Thursday, January 2, 2014

When Jazz Happened Here; The Birth of the Music in Worcester

By David "Chet" Williamson Sneade

First Regiment Uniformed Rank Knights of Pythias Band, Worcester, 1880s
Jazz, like all genres of music did not spring forth from its womb fully formed. It is a product of many sources and negotiations. It is a gumbo -- a melting pot of sound -- derived from a variety of cultures, clashes, and climes.

Historians report that it was born at the dawn of the 20th century and it is the culmination of African and Caribbean rhythms, Ragtime, the marching music of brass bands, European art songs and arias, and, the blues. Improvisation is at its core. And, today, it is universally recognized as a uniquely American art form.

Main Street, across from City Hall, 1906

Trying to find the original wellspring of the music however, has always been an elusive chase. It is like trying to locate an ocean’s first raindrop. Here in Worcester, undoubtedly the first strains of jazz were carried to New England by records, radio, and touring musicians.

As Ken Burns correctly chronicled in his PBS series on the music: “Jazz had been born in New Orleans and brought up in Chicago and New York, but by the mid-1920s, it was being played in dance halls and speakeasies everywhere.” For example, see The Journal of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Volume 23, that reported, “the Annual Alumni Banquet of Epsilon Deuteron Chapter of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity was held at the State Mutual Restaurant, Saturday evening May 5, 1920. Fifty five members of the active chapter and thirty-five alumni gathered for the occasion. The Phi Sigma Kappa jazz orchestra furnished its usual high class entertainment.”

Identifying local musicians who embraced the new music before the Jazz Age arrived, however, is much more daunting. It is not until the 1920s do we begin to see advertisements for Worcester bands and musicians playing “Hot Jazz.” Some of the earliest practitioners of the improvisation art include local musicians who would leave town and become prominent players on the national scene. Their names are Einar Swan (1903), Wendell Cully (1906), Irving Peskin (1908), and Paul Clement (1910), as well as others who called Worcester home.


MAMIE MOFFITT 

Though born in New Bedford in 1884, Mamie Moffitt is an important figure in Worcester jazz history. According to Prof. Rich Falco, director of Jazz Studies at WPI, Moffitt assembled the first professional jazz ensemble in Worcester. The dates are “sometime before 1922.” The band is called Mamie Moffitt and Her 5 Jazz-Hounds. Members of the group included Moffitt (piano), her husband Wallace Moffitt (cornet), his brother Alfred Moffitt (saxophone), Alfred's nephew Harold Black (violin and banjo), Boots Ward (drums) and John Byard (trombone), the father of Jaki Byard.


“Occasionally Wendell Culley (trumpet) played with this group,” Falco wrote. “Unfortunately, no recordings exist of this earliest of Central MA jazz groups. Through interviews with those who heard this ensemble, it is clear that they played the "hot" music of the period with outstanding improvisations and professional arrangements.”

Falco added that due to health reasons, Moffitt led the band until about 1928, at which time her drummer, Boots Ward, formed his own group, the Nite Hawks, which featured three members of Moffitt's 5 Jazz-Hounds: Ward, Black and Byard. The group would later be taken over by Ray Schuyler and later, Freddie Bates.


Falco also noted that in 1929, while still under the direction of Boots Ward, two "young lions" of the Worcester jazz scene were asked to join the Nite Hawks. They were 16 year-old trumpeter Elwood "Barney" Price, and 15 year-old saxophonist Howard "Howie" Jefferson, both would remain with the Nite Hawks for 10 years.



“A young high school student, Jaki Byard, began writing his first arrangements at this time and these were used by the Nite Hawks while it was directed by Freddie Bates. Jaki Byard also began playing piano on occasion with the Nite Hawks,” Falco said.

Freddie Bates and the Nite-Hawks





EINAR SWAN 

One of the first Worcester-born players to rise to national prominence was Einar Swan, a child prodigy who played a parade of different instruments and best known as the author of the jazz standard, “When Your Lover Has Gone.”

Swan was born in Fitchburg, but grew up in Worcester where he graduated from Commerce High School. He was interviewed by the Telegram & Gazette at the time and is quoted as saying, “Jazz is coming and perfectly legitimate development of modern music. All musicians are turning to it, some more, some less. The modern way of syncopating the classics is extremely popular and is bringing the best things in music to the people who never hear them before. Jazz is now firmly established, the music of the future, and already has become classic in a certain way; the only difference being that it is more alive than the older type of music.”

