[ Will Back Orch. ]
Theme: "Short and Sweet"
Currently no information available.
Overview
Band was most active in Chicago and surrounding area during the years following WW II. One of the vocalists was Lois Costello, who later sang for, and married, bandleader Don Glasser.
Thanks to Mr. Doug Booth for this information on Will Back.

   [ Earl Baker Orch ]
Earl was the cornetist on "Ben Pollack and His Californians", star studded band whose Dec. 17, 1926 recording date included
       Ben Pollack (d,v) director,
       Harry Greenberg-Al Harris- Earl Baker (c),
       Glenn Miller (tb,arr),
       Benny Goodman (cl),
       Gil Rodin (as),
       Ilomay Bailey-Dorothy Williams-Hannah Williams (v)

An interesting sidelight concerns Jazz "Stocks".
The first important set of jazz "stocks" -- published sets of parts for jazz orchestra -- was the Melrose Syncopation Series. And, one of the "stocks" was the song "Darktown Shuffle" composed by Joe Thomas and Earl Baker. Arranged by Joe Thomas. Chicago, Melrose, 1925. Copyright no.: E623278. Call no.: M1350.T.

In 1946, The Cavaliers Orchestra was formed by Jimmy Fuller. Other leaders have included John Beecher, and Earl Baker.

   [ Ken Baker Orch ]
The band operated on the West Coast during the mid-30's. Several of the sidemen were to form the start of the Stan Kenton Orchestra at a later date. Liz Tilton (Martha's kid sister) was the 'girl' vocalist.

   [ Smith Ballew Orch ]
b: Jan 21, 1902, Palestine, TX, USA. d: March 12, 1984, Fort Worth, TX, USA
Theme song: "Home" (Perfect 15548; Varsity 8023 Records)
Overview
In the early 1920's, Smith led a band in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area of Texas. He went to Chicago in 1927, and was in New York City in the late 1920's. He was an extremely popular vocalist who made a great many recordings. During the 1929 to 1936 period, he was on radio. At one time, he replaced Al Jolson on the 'Shell Chateau' radio program. For awhile, he was a singing 'cowboy' in Hollywood. Smith got out of show business in 1950. He was 82 years old when he died in 1984, in Ft. Worth, TX.

"Bunny [Berigan] spent an extended period with the Smith Ballew Orchestra in the Spring and Summer of 1932. Ballew was a popular singer in the New York area between 1928 and 1937. He associated himself with some of the hot bands of the day for recording purposes and sometimes fronted his own orchestra." --Robert Dupuis, author of "Bunny Berigan: The Elusive Legend of Jazz", 1993.

Ballew was born in Palestine, Texas and attended the University of Texas. He gained a reputation in the Fort Worth area for his wide vocal range and high baritone sound. In the 1920's when we toured with a few road bands he traveled to Chicago. While in Chicago, he worked with Ben Pollack and the Hal Kemp band.

The turning point in Smith Ballew's first career came when he went out to New York to sing in the pit band for the Broadway show 'Good News'. The musical was short lived, but Ballew became associated with many of the top musicians. The friendships he made often lead to short lived bands, sometimes using his name as the front man. After a few gigs in 1929, Ballew moved into the studio for a string of recordings, such as, "Just You, Just Me," "Painting The Clouds With Sunshine," and "Out Where The Blues Begin."

The Smith Ballew Orchestra boasted more sidemen who became bandleaders than any other. Among those future bandleaders were Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Babe Russin, Bunny Berigan, Jack Teagarden, Ray McKinley, and others. Glenn Miller was the trombonist, arranger and band manager. Ballew's place in Big Band history is important, but it was only his start in show business. He was offered a role in the Hollywood movie 'Palm Springs' with Frances Langford. It was thought that he would return to the band after the movie had finished shooting, so in his absence, Ben Selvin took over leadership. Ballew decided he enjoyed movie stardom more, and did not return. The end came when Tommy Dorsey formed a new band with a number of Ballew's old sidemen, including McKinley; Miller, and Selvin.

