That's Got 'Em! - Wilbur Sweatman bio-disco

Reputed jazz scholar Mark Berresford has just published That's Got 'Em! The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman (University Press of Mississippi), his bio-discography of African American bandleader and clarinetist Wilbur Sweatman, a virtuoso showman who took an important role as a link between ragtime and jazz.

From Berresford's website, Jazz Hound:

Wilbur C. Sweatman (1882-1961) is one of the most important, yet unheralded, African American musicians involved in the transition of ragtime into jazz in the early twentieth century. In That's Got 'Em!, Mark Berresford tracks this energetic pioneer over a seven-decade career. His talent transformed every genre of black music before the advent of rock and roll--"pickaninny" bands, minstrelsy, circus sideshows, vaudeville (both black and white), night clubs, and cabarets. Sweatman was the first African American musician to be offered a long-term recording contract, and he dazzled listeners with jazz clarinet solos before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's so-called "first jazz records."

Sweatman toured the vaudeville circuit for over twenty years and presented African American music to white music lovers without resorting to the hitherto obligatory "plantation" costumes and blackface makeup. His bands were a fertile breeding ground of young jazz talent, featuring such future stars as Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford. Sweatman subsequently played pioneering roles in radio and recording production. His high profile and sterling reputation in both the black and white entertainment communities made him a natural choice for administering the estate of Scott Joplin and other notable black performers and composers.

That's Got 'Em! is the first full-length biography of this pivotal figure in black popular culture, providing a compelling account of his life and times.

Mark Berresford is a writer, rare record dealer, and editor of VJM's Jazz & Blues Mart, the world's oldest jazz and blues record trade magazine. He is the author of Parry Thomas and Pendine and co-author of Black Swan: The Record Label of the Harlem Renaissance.

240 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, 24 b&w illustrations, foreword, bibliography, discography, 4 appendices, index

978-1-60473-099-9 Cloth $50.00

ODJB at Reisenweber's

ODJB's engagement at Reisenweber's launched them into fame, made his recording for Victor possible and therefore contributed to the diffusion of jazz. God bless Reisenweber's!

Here's a collection of ads published in the New York Times, from ODJB's long engagement at Reisenweber's. The last five are courtesy of Chris Alberton.

February 2, 1917:



March 8, 1917:



July 7, 1917:



August 31, 1917:



November 25, 1917:



December 2, 1917:



March 12, 1918:

ODJB - January, 1917 Columbia session?

Regarding the possibility that the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded for Columbia on January 30, 1917, a few days ago I wrote about Mark Berresford's possition denying it, as was stated in his liner notes to Pioneer Recording Bands 1917-1920 (Retrieval CD, RTR 79043).

I am not sure when these supposed recordings were first mentioned, but Harry O. Brunn's book The Story Of The Original Dixieland Jazz Band (Louisiana State University Press, 1960) contains several paragraphs on this issue, starting with "less than a week after their spectacular opening at Reisenweber's (January 27, 1917) were under contract to make the world's first jazz phonograph record" and then describing how Columbia insisted that the band should record two popular songs of the time ("The Darktown Strutters' Ball" and "Indiana") instead of ODJB originals, and even how the small studio reverberated wall-to-wall with the sound, and "a gang of carpenters, who were building shelves in the studio, laughed and threw their tools about the room to contribute to the bedlam."

Checking Brian Rust's monumental discography Jazz And Ragtime Records (1897-1942) (Sixth Editon, CD-ROM version), you can check his comments on this ghost session:

"Many anecdotal sources over the years have cited January 24, 1917, as the date of a Columbia session by the ODJB, the results of which were supposedly resurrected for a belated September release on Columbia A-2297. However, no documentation of any such session has been found in Nick LaRocca's files or in the Columbia files, which logged the matrices used on that record on May 31, 1917".

I have recently discovered an old article by Brian Rust, that he first published in Needle Time #11 (July, 1987). In this article, he already brings what is, in my opinion, enough evidence to prove that the January, 1917 Columbia recordings did not exist:

-"reference to the original recording card in the CBS files for both titles reveals that four takes of "Darktown Strutters'" and three of "Indiana", two of each actually being used for issue to the public when the record (A-2297) was announced in the supplement for September, 1917. There is nothing on any of them to suggest that this was a test date, the products of which were dragged out of the "dead" files (Brunn, p. 71) and issued to counteract the success of a Victor date on February 26, 1917. When a band made a test, one take was usually enough; certainly not seven to cover two titles, and by an untried unknown quantity such as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band".

