Various Artists: Black String Bands 2: 1917-1919 / Various - COMPACT DISCS

Various Artists: Black String Bands 2: 1917-1919 / Various - COMPACT DISCS

Various Artists SKU: 07953910
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Title:

Black String Bands 2: 1917-1919 / Various

Artist:

Various Artists

Label:

Document

Product Type:

COMPACT DISCS

UPC:

714298562323

Genre:

Jazz

Release Date:

2000-09-07

Number of Discs:

1

Dan Kildare was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on l3 January l879. In Harlem he met omposer/conductor James Reese Europe (1881-1919). When, in 1910, Europe incorporated the "Clef Club" as a booking agency and social club for black musicians, Kildare became his Vice President When Europe resigned from the Clef Club later in 1913, Kildare was elected his successor, The date of Kildare's recording debut can be pinpointed as 5 May, 1914. The repertoire used for the two published discs are two waltzes, a maxixe, and a one-step. Although the performances have a noticeable African-American touch, especially when compared with contemporary white bands, they can by no means be described as related to jazz. The records that make up this album are quite rare. Actually, some have never turned up and may remain unissued or were cancelled before release. Others, which had to be used for this documentation, have survived only as rather battered copies. The best of them are line examples of African-American string band music belonging to the same tradition as such later recording groups as the Dallas String Band (see Document DOCD-5162). The music is unambiguously African-American in it's rhythmic and expressive characteristics, and the earliest substantial body of such music on record. The recorded material is for the most part popular hits of the day, including several cod-Hawaiian numbers. On many of the records, it sounds as though a conventional banjo is being used alongside an instrument hybrid between banjo and mandolin which is presumably a banjoline. Recordings survive to prove genuine African-American elements in the music, even though the band played for white Londoners rather than for black ghetto dwellers in the States. As it happened, the recordings were advertised simultaneously with the well-known London Columbia discs by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band and consequently the labels refer to Dan & Harvey's Jazz Band, and the tunes (including the "Missouri Waltz" and the then very popular waltz tune "Smiles") are identified as "Jazz Music" - predating Englishman Leonard Feather's lobbying for a jazz waltz by decades.

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