By Stan Kuwik
N.B. – Stan Kuwik (1914-2005) was a lifelong Jazz researcher, member of the I.A.J.R.C. (International Association of Jazz Record Collectors), and occasional banjo player. During World War II, he survived the Normandy beach invasion and subsequent march to Germany under Gen. George S. Patton. He was promoted twice during his years in the U.S. Army, finishing his service as a 1st. Lieutenant. Stan spoke fluent Polish, always had a joke ready, and was a close friend to myself and Lars. Stan spent decades researching Jean Goldkette, Ed (Jack the Bellboy) McKenzie, and he contributed original research on Paradise Valley to the Graystone Jazz Museum (now under the stewardship of the Detroit Sound Conservancy). Stan was a good guy and a great pal. He unearthed new material during his research, which he happily shared. This article first appeared in two parts in the IAJRC journal (1989-90). I added a few more pics and pieces of new information to Stan’s original.–Jim Gallert
On information furnished by the wife of Jean Goldkette’s uncle, Jean was born on March 18, 1893, in Patrai [Patras] Greece. He spent his boyhood years in Greece and France. His father died when he was a child and his mother travelled in Europe as a professional singer. His mother’s second marriage was to a Russian journalist, John Poliakoff, who edited a weekly publication similar to our Saturday evening Post. They moved to Moscow where the boy wished to study piano, but the stepfather, believing that musicians didn’t make much money, opposed the boy’s ambition and tried to direct him to study for the more financially rewarding diplomatic service. Jean’s attraction to music must have been very strong, however, because at the age of ten he is said to have forged a check by signing his stepfather’s name to it so that he could attend a Josef Hoffman recital in Russia.
Probably Goldkette had some help in the rudiments of music from his mother, because he was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory, then considered the greatest musical school in the world. This was quite an achievement, for before being permitted to enroll, a candidate had to pass an examination lasting thirty days. He had to have some knowledge of the theory of music and had to be able to play and sing well enough to satisfy a jury made up of the greatest instructors and performers in Russia. Of the several thousand candidates that applied for entry to the tough and renowned Moscow Music Conservatory, only fifty were selected. Among them was young Goldkette.
It took nine years to secure a diplo9ma, and Jean was two years short of graduation when he was brought to the United States in 1910 by an Uncle. It seems the Russian climate was getting “too hot” for the members of the upper class. However, by now Jean was very well schooled in classical music on the piano.
But life in a new country would not offer immediate success to the seventeen-year-old immigrant. He was both penniless and friendless. Soon he found a job on a farm in Indiana where he toiled long hours, plowed the fields, and served as clerk. At other times he did nothing and all but starved. He spent his latter teenage years in the northern Indiana town of Plymouth and walked from Plymouth to South Bend so that he could practice piano at the Elbel Brothers music store. Incidentally, a member of the Elbel family wrote the University of Michigan “Victors March,” the school fight song.
Jean could play piano, but only the works of the classical masters. His musical training was along strict Russian academic lines. He wanted to play the piano works of the masters in a concert hall with a violin and wind instruments. Initially intending to follow a career in the classics, he did find work in a small concert ensemble at Lamb’s Café in Chicago in 1914. After this terminated, he found work in some bands of the Edgar Benson booking agency and was sent to Detroit as a sub-leader to play with the Andrew Raymond Band. He didn’t like Detroit at that time and returned to Chicago. Benson was impressed with the suave manner and continental accent and charm of Goldkette and decided to try him out as a front man, where he became very popular.
In 1916 he made a piano roll of a tune titled “La Seducion.” (For this information, the writer is indebted to IAJRC member Mike Montgomery, well known for his Rollography on player piano rolls.) in an article in the Music Trade Indicator (MTI) dated February 19, 1916, page 38 lists an Imperial piano roll made by Jean Goldkette of a tune titled “La Seducion.” While with the Benson Orchestra units he learned to play tunes familiar to the American public. He was a neophyte in jazz circles, but from the clamor of his audiences he learned the popular tunes of the era and began to develop an appreciation of what would attract American audiences.
One of the playing jobs Jean Goldkette had in Chicago was at a nickelodeon. While there, he was heard by Stephen Horvath, a string-bassist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was impressed with Goldkette’s piano playing but noticed that Jean’s shoes were badly worn. Sensing that Goldkette was down on his luck, Horvath invited him to move in with his large family. Goldkette and Horvath would entertain the others several evenings a week with their duets. Charley Horvath, the eldest of the ten children and a well-tutored drummer, had more interest in dance music than the classics and would team up with Goldkette at the famous Lamb’s Café or the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
Goldkette served a short time in the U.S. Army. When World War l ended, he worked at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. Here, Charles A. Hughes, the amiable secretary of the Detroit Athletic Club heard Jean play and decided that he would be just the man to give the kind of orchestra that it needed. Thus, Jean Goldkette, a pianist of marked ability, was installed as leader of a concert group at the elite DAC, an exclusive men only downtown establishment in that city. He became the club’s musical director and besides the concert ensemble he soon organized his first dance band in 1921. It was a five-piece band that played weekends at the DAC. Goldkette had a burning desire to be a leader of a dance band under his own name such as Paul Whiteman in the East, and Edgar Benson, his former employer, in Chicago.
In 1922, he took a larger band into a ballroom, the Graystone, that he and his friend from Chicago, Charles Horvath, helped organize. Goldkette’s big break came in 1923 when the proprietors of the ballroom couldn’t meet the band payroll and turned the place over to him to run.
He immediately changed the policy of the place and made his venture successful. He spared no expense and sought out the best musicians he could find. The money for this venture came from many of the well-to-do members of the Detroit Athletic Club, who were very well pleased with his work at the club. From Detroit, Goldkette ran what might be classed as an early conglomerate, like the Benson agency in Chicago and the Morris agency in New York. Together with his partner Charles Horvath, they were able to supply dance bands to clubs, hotels, and ballrooms. At one time there were twenty-plus bands working weekends under the Jean Goldkette name.
The new owners remodeled the newly acquired ballroom that a year prior had been a palatial Chinese restaurant. They had the outside covered with cement, painted it gray, and named it Graystone. They advertised it as a million-dollar ballroom. Goldkette’s ability to round up the best musicians eventually acquired him the label “the greatest ‘hot’ white band in its history.”
During his early struggling years in Chicago, he gained experience and insight into both American popular and classical music. Being a musician of the classics, he had the idea of blending the symphonic concept of classical music to the popular tunes of that era and this is what he sought to do in his new venture. In so doing, he was pursuing the same path that the “King of Jazz,” Paul Whiteman had blazed, and even surpassed him in dance music honors, a goal he later admitted was his ambition. At one time he even advertised himself as the “Paul Whiteman of the West.”
Although the two band leaders had some features in common in their use of music, they did differ in that Whiteman looked to Europe for suitable compositions to orchestrate, while Goldkette looked to the light musical compositions of his adopted land and made orchestrations that were equal to and may have surpassed Whiteman with anything he produced in a similar vein. When Goldkette organized his first Graystone Orchestra in 1922, it was a straight band playing stock arrangements, but in due time, with the addition of key top-notch musicians, it developed into one of the premier white dance bands of its era. To get an idea of how this came about, let’s develop the band from its inception using this excerpt from Swing Magazine, published in Detroit, 1939.
Howdy Quicksell, who played banjo in the Jean Goldkette Graystone Orchestra throughout its entire existence, tells how he made a trip to Detroit in the spring of 1922 and happened to meet Al Evans, a pianist, in the hotel lobby. It was rumored that a big job was about to break in Detroit; that a man named Jean Goldkette was going to organize a band to put into a big new ballroom. Following with Goldkette, Howdy Quicksell was invited to attend a first audition. He was introduced to Charles Horvath, who was going to play drums in the new band and act as its business manager.
In building up the reed section, they were seeking a good first alto man. Quicksell suggested they get in touch with Stanley “Doc” Ryker from Indianapolis. Doc agreed to come to Detroit and he and Quicksell, after a screening process of local musicians, were selected to be in the orchestra.