Swan (front row holding sax) and his Serenaders
After graduating from high school, Swan formed the Swanie Serenaders affording him the opportunity to “play his own kind of music.” Organized in Worcester in 1922, the group featured among others pianist Sam Swenson, drummer Ernest Paul,  violinist Julius Levinsky, banjo player Joe Toscano, trumpeter Billy Conn, trombonist Oscar Werme, and its leader Swan who doubled on all reeds. Werme would later switch to the tuba and join Paul Whiteman’s Leviathan Orchestra.
In his short lifetime – he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 37 – he played with such legendary figures as the Dorsey Brothers, Vincent Lopez, Red Nichols, and Xavier Cugat.



For more on Swan, see: Sven Bjerstedt’s masteful biography at: https://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=532195&fileOId=625282



WENDELL CULLEY 


Trumpeter Wendell Culley also graduated from Commerce, where he was a classmate of Swan’s younger sister Aida. Cully’s dream was to be the first black trumpet to play in an American symphony. His dream was deferred not out of ability, but race. He was denied entrĂ© because of his skin color. Jazz became the alternative.
While still in high school, Culley would play both music while in pursuit of orchestral aspirations. He played in both the school orchestra and stage band, as well as soloist at A.M.E. Zion Church. In 1924 he was given the superlative of “class musician.” As mentioned, who performed with Mamie Moffitt and Her 5 Jazz-Hounds, and after leaving high school set out to work professionally in Boston and New York, eventually working in the best bands of the era – the century for that matter, including Noble Sissle, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, and Count Basie, among others.



His distinctive solos can be heard on such seminal jazz recordings as “Lil’ Darlin’,” (Basie), “Minnie the Moocher,” (Calloway), and “Evil Gal Blues (Dinah Washington). 

 For more on Culley, See: http://www.jazzhistorydatabase.com/content/musicians/culley_wendell/bio.php


IRVING PESKIN 

Cornetist Irving Peskin is another early Worcester luminary. Born in Worcester in 1908, he was bitten by the jazz bug after hearing Bix Beiderbecke play on the radio. “We had crystal sets,” he said. “We were little kids. That was the big thing around Worcester. We used to get stations from New York and all over the place. We were tuned in listening to everything.”

Peskin went to Classical High School. At 15, he shared the first cornet chair in the school orchestra. At 16, he left school to play music full-time. “I actually hardly finished high school,” Peskin said. “I made it a point of going back. I came back from New York, put in a few months, and got a high school diploma.”


While still in school, Peskin began studying with Georges Mager, principal trumpet with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He organized his first band in 1922 with the help of his saxophone playing brother Charles. The band played social gigs from Worcester to Boston, where he gained entrance to greater opportunity. There, the cornetist was seen by other bandleaders who recognized and enlisted his talent. The rest is a storied career that took him from studio work in New York (including on some of Thomas Edison’s first recordings), to session work in Hollywood. 

 See:


PAUL CLEMENTE

The eldest son of Italian immigrants Matteo Clemente and Raffaella (Tomaiolo) Clemente, Paul Clemente was born on January 19, 1910. “His first instrument was violin, but eventually he gravitated toward the ukulele at an early age,” wrote Falco for the www.jazzhistorydatabase.com “He later settled on banjo and guitar as his preferred instruments. For his young son Paul, Matteo Clemente was able to arrange banjo lessons with another member of the Italian community, Joe Tuscano.

“Later, Paul began a serious course of study on the guitar with Cosmo Lomatieri (known as Ned Cosmo), a well known Central MA musician who played with a “society band,” called Ed Murphy and his Bohemians in the 1920’s. Paul’s father, Matteo, owned a small Italian restaurant called The Vesuvio in which there was a jukebox, which contained the latest recordings of Louis Armstrong, Joe Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Bix Beiderbecke as well as other Dixieland style ensembles.”
Clem's Commodores, Clement at far left

Falco also noted that “Paul, and his younger brother Pete, also a guitarist, transcribed and memorized many jazz solos by Django Reinhardt, Eddie Lang, Louis Armstrong, and many others by repeatedly playing these newly released recordings. Both Paul and Pete would entertain customers in the restaurant, giving the two aspiring young musicians an outlet for their music with the blessing of their father.”

In 1927, Paul Clemente formed his own group which he called “Clem’s Commodores” with John Lescoe (coronet), Leo Quercio (alto saxophone), Paul Mandella (piano), Joe Nuzzolillo (drums), and Paul himself on banjo, guitar and vocals. “Paul was completely taken with Louis Armstrong and wholly embraced his approach to rhythm and relaxed, lyrical improvisation,” Falco said.


