Album:
Black Secular Vocal Groups Vol 1
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 74:34
Size: 170.8 MB
Label: Document
Styles: Gospel, Harmony vocal group
Year: 1997
Art: Front
[3:17] 1. Tim Brymn's Black Devil Four - Aunt Hagar's Children Blues
[2:31] 2. Variety Four - Miss Annabelle Lee
[3:01] 3. Variety Four - I'm Coming, Virginia
[2:50] 4. Pullman Porters Quartette - Every Time I Feel The Spirit
[2:30] 5. Pullman Porters Quartette - Good News Chariot's Coming
[2:47] 6. Pullman Porters Quartette - Pullman Passenger Train
[2:42] 7. Pullman Porters Quartette - Jog-a-long Boys
[3:09] 8. Richmond Starlight Quartette - Won't Be Worried No More
[3:12] 9. Richmond Starlight Quartette - Oh, You Better Mind
[3:10] 10. Richmond Starlight Quartette - Monkey Man Blues
[3:06] 11. Richmond Starlight Quartette - Gone Jazz Crazy
[2:48] 12. Triangle Quartette - Doodlin' Back
[2:54] 13. Triangle Quartette - She Done Quit Me Blues
[3:09] 14. Four Pods Of Pepper - Ain't Got No Mama Now
[2:34] 15. Four Pods Of Pepper - Queen Street Rag
[3:21] 16. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - What's The Matter Now?
[3:21] 17. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - Just Too Late
[2:47] 18. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - Pleading Blues
[3:08] 19. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - Four Or Five Times
[3:00] 20. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - When I Was A Moaner
[3:23] 21. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - King Jesus, Stand By Me
[2:47] 22. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - Somebody's Always Talking Abou
[2:53] 23. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - When Death Shall Shake This Fr
[3:14] 24. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - Somebody's Wrong
[2:49] 25. Monarch Jazz Quartet Of Norfolk - I Ain't Got Nobody (And Nobody
Citizens of the United States of America should be grateful to the people who run the Document record label, based in Vienna, Austria, for having reissued so many rare North American phonograph recordings. A good case in point is Document 5546, Black Secular Vocal Groups, Vol. 1, a veritable gold mine of otherwise nearly impossible to find Afro-American ensemble vocal recordings made between February 1923 and November 1929. Most of these songs are performed a cappella, with five out of 25 tracks (those by Tim Brymn's Black Devil Four, the Variety Four, and the Triangle Quartette) adding piano accompaniment. The designation "Secular" does not denote the absence of spirituals; it was clearly important for these singers to be adept at performing a diverse selection of blues-inflected secular and sacred songs, ranging from "Gone Jazz Crazy" to "King Jesus, Stand by Me." Like much of what is best in Afro-American music, "Somebody's Always Talking About Me" is a blend of both secular and scared tropes, a creative transgression of the deeply ingrained delineation between what you'd hear in church and what you'd hear elsewhere that permeates all of traditional Afro-American culture. In addition to the Pullman Porters Quartette and the Four Pods of Pepper, this compilation spotlights two excellent groups that came up in Virginia: the Richmond Starlight Quartette and the Monarch Jazz/Jubilee Quartet of Norfolk. "Four or Five Times" and "I Ain't Got Nobody" are beautifully done; the authorship of "What's the Matter Now?" seems to depend upon who's singing it. Bessie Smith and Rosa Henderson made the definitive recordings during the 1920s, and essentially the same song would reappear decades later credited to Billy C. Farlow of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. The Monarch Jazz Quartet's "What's the Matter Now?" is a patchwork quilt of swatches from the blues idiom. It even contains a couple of lines borrowed from Bessie Smith's "Backwater Blues." This fascinating collection of historical recordings shares one important trait with many other titles in the Document catalog: little or no effort was made to "clean up" the sound quality, and as a producer's note in the enclosed discography states, the skips on tracks two and 15 are on the original 78-rpm discs. The message seems to be: if anyone has a better copy, please come forward. ~arwuf arwulf
Black Secular Vocal Groups Vol 1
Album:
Black Secular Vocal Groups: Vol 2
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 68:23
Size: 156.6 MB
Label: Document
Styles: Vocal harmony groups
Year: 1997
Art: Front
[2:47] 1. Grand Central Red Cap Quartet - My Little Dixie Home
[3:06] 2. Grand Central Red Cap Quartet - They Kicked The Devil Out Of H
[3:33] 3. Four Southern Singers - Mammy Lou
[2:53] 4. Four Southern Singers - Be Ready
[3:02] 5. Four Southern Singers - Hambone Am Sweet
[3:20] 6. Four Southern Singers - You're Sweet To Your Mammy; Mu
[2:29] 7. Four Southern Singers - Old Man Harlem
[3:07] 8. Four Southern Singers - Careless Love
[2:20] 9. Mississippi Mud Mashers - Take My Seat And Sit Down
[2:51] 10. Mississippi Mud Mashers - Bring It On Home To Grandma
[2:42] 11. Mississippi Mud Mashers - Let's Go To Dinner
