Lois Deppe

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Louis B. Deppe (born April 12, 1897 in Horse Cave , Kentucky , † July 26, 1976 in Chicago ) was an American singer ( baritone ), saxophonist and band leader , who was mainly known in the music scene of Pittsburgh . He will be remembered as the mentor of the pianist Earl Hines .

Life

Deppe grew up in Springfield, Ohio , and won a singing competition as a child and also performed in a white country club . The then popular singer JC Walker invited the 16-year-old to perform at a concert in Indianapolis. She then took Deppe to New York City, where she introduced the young singer to musicians / composers Henry Thacker Burleigh and J. Rosamond Johnson , and gave him vocal training with Enrico Caruso's coach Buzzi Pecci.

Through the established contacts with the vaudeville artists Harry Creamer and Turner Layton Jr., Deppe was given the opportunity to work in the music business in New York from 1916, and then appeared as a baritone in musicals such as Show Boat . After completing his military service in the US Army, he toured with the singer Anita Patti Brown . Stylistically, Deppe turned from classical concert performances to more lucrative jazz , founded his own dance band with the Serenaders (in which he occasionally played C-Melody saxophone ) and got engagements in hotels and nightclubs in Pittsburgh .

For his appearances at the Liederhouse in Pittsburgh, Deppe brought a new pianist into the band in 1921, the young Earl Hines . Deppe became the mentor of the then 17-year-old musician; the singer brought Hines traditions of classical and popular music closer; her band repertoire included opera arias, spirituals and popular songs and jazz numbers of the time. Deppe and Hines then expanded the band into a swing orchestra, the first African American swing band in Pittsburgh.

In the early 1920s, "Lois B. Deppe and His Serenaders" toured in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, also as "Lois Deppe's Plantation Orchestra"; the orchestra entered u. a. 1919-21 and 1925-26 at the Pittsburgh Paramount Inn. Some concerts were broadcast on the local radio station; In 1921, Deppe and Hines performed in a duet on the radio station KDKA: the first radio appearance by African American artists in the USA, which was broadcast via loudspeaker on Wylie Avenue in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. In October 1923 the first recordings of “Deppe's Serenaders” were made for Gennett in Richmond , including the Earl Hines composition Congaine . In November, Deppe and Hines returned to Gennett as a duo and recorded four more tracks, including Luckey Roberts ' Isabel (with a piano solo by Hines) and a version of the spiritual Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child .

Hines left the Deppe band in 1923 (in which Vance Dixon also played at the time ) and moved to Chicago to start his own band. Don Redman also played briefly with the Serenaders . Deppe worked in the 1920s and early 30s a. a. on recordings by McKinney's Cotton Pickers ( To Whom It May Concern , 1930), Fletcher Henderson ( I've Found What I Wanted in You , My Pretty Girl 1931) and Don Redman ( Trouble Why Pick On Me , Shakin 'the African 1931) With. In the field of jazz he was involved in ten recording sessions between 1923 and 1932. In 1927 he returned to the theater stage and appeared in musicals such as Showboat , Vincent Youmans ' Great Day (1929) and Carmen Jones ( Georges Bizet / Oscar Hammerstein II , 1944) in the following years .

literature

  • Stanley Dance : The World of Earl Hines. Scribners, New York 1977 and Da Capo, New York 1979.

Discographic notes

  • Earl Hines: A Monday Date: 1928 ( Milestone Records , ed. 1970)
  • Fletcher Henderson: Ken Burns Jazz (2000)
  • Black and White Piano Volume 3 (1897-1929)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Photography and life data of Lois Deppes
  2. ^ Biographical data at University of Kentucky
  3. ↑ a b Liner Notes from the Earl Hines album : Selected piano solos: 1928–1941. Volume 56, p. XVII.
  4. ↑ a b Rick Kennedy: Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy, Revised and Expanded Edition: Bennett Records. 2013, p. 82.
  5. ^ Discography of Gennett's recordings at Red Hot Jazz
  6. ^ Laurence A. Glasco The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh. University of Pittsburgh Press 2004, p. 331.
  7. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed September 19, 2015)
  8. ↑ Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era . 2007, p. 387.
  9. ^ Candice Watkins, Arnett Howard: Ohio Jazz: A History of Jazz in the Buckeye State . 2012, p. 116.
personal data
SURNAME Deppe, Lois
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Deppe, Louis B.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer (baritone), saxophonist and band leader
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Horse Cave , Kentucky
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1976
Place of death Chicago