Walter Barnes' Royal Creolians / The Rhythm Aces - Brunswick 4244 (1928 / 1929)

Here is Walter Barnes' Royal Creolians second release...their first can be heard here. 

Walter Barnes ts, dir / Cicero Thomas, George Thigpen t / Ed Burke, William 'Bullet' Bradley tb / Irby Gage, Wilson Underwood cl, ss / Lucius Wilson ts / Paul Johnson p / Plunker Hall bj / Louis Thompson bb / Billy Winston d.

Recorded in Chicago on December 24, 1928.

From wikipedia...

Jabbo Smith, born as Cladys Smith (December 24, 1908 – January 16, 1991) was a United States jazz musician, known for his hot virtuoso playing on the trumpet.

Smith was born in Pembroke, Georgia. At the age of 6 he went into the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina where he learned trumpet and trombone, and by age 10 was touring with the Jenkins Band. At age 16 he left the Orphanage to become a professional musician, at first playing in bands in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Atlantic City, New Jersey before making his base in Manhattan, New York City from about 1925 through 1928, where he made the first of his well regarded recordings.

In 1928 he toured with James P. Johnson's Orchestra when their show broke up in Chicago, Illinois, where Smith stayed for a few years. His series of 20 recordings for Brunswick Records in 1929 are his most famous (19 were issued), and Smith was billed as a rival to Louis Armstrong. Unfortunately, most of these records didn't sell well enough for Brunswick to extend his contract.

In March 1935 in Chicago, Smith was featured in a recording session produced by Helen Oakley under the name of Charles LaVere & His Chicagoans, which included a vocal by both Smith and LaVere on LaVere's composition and arrangement of Boogaboo Blues. It is an early example of inter-racial blues recordings, although far from the first as such had been made at least since c. 1921.

In the 1930s, Smith moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin which would be his main base for many years, alternating with returns to New York. In Milwaukee he collaborated with saxophonist Bill Johnson. Subsequently, Smith dropped out of the public eye, playing music part-time in Milwaukee with a regular job at an automobile hire company.

Jabbo Smith made a comeback starting in the late 1960s. Many young musicians, fans, and record collectors were surprised to learn that the star of those great 1920s recordings was still alive. Smith successfully played with bands and shows in New York, New Orleans, Louisiana, London, and France through the 1970s and into the 1980s.

Jabbo Smith t / Omer Simeon cl / Cassino Simpson, another p / Ikey Robinson bj.

Recorded in Chicago on January 29, 1929.

Washboard Rhythm Kings / The Missourians - Bluebird 6084 (1932 / 1929)

What a great pairing of early Victors on a re-issued Bluebird!

From wikipedia...

The Washboard Rhythm Kings 1931 to 1933 (aka. Washboard Rhythm Boys, Georgia Washboard Stompers from 1934 to 1935, Alabama Washboard Stompers 1930 to 1932) were a loose aggregation of jazz performers, many of high calibre, who recorded as a group for various labels between about 1930 and 1935.

The band played goodtime swinging music, featuring spirited vocals, horns, a washboard player and occasionally kazoo, and were popular around the time of the Great Depression. They mostly covered current hits from other artists.

Their personnel varied considerably between sessions, with guitarist Teddy Bunn a regular member from 1930 to 1931. Later recordings included singers Leo Watson or Steve Washington, washboard player and vocalist Bruce Johnson (aka Bruce Wiley Robinson?), trumpeters Valaida Snow and Taft Jordan, and clarinetist Ben Smith.

Their 1932 recording of Tiger Rag has been cited for its "wild, informal feel" as an early precursor of rock and roll. Their music was also highly influential on the skiffle music of the 1950s and later.

For the most part, they recorded for Victor. The 'Alabama Washboard Stompers' were on Vocalion. There was a March 8, 1933 session of 8 sides recorded for John Hammond at Columbia primarily for export to the UK. Two of the tracks were subsequently issued in the US on Columbia 14680-D, which was the last issued record on the legendary 13000-D/14000-D Race Series.

They also recorded for ARC in August, 1933 and those sides were issued on their Banner, Domino, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, and Romeo labels. As 'Georgia Washboard Stompers', they were on the newly formed Decca label in late 1934 and early 1935.

Taft Jordan t / Ben Smith cl, as / Carl Wade ts / Eddie Miles p / Steve Washington g / Ghost Howell sb, v / H. Smith wb.

Recorded in Camden, NJ on July 6, 1932. (Originally released on Victor 24059)

From All Music...

The Missourians started out as Wilson Robinson's Syncopators in the early 1920s and then formed their identity while operating as Andrew Preer's Cotton Club Orchestra from 1925-27, when they were the house band of the Cotton Club. The ten-piece group toured with Ethel Waters in 1927 and changed its name to The Missourians at the time, since it was no longer based at the Cotton Club.

The band played regularly at the Savoy Ballroom from 1928-29 under the direction of altoist George Scott. Although they had recorded I've Found a New Baby under Andrew Preer's leadership in 1927 (when one of its trumpeters was Sidney DeParis), its main accomplishments were the dozen hot recordings that it made as The Missourians for RCA from 1929-30. However, the band was struggling and would have broken up were it not for Cab Calloway, who had first started working with The Missourians in 1929. Calloway hired all of the musicians as the nucleus of his orchestra in 1930 and once again they had great success at the Cotton Club. But this time The Missourians (whose name was dropped) were quite subservient to its leader, no longer having its own separate identity. And over time, one by one, the musicians were replaced by Calloway as The Missourians passed into history.

Lockwood Lewis dir / R.Q. Dickerson, Lammar Wright t / De Priest Wheeler tb / unknown, George Scott cl, as / Andrew Brown cl, ts / Earres Prince p / Morris White bj / Jimmy Smith bb / Leroy Maxey d.

Recorded in New York on June 3, 1929. (Originally released on Victor 38084)

Trixie Smith & The Jazz Masters - Black Swan 14127 (1922)

Here is the first of several upcoming posts featuring store-stock 78s found in an abandoned store decades ago.

This is Trixie Smith's fourth recording and was also released on Paramount 12164.

Besides Smith's vocals, Fletcher Henderson is floated as possible pianist in the six piece band in Rust's Jazz & Ragtime Records.

Recorded in Long Island City in September, 1922.