The initial brass section assignment went to Charlie Edwards, the fine first trumpeter from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Ray Lodwig, who left the Ray Williams Band, was selected to play second trumpet. Jean Goldkette started as pianist of the newly organized orchestra at the dance hall. Soon it became evident that he wasn’t up to the task of handling the many arrangements that the band had to play. In a very short time, he replaced himself with pianist Bill Krenz, formerly with the Tony Catalano band which worked the Mississippi riverboats.
In Goldkette’s quest to get the best men possible, changes started to occur. Paul Mertz was added as second pianist and Sig Behrenson was replaced by Paul Van Loan, a trombonist and skilled orchestrator. His arrangement of the tune “Stumbling” was the first arrangement written for the Goldkette instrumentation. Other arrangements quickly followed, and the orchestra began to develop a distinctive style. When the band reached its full complement of thirteen musicians, they started to broadcast from the dance hall by remote control over station WWJ, Detroit, on December 23, 1923.
In 1923-1924 the acquisition of personnel was phenomenal. Doc Ryker recommended Indianapolis’ Bill Rank, a gifted and noteworthy trombonist, who had a rich tone and a light-hearted instrumental style that made him an admirable soloist. After an audition, he was hired immediately! To fill out the reed section, Jean heard of a young tenorman who played “hot,” so he had him come to town for a tryout. It was Don Murray. When Don sat in, he was very uncomfortable, for at that time his ability to sight read was far from developed, and he found himself confronted with scores which were far from simple to him. His performance was most unimpressive as he struggled through an orchestration, until the band reached a chorus that was written for a tenor sax solo. Murray seized his chance and Goldkette had no need to look further for a tenor sax man. Though Murray was not a first-class improvisor he did have a power to please. He possessed nimble fingers and played the kind of music that one finds hard to ignore.
One of Goldkette’s major problems during the five and a half years of the Graystone orchestra’s existence was the filling of the second trombone chair. When trombonist Van Loan left, he was replaced by George Crozier, a worthy contributor to the orchestra’s growing repertoire. He was a composer-arranger and scored one of the band’s earliest efforts in a more rhythmic vein, “It’s The Blues,” a tune composed by Jean Goldkette himself and recorded by Victor Records in March 1924. Another change in the brass section saw trumpeter Charlie Edwards replaced by Fred “Fuzzy” Farrar, from the Scranton Sirens, a small Pennsylvania band that could boast, at various stages of its existence, many of the future white stars of jazz.
In selecting another pianist, Goldkette got in touch with Dewey Bergman who was with Ted Weems in Scranton, PA., and made him an offer to join the band. Berman mentioned to Goldkette that he heard the Scranton Sirens had a pair of terrific players. They were the Dorsey Brothers. Fred Farrar verified what Bergman said. So, when Owen Bartlett left, Jimmy Dorsey, a superior alto and baritone sax man, was brought in.
George Crozier was soon shifted from his trombone chair and was assigned to writing arrangements and rehearsing the orchestra, making way for Tommy Dorsey. In the meantime, Charley Horvath, in addition to fulfilling his role of drummer and manager of the orchestra, had been assisting Goldkette in building up an extensive band booking agency, similar to the ones of Meyer Davis, Edgar Benson, and Paul Whiteman.
The next important addition brought to the attention of Horvath by Don Murray was the unique jazz violinist, Joe Venuti! Venuti’s humor, pranks, and practical jokes are legend. Phil Evans, in the Bix book, labelled him as the “notorious gagster.” He originally started with the Philadelphia Symphony in the violin section and he asked one of the other violinists how he could get up to the front row. He was told: “this guy got to die, that guys got to die,” so he figured he’d never get up front. On his way home, he heard a jazz band and decided that was the type of music he’d like to play and figured his chances were pretty good, as there were no violinists in the jazz band. The rest is history! When he was to leave for Detroit, Venuti was with Paul Whiteman’s band, and told him he was going on a three-month vacation. On the occasion of his debut with the Goldkette Orchestra, he pulled of the pranks for which he was so well noted.
George Hoefer, jazz critic, told this story: Arrangements were made for Joe to join the band on one particular night at the beginning of a job. Venuti didn’t show up until 10:30, dressed in an Italian huckster’s rig with his violin under his arm. He was dressed in checkered pants, brown shoes, and a bandana around his forehead. He promptly went up to the bandstand and asked in a thick Italian dialect, if this was the place where he was to be working. Thereupon he went into a series of Italian tarantellas – best described as music for a wild Neapolitan dance. Just when Horvath was on the verge of ejecting both Venuti and Murray, the mischievous violinist proceeded to knock the band out with his fine playing. Band members were certainly a high-spirited group! Murray and Venuti were matched as practical jokers by the trio of Lodwig, Mertz, and Jimmy Dorsey. Throughout the band’s existence, many legendary pranks were pulled.
Charlie Horvath’s father started as the string bassist when the Graystone Orchestra was formed. When he left, he was replaced by Irish Henry who played the tuba. So by the early part of 1924 the personnel of the Jean Goldkette Orchestra at the Graystone was: Stanley “Doc” Ryker, Jimmy Dorsey, Don Murray (reeds); Fred Farrar, Ray Lodwig, Bill Rank, Tommy Dorsey (brass); Paul Mertz, Dewey Bergman (pianos); Howdy Quicksell (banjo); Irish Henry (tuba); Charlie Horvath (drums); Joe Venuti (violin). The orchestra also used violinists Sam Anflick and Charley Hammel during waltz nights.
Before the advent of electrical recording, the acoustic method of recording was in use. This process required portable equipment transported to places that had attractions that could not travel to a recording studio to wax a record. When the growing reputation of the Goldkette Graystone Orchestra reached the ears of the Victor Company, they sent out a recording crew to the Detroit Athletic Club on March 27 and 28 of 1924. Eight sides were recorded in the two-day session. Those that were released sold well. Another two-day session was held on November 24 and 25 of 1924, and seven tunes were recorded at the Detroit Athletic Club. Both sessions were handled by Victor Recording director Edward T. King, a multi-talented person, but no admirer of jazz.
The Goldkette Orchestra on the first day of the November session had added the cornet of Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke, who had joined the group at the Graystone on October 15, 1924. With the addition of Bix to the recording session, hopes were high that he would be the sparkplug at the two-day stint. But on the first tune, “I Didn’t Know,” the sparkplug set the director, Mr. King, on fire! He found fault with Bix’s 32 bar chorus and wanted no part of his kind of jazz. A compromise with Horvath gave Bix half a chorus, but this cut wasn’t released for some 36 years, and then only for its historical value. Bix sat out the rest of the session. He came back the next day to play one tune, but it was rejected and never released. So Goldkette, with a little fatherly advice, told Bix to work on improving his limited music reading ability. He had to let him go with a promise to use him whenever possible. He did return later and suffice to say, his presence would give the Goldkette Orchestra a lift into orchestral stardom!
During 1924, Goldkette booked a newly formed unit, the “Orange Blossoms,” led by violinist (and former Ford used car salesman) Hank Biagini. The name was taken from the Orange Blossom Ballroom in Delray, Michigan, a small town southwest of Detroit. The Biagini band was the forerunner of what later would become the Casa Loma Band. They took the name of Casa Loma in memory of a Canadian night club where they were to play, being impressed with the name. later, Glen “Spike” Knobloch, one of the original Orange Blossoms, together with most of the others, dumped Biagini, and incorporated the unit. “Spike” changed his name to Gray and that was the start of the Glen Gray Orchestra. Needless to say, it became famous!
In December 1924, Goldkette was inducted into the Detroit Athletic Club Hall of Fame. He was their musical director. He led a double life musically speaking; he was Detroit’s “jazz king” and at the same time he worshipped at the shrine of the Classics. Jean was the backbone of the DAC orchestra, musical director of the Book-Cadillac Hotel and boss of the Graystone Orchestra. He also was busy organizing new bands and seeking new dance halls around the country to take advantage of the current dance craze.
Bix returned to Detroit for the opening of the Detroit Auto Show on January 19, 1925, and stopped in to see Goldkette, who told him he would be used for two prom dates. One was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 6, 1925, at the annual J-Hop, and the other on May 1, at the annual Indiana University Junior prom. Both engagements were with the Victor Recording Orchestra. A deal had been worked out with the (Chicago) Arcadia band leader Charley Straight for the use of Bix on these two dates. Goldkette was busy with a music school he opened for beginning students at 17 Brady Street in Detroit, and one for advanced students. The Detroit College of Music was one of Jean’s enterprises and was quite successful for a time. Jean put his uncle Frank in charge, not because he knew anything about music, but because he was good at seeing that Jean got his cut of all revenues.