[3:01] 12. Mississippi Mud Mashers - Don't 'low No Quartet Singin'
[2:45] 13. Mississippi Mud Mashers - Moonglow
[2:41] 14. Mississippi Mud Mashers - Tiger Rag
[2:58] 15. Five Jinks - Cushion Foot
[2:11] 16. Five Jinks - Za Zu Swing
[3:34] 17. Five Jinks - I'm Moaning All Day For You
[2:18] 18. Five Jinks - There Goes My Headache
[2:52] 19. Five Jinks - Found A Baby Down Dixie Way
[3:50] 20. Five Jinks - Dirt-Dishing Daisy
[2:50] 21. Norfolk Jazz Quartet - Just Dream Of You
[3:07] 22. Norfolk Jazz Quartet - Shim Sham Shimmie At The Crick
[2:03] 23. Oleanders - Mama Don't Allow It
[1:51] 24. Oleanders - Ol' Man Mose
The second volume in Document's series examining Black Secular Vocal Groups focuses on the 1930s and brings out of the woodwork 34 recordings by six groups, most of which would be virtually forgotten today were it not for the efforts of the people behind this excellent label. The Grand Central Red Cap Quartet, named after baggage haulers at one of their country's largest railway stations, sang in a sweet, quaint, old-fashioned manner that may sound arcane to listeners accustomed to comparatively cynical 21st century entertainment. Whenever encountering sweet music of this vintage it is important to recognize and maybe even respect the fact that there was a large audience for this kind of entertainment during the first few decades of the 20th century. Recorded for Columbia in 1931, the heavily sugared "My Little Dixie Home" taps directly into a sordid tradition of songs idealizing life among people of color in the Deep South; "They Kicked the Devil Out of Heaven" is more fun, as it's a little spunkier. The Four Southern Singers cut their half-dozen sides for Victor and its Bluebird subsidiary in early 1933. The singers, who also doubled at times on guitar, violin, washboard, jug, and kazoo, appear to have been members of the Ward family: James, Owen, Robert, and Annie Laurie. Aside from two "Mammy" tunes (with "Mammy Lou" containing a reference to pickaninnies), they were capable of carrying on like a good-time string and jug band. In a clear demonstration of how North America's mingled rural traditions sometimes transcended artificial genre distinctions, "Careless Love" transforms itself into "She'll Be Comin' ‘Round the Mountain." Despite a lot of withering criticism by the author of the album notes, the Mississippi Mud Mashers were a very entertaining vocal quintet with guitar accompaniment. Their Bluebird records were cut in New Orleans in January, 1935. They are at their best on the lively "Take My Seat and Sit Down" and "Let's Go to Dinner," which is really "I Can't Dance I Got Ants in My Pants." The Five Jinks were a group of scat specialists who cut six sides for Bluebird in Charlotte, N.C. in February, 1937, sounding a lot like the Spirits of Rhythm. "Za Zu Swing" is instantly recognizable as Cab Calloway's "Scat Song," while "There Goes My Headache" is a very close cover of a zippy recording by the Mills Brothers. "Just Dream of You" and "Shim Sham Shimmie at the Cricket's Ball" represent a tiny fraction of the Norfolk Jazz Quartet's prodigious recorded output. This excellent group, who began recording in 1921 as either the Norfolk Jazz or Jubilee Quartet, cut an enormous number of records, most of which have been reissued in six volumes by Document. Lastly, the Oleanders were formed as the official school vocal quartet at Ohio's Wilberforce University. Right around the time that these sides were recorded, two of the members, Ira Williams and Edward Jackson, split off to join a soon to be more than moderately successful vocal harmony group known as the Charioteers. ~arwulf arwulf
Black Secular Vocal Groups: Vol 2
Album:
Black Secular Vocal Groups Vol 3
Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 67:46
Size: 159.4 MB
Label: Document
Styles: Blues-jazz vocals, Vocal harmony group
Year: 1998
Art: Front
[2:49] 1. Gulf Coast Minstrels - I Ain't Skeered Of Work
[3:22] 2. Gulf Coast Minstrels - Darktown Camp Meeting
[2:50] 3. Seven Musical Magpies - Laughing Song
[2:37] 4. Seven Musical Magpies - The Calliope
[3:14] 5. Nonpareil Trio - The Yellow Dog Blues
[2:42] 6. Nonpareil Trio - Susianna
[2:47] 7. Four Dusty Travelers - The Lonesome Road
[3:25] 8. Four Dusty Travelers - Dinah
[2:32] 9. Norris The Troubador - Talk About Jerusalem Mornin'
[2:38] 10. Norris The Troubador - Winter Will Soon Be Over
[3:01] 11. The Hipp Cats - Chippin' Rock Blues
[2:30] 12. The Hipp Cats - It Must Be Jelly ('cause Jam Don't Shake Like That)
[2:37] 13. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Laughing At Life
[2:44] 14. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Linda Brown
[2:41] 15. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Cotton Blossom Blues
[3:00] 16. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Low Down Gal Blues
[2:58] 17. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Mississippi Fire Blues
[2:36] 18. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Natchez Mississippi Blues
[2:34] 19. Lewis Bronzeville Five - Oh! Mabel, Oh!
