Til The Cows Come Home: Rock n Roll Nebraska
By Bart Becker, 1985
1 Omaha Night Owls to Red Rivers
Nebraska, contrary perhaps to its Public Image as a place full of hicks with cowlicks, has always supported live music. The loamy environment has, in turn, contributed to the background of all its musicians, local performers and those who broke out to make their mark on the region, the nation or the world music community not to mention the edification of the public that is exposed to good local talent. Its a microcosm of the bigger music world.
One historical manifestation is the scores of ethnic dance bands and polka bands whose oom still pahs through the rolling Bohemian Alps lining the southern edge of the Platte Valley in Eastern Nebraska. In the pre-television days every town had a hall of some kind, many had wooden ballrooms that boasted excellent live acoustics. Both the earthier polka bands and the more commercial dance bands still play the states ballrooms and bars. In the dance band days the groups consisted of 7-12 musicians plus vocalist. They played at Grand Island's Glover, Omaha's Joe Melic Peony Park, The Music Box, Tom Archer's Chermont, Crete's Tuxedo Park, Beatrice's Riverside, Schuyler's Oak Ballroom, Hasting's Lib Park. Lincoln had several ballrooms such as the Lindell Hotel, Blue Bird Party House, the Rosewild, Avalon, Moonlite, Merrygold Auditorium, Antelope Park, Kings, Plamor, The Starlite (later replaced by The Turnpike.
Of course, this music relates to rock n roll mostly in the sense that rock reacted against it. It was the kind of popular entertainment the teenage rock era rejected. Jazz, though it was also steamrolled by rock as popular entertainment, contributed more musically.
Country music was also a natural element in this rural setting and its popularity continues today.
During the Jazz Era preceding World War II, Nebraska nurtured a local scene while also contributing to the big picture. In the late 30s and early 40s Omaha was a bubbling cauldron of jazz orchestra activity, a sort of Triple-A League feeding Kansas City, the town that was setting the major league beat at that time thanks to Count Basie, Jay McShann, Joe Turner and everybody else who was rocking on 18th and Vine. Omaha was the base for many groups, at least three were well-known territory bands.
The earliest jazz played in Omaha, according to Ross Russell, was by the Omaha Night Owls and the Sam Turner Orchestra at clubs such as The Grotto and Murphy's Egyptian Club.
Among Omaha's early contributions to the national jazz scene was Charlie "Big" Green, a trombonist with Ma Rainey's Georgia Minstrels and the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. Shortly after Green joined the Henderson band, he teamed up with "Empress of the Blues" Bessie Smith for a recording session. The young trombonist turned out to have a talent for the jazzy blues backing the great vocalist needed. On July 23, 1924 they began a long and fruitful collaboration by recording "Work House Blues" and "House Rent Blues." The classic blues singer was often shackled with pedestrian accompaniment including the usual accompanists from Fletcher Henderson's band but Green gave her more than accompaniment; his horn commented on her lyrics and acknowledged the subtlety in her phrasing. On December 13, 1924 Green played on the last record Bessie made that year, her own composition "Dying Gambler's Blues." On May 14, 1925 pianist Henderson and trombonist Green backed up Smith on "Soft Pedal Blues." This is the recording that Bessie begins with a shocking whoop and the convincing announcement, "I'm drunk and full of booze." Another four sides they cut had Louis Armstrong along, too: "Nashville Women's Blues," "Careless Love Blues," "J.C. Holmes's Blues" and "I Ain't Goin' To Play Second Fiddle." One of their biggest hit collaborations was the two-part double-entendre "Empty Bed Blues." Green evidently fell on hard times and in February, 1936 he was found dead in a Harlem tenement.
Ukulele Joe Thomas was a 1920s radio artist in Omaha. Elsewhere in Nebraska at the same time, teenage trombonist Jack Teagarden was playing duets with his mother at the Chappell town theatre. George "Pee Wee" Erwin, born in Falls City in 1913, went on to play with the Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey bands in their heyday. "He sang into his trumpet," said drummer Benny Rosengarden after Erwin died in 1981. "He could make you cry."
Before the advent of jazz, Omaha had been the scene of spirited brass band activity. New Orleans brass bandsman Dan Desdune settled in Omaha and became a leader of parade bands, chiefly his famous Desdune Band which was started in 1908. Desdune died in 1929 and his drummer, Simon Harrold (who later became the head waiter at the Omaha Chamber of Commerce restaurant), formed Simon Harrold and His Melody Boys, a group that lasted, in name at least, until 1950.
The Desdune band was taken over by trumpeter George Bryant who had been with Red Spike's Orchestra and led the Georgia Minstrels in the 20s. George Bryant was a respected man in the Omaha community and a pal of Jellyroll Morton, Scott Joplin and Louis Armstrong. He said, "The bands went more for the classic stuff in those days. Sousa marches. Ragtime? Just once in a while. Bryant wrote "Nebraska For Me" and "My Omaha" which became something of a South Omaha anthem.
