recorded nineteen historic songs for the Brunswick Record Company
that are still considered some of the most influential jazz recordings. They
are considered to be the first cool jazz improvisations and be-bop style
playing.
By the 1950s Jabbo Smith was
out of music, living in Wisconsin. As a swan song, in the 1980s he returned to
Broadway in the show One Mo’Time and
became the darling of New York for several months. Jabbo is a key link in the
development of modern jazz trumpet playing: Louis Armstrong →Jabbo Smith →Roy
Eldridge →Dizzy Gillespie→Miles Davis→Wynton Marsalis.
FREDDIE
GREEN
Born
– March 31, 1911, Charleston, South Carolina.
Died
– March 1, 1987, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Freddie Green had the longest
job in jazz history, guitar player for the Count Basie Orchestra from 1937 to
his death in 1987 - 50 years. He was in the Basie Orchestra longer than Count
Basie himself!
As a child Freddie used to
sing and dance on the streets of Charleston and became friends with members of
the Jenkins Orphanage Band. Though never an orphan, he played with the Band and
remained in New York City during their tour in 1932. Five years later he was
discovered playing at the Black Cat Club in Harlem and asked to join the Basie
Orchestra, forming what became known as the All-American Rhythm section:
Basie-piano, Green-guitar, Walter Page – bass, and Jo Jones-drums.
For the next 50 years Freddie
Green became the “left hand” of the Basie Orchestra, the spiritual force that
held the music together. Across the world he became known a “Mr. Rhythm,” the
greatest rhythm guitar player in jazz history. It is almost impossible to find
a photo of the Basie Orchestra that does not include Green.
He became a composer and
arranger for the orchestra and the arbitrator of good music. Byron Stripling,
trumpet player for Basie said, “If an arranger comes in and his work is jive, Freddie
just shakes his head and it’s all over.”
Green died in Las Vegas after
a Basie Orchestra performance ending one of the quietest most legendary musical
careers of the 20th century. Irving Ashby described Freddie Green’s
influence on music as: “Rhythm guitar is
like vanilla extract in cake, you can’t taste it when it’s there, but you know
when it’s left out.”
CAT
ANDERSON
September
12, 1916, Greenville, South Carolina.
Died
– April 29, 1981, Los Angeles, California.
During the late 1930s,
Anderson became the latest in a line of hot trumpet players in the Jenkins
Band. He developed a technique of playing in high registers, two octaves above
the rest of the band. It was Anderson’s way of showing off, and getting the
girls in the audience to notice him. Wynton Marsalis called Anderson “one of
the best” scream trumpet players ever.
After leaving the Jenkins Band
in 1937, Anderson played for several bands, and performed at the Apollo Theater
in Harlem. During World War Two, Anderson played in a Special Services Army
Band, performing for troops on bases across the world.
In 1945, he joined Lionel
Hampton’s Band and then was hired by Duke Ellington, and became a featured
player for the Duke during the next 20 years. Ellington re-arranged many of his
classic songs to take advantage of Anderson’s talent for “scream” trumpet
playing. Anderson is heavily featured in one of the most popular jazz
recordings ever, the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.
Through the 50s, 60s and 70s
Anderson led several bands himself, and recorded several solo classic LPs with
various Ellington sidemen.
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