Clem’s Commodores, which played primarily the new “hot jazz”, worked all the local nightclubs of the period. In the early 1930s, Clemente, now called Paul Clement, joined the Dud Goldman Band and from 1933-’35, he played in the Hughie Connor Band. By 1935, Clemente began working his way out of Worcester, eventually playing in New York and later New Orleans. Billed as the Paul Clement Trio, the string-player signed with the William Morris Agency and recorded sides for the Crystal Tone Label. 


 WORCESTERITES 

 These exceptional artists are the few who rose to national prominence playing jazz out of Worcester. However, there were countless others who chose to remain in the city and play in our midst. Reaching back to the 1920s, their names are carried along by bandmates, family members, and local legend. Though not famous, they are not lost and their contributions to the development of jazz in Worcester, should be recognized and never forgotten.

Tom Collins and his Masters of Jazz 
No doubt were many other bands that wailed in the Worcester nights of yesteryear. One such band is the Worcester Variety Orchestra. Very little is known about the group or if they even played the "hot" music of the day, but they sure looked like jazz had inspired them. 

   
From left to right: Violinist Tom King, pianist Jack Nowley, saxophonist Carl Chapman, unidentified drummer, cornet player Harr Armonr, and trombonist Don Burns. 


Note: This is a work in progress. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are always welcome at: walnutharmonicas@gmail.com.  
See:www.worcestersongs.blogspot.com Thank you.



Hughe Connor "Bancroft Hotel" Orchestra, circa 1920s





Unidentified orchestra at the Bancroft Hotel





A postcard from 1924 featuring Len Mort and his Serenaders. 






Resources













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Sunday, December 29, 2013

Worcester's "Sinatra of the Trumpet"

By David "Chet" Williamson Sneade

He was a trumpeter and popular bandleader whose 1940s orchestra became the incubator for a generation of Worcester’s musicians.

His name was Bob Pooley, and a partial list of players to pass through the ranks of his illustrious bands include such notables as Don Fagerquist, Murray Guralnick, and Bobby Holt, musicians who became nationally recognized and renowned soloists.


Before organizing his first band, Pooley the trumpeter, made his bones playing in local groups, regional bands, and national ensembles, including the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, a touring aggregation that featured the legendary Bix Beiderbecke.

(Pooley not pictured.)

Though born in Springfield in 1905, Robert Wallace Pooley spent most of his life in Worcester. He attended Brookfield High School for a year, before graduating from Commerce High School in Worcester. Pooley would remain a resident of the city until his death.
Young Bob, school days 
According to his Worcester Telegram & Gazette obituary, Pooley’s first professional job was at radio station WTCS (which later became WTAG). He played the vaudeville circuit, including a two year stint with Benny Davis, the lyricist of ‘Margie,’ a popular song co-written with J. Russell Robinson, a pianist and member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and Con Conrad.
“Other engagements on which [Pooley] covered most of the country were with Boyd Senter’s Victor Recording Orchestra and with vaudeville stars of the stage and screen. Pooley had also played in Yeong’s Restaurant on Broadway in New York City and was featured five hours a week on NBC,” the Telegram reported.

Pooley organized his own band in 1936 and at its height, the group was featured for five seasons (1938-’42), at the Casino in Hampton Beach, NH. In a 1987 article in the New Hampshire Seacoast, titled, The Casino: 88 and Growing, writer John Grady interviewed Fred Schaake, president of the Hampton Beach Casino, Inc., who worked at the popular landmark as a teenager in the 1930s and ‘40s. “Check Dancing” was the format for the wide-open room throughout the era he recalled.

Eddie "Sham" Shamgochian
“There was no alcohol anywhere in Hampton Beach in those days and the place was simply one giant dance floor,” Schaake said. “Upwards of 5,000 people would crowd in to hear bands like Glenn Miller. When you found a partner you went through the gate to dance after handing in one of your ‘checks.’ It was all singles, five dances for a quarter. The house orchestra was Bob Pooley or Ted Herbert. There was no jitterbugging and you had to wear a coat and tie.”

 The drummer in the band was Eddie "Sham" Shamgochian. "Bob Pooley’s band was a great band," he said. "The book was written by Murray Guarlnick. He took Charlie Ventura’s place with Gene Krupa. Charlie Shribman booked Pooley. He had all the ballrooms in New England. He had booked the band at a showcase in New Orleans called Maria Kramer’s Roosevelt Room, which was doing the 11 o’clock coast-to-coast hookup, which was invaluable for exposure. Pooley said, ‘This is it! We are going to make it.’ So, they booked the band. We’ve got kids in the band, 17, 18 years old. All the mothers were calling each other and there was a little revolt to prevent their kids from going. So we had to come back to Worcester and play all the run of the mill gigs. Fame and fortune went through window, as we thought.” 