-"recently, I came into possession of microfilms of the Columbia artists' files, and these, arranged alphabetically, show all the titles, issued and rejected, by each artist from the Aarons Sisters to the Zoellner String Quartet. From the autumn of 1915 onwards, each title is noted with the date on which it was recorded, passed for issue (or rejected), date of issue (if any), and catalogue number (also). The sole entry under Original Dixieland Jass Band bears the date May 31, 1917 for both titles. Nowhere previously is there any reference to a test date, or any suggestion that the band had been in the Columbia studio prior to their Victor date. In the light of this discovery, it is evident that with their usual go-getter methods, Victor secured the services of the band for a test session on February 26, 1917, that it passed this test and the results issued with incredible speed under date of March 7".

On the light of recent research, now we know that Victor 18255 was not issued on March 7, but on April 15, but I think that, from both Brian Rust's and Mark Berresford's research, we can conclude that the Original Dixieland Jass Band did not record for Columbia on January, 1917.

Victor 18255 - the first jazz record (3)

Here's yet another different ad for Victor 18255 (Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1917). For seventy five cents apiece, hear the new jass records on your Victrola.

Victor 18255 - the first jazz record (2)

Advertisements for the first disc by the Original Dixieland Jass Band were widely spread, not only in the big newspapers, but also in small town papers. From my own research, what follows is a collection of newspaper ads announcing the release of Victor 18255. Some of them are direct Victor ads, others were paid by stores or record dealers.

(in the first one, note that you are cordially invited to hear the first record that is really "Jassed" music)


Fort Wayne Sentinel, April 17, 1917:

LaCrosse Tribune, April 17, 1917:




Chester Times, April 18, 1917:




Decatur Daily Review, April 22, 1917:




Waterloo Evening Courier, April 23, 1917:




Titusville Herald, April 24, 1917:




Hutchinson News, April 27, 1917:




Lowell Sun, April 27, 1917:




Winnipeg Free Press, May 1, 1917:

Finally, and without trying to deal with the knotty issue of ODJB's Victor 18255 actually being the first "jazz music" put on record, this article by Scott Alexander, published at the Red Hot Jazz website, lists several discs recorded before February 26, 1917, in which either the word "jazz" ("jass" or "jas") was included in the song title or the band was labeled as a "jass" band on the record label.

Victor 18255: the first jazz record

Just two days after their sensational success at the opening of the new ‘400’ Room at the Reisenweber Building on January 27, 1917, Eddie Edwards, trombonist and business manager of the Original Dixieland Jass Band at the time, received a telegram from A.E. Donovan, Professional Department Manager of the Columbia Gramophone Co., asking them to meet him at the Columbia offices. On January 30, the five musicians got to the Woolworth Building for an audition but, according to reputed early jazz researcher Mark Berresford, and despite all assertions to the contrary, no records were made. Berresford had access to the file cards for audition recordings, and there is no mention of the ODJB recording for Columbia before their May 1917 session. They played a couple of selections and left, because the Columbia executives were not impressed enough.

Anyway, on February 26, 1917, the ODJB recorded two titles for the biggest label at the moment, Victor Talking Machine Co: “Livery Stable Blues” (matrix number B-19331) and “Dixie Jass Band One-Step” (B-19332). The two sides were approved for issue and sent to Camden for processing and production. Victor record with number 18255 was released on April 15, 1917, according to Mark Berresford (not in May, as the online Victor Library lists, and not on March 7, as other sources state).






The rest is history.

This ad was published in the Chicago Tribune that very same day (April 15) and confirms Berresford’s assertion, as it reads “Specials-Just Announced. Records sent on approval”.

The following one was published a few days later (April 21, 1917) in the Hartford Courant. "A brass band gone crazy! That's the way a wag describes the Original Dixieland "Jass" Band. Beyond that description, we can't tell you what a "Jass" Band is because we don't know ourselves". And remember that this "organized disorganization" had "sufficient power and penetration to inject new life into a mummy" and that, in particular, "Livery Stable Blues" "will be a positive cure for the common or garden kind of blues".

Finally, this ad, published in the Meriden Morning Record (May 1, 1917), is a reduced version of the previous one.