A bass player, Basie Givens, played with a youthful group called the Jungle Rhythm Boys before forming his own band in the 40s. Trumpeter Charles Williamson had played with WC Handy and in Omaha bands from 1929 thru 42. He misjudged Handy's appeal, however: "I never did think his stuff would go over."
The oldest of the Omaha-based territory bands was Red Perkins and his Dixie Ramblers. Frank Shelton "Red" Perkins was born at Muchakinock, Iowa on December 26, 1890. As a youth he learned to play trumpet, piano and organ and in 1910 he joined a minstrel show touring the country. By 1915 he had returned to the Midwest, working in non-musical jobs until 1919 when he began appearing in a duo, then joined the Five Jazz Monarchs with whom he went on tour. From 1920 to 1922 he played with a jazz quartet ata an Omaha cabaret, doubling with a brass band at the same time. He then formed his Melody Five. In 1923 Perkins took over the Night Owls and renamed them the Dixie Ramblers. Until 1925 he alternated between local dates and tour engagements in Nebraska and surrounding states. The group was a sextet at first but played as a septet from 1925-28 and as an octet after that. From 1929 on it was billed as Red Perkins and his O4riginal Dixie Ramblers. The Ramblers and Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders divided the best jobs and were rivals for public favor in Omaha.
The group recorded four titles for the Gennett label in May, 1931, including "Hard Times Stomp" and "Old Man Blues." The former, Perkins salute to the Depression years, is taken at a pushy tempo by sections playing in unison, with the band cohesive and swinging. The solos are effective, although not too well integrated with the section backgrounds and trombonist A.C. Oglesby is the most forceful. "Old Man Blues" has a vocal trio and, despite its blues title, is more of a pop style number. The overall impression is of a well rehearsed group, able to achieve considerable variety by the members doubling on various instruments, with a somewhat nervous beat, light sonority and no special feel for the riff style. While the band was a public favorite and generally well thought of by other musicians, it was probably not the equal of the top territory bands of its day.
For some 20 years Perkins worked throughout the Midwest although he seldom ventured father afield. Frank Driggs says some of Perkins success had to do with floor shows and variety acts in his program, but that the bands were good, too. Drummer Jo Jones told John McCarthy that Perkins was held in high esteem by many musicians. Jones commented on the extreme versatility of several Perkins sidemen. After leaving music Perkins moved to Minneapolis and worked in several fields.
Lloyd Hunter's Serenaders was a more interesting band, ranking with Nat Towles groups as the top contingents to play out of Omaha. Hunter's Serenaders worked out of the River City for more than 20 years but only got into the recording studio on one occasion, in April, 1931.
The band's trombonist Elmer Crumbly spoke enthusiastically of pianist Burton Brewer in an interview with Frank Driggs. "Burton Brewer, the original pianist from Fairbury, Nebraska, was the end on piano. The first time we went to Chicago he moved Earl Hines right off the stool . . . and this was when Earl was the greatest thing in jazz. He went to Denver in 1929 and died of tuberculosis."
Still, it took several years for Hunter's band to make an impact. Tommy Douglas told Driggs, "Hunters Serenaders, the Omaha Night Owls and Red Perkins were all around Lincoln, Nebraska then, but they sounded pretty much the same, because they were using stock arrangements."
In 1931 the band got a big break when they were booked to back blues singer Victoria Spivey on a nationwide tour. At the time Miss Spivey was married to the band's trumpeter Reuben Floyd and this may have been the reason she chose the group. Having just appeared successfully in the film "Hallelujah," Miss Spivey was a top-line attraction with a string of best-selling records. She contracted the band to a booking agency, helped buy four sedan cars and had every musician fitted with new uniforms. She was also responsible for getting it the recording date. Recalled Miss Spivey, "We were sold out everywhere we went and many times we did return engagements. At times we had as many as 3,000 paid customers. Quite a haul! We lived in the best hotels, ate the best food, always had a good time on and off the job, and my musicians and I were well paid."
The two titles that the Hunter band recorded in New York for Columbia Vocalion were "Sensational Mood" and "I'm Dreaming About You" (sometimes the title is given as "I'm Dreaming About My Man"). The latter is a routine vocal, though well backed by the ensemble. "Sensational Mood," however, is a formidable performance that displays the characteristic Midwestern swing. Light, swinging reeds, opposed by crisp, aggressive bras is reminiscent of better known Kansas City bands. The rhythm section is powerful, though encumbered somewhat by tuba and banjo instruments the more progressive orchestras were in the process of discarding. Trombonist Joe Edwards solos well, as does alto sax player Noble Floyd, who makes a swooping bluesy contribution solidly in the southwestern tradition. The outstanding playing, however, comes from two trumpeters, one playing open and one with plunger (probably Reuben Floyd and George Lott, but perhaps Hunter himself, who was said to be an excellent soloist.