The Goldkette Orchestra didn’t record in 1925, because a new “electric recording” process by Western Electric was about to be introduced, replacing the outdated acoustic method of recording. Around this time Goldkette was asked to provide a dance orchestra for the ballroom Detroit’s newly built thirty story Book-Cadillac Hotel, then the world’s tallest hotel. Goldkette went to New York and persuaded Owen Bartlett to be the director of the new unit. Bartlett, a former sideman, led the Book-Cadillac Orchestra for five years. During this time, he also played an engagement at the Casa Loma Hotel in Toronto and provided the music for the Embassy Club there. In 1926 he travelled to Chicago for several recording sessions.
Goldkette’s band furnished nightly dinner and dancing music for most of the Detroit automobile tycoons. To enhance the personnel of the new outfit, Joe Venuti and Tommy Dorsey were transferred to the Book-Cadillac Orchestra. One evening the Goldkette Amusement Corporation was notified by the manager of the Book-Cadillac Hotel to fire Tommy Dorsey immediately! When asked why, the manager merely said: “Just fire him, that’s all,” the Goldkette people finally persuaded him to give a reason for wanting Tommy Dorsey fired. As it happened, that evening at the dance, there were many requests for a variety of tunes. One man requested the Missouri Waltz several times, which seemed to fall on deaf ears. It seems that the repeated request irritated Dorsey and he let out a flat “no” and added a few unkind words. What made the matter explosive that the requester was one off the Fisher brothers, well known in the Detroit hierarchy of automotive magnates. It amounted to an insult to be spoken to with such abusive language. Tommy Dorsey was promptly removed from the Book-Cadillac Hotel Orchestra and put in another Goldkette unit.
Once again, the search for another trombone player for Goldkette’s principal orchestra. Trumpeter Fred Farrar recommended Russ Morgan from Eddie Gilligan’s Band in Pittsburgh. A telegram to join the band sounded so good that it brought Morgan to Detroit. After hearing the band, he was ready to return to Pittsburgh. He told Goldkette he wouldn’t play in the band if he was given a thousand dollars a night. “Fire the whole band and I’ll show you how to organize a good hot band!”
When Goldkette expressed his desire to be the “Paul Whiteman of the West,” Russ suggested that he become “Jean Goldkette of the World.” This so impressed Goldkette that he hired Morgan right then and there. Morgan’s tenure ushered in a new era in the development of the orchestra. Apart from his musical ability, he was an able arranger from which the orchestra derived much benefit. It wasn’t long before Morgan was promoted to be musical director, replaced in the orchestra by Spiegle Willcox, a beautiful-toned trombonist from Paul Whiteman’s “Collegians.” Morgan reworked the rhythm section and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra emerged with its new unmistakable sound.
On Ray Lodwig’s recommendation, Steve Brown, the most unique string bass player to ever grace the realms of popular music, was obtained in September 1925, from the band at the Midway Gardens in Chicago, where he’d gone after leaving the Friar’s Inn Society Orchestra in 1924. He joined in September 1925. Brown’s control of and tone on the double bass were truly phenomenal. His pizzicato work ranked with the finest, while his sense of rhythm, at that period, had never been approached by any other exponent of the instrument. Truly, an acquisition of whom Goldkette could be proud.
When Russ Morgan took over Goldkette’s principal band in 1925, he revamped the rhythm section to a great degree of perfection. When they headed to a recording session in January of 1926, followed by a stint at the Roseland Ballroom, this is how the event was reviewed by Billboard Magazine on February 6, 1926. However, there is some discrepancy as to the actual personnel listed here:
“From the city of flivvers comes a Rolls-Royce among ‘hot’ orchestras, and it’s styled the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. What it’s done is to split the habitués of Roseland, where it is playing a limited engagement, into two factions – a dancing element, and a mob that just stands and listens, agape.
…the Goldketters are here primarily to record for Victor, and if the wallpaper over at the Victor laboratories doesn’t burn right up when they are ‘cutting,’ it’s made of asbestos. By this time, the reader is evidently aware of the fact that this flock of Ford City tooters are a fiery mob…it’s a revelation inn ‘hot’ band. Roger Wolfe Kahn, Sam Lanin, Ross Gorman and Vincent Lopez were some of the bandsmen who came around to do the visitors honor, and to wield the baton for a ‘one and two.’
The lineup follows: Russ Morgan (director); Stanley “Doc” Ryker Jimmy Dorsey, Don Murray, saxes; Fred Farrar, Ray Lodwig, trumpets; Howdy Quicksell, banjo; Irving Riskin, piano; William Rank, Spiegle Willcox, trombones; Chauncey Morehouse, drums; Steve Brown, bass; Charles Horvath, manager.”
The Goldkette Orchestra hadn’t recorded for Victor since November 25, 1924, under the acoustic system. In 1925 no records were made awaiting the advent of the new Western Electric system of recording. So, on January 28, 1926, one of the tunes using the new electrical recording system was “Dinah,” where Steve Brown can be heard doing his classic “slap bass” style that was quite innovative for that period of jazz development. (the origins of New Orleans “slap bass” style are discussed here.)
In the spring of 1926, the Goldkette unit played at one of the outstanding social functions of the Philadelphia season, the Ivy Ball, in a battle of the bands with Vincent Lopez. With no further engagements in the offing for the full Goldkette Orchestra, Owen Bartlett’s Band at the Book-Cadillac Hotel was augmented for both its residential and recording work by some of the members of the principal orchestra. Russ Morgan accepted an offer to arrange music at one of Detroit’s main theaters and stayed there over a year. Also, in the spring of 1926, Bill Challis submitted an arrangement of the tune “Blue Room” to Goldkette for which he was paid $125.00 plus an offer to stay on as an arranger with the Goldkette establishment. This was his third attempt to win favor with the Goldkette group. His first try hadn’t received too much attention as the orchestration was sidetracked to the Owen Bartlett Orchestra at the Book-Cadillac. An arrangement of “Baby Face” became a regular chart with the Graystone Orchestra and “Blue Room” with its chord build up was a real eye opener that eventually won Challis the arranging job with the Goldkette Graystone Orchestra.
Goldkette, together with his managers, Charley Horvath and Frank Fellows, journeyed up to check out the Casino at Hudson Lake, located between Michigan City and South Bend, Indiana. They were impressed with the large crowd that was present at the St. Patrick’s Day Dance and contacted the owner of the casino, offering to rent it for the summer season with an option to buy. The owner, a widow, accepted the offer.
Goldkette now wanted someone of stature to take over as musical director, so he could concentrate on his booking agency and music school and making plans for the coming summer season. In April, he sent Horvath to St. Louis with an offer to Frankie Trumbauer, who was doing a creditable job at the Arcadia ballroom, to take over the musical directorship of a new group that Goldkette planned to put into the Hudson Lake Casino. Trumbauer liked the offer but would accept it only if Bix were included. Horvath wasn’t sure Bix was ready to join the First team, but when Tram accepted full responsibility for Bix’s competence, a deal was made. Goldkette returned to the casino in May to ready it for the opening and hung a blue lantern above the entrance, renaming it the Blue Lantern Inn.
Before the Goldkette takeover there had been no admission charge at the casino, but now a $1.50 admission charge went into effect, on May 22, when the Goldkette unit opened there.
However, before the opening, Bix and Tram joined the Goldkette Orchestra in Terre Haute, Indiana on May 13, for the Junior Prom at the Rose Polytechnic Institute. The next night they played at the Notre Dame Senior Ball in South Bend, Indiana. The orchestra broadcast over radio station WSBT where they featured a waltz titled “Sorry and Blue” composed by the Elbel Brothers, owners of the music store where, in earlier years, Jean Goldkette had walked miles to take piano lessons. After the Notre Dame dance, the band came back to home base, The Graystone Ballroom. On May 21, the evening before the opening at Hudson Lake, the band did its final broadcast from the Graystone Ballroom over station WCX, Detroit. The broadcast was picked up by station WSBT in South Bend to acquaint the surrounding public with what to expect in dance music during the upcoming summer season at Hudson Lake. After the broadcast the band split into two units for the summer.
