Red McKenzie

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Red McKenzie, circa October 1946.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb .

Red McKenzie (born October 14, 1899 in St. Louis , † February 7, 1948 in New York City ) was an American jazz musician (band leader, singer, comb) of Chicago jazz and music agent.

Live and act

In the early 1920s McKenzie played alongside his job as a hotel boy with some friends (Dick Slevin on the kazoo , Jack Bland on the banjo and guitar, McKenzie on the ridge and as a singer) in St. Louis (also called Mound City after the nearby old Indian town ) Street music. The band leader Gene Rodemich heard them and in 1924 organized a joint recording for Brunswick in Chicago: "Arkansas Blues" and "Blue Blues" with the Mound City Blue Blowers , which sold nearly a million copies. After this success they appeared in New York, where Eddie Lang joined , and played as McKenzie's Candy Kids in London in 1925 . With his Mound City Blue Blowers (with a changing line-up) later played u. a. Muggsy Spanier , Jack Teagarden , Jimmy Dorsey , Glenn Miller , Eddie Condon and later also Frank Josh Billings . With Condon he recorded in 1927 as "McKenzies and Condons Chicagoans" with Okeh , with Gene Krupa and many well-known Chicago jazz musicians. In 1928 Pee Wee Russell had his first recordings with them. Coleman Hawkins and Rex Stewart also played on a 1929 recording with the Mound City Blue Blowers , which is why it was sometimes regarded as one of the first mixed-racial jazz recordings.

From the late 1920s McKenzie also worked as a music agent, z. B. mediated the first recordings by Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer for Okeh . He also performed as a singer, worked in a brewery in St. Louis during the Depression of the 1930s, and played an important role in the jazz clubs of 52nd Street in New York in the 1930s. Since he was of a hot temper, he sometimes let his fists do the talking. In 1944 he moved back to New York, where he played with Eddie Condon. He was an alcoholic and died of cirrhosis of the liver at a relatively young age of 48.

Discographic notes

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ of which no further recordings are known after he left the band in 1925
personal data
SURNAME McKenzie, Red
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician (band leader, singer, comb) of Chicago jazz and music agent
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Louis
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1948
Place of death New York City