Ballew's good looks, blond - 6'5, made him ideal for a series of cowboy movies in the mid 1930's. He became one of Hollywood's early singing cowboys. In 1938 he became one of the top ten Western box office stars with such films as 'Roll Along, Cowboy', 'Hawaiian Buckaroo' and 'Under Arizona Skies'. In late 1948 he began filming a 15 part cliff-hanger series called 'Tex Granger'.

The third chapter in his life came after he gave up movies to become a top level manager in the missile divisions of aircraft companies. He moved back to Fort Worth, Texas where he retired.
Above notes courtesy of Mr Dan Del Fiorentino

   [ Walter Barnes and his Royal Creolians ]
Walter Barnes was born in Mississippi in 1907 and from a very early age had his mind set on adding educational phrases, tones and harmonics to his style, a rare occurrence among black performers in Mississippi in the early 1920's. He was educated in music while attending high school in Chicago and played the clarinet in small groups in the early 1920's. He also attended the Chicago Musical College and the American Conservatory of Music.

Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians where formed in late 1924 in Detroit. The band was among the first from the Midwest to make annual tours of the South. The band had a two year engagement at the Cotton Club in Cicero Illinois. The Cotton Club aired the band nightly and made them a popular attraction in New York and later the Southern States. Barnes felt he had assembled his greatest band when he toured Kentucky in 1938 with a 16 piece orchestra. The group toured the Midwest before landing at the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago in 1939.

The band commenced touring in the Spring of 1940 with a stop in Natchez, Mississippi. While playing at the Rhythm Club a fire broke out quickly engulfing the entire building. Only a few were able to escape the blaze through the clubs only exit, the front door. Walter Barnes 34 years old, eight of the bands musicians and vocalist Juanita Avery were among those who died on that tragic evening.

Some more info. on the Natchez Rhythm Club fire -
The trumpet player on that date was Indianapolis native Paul Stott, who had just joined the band for that tour after playing with the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus. The Indianapolis Recorder newspaper article about the fire led with a headline reading something like "Local Boy Plays Last Note as Roof Caves In". In an effort to calm down the dancers, Barnes tried to keep his men playing (the tune was "Marie") and many people reported that the last instrument they heard playing was a trumpet (Stott was the only trumpet player with the band at that time). Stott's body was returned to Indianapolis for the funeral, which was also covered extensively by the Recorder. Another Hoosier at that fateful date was a trombone player from Gary, Indiana named Calvin (sometimes spelled Calhoun) Roberts.
This information on the Natchez Club fire ws kindly contributed by Mr. David Brewer, with other notes by Mr. Dan DelFiorentino

   [ Charlie Barnet Orch.]
b. Oct. 26, 1913, New York, NY, USA, d. Sept. 4, 1991.
Theme Songs:
Early On: "I Lost Another Sweetheart"
Later On: "Redskin Rhumba"
Here's a photograph of Charlie Barnett, and another of Charlie Barnet and the Band, (59KB), and one more photo of Barnet with some other Bandleaders.
Charlie Barnet was known to a great many folks (mostly "insiders") as "The Mad Mab of the Millpond". The exact derivation of this appellation is lost in the mists of history. It refers somehow to Charlie's very first orchestra. They played a date in a dancehall on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio. Next to the dancehall was a pond, which may have been called the 'the Millpond'.

Barnet was a rich kid, his maternal grandfather, Charles Daly, was first VP of the New York Central Railroad. When he was 12 years old, his family gave him a C-Melody sax. After hearing Coleman Hawkins playing with Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, he switched to the tenor. Later, he became enamored of Ellington's Johnny Hodges. His parents, quite well-to-do, owned lots of land in Manhattan. He attended both Rumsey Hall and Blair Academy, two fine boarding schools for young men, and then was enrolled in Yale University. His family supposed that he would become a corporate lawyer. But, by the middle of his freshman year, Charlie left Yale, and began working in various bands as a reedman.

Barnet was always a big Duke Ellington fan who really surprised all the hardcore jazz folks who wondered if a wealthy white boy could really swing. His early tunes were pretty pedestrian by standards of the day, but his 1940's bands were arguably the most rhythmically inventive white outfits of the era. Drummer Cliff Leeman, a Papa Jo Jones [Count Basie Orch.] disciple, had a tremendous sense of drive that took the band into groove territory that had yet to be explored by mainstream white musicians.
(Thanks Charles Mohnike for the above paragraph.)