During the summer of 1926, Goldkette had three bands working at lakeside resorts. Most of the members of the principal Goldkette orchestra played under Paul Mertz at the Blue Lantern Casino at Island Lake, in Michigan. This group consisted of Jimmy Dorsey, Don Murray, Ray Lodwig, Bill Rank, Howdy Quicksell, Steve Brown, and Chauncey Morehouse. Another group, The Breeze Blowers, under the leadership of pianist Fred Bergin, was at a pavilion at Sand Lake, near an area known as Irish Hills in Michigan. The personnel included, among others, Fud Livingston, “Buzz” Gregg and banjoist Howard Kennedy who had been a member of Goldkette’s organization since1922. The third unit at Hudson Lake, was built around the remaining members of the principal Goldkette band, including leader Frank Trumbauer, Fred Farrar, Bix, “Doc” Ryker, Pee Wee Russell, Sonny Lee, Itzy Riskin, Frank di Prima, Dan Gabey, and Dee Orr. The band’s repertoire consisted of manuscripts from the Graystone Orchestra as well as from Trumbauer’s book, which included Singin’ the Blues and Clarinet Marmalade. Drummer Dee Orr stated that Bix played his very best that summer and lamented that not a single record was made of his playing during that period.
Jean could see the growing interest in hot jazz and the band at the Blue Lantern Inn at Island Lake played both sweet and hot. At times the band would alternate in five- and six-piece combos. Bix played cornet in one group and piano in the other. With the acquisition of Bix and Tram, the Jean Goldkette band reached its highest peak. It was a long, chaotic summer. If Goldkette hadn’t come around to check his men, they probably all would have drunk themselves to death. Pee Wee Russell remembers that they were getting their whiskey from a farm family down the road who had supplies buried in a cornfield. At Hudson Lake, Bix and Pee Wee Russell were “boozin’ buddies” and Jean fired Pee Wee but he didn’t want to go, saying he liked it there. So he stayed, and the boys in the band used to pitch in a few dollars each to keep him there.
Many Saturday and Sunday nights, musicians from Chicago, some ninety miles away, would drive down to hear the Goldkette unit. On Sundays,from noon till midnight, jam sessions were played by many combinations of small jazz groups that would include, besides the regulars, Bud Freeman, Frank Teschmacher, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Jimmy McPartland, Dave Tough, Gene Krupa, and Eddie Condon. Even band leader Ben Pollack came down to hear the band. Bix was now in the best group he’d ever worked with on a regular basis.
At summer’s end, the Hudson Lake group broke up and the men added for the summer sent their respective ways. The regulars returned to the Graystone for crash rehearsals prior to putting together the main orchestra for an upcoming New England tour. However, a bit of rivalry developed between the different styles of the Island Lake group and that of the group that Trumbauer led at Hudson Lake. Trumbauer’s supervision and discipline in dogged rehearsals finally prevailed, resulting in a cohesive unit.
With Trumbauer succeeding Jimmy Dorsey and Bix coming in as “cornet-at-large,” a section of three trumpets plus a solid rhythm section sparked by the “slap style” of Steve Brown’s bass emerged. The number one Goldkette unit left Detroit by train for the East coast, stopping to play a few one-nighters on the way. The greatly improved band compared to the one that toured the East in 1925, arrived at the Southborough, Massachusetts train station on September 21, and were transported to the Hilcrest Inn, their temporary headquarters. The band was transported to jobs by a local bus sporting a banner which read, “Jean Goldkette Orchestra, New England Tour, J.A. Lyons, Mgr.”
The band began some serious afternoon rehearsals at the Inn inn preparation for an October 6 Battle of Music with Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Before the Roseland engagement in N.Y., the band did a publicity broadcast over WTAG radio station in Marlboro, Mass., and when the band played their first engagement at the Lyonhurst Ballroom on Saturday, September 25, there were as many visiting musicians as there were dancing patrons. The band made a bit hit with arrangements of Tiger Rag, My Pretty Girl, Baby Face and Blue Room, the latter two scores by Bill Challis. The arrangement of Blue Room introduced for the first time the built-up pyramid chord concept that was the talk of musicians wherever it was played. The arrangements made such an impression on Horvath, that he got in touch with Challis and asked him to join the organization at the Hilcrest Inn. Horvath hired him that afternoon pleading for some sorely needed musical arrangements, as a recording date at Victor’s New York Studios was scheduled for October 6.
In Challis was a talent that played a major part in the band’s next twelve months. He was to be recognized as one of the pioneers of big band arranging. In addition, his association with Bix contributed to Bixiana when he painstakingly worked with Bix to annotate four of Bix’s well-known compositions. As Bix played the piano, Challis did his best to capture his ideas, but copying was made difficult, because Bix in his genius kept coming up with new ideas thereby changing the melody each time he played. Challis had a great admiration for Bix’s musical ideas because they were original and fresh, and many of them were thus preserved.
While Challis was busy scoring three numbers for the Victor recording engagement, the tour promoter, Joseph Lyons, arranged a series of “Battles of Music” with various other units in the New England area. The “Paul Whiteman of the West” was drawing good crowds wherever the band appeared. Musicians usually came to hear Trumbauer to pick up on his “licks,” to marvel at Bix’s tone and phrasing, and to listen to Steve Brown’s “slap bass” technique.
The band played their last dance engagement at Lyonhurst and a couple of days later left the Hillcrest Inn for N.Y. and a battle of music at the Roseland Ballroom against Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra.
On September 28, 1926, Goldkette’s Book-Cadillac Hotel Orchestra under the direction of Owen Bartlett, went to Chicago for a recording session, and according to Brian Rust’s discography there is a possibility that Goldkette himself played in a piano duet. Also, Jesse Crawford, well known organist, was used to record some songs with the group.
The star-studded Henderson band, with Rex Stewart, Coleman Hawkins, and Buster Bailey was the resident band at the Roseland and were confident they could do battle against the invaders. As it turned out, the Goldkette band took N.Y. by storm. In an Orchestra World magazine article, the Goldkette band basked in a “riot of glory,” stating that whoever was responsible for the Goldkette arrangements should be elected to the hall of fame. And rightfully so, as arrangers are rarely adequately recognized for their brilliant work. The Goldkette Orchestra matched their material with a rousing performance. Much to everyone’s surprise, their opening number was the tune Valencia, not really jazz, and done at a march tempo. Instead of leaving their chairs while the Goldkette Orchestra played, Henderson’s musicians stayed to listen. They and the dancers were bowled over. Benny Carter found the ensemble “frightening,” stating that they were supposed to be the “kings.” Rex Stewart recalled, “the greatest thing in New York-we had the best men, the best arrangements, everything. Then, suddenly, up pops this band of “Johnny come latelies” from in the sticks-white boys at that! and they just cremated us.”
Sensational as the Goldkette musicians were in person, they were denied their talents on phonograph records. Musicians that came to hear the Goldkette band were surprised to see five brass realizing that Bix was used only for his improvised solos. Many bands added an extra trumpet as a result of what they saw and heard. So it was with Steve Brown’s string bass. Many bands that then used the tuba, now switched to the string bass. Brown kicked things along with his “slap technique” and, through the use of across-the-bar-line syncopations, opened a new concept of playing time. He is credited by music historians as being the one who tossed away the bow and played by “slapping” out chords.
While the band was taking N.Y. by storm, and before they finished their Roseland engagement, they had a recording session at Victor. But lo and behold, when they went to check out the new Challis arrangements they would like to record, they found that Eddie King, the band’s nemesis at a previous recording date, had selected the songs he wanted the band to record. What a letdown in morale! Charlie Horvath argued that the selection of tunes wasn’t what the band was best at doing, but King said if they wouldn’t play ‘em, he’d get another band to play the tunes he was convinced would sell records.
