Sunshine Record Company

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The Sunshine Record Company was a short-lived American blues and jazz label of the 1920s. With Black Swan , Meritt, Black Patti, Vocalion and Gennett, it was one of America's early independent record labels. The two tracks recorded by Kid Ory for Sunshine, "Ory's Creole Trombone" and "Society Blues" are considered to be one of the first jazz recordings by an African American band.

The sessions with Kid Ory

Based in Los Angeles Sunshine Record Company was founded in 1921 by Johnny and Reb Spikes , owner of Spike Brothers Phonograph Company Inc. founded. The label is considered the city's first independent music label under Afro-American management. The Spikes brothers only produced a few tracks on their label, including the first recordings in May or June 1922 of instrumental tracks by an Afro-American jazz band, “Ory's Creole Trombone” and “Society Blues” by Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra, here called Ory's Sunshine Orchestra traded. The band consisted of Mutt Carey (Korneet), Kid Ory (trombone), Dink Johnson (clarinet), Freddie Washington (piano), Ed Garland (double bass) and Ben Borders (drums).

The shellac record produced by Sunrise was sold in the Spikes brothers' music store, which was located on the corner of 12th and Central Avenue in Los Angeles and was also a point of contact for jazz musicians looking for a job. Only 5000 copies of the plate were made. The recordings are now considered successful examples of New Orleans jazz . (Ory re-recorded the track "Ory's Creole Trombone" five years later with Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five .)

Four other vocal numbers were recorded with the same line-up, two ("Maybe Someday" and "That Sweet Something, Dear") in June 1922 with blues singer Ruth Lee, accompanied by Spike's Seven Pods of Pepper (the Kid Ory band in the same line-up), two other tracks ("Krooked Blues" and "When You're Alone Blues") were written a month earlier with the blues singer Roberta Dudley.

Legal dispute with Andrae Nordskog

The sessions took place in the studio of Andrae (Arne Andreas) Nordskog (1885–1962) in Santa Monica , a pioneer of the classical music scene in Los Angeles. Allegedly without being authorized by the Spikes brothers, Nordskog released Ory's recordings under the band name The Seven Pods of Pepper under his record label Nordskog Phonograph Recording Company . When the Spikes brothers then refused to pay Nordskog in full for the plates they received, the latter filed a lawsuit with the Superior Court in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Ory ended his business relationship with the Sunshine Record Company and founded his own Sunshine label. According to Arne Norskog, who also won the litigation, the facts were different:

“The Spikes brothers arranged a recording session for Kid Ory's band at Nordskog Studio in Santa Monica. These were published worldwide on the Norskog label, with the Spikes brothers ordering a large number of copies for sale in their own shop, where they sold like hotcakes in the Negro trade. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Tschmuck, Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry . 2006. p. 53.
  2. ↑ Important Firsts and Groups and their Leaders (compiled by David Baker)
  3. ^ Scott Alexander: The first Jazz Records
  4. ^ John McCusker: Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz .
  5. ↑ a b Discographic information on Red Hot Jazz
  6. ↑ Steven L. Isoardi: The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles , p. 25.
  7. ↑ Tom Lord The Jazz Discography (online, accessed September 29)
  8. ^ Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles , edited by Clora Bryant , William Green, and Steven Isoardi. 1999, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Roberta Dudley on Red Hot Jazz
  10. ^ Floyd Levin: Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians. 2000, p. 15.
  11. ^ John McCusker: Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz . 2012, p. 149 f.