Charlie formed his first band in 1933 with trumpeter/arrangers Tutti Camarata and Eddie Sauter, and Chris Griffin as third trumpet. A young Harry Von Zell (later the announcer on the Eddie Cantor Show) was the vocalist, although Barnet also sang at times. It is interesting to now recall that Metronome Magazine called his orchestra 'The blackest white band around.' Barnet's tenor sax could at times be rocking and rhythmic, and at other times, soulfully appealing.

In Barnet's 1934 band, a young unknown clarinetist had his first featured solo on "I Surrender Dear" (and "The Night is Blue"). It was Artie Shaw. Trombonist Jack Jenney and pianist Teddy Wilson were also there. It should be noted that Barnet judged musicians by their abilities, and not by the color of their skin. It was not unusual to find black men playing in the band. Some critics have noted that Barnet may have missed opportunities that other bands found because of his strong principles. Still, he was in very good company. Benny Goodman felt the same way.

During the 1936 summer season, Barnet's band, then playing the 'The Glen Island Casino' in New Rochelle, N.Y., introduced a new vocal group from Buffalo, N.Y. They called themselves, The Modernaires, and would later achieve greater fame with the Glenn Miller Orchestra. A year later, in 1937, two fine black musicians joined the band; John Kirby and Frank Newton.

Here's a 1939 photograph of the Hollywood's famed 'Palomar Ballroom', where Barnet's band was playing that year. There was a fire and the building burned to the ground. Barnet lost everything, -all of the band's scores, even their instruments and uniforms. Indicative of the high regard in which he was held by other musicians, it should be noted that Duke Ellington and Benny Carter immediately sent him many of their best scores. (The first song the band played when they got organized was "We're All Burnt Up".)

Still, 1939 turned out to be a very important year in the Band's history. Two important events occurred. Barnet recorded a Ray Noble tune called "Cherokee". More than anything else that had gone before, this song made the Barnet ochestra an overnight sensation. So much so, that it was briefly Barnet's theme song. The other event was that arrangers Billy May and Skip Martin joined the band.

Of the many scores that the band used, one, "Redskin Rhumba" is worthy of some note. At that time, ASCAP was engaged in a small war with the Radio networks. ASCAP believed that radio stations should pay a small royalty on the records that were played on the air. The radio stations thought otherwise. In the ensuing battles, ASCAP refused to allow radio stations to play any of their copyright music. Since "Cherokee" carried an ASCAP copyright, Barnet's band could not play it 'on air'. "Redskin Rhumba" was not an ASCAP copyright, and so during the protracted ASCAP/Radio Station War, "Redskin Rhumba" became the orchestra's 'on air' theme song. But never lose sight of the fact that, "Redskin Rhumba" was a rompin', stompin' number the way that the Barnet band played it. Incidentally, the band vocalist at this time was Mary Ann McCall.

In 1941, vocalist Lena Horne joined the band.

In 1942, Buddy DeFranco (Clarinet); Neil Hefti; Dodo Marmarosa (piano); Peanuts Holland; Al Killian; and vocalist Frances Wayne joined the band. Hefti and Wayne were later with Woody Herman's Herd. Frances Wayne went on to the Bob Hope Show.

Subsequently, many fine musicians appeared with the band. People such as vocalists Kay Starr; Fran Warren; Bunny Briggs; Jean Louise; Harriet Clark; Judy Ellington; Dave Lambert and Buddy Stewart, and pianist/arranger Ralph Burns; Barney Kessel (guitar); Trummer Young (trombone); Oscar Pettiford (bassist), and, just a few years later, Doc Severison (trumpet); Jimmy Nottingham and Clark Terry (trumpets). It was one of Barnet's trademarks, - he always surrounded himself with inspiring young musicians. Charlie recognized quality.

In time, Barnet disbanded and settled in Palm Springs, California, where he kept himself busy playing with sextets and septets.