Around November 1931 the association with Victoria Spivey came to an end. She said it was due to a "minor misunderstanding" with some of the musicians, not including Hunger himself, but trombone player Elmer Crumbley claims that it was due to an argument over booking agencies. Whatever the reason, it led to a period of hard times for Hunter's Serenaders and Crumbley left when the group was stranded in Milwaukee.
The Nat Towles band is considered one of the greatest territory bands of all time by musicians who played in it and by others who heard it. Towles failure to achiever national prominence seems at least partly due to a curiously schizophrenic attitude toward success on his own part.
Towles was born in New Orleans on August 10, 1905 and played with brass bands there and in Texas. In 1936 he moved from Dallas to Omaha for an engagement at the Dreamland Ballroom and scored such a success that he was held over for weeks.
During most of 1936 and 1937 his outstanding band was in residence at Krug Park in Omaha but after this spent most of its time in a series of grueling one-nighter tours that often lasted six months through Nebraska, the Dakotas and the Southwest. When the Omaha-based band was on tour, it was known to engage in memorable battles of music at the Harlem Square Club in Houston. The hard pace had its payoff, though, and the band was at a musical peak. Buddy Tate told Frank Driggs, "We had a hell of a good band and when we came to town we just took over in the face of the established competition because we were so much better music-wise. They had as many as five big names going at that time, Red Perkins, Lloyd Hunter, the Night Owls and a couple of others. The Dreamland Ballroom, where all the names still play today, was the spot around there and we had it sewed up.
"Basie didn't have any organized band like ours then and ours definitely the better band Nat had a lot more to offer, because he had five arrangers and all of us were writing, and many times we had several different arrangements on tunes like "Marie." We rehearsed every day when we weren't playing. Basie wouldn't have touched our band. When we caught his broadcast when he opened the Grand Terrace and were would have torn his band apart. I'm telling you, there was no comparison. Sir Charles Thompson was in that band, Fred Becket, Henry Coker, Archie Brown who played like Tricky Sam, C.Q. Price who was a terrific alto man and could write some wonderful things. NR. Bates was really something on trumpet; he could play first, too, and was compared to Buck Clayton in style. That was a band that should have made it."
John McCarthy says he questioned Harold "Money" Johnson about Tate's seemingly overly enthusiastic evaluation of the band, but Johnson expressed agreement on most points. He stressed the fine arranging of Thompson, Snead and Price, and said Towles; band was definitely musically superior to Basie's. Johnson made the point that it was an exceedingly well-drilled, precise band and the arrangers tried to capture the qualities of the Jimmy Lunceford group. McCarthy suggests that the roughness of the Basie band may have grated on them, but Buddy Tate's known admiration for Basie makes it unlikely that his judgment would be biased. Johnson also mentioned a recording session by the band in Omaha in 1937 or 1938, the titles including "Please Be King" on which he recalls taking an eight-bar solo and a Sir Charles Thompson original called "Chaze. It's not known whether these sides were ever released; Johnson said Towles told him they were for the European market.
More than one Towles sideman felt the band failed to achieve national recognition because Towles obsessively feared that he would lose his best musicians to more famous bands if he didn't keep to the Midwest. In this respect, he was successful, and the national music press paid little attention to the band. An August 31, 1940 issue of Billboard quotes the manager of Lincoln's King's Ballroom as listing Towles among the acts producing "Best Patronage Reaction."
In 1940 most of his band jumped ship and Towles had to rebuild. There were numerous personnel changes over the next few years and Towles overcame his aversion to big cities with 1943 engagements at Chicago's Rhumba-Boogie Club and the Apollo Theatre in New York.
In the early 40s Neil Hefti, still a high-school student in Omaha, wrote arrangements for the group including "Swingin" on "Lennox Avenue" and "More Than You Know." Preston Love, who joined Towles band at about the same time, rated the group's repertoire and arrangements as more difficult to play than those of Basie's band, which he joined later.
Although Towles is sparsely represented on records under his own name, four-fifths of the band's personnel cut a session with Horace Henderson that indicates the band was musically far superior to many that enjoyed national prominence. So it evidently really was Towles sad fear of having his musicians stolen that prevented him from making a more determined effort to be heard on the national scene.
Towles gave up band leading in 1959 and moved to California where he ran a bar. He died of a heart attack in Berkeley in January, 1963.
Besides the territory bands, there were hot outfits that were strictly local, such as a band led by Red Rivers. "They were fine," Preston Love recalled. "They were raw, primitive. But, boy, they had the guts."