[2:35] 20. Lewis Bronzeville Five - It Can Happen To You
[3:07] 21. The Four Blues - Honey Chile
[2:40] 22. The Four Blues - Jitterbug Sadie
[2:32] 23. The Four Blues - Easy Does It
[3:01] 24. The Four Blues - Bluer Than Bluer Than Bluer
Encountering the Document label's Black Secular Vocal Groups, Vol. 3 is a lot like finding a box of one dozen 78 rpm records at a garage sale. Each pair of songs would be found on flipsides of a given platter, and most but not all of the artists in this collection are represented by one such pairing. Stacked in chronological order, the set begins with two authentic old-time comedy sketches performed by Perry Bradford, Clifford Ross, and the Gulf Coast Minstrels in 1923. Even while enjoying their theatrical humor (and it is enjoyable), one cannot ignore the fact that the shiftless and lazy caricature displayed in "I Ain't Skeered of Work" is the kind of classically racist stereotyping that makes certain forms of early 20th century Americana difficult to digest. In 1924, the Seven Musical Magpies revisited -- and parodied -- the kind of Negro vocal entertainment that had been finding its way onto records since the mid-1890s. "Laughing Song" quotes passages of "Watermelon on de Vine" (soon to be covered by white Georgia string bands like Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers) and the out-chorus is accented with a pattern of rigidly exaggerated hilarity, a technique used by Polk Miller's Old South Quartette on "Oysters and Wine at 2 AM," and by Lew La Mar throughout most of Jelly Roll Morton's "Hyena Stomp." The Magpies really outdo themselves on "The Calliope" by crowing and yodeling, then uniting in a fabulous oompah-driven calliope routine that is worth hearing more than once. Taking potshots at long-deceased musicians seems to have become an annoying tendency among certain discographers, historians, and musicologists. For some reason, various commentators -- including the author of the album's descriptive liner notes -- seem to have it in for the Nonpareil Trio, who sang old-fashioned vocal harmony in a style since associated with barbershop quartets and have been roundly dismissed for not sounding "black enough". In February, 1929, they delivered a smart reading of W.C. Handy's "Yellow Dog Blues" and a sweet handling of "Susianna" (alternately "Suzianna"), a tune popularized by the orchestras of Sam Lanin and Nat Shilkret.
Eleven months later, a swinging little unit billed as the Four Dusty Travelers recorded "The Lonesome Road" with backing by the Ted Lewis Jazz Band. Lewis, who burbles his way through one of his patented sentimental vaudeville recitations, may have inadvertently inspired Louis Armstrong's skillful send-up version recorded for Okeh in 1931. On their recording of "Dinah," the Four Dusty Travelers underwent an identity transformation and became the Dixie Four. Norris the Troubador is heard on four selections recorded for the Decca label on the same day in August 1938. Researchers at Document have more or less identified this character as one Norris Mayhams. He also made records with his Barbecue Boys, with a group called the Blue Chips, and, eventually, with swing and R&B alto sax virtuoso Earl Bostic. On two sides issued under the name of the Hipp Cats, Mayhams taps into a jazz vein on "Chippin' Rock Blues" and "It Must Be Jelly (‘Cause Jam Don't Shake Like That)," a suggestive opus that became a lucrative hit when it was covered by Glenn Miller's orchestra.
To return to our original vision of one-dozen 78s tucked away at a garage sale, you hit the jackpot with four Bluebird discs yielding eight titles by the Lewis Bronzeville Five, a hip guitar and tipple-plucking vocal harmony group closely modeled after Austin Powell and the Cats and the Fiddle, with hints of Slim Gaillard in Royal Brent's lead vocal delivery. The range of expression in this group's selection is quite broad, from a Tin Pan Alley pick-me-up popularized by Billie Holiday through songs describing murderous domestic violence and a disastrous fire in Natchez, MS, to the disarmingly funny "It Can Happen to You." the Cats and the Fiddle comparison also applies to the Four Blues, who take a cool, hip approach to four tunes recorded for Decca in December 1940 backed by vibraphone, electric guitar, and string bass. Perfectly in step with where the music was headed at that time, this unit also sounded a little like the Delta Rhythm Boys. Which is a far cry from the slaphappy minstrelsy of 1923, and that's the point of this worthwhile collection. ~arwulf arwulf
Black Secular Vocal Groups Vol 3
Mo' Albums...
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Blind Roosevelt Graves - Complete Recorded Works (1929-1936)
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◊ Ralph Willis - Greatest Blues Masters