Apparently, King had a strong influence in the choice of recording material for the Goldkette Orchestra and exercised it to the band’s detriment, restricting the ability of the Goldketters to demonstrate its “hot” talents, and showcase Challis’ brilliant arrangements. The recording session was the first one upon which Bix appeared since the arrival of the electrical method, and for the first it was possible to fully appreciate the quality of Bix’s unique cornet playing. For example, his solo on “Idolizing.” A rendition of beauty and joy to behold!”
Could it be that Mr. King favored Paul Whiteman’s orchestra in the choice of material, as they were an international attraction, whereas Goldkette was more or less a regional band? Bill Challis has stated that the record company controlled the choice of songs, and even assigned the vocalists. The songs they picked for the band weren’t the type of tunes they usually did. They were used to playing a type of jazz music virtually unknown in large white orchestras.
In spite of the restrictions, some of the performances contain excellent ensemble passages, and Challis was able to put the spotlight on Bix’s talents frequently. All in all the principal Goldkette unit recorded a total of twenty-one titles for Victor. Eighteen have been issued, some with alternate takes, but little of its recorded output gives more than a passing clue as to why the band was so highly regarded. After the recording session, the band returned to continue the battle of music with the Henderson band at the Roseland Ballroom. On October 17, 1926, Goldkette finished the Roseland stint with a promise to return in January, 1927.
When the Goldkette Orchestra returned to Detroit after their very successful journey to Roseland in October of 1926, they settled into the Graystone Ballroom for the winter season. Pianist Riskin was sent to Toledo to help in organizing a new Goldkette unit, The Orange Blossoms, under the leadership of Hank Biagini. Riskin’s replacement was Paul Mertz, however, Mertz asked to be relieved by the middle of December as he was attending University of Detroit during the day and it so happened that he had to help out at the school’s Christmas operetta for which he wrote some of the music. He was relieved by Marlin Skiles, a young and as yet inexperienced pianist. The triumphant band opened the fall-winter season at the Graystone Ballroom with Joe Venuti making a personal appearance in the capacity of violinist-guest conductor. His stay with the band was short-lived and again Trumbauer assumed leadership.
Sometime before the end of 1926, Goldkette’s principal band battled McKinney’s band and the Orange Blossoms, which later would become the nucleus of Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra. The esprit-de-corp of the Goldkette group was at a peak and each member of the band would contribute suggestions in the scoring of passages which were enhanced by Bill Challes’ arranging genius. Bix’s solos were notated and then harmonized for the section. Trumbauer would do the same for the sax section. Evidence of these types of arrangements included Tiger Rag, I Found A New Baby, My Pretty Girl, and Clementine (from New Orleans) were brilliant arrangements but only the latter two were recorded. Also, several other “hot” recordings were made, but the Victor Company not only withheld their public release but even destroyed the masters.
Goldkette’s musicians had the capacity to combine hard work with hard play. The pranksters of the band were busy again with Venuti, Lodwig, Murray, Quicksell and even Bix playing a part by planning to sneak in Eddie Condon and Mezz Mezzrow through a coal chute in back of the ballroom, into the annual ball of the exclusive Scarab Club. However, Bix spoke to the club President, and arranged their admission. Cards signed by the President ensured that when they walked up to the front door, their entry was without incident. One of the hostesses picked Condon to lead the grand parade with her, Newsreel camera men photographed Condon at the head of the parade, when all of a sudden, the unpredictable Condon fell flat on his face in front of the reviewing stand!
During December, Paul Whiteman, then appearing at a Detroit theatre, dropped by to listen to the Goldkette band. As he was very impressed with the talents that his rival band employed, before he left Detroit he made an offer to lure Trumbauer to join his “symphonic jazz orchestra.” It didn’t work, but he was laying the groundwork for a future raid on Goldkette personnel. During the visit, Bix was introduced to Whiteman by Jean Goldkette.
For nearly three weeks into 1927, the band played for dances at the Graystone. On Monday’s and Thursday’s when the band didn’t play public dances, they would do one-nighters for such clients as the annual Masque Ball at the Scarab Club, Detroit’s artist colony on Farnsworth, just behind the Detroit Institute of Art. On January 19, 1927, Mayor Smith of Detroit at the dedication of the newly opened Savarine Hotel also broadcast an eighteen-minute speech over Detroit radio station WJR, giving the renowned Goldkette Orchestra an official sendoff to their next engagement at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan. The orchestra left the Graystone after their final appearance on January 21, and travelled to New York for their second Roseland engagement. Don Murray got sick and was replaced by Jimmy Dorsey when they opened against Fletcher Henderson; however, Dorsey was replaced by Danny Polo for the upcoming recording session.
Starting on January 28, the band recorded a total of four sessions at the New York Victor Studios under the directorship of Trumbauer and the supervision of Victor’s Nate Shilkret, who was more sympathetic to jazz music than Eddie King. This band was a “hot” band, and yet its records were generally restricted to a commercial format, except on a few recordings like My Pretty Girl and Clementine where fire and brilliance shone in their renditions. The Goldkette band was sensational at the Roseland mostly due to the Challis arrangements.
Challis, who devised (both for Goldkette and Whiteman) orchestral backgrounds that showed off Bix’s talents to such amazing and spectacular effects, remained a friend to the end of Bix’s short life. It was he who was responsible for persuading Bix to sit down at the piano so that he could transcribe Bix’s own piano compositions, namely, In A Mist, Flashes, Candlelights, and In The Dark.
The Roseland Ballroom had two bands to provide continuous music. Besides Goldkette, there was the resident Fletcher Henderson Orchestra with Rex Stewart, Benny Carter, Buster Bailey, and Coleman Hawkins, a powerhouse crew. It was awesome opposition for the Goldkette Orchestra. Most of the tunes the band played were arranged by Challis, but the arranger shares some credit with the members of the band who furnished ideas that went into his arrangements. According to Challis, the arrangement of My Pretty Girl was Jimmy Dorsey’s idea. Bill was always on the hunt for good solos he could orchestrate into the trumpet or sax sections of the band. Dorsey’s ability to create original ideas helped Challis, and it is to Bill’s credit that he saw fit to incorporate them, and others, into his arrangements.
Another example of Challis’ ability to insert style into his ensemble voicings is seen in Bix’s variations on the melody of Sunday. Also very helpful with ideas were Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang. The famous twosome would augment the orchestra on recordings only– Eddie Lang was never a member of the band. On Clementine, the tune really was a combination of ideas by the musicians. Howdy Quicksell supplied the introduction and ending. The rest of the rendition was a “head” arrangement, where the ensemble follows the melody line, with Bix doing his brilliant solo work and fill-ins that make Clementine a Masterpiece.
Among the tunes recorded at the January session, were some Hot numbers such as My Pretty Girl and Fletcher Henderson’s Stampede, an arrangement by Don Redman which Challis was able to obtain from Henderson in exchange for some of Bill Challis’ charts. The recording of My Pretty Girl was one of the few to capture the spark and rhythmic thrust that made this band legendary. It included Steve Brown’s snap and slap bass technique that he played with an energy seldom equaled during the 1920’s.
There were many times when bands would exchange arrangements. Fred Bergin related that he had a “battle of the bands” encounter with Henderson at the Graystone and he was delighted to win it. The victory provided an amusing anecdote. Bergin said that in those years, bands used to trade arrangements since the money they were getting made it difficult to maintain an up-to-date book and survive at the same time. So he traded several with Henderson such as D Natural Blues (later called Grand Terrace Stomp). Fletcher used to play it quite fast, but Bergin played it at a moderate tempo, and when the crowd heard the arrangement, they went crazy! Because of the band’s enthusiastic reception at Roseland, Victor may have momentarily decided to give Jazz a chance to see if it would sell. However, Stampede was rejected and one wonders if Eddie King axed it, or if Victor already had a version of the number by one of its other bands.
After the Victor sessions ended, an event occurred that was a milestone in the progress of recorded Jazz. Through Red McKenzie (of Blue Blowers fame) and Tommy Rockwell, (of Okeh records), Trumbauer, with Bix, Jimmy Dorsey, Mertz, Morehouse, Rank, and freelancing Eddie Lang recorded Trumbology, Singin’ The Blues, and Clarinet Marmalade. One need only to listen to their renditions to know what made them immortal Jazz soloists. Here Bix was given an opportunity that the Victor Record Company had denied him, and Bix’s solos impressed other musicians so much that “copy-cats” appeared everywhere!