Hampton Beach Casino
On the website, Rye Reflections, NH resident Jayne de Constant recalls the expression: “Meet you under the clock.” “[It] was a common phrase, and we would gather and walk up the ballroom staircase with shining eyes, drawn to the music we could hear playing above us at the dance,” she wrote. “We were lucky to be teenagers during the Big Band Era, and we danced often and well to the music of the Dorseys, Gene Krupa, and any big band that turned up at the Casino.


“Occasionally, there would be a ‘Midnight Dance,’ which would end about 5 a.m. and you really felt special when you were lucky enough to be invited. Our favorite local band was Bob Pooley's. I still remember their rendition of ‘Penthouse Serenade,’ a song nobody every heard of. Pooley's special beat made you want to dance.”

A June 21, 1939 article in the New Hampshire Telegraph announced: “The Casino Ballroom at Hampton Beach swings into its summer schedule tonight with check dancing every evening. The Casino remains under the same management, providing the same high class entertainment and environment that has made it such a favorite choice for the discriminating.


Pooley conducting, with umbrella
Pooley family, Bob is seated to the far right -- note the Oxfords and dapper hat

“Bob Pooley and his orchestra, who made a hit with the Casino Ballroom patrons last season, will open this evening. The handsome young maestro who hails from North Brookfield, and first established himself as a brilliant bandleader in Worcester, has met with increasing acclaim throughout the East and Middle East," the Telegraph noted. 


"It is a tribute to the critical judgment of the Casino management and patrons that last winter he was billed as the Hampton Beach Casino favorite in such distant places as Columbus Ohio, where he enjoyed a long run at the Ionian Room at the Deshler-Wallick Hotel.”


The Pooley Orchestra spent one season at the Deshler-Wallick Hotel in Columbus, OH in 1937. They appeared locally at such long lost rooms as the Liddo, the Eden, the Coronado, Sheraton and Bancroft Hotels, Danny Duggan’s Deck, Sun Valley, the Worcester Memorial Auditorium, and an extended engagement at the Moors in Shrewsbury, who billed the bandleader as “The Sinatra of the Trumpet.” At the Lido, he was booked as the Bob Pooley’s WAAB Quintet.


First Lieutenant, Robert Pooley, standing mustache-less at center, back row

Pooley was first lieutenant and warrant officer in the Massachusetts National Guard during the war years. In an article recalling WWII, at the time of its 50th anniversary, T&G writer Richard Duckett wrote: “There had been the annual "night before" July 4th civic dance at the Worcester Memorial Auditorium. 

 "Two thousand people, by the level of their applause, gave the "Glamour Girl" title to Lois Cavanaugh, 16, of West Hartford, Conn. Music came courtesy of Bob Pooley and the WTAG-NBC Orchestra."


Pooley in uniform during WWII
For a number of years in the ‘40s, Pooley was the conductor of the WTAG-NBC Orchestra, who supported a variety of acts, played social functions for the station and was featured on its own regular broadcast, as well as an occasional coast-to-coast broadcast through NBC and the Canadian Network, the station’s affiliates.

Studio A at WTAG

In his lifetime, Pooley was also a songwriter. Among his published pieces are “Tune into My Heart, Soldier Boy of Mine" (1942) and “Kilroy was Here" (1946).

In the summer of 1926, Pooley was married to Hazel Wheeler, a seamstress, and the couple lived at 10 Pine Tree Drive from 1942-'49 on Worcester's westside. Before that, they lived in a rented apartment from the father of Carl Adams, who played in band.

Bobby Holt
As mentioned, Pooley’s orchestra enlisted many of the city’s best musicians, other names include singer Marie Pruneau, trumpeters Teddy Lane, Francis J. "Nappy" Londergan, trombonists Ray Varney, Russ Cole, saxophonists Anthony Patrick and Paul Gervais, pianists Gretchen Morrow, Dave Guiney, Sr., and Dan Reardon, bassist Tom Tobin, and comedian Happy Felton. 




Pooley died on November 29, 1947. He was 42. He is buried next to Hazel -- who outlived her husband by another 30 years -- at Hope Cemetery (Section 91, lot 15202) in Worcester, where a trumpet is chiseled on his tombstone.


Note: This is a work in progress. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are always welcome at: walnutharmonicas@gmail.com. Also see: www.worcestersongs.blogspot.com  Thank you.



Resources

Special thanks to Carol Boggs Bernier and Ellen Sousa for their kind assistance in this piece.



Pooley in dark shirt, holding trumpet

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