Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia, 1930-1942

214 Pages·2012·2.366 MB·English

by  Christopher Wilkinson

Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia,
1930–1942
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Big Band Jazz in
Black West Virginia,
1930–1942
(cid:8) (cid:8) (cid:8)
Christopher Wilkinson
University Press of Mississippi / Jackson
American Made Music Series
Advisory Board
David Evans, General Editor John Edward Hasse
Barry Jean Ancelet Kip Lornell
Edward A. Berlin Bill Malone
Joyce J. Bolden Eddie S. Meadows
Rob Bowman Manuel H. Peña
Susan C. Cook David Sanjek
Curtis Ellison Wayne D. Shirley
William Ferris Robert Walser
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of American University Presses.
Copyright © 2012 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2012
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilkinson, Christopher, 1946–
Big band jazz in black West Virginia, 1930-1942 / Christopher
Wilkinson.
p. cm. — (American made music series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-61703-168-7 (cloth) — isbn 978-1-61703-169-4
(ebook) 1. Jazz—West Virginia—1931–1940—History and
criticism. 2. African American coal miners—West Virginia—
Social life and customs—20th century. I. Title.
ML3508.7.W5W55 2012
781.65089’960730754—dc23 2011020889
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson,
Samuel Wilkinson, Bobbi Nesbitt,
Alexis Wilkinson, Jack Wilkinson,
and especially to the memory of my mother,
Jule Porter Wilkinson
Their patience and support made this book possible.
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Contents
ix Preface
3 Introduction: Coal, Railroads, and the Establishment
of African American Life in West Virginia
part one
The Economic Foundation of Big Band
Dance Music in the Mountain State
35 chapter one From the Coal Face to the Dance Floor:
Black Miners as Patrons of Big Bands
48 chapter two Validating Herbert Hall’s Contention:
Paul Barnes’s Gig Book
part two
Big Bands in Black West Virginia: 1929–1935
61 chapter three Newspapers and Radio Bring the World of
the Big Bands to Black West Virginia
68 chapter four Local and Territory Bands in the Emerging
Culture of Big Band Jazz and Dance Music in the Mountain State
86 chapter five Big Band Jazz Comes to the Mountain State:
1929–1933
102 chapter six Comparative Prosperity Arrives,
September 1933–April 1935
viii Contents
part three
West Virginia in the Swing Era, 1935–1942
125 chapter seven The Place of the Mountain State on the
Road Traveled by the Big Bands
140 chapter eight The Big Bands’ Audience in the Mountain State
148 chapter nine The Dance Repertory Played in the Coal Fields
165 chapter ten The Party Winds Down
179 Notes
185 Works Cited
191 Index
Preface
Mention the state of West Virginia to many devotees of American music,
and they would probably envision small ensembles of white musicians
playing fiddles, guitars, banjos, and upright (that is, string) basses. Occa-
sionally, a hammer dulcimer might be part of the sonic mix of such string
bands, but no keyboards, rarely drums. Depending on a group’s preferred
style or that of a particular piece, the music might be labeled old timey or
traditional, bluegrass or country. The repertory could range from fiddle
tunes of long ancestry and gospel hymns of the early twentieth century to
songs by bluegrass masters, who began to define this style after World War
II and brought it to prominence by the end of the 1950s, and more recent
music by the singer/songwriters who call Nashville, Tennessee, home.
Such perceptions of this musical culture are overly simple. Most obvi-
ously, current technology has made an enormous variety of musical styles
accessible to West Virginians, who may choose to engage with almost any
musical tradition found in the world. Less obvious may be the fact that,
despite what may seem at present to be a kind of stylistic and racial homo-
geneity within the musical culture native to the Mountain State, its musi-
cal past was more complicated.
The place of big band jazz in West Virginia during the 1930s and early
1940s has not been studied until now, nor, for that matter, has West Virgin-
ia’s place in the history of big band jazz of that time. These intertwined per-
spectives reveal a great deal not previously known about how this music
was imported to the state from the major northern cities that were home
to the leading bands of the period. While one encounters passing descrip-
tions of the tours dance bands made during the Swing Era, until now those
tours have not been closely examined from the perspective of the audience
to be found along the routes the bands followed. Who were they? In a time
of economic crisis, how did they acquire the financial resources to attend
dances with great regularity? Where did the dances take place? Who orga-
nized them? How did word get out that a band was going to be performing
in a particular location?
ix