The band closed the Roseland engagement on February 6, 1927, and played a stint at Cook’s Butterfly Ballroom in springfield, Massachusetts. They then headed back to the Graystone in Detroit. On February 11, the band played opposite Fletcher Henderson and Guy Lombardo at the University of Michigan J-Hop in Ann Arbor. On February 12, Paul Mertz, longtime pianist with the band, left to join Fred Waring’s group for better pay and more security. His replacement was young Marlin Skiles.
On February 22, the band provided music for the Bohemians, a musicians club of Detroit at the Grand Ballroom of the Book-Cadillac Hotel. Goldkette, a club member, was chairman of the ballroom committee. A couple of days later, Don Murray was back in the band after a short illness, but his replacement, Danny Polo stayed with the band thus giving Trumbauer more time to “Front” the band.
Bix must have found Goldkette in a good mood when he asked for (and got) a $25 a week raise, in spite of band’s mounting money problems. Also, Bix got Bill Challis up to a practice room of Goldkette’s Music School to teach him Ostrich Walk with which Challis wasn’t familiar. With Bix plunking it out on the piano, Challis worked out both small and large group arrangements.
In late March, Danny Polo left the band. Ed Sheasby split the leadership duties with Trumbauer, (due to a rift with Horvath?). Variety Magazine reported in its April 7 issue that Jean Goldkette made his vaudeville debut at the Masonic Temple in Detroit.
Goldkette closed out the winter season on April 10, with one of his annual concert performances at the DAC, appearing as piano soloist and conductor of an augmented orchestra. The augmentation of the orchestra brought opposition from Horvath in that financial difficulties were mounting. The band’s weekly costs were running over $3,000 a week. When the rift developed Goldkette took over the duties as booker and manager of the bands. In the hopes of offsetting the growing deficit, Goldkette set up several one night engagements, combined with a few recording dates at Victor’s Camden recording studio. Of the three recording sessions in May, one of which was augmented by Venuti and Lang, only the tune Slow River was ever released. Two versions of In My Merry Oldsmobile, one in foxtrot and one in waltz tempo, were made for private distribution by General Motors. They were recorded as unnumbered specials – both were Take 1. Stan Hester, (IAJRC member), included the above, a Take 2, plus a few other takes on his Broadway label. Two other numbers, recorded during these May sessions, Lily and Play It Red, were both rejected as they were considered “too advanced” for public acceptance.
More one nighters, through Pennsylvania brought the band to A.J. (Toots) Marshall’s Castle Farms in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 29. The band’s reputation and popularity brought great crowds, and the engagement was extended beyond its initial two weeks until July 1. An event happened that brought chaos some time later. Ed Sheasby, longtime member of the Goldkette band, who had a drinking problem, was fronting the band one night for a three-member French variety act. The French group expressed some dissatisfaction about the way the band backed them. Tempers flared and Sheasby lost his cool and stormed out in a huff. After the Castle Farms stint, Sheasby’s mood remained ugly as he started his job of packing the band arrangements and equipment and got them on the train for the next job at Loew’s Theatre in St. Louis. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat ran an article in their July 3 Sunday paper, heaping high praise on the Jean Goldkette Orchestra as having the ability to play popular and “hot” music second to none. However, when the band arrived at the destination to set up for the evening show, they discovered that Sheasby and the arrangements hadn’t arrived! Trumbauer put in a frantic call to Goldkette in Detroit and told him of the situation. Naturally, the situation embarrassed Goldkette no end, and he commented that Sheasby was a drunkard, plain and simple. In correspondence, pianist Fred Bergin, leader of several Goldkette bands, offered this explanation: He theorized that Sheasby, after the French trio incident, was so upset that he decided to take “his” arrangements and leave Goldkette’s empire. Actually, only a few arrangements in the library were his. No one knows if they were ever located. If they were, surely Goldkette would have made them available to his other units, but they have never been found. So here was a band proclaimed to be perhaps the best in the country, and arrangements by most of its previous arrangers were nowhere to be found. Goldkette told Trumbauer to take over fronting the band and do the best he could “faking” some of the Jazz favorites. In the meantime, Goldkette, embarrassed by the incident, cancelled out the entire remaining engagements.
During Goldkette’s days in Detroit, even though the bands were largely segregated, Goldkette decided he should add a Black band to his string of bands. Goldkette was deeply impressed by Fletcher Henderson’s appeal to an all-white audience at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan. He figured it could work at the Graystone. On the invitation of a friend and owner of a nightclub, Goldkette journeyed to Toledo, Ohio, to hear a seven-piece Black band, The Syncos, led by drummer William McKinney. He was impressed, and told McKinney that work would be forthcoming at a Detroit ballroom if he could build his Synco Jazz Band into a high caliber unit.
In the fall of 1926, the Synco Jazz Band had made great strides in anticipation of becoming a Goldkette unit. When Goldkette took control of the band, McKinney became manager, and was replaced at the drums by Cuba Austin, a flashy player. The band was employed at the Arcadia Ballroom, about a mile south of the Graystone on Woodward Avenue. It was agreed that McKinney’s would be the first Black band to play at the Graystone, but a stipulation was to change the band’s name to McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. In due time, McKinney sought out Don Redman, a multi-talented musician and arranger from the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, and the move made musical history! Redman could arrange, compose, and play most reed instruments as well as sing and front a band. A new era was born in Detroit. Don Redman had been formally trained, and he helped design and develop big band jazz.
When Don Redman joined, Goldkette allowed him to use the Graystone rehearsal room, where his musicians would be drilled in Redman’s intricate and inspired arrangements, which later would bring him a Victor recording contract, a regular radio broadcast, and public acclaim. The McKinney’s Cotton Pickers with Don Redman –a thirteen piece super-swing band–started what could be called a pre-golden era of jazz in Detroit.
In the four years that Redman led the band at the Graystone, the dancers were well pleased with his showmanship and musicianship. His arrangements were so far ahead of all others in that era that he was the envy of his peers. Don Redman was a founder of the modern method of arranging, and though he had arranged for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, his greatness solidified during his Detroit period. He pioneered the four-voice reed section arrangements and his leadership produced one of the first really “modern” bands. Not only was Don a great arranger, he played solos on many recordings the band made. He played the soprano, alto, and baritone sax, clarinet, vibraphone, and celeste. His half-spoken half-sung vocals were unique. Redman may have been the first Rap artist!
Don eventually would leave in the summer of 1931 to form his own band. By 1932, Goldkette would sever business connections with McKinney’s band. Incidentally, Bob Zurke and “Spike” Knobloch were used as copy boys for Don Redman’s arrangements. Goldkette was anxious to find an alternate Black band to replace the Cotton Picker’s at the Graystone when they were out of town making records. He heard of a band playing in Toronto that had been formed in 1925 by Louisville, Kentucky trumpeter Charles Victor Moore, known as the Chocolate Dandies. Goldkette signed them, insisting that hey be billed as McKinney’s Chocolate Dandies. Goldkette and Horvath figured the newly acquired band’s appeal would be greatly enhanced if they could record some tunes. So, they supposedly sent the real McKinney group to New York to record under the name The Chocolate Dandies. The ploy had little success and the Chocolate Dandies continued to play the same Redman arrangements at the Graystone when the Cotton Pickers left town. It was a great thrill to see Mr. Moore at age eighty still take a soulful solo at concerts organized by James “Jitterbug” Jenkins and sponsored by his Graystone Jazz Museum.
After the St. Louis stint, the band returned to Detroit. To ease the mounting financial drain, Goldkette contemplated dissolving his Victor Recording Orchestra and concentrating on the bands that were earning their keep at the Graystone Ballroom. These included McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, led by Redman, the Orange Blossoms, led by Hank Biagini, and the Vagabonds, led by Fred Bergin. Also, Nat Natoli’s Goldkette unit was working the Detroit area and was far less costly . There was yet another unit being formed at the Pla-Mor Ballroom in Kansas City that would include Hoagy Carmichael and Sterling Bose, Andy Secrest, and Nat Natoli among others.
