Hi Thundley,
Interesting post. I want to pass along something you might find interesting.
My paternal grandfather played in the first jazz band that migrated from New Orleans, to Chicago and New York in 1919. His piano player was Jimmy Durante for what that is worth.
In any event, about five years ago my daughter found a music store who actually had recordings they made in 1920's in New York. Along with the CD's was the history of the band, which was several very interesting pages. Here are some excperpts. Their band was called "Ladd's Black Aces".
....In the same manner, the racial origins of recording artists were regularly masked - in an industry not known for its racial tolerance until relatively recently, many white performers passed themselves off as plack performers. Singers such as Len Spencer and Arthur Collins regularly performed material in a style impersonating black performers, the majority of their listening audience blistfully unaware that they were white, whilst the Real McCoy were seldom given the chance to record. This deception carried on into the Jazz Age, with band names such as the Six Black Diamonds and Pete Massey's All Black Band cloaking the identities of white musicians.
Probably the best-known of these "white-pretending-to-be-black" bands was Ladd's Black Aces, whose output was a feature of the Gennett Records catalogue for three years from 1921-1924. Such was the depth of the deception that Gennett even went so far as to show a photograph of a black jazz band to advertise the Ladd's Black Aces records in their catalogue!"....
Thundley, the booklet is several pages and my grandfather and uncle are regularly mentioned.
To not put a black face on Al Jolson is nothing more than revisionist history. When I was a kid, we used to go to the Chicago Theatre and see a double feature, with live entertainment playing between the two movies. I actually saw Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker perform there. Indeed Al Jolson was in black face and my aunt had to explain it to me why he did that.
What surprises me is the blacks should be raising hell. What a compliment to the blacks when white people had to pretend to be black to sell their records.....
Enough for today's history lesson,
5412