At this time, Horvath needed money, as he was engaged in a renovation of the Graystone, in hopes of forestalling a competitor who was interested in building a Trianon Ballroom in Detroit. Horvath reasoned that if he could beautify the Graystone, for an estimated $150,000 expense, the rumored competitor would have second thoughts about venturing into Detroit. So although Horvath’s project would be a financial drain, the renovation was started.
Goldkette opened with a dance band unit at Edgewater Park in Detroit in 1927, and also booked bands on summer excursion boats to Bob-lo Island, a Canadian amusement park. A ray of hope developed when Goldkette received a phone call from Francis “Cork” O’Keefe, a partner in the newly formed Rockwell-O’Keefe booking agency in New York. Cork wanted to talk about the Victor Recording Orchestra. For starters, he offered a month’s engagement for the band at Young’s Million Dollar Pier on the boardwalk at Atlantic City, plus a few recording dates at Victor. The band’s final night at the Graystone was on August 5, 1927, and on the 8th of August they opened in Atlantic City. This engagement attracted visits from Paul Whiteman and Adrian Rollini.
Goldkette continued to run his number one unit at a financial loss. This state of affairs came to the attention of the players. They realized that they had a unique unit and dreaded the thought of losing the enviable reputation they had built up. The members discussed the situation amongst themselves and decided that if no more jobs were forthcoming, they would ask Goldkette to reassemble the band at a time when he could make arrangements to offset its heavily-laden payroll. Goldkette was at his wits’ end and was genuinely distressed at not being able to pay his men’s salaries, so he wouldn’t accept their suggestion. His men, having to make a living, took Goldkette’s refusal to accept their suggestion as being at liberty to seek other work. At this time, Adrian Rollini, along with Paul Whiteman, was making offers, hoping to lure some of the high class talent by waiting in the wings. Goldkette denied all rumors and pleaded with his men for time, mentioning that the September Roseland engagement was a certainty and also that there was a possibility of landing the Club New Yorker job, even though realizing that Rollini was also after the job. Goldkette’s men were willing to go along with their leader, as they had a lot of respect and loyalty for the great band, and didn’t want to see it break up. One night at the Million Dollar Pier, Paul Whiteman came in with his manager and Jimmy Dorsey, and was asked to conduct the Goldkette band, and with a little coaxing he consented. The audience response to his conducting was tremendous. Before Whiteman left, he again made offers to Bix, Tram, and Bill Challis to join his band. No definite commitments were forthcoming that night, but there was an underlying feeling that the end of the band was near.
In between the Atlantic City and Roseland engagements, the band travelled to New York for a recording session and after postponements, without reason given, the band closed out at Atlantic City and headed for their New York stint at the Roseland Ballroom. When Adrian Rollini beat out Goldkette for the Club New Yorker job, he made a bid for Bix, Tram, Challis, Rank, and Morehouse, all of the Graystone group. While Goldkette was in Detroit trying to find more bookings for the band, Challis told him he was leaving to join Whiteman. The band members asked Goldkette to reorganize the band if he could find enough work to sustain the payroll, but he didn’t think it could be done and told them so. When the Rollini news got out, the death knell of the Goldkette group had been sounded. The band opened at Roseland on September 8, 1927, and during the remaining days of the Roseland date the band reached its greatest heights. The final recording session at Victor took place September 15. With the addition of Venuti and Lang, the great string duo, the band recorded Blue River and Clementine (from New Orleans) with Jean in attendance.
The closing night at Roseland came on September 18, 1927, amid scenes of sheer joy and enthusiasm. The dance hall was attended by musicians from most of the New York bands, and the band played the best tunes in their library. Besides the “hot” arrangements of Tiger Rag, Blue Room,, Clementine, My Pretty Girl, I Found A New Baby, and Riverboat Shuffle, they included some light classics and some sentimental ballads. Upon termination of the engagement, it became necessary to call the police to clear the floor and allow the musicians to leave the stand. Then, the band assembled for the last photograph, shoeing the full group in their tuxedos grouped around a Victor console with a giant sized statue of “Nipper,” His Master’s Voice original trademark.
Though the breakup of the band was a blow to Goldkette, he returned to Detroit to carry on in the band business. He was a very bitter man at the breakup of his favorite number one band of all his many bands. It was said that as a group they were hard to handle and their individual personalities at times labelled them as “prima donnas.” However, they initiated a style marked by great improvisational solo performances and innovative arrangements that blazed a trail in enlarging jazz horizons. It was a harbinger of the big bands that led to the so-called Swing Era.
Goldkette still had a group of bands that were playing in the Midwest. They were the ever popular McKinney’s Cotton Pickers led by Don Redman, the Orange Blossoms, under Hank Biagini, the Vagabonds, directed by Fred Bergin and a unit in Kansas City led by Harold Stokes. When Goldkette formed the band to play at the Pla-Mor Ballroom, in Kansas City, Hoagy Carmichael was looking for work and was hired as a second pianist. He kept the job until he was notified that he had to go, as the establishment couldn’t afford two piano players. In that band were Nat Natoli, Andy Secrest, and Sterling Bose (on Cornet), Larry Tice on alto, Red Ginzler, trombone, and pianist Harry Bason, who held the coveted “Ragtime Belt” that he won in an international contest. Hoagy managed to record two tunes with the orchestra on December 12, 1927 session. Later, recordings were made in Chicago until Goldkette’s Victor Recording contract ran out in 1929.
The team of Goldkette and Horvath started out great, but in time a rift became evident when the Goldkette Graystone band broke up. In an issue of Graystone Topics of March 1928, a structure of the various companies was listed as follows to the Graystone Ballroom. Jean Goldkette Inc. was listed as controlling the management of the Graystone Ballroom, whose parent company was called “the Graystone Company” of which Charles Horvath was Vice President. Both companies were controlled by the National Amusement Corporation, of which Horvath was President.
In July 1928, the Kansas City band and the McKinney band made some recordings in Chicago. One tune, Just Imagine, had some controversy surrounding it. It was suspected that the cornet obligato solo backing Greta Woodson’s vocal was done by Bix. However, band members Vernon Brown and Dale Skinner, who participated in the session, confirmed the player was Sterling Bose. Jean Goldkette was in agreement. Also, Brian Rust relates that the clarinet solo on one of the tunes sounded like either Milton Senior of Prince Robinson, both members of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers that recorded the previous day in the same studio. Steve Brown rejoined the band for the July recording.
McKinney’s Cotton Pickers opened the season at Roseland in September 1928. Goldkette hoped to repeat the success he enjoyed there with his primary unit the year before. The solid swing of McKinney’s band, featuring cutting-edge arrangements by Don Redman, never failed to impress all who heard them. While the two bands had different styles – Redman liked the banjo and tuba, which sounded a bit dated by 1928. Both bands had many admirers who played Jazz and would turn up at jobs. Melody Maker, a British music magazine, stated in its June, 1929 issue that Jean Goldkette had a unit in Whyte’s Restaurant in New York led by Smith Ballew. The orchestra played only during dinner, 6 to 9 p.m., but made radio broadcasts and recorded for the Okeh Co. Babe Russin, tenor sax man, and Bob Van Eps, pianist and arranger, were part of the unit.
Though the breakup of his Graystone band was a blow to Goldkette, he continued to lend his name to several bands for a few more years, producing records until late 1929. However, he was no longer a significant force in his field and while combining work as an agent with appearances as a concert pianist, he receded into partial obscurity. Some bands he led, at least nominally, during the 1940s and 1950s were unsuccessful, and in 1961 he moved to California. Goldkette made several attempts to recapture some of the fame he enjoyed in the orchestra world, but it was not to be. He never overcame the bankruptcy of one of his dance halls after only four months of operation.
The Casa Loma Orchestra was an offshoot of one of Goldkette’s numerous outfits in Detroit, the Orange Blossoms. The first unit was organized in 1924, led by former Ford automobile salesman Henry “Hank” Biagini. Glen “Spike” Knobloch (later, Glen Gray) on tenor sax, Biagini, sharing some of the Goldkette library, built the band into what was later a formidable band in the swing era. In 1927 the men dismissed Biagini and several of the regulars formed a corporation. It was the first co-op of its kind, with Glen Gray as President.
In comparing the Casa Loma Band and the Goldkette Victor Recording Orchestra, units that played some of the same arrangements, Don Redman stated that the Casa Loma could swing more, because the were a great team, without so many highly paid and temperamental stars. The band achieved much of its precision through extensive rehearsals by brass and woodwinds in call and response patterns.
When the Jack Crawford band disbanded in Detroit in the late 1920s, Eph Kelly, a super saxist, joined a Biagini unit, and Jimmy Hilliard joined the Vagabonds. While with the band, Hilliard made a few arrangements for Duke Ellington and also for McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. In 1929, he took over a Goldkette unit known as the Champions and conducted them for three years, alternating between the Graystone and the Book-Cadillac Hotel. When the Great Depression hit, he left for Chicago to join the NBC studio Band under Walter Blaufuss. Several years after the breakup of the prime Graystone Orchestra, Goldkette returned to New York and rehearsed a band which included Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, and Charlie Spivak. He tried to get a radio network to audition them but failed to attract interest. On January 27, 1929, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra came to Detroit for the opening of the General Motors Research Building. He obtained Andy Secrest from the Goldkette organization as a temporary replacement for Bix.
By 1930, Goldkette and Horvath were at loggerheads. Goldkette continued to lend his name to the bands that were represented by the corporation, but he didn’t get too closely involved with any of them. Jean wanted to concentrate on his classical music and play concerts, while still getting some income from the corporation. Goldkette had several disputes with William McKinney in 1932, supposedly over money. Financially, McKinney’s band was on shaky ground, so the musicians voted to breakup the band after their West coast tour finished. There was a reshuffling of the agency in 1932 as evidenced by an ad in Orchestra World, stating: Jean Goldkette Orchestras, Jean Goldkette Building, Detroit, whereas another ad read: McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Charles Horvath, Representation-Jean Goldkette Building, Detroit. This meant that Goldkette severed relations with McKinney. Horvath then reorganized the band when Don Redman left to start his own band. Benny Carter, cornetist Rex Stewart, and trumpeter Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham were added.
Goldkette’s last big band success was on the Studebaker Program in Chicago. Harold Stokes, the initial conductor, was later replaced by violinist Victor Young. Paul Mertz rejoined the band in Chicago on station WGN, where the studio band was greatly augmented. Paul Mertz wrote a song, I’m Glad There Is You under the name Paul Madeira, his middle name. He used Jimmy Dorsey’s name on the song to help sell it, but he wrote the music and words himself.
By 1933, Goldkette disbanded all his bands and left Detroit to lead a band on a Caribbean cruise boat. In 1934, Horvath’s lease of the Graystone Ballroom ended, as did the booking of the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. In August of 1939, Goldkette came back to Detroit to visit old friends and to look for talented musicians he hoped to employ when he visited here with the American Symphony Orchestra, originated by him to honor American composers and musicians. His wife, whom he had married secretly, came here with him. She had been Jean’s publicity agent until their marriage. It was through her that Jean planned a nation-wide tour with the American Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra had a triumphant opening June 8, 1938, in Carnegie Hall in New York.
Owen Bartlett, leader of one of the Goldkette units at the Book Cadillac for five years (1924-29), joined with Goldkette in a radio show they had developed through correspondence. Jean had successfully sold an option on the show to an advertising agency and among their problems was the need of getting control of a certain New York corporation in order to control the title of the proposed show. With the unusual situation of having a leading advertising agency pay a substantial fee for an option on a radio show, Jean hoped for a return to the glory years, but the deal, unfortunately, fell through.
Goldkette appeared as a concert pianist on January 29, 1954, in the Scottish Rite Cathedral of the Masonic Temple in Detroit. He aroused much nostalgia with his appearance, as he was the one who had given Detroit a distinguished society Orchestra in the so-called “Roaring 20’s.” In 1959 an LP album momentarily put Goldkette back into the limelight when he was asked to come out of retirement to lead a fourteen piece orchestra for a recording session on the RCA Camden label. The combination of original scores and Sy Oliver’s arrangements brought interest in personal appearances of this group, but broad support was lacking. (see Postscript for detail on this session.)
Jean kept his hand in the promotion business, mounting at least one Rock ‘n Roll show, in 1956.
The Detroit Free Press wrote in the early 1960’s that NBC was to feature Jean Goldkette in a biographical TV “spectacular,” but it never materialized. In preparing this article, I wrote to fellow I.A.J.R.C. member Norman Gentieu to see what he might know of the non-event. His reply follows:
“…I’m glad to be able to shed some light on the alleged Jean Goldkette ‘spectacular.’ According to my notes, NBC started out to do a TV show on Bix, and even contacted Bill Challis to assist in the project. Various problems arose, however. Bob Mantler, who had some great stills and other material on Beiderbecke quoted NBC a price so high for the use of same that the NBC bookkeepers went into a tailspin. And I believe they wanted Bill Challis to donate his services gratis or for a mere pittance. Jean Goldkette would have been included, of course, but at no time was a show featuring him envisioned by the producers. I’m afraid the Detroit Free Press reporter was indulging in some wishful thinking or, as so often happens, sloppy and/or irresponsible journalism. At any rate, the original Bix idea got changed and what evolved from that was the NBC TV Spectacular that they called ‘Chicago and All That Jazz,’ featuring Jimmy McPartland, Jack Teagarden, and others. The show was produced as one part of the NBC Special Projects Television Series, ‘America’s Music,’ and I believe it was taped on or around 30 October 1961. As you will note, there were some links with Bix in the persons of Jimmy McPartland, Gene Krupa and Pee Wee Russell, but nothing pertaining to Jean Goldkette survived in the revised format.”
Goldkette was the originator and president of the National Artists Foundation, an Organization dedicated to encouraging new talent. He journeyed with his business manager, James Arthur Gordon, to Santa Barbara to set up a local chapter there. While in a hotel room he complained of stomach cramps and took a taxi to the hospital where he died of a heart attack on March 24, 1962. When Jean Goldkette died he was a widower with no children, and had been living with an aunt inn Los Angeles, California. He is buried in an unmarked gravesite in a plot of Goldkette aunts at the Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. His pallbearers were made up of band leaders in that area at the time of his death. They included: Horace Heidt, Ted Lewis, Orrinn Tucker, Freddy Martin, Art Kassel, and Russ Morgan. Variety magazine eulogized him as one of yesteryear’s greats among bandleaders. His orchestras in the 1920’s included a cadre of up and coming jazz greats. While not a jazz musician himself, he was a classical pianist with a fine sense of musicianship. He had appreciation for what the jazzmen of the twenties and thirties represented and, as a skillful impresario, he filled his famous orchestra with the most qualified musicians he could hire. In his heyday he was labeled the Prince of Jazz, though today he’s buried in an unmarked grave. Nevertheless, his contribution to the development of a unique art form will stand as a monument forever in the history of jazz music.
~ACKNOWLEDGMENTS~
Searching for stories and photos for this volunteered undertaking was a bigger task than I had anticipated. However, it was made a lot easier and more pleasant due to the help of many kind and good people and good material from many books on bands. It would take up a lot of precious allotted space in our Journal to thank all who contributed info to the project, but some special thanks are in order for the help in preparing much of the material for this endeavor. In any story there’s a beginning and an end. Beginning (birth) was easy, although it might be controversial, but finding where Jean Goldkette was buried was another story! I asked many members of I.A.J.R.C. at our 1985 Los Angeles convention, but no one seemed to know of his final resting place. Then I spoke to Ray Avery who suggested Floyd Levin. This was the right guy. Floyd not only found Goldkette’s gravesite, he came up with the death certificate, a photo of the cemetery plot, and details beyond the call of duty. Thanks, Floyd, you put the final touch on the story. – Stan Kuwik.
Ed. Note: I should add that in those pre-internet times, “research” meant spending time staring at Microfilm, combing through old music journals, newspapers, and talking with other jazz researchers. Before iPhones, etc., “long distance calls” were expensive! Writing “letters” (using actual pen & paper) was the normal mode of communication. You had to be tenacious (maybe obsessed is the correct term). In any case, Stan had the right stuff and finished the job. -Jim Gallert 2021
There are many Goldkette and McKinney’s items on youtube.
