[78-L] Kansas City Jazz (Decca DL-8044) 78 rpm set info?

[Michael Biel]

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> One of many great anthology albums Decca issued in the early 40s. Dave Dexter 
> Jr wrote about instigating that series when he was still too young to vote. dl

If he said this, he lied.  The series of Decca jazz anthologies based on
cities was proposed in 1938 and started in 1939 by George Avakian. 
Avakian was at Yale when when he thought of the idea and suggested it in
a letter to Decca as they began their album series.  He started
producing the Chicago Jazz album in the summer of 1939 and it was
finished and issued in the Spring of 1940.  He was too busy at school
for the other two and suggested that Steve Smith should produce the New
Orleans set and Dave Dexter do the Kansas City set which was the THIRD
one.  (Avakian did over-reach in this interview by claiming Chicago Jazz
to be the FIRST jazz album and that his booklet was the FIRST jazz liner
notes, and I wouldn't be surprised that he really got the idea after
seeing jazz albums like the Bix and Bessie memorials, and the Boogie
Woogie album on Vocalion, Bob Crosby on Decca, Artie Shaw on Bluebird
and Benny Goodman on Victor.  

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/03/interview-george-avakian-part-1.html

JW: In 1938, while at Yale, you wrote to Decca Records. Why?
GA: Yes, I did. And they responded a year later. I had been campaigning
for jazz to be recorded and released like classical albums of the day.
Back then, classical albums featured multiple 78-rpms that slid into
sleeves. They also came with a booklet that featured beautiful photos
and text describing the music and why the composer and performers were
important.

JW: What did you write in your letter to Decca?
GA: I proposed that they do a series of jazz albums and start with
tributes to the styles of the three cities that made jazz famous—New
Orleans, Kansas City and Chicago.

JW: What was Decca’s response?
GA: Decca said in essence, “We don’t know quite what jazz in those
cities is about but you seem to know so why don't you go ahead and
produce them.”

JW: Be careful what you wish for, right?
GA: I was excited. I was pretty close with the musicians from Chicago
who had moved to New York  during the Depression, like Eddie Condon, Pee
Wee Russell, Bud Freeman  and Jimmy McPartland. I made that album first.
But when time came to get paid, I found out that Decca was going to pay
me only $75, which was less than it had cost me to go to Chicago and do
one recording session with Jimmy McPartland.

JW: What happened?
GA: I decided I was in over my head. I told them to take the material I
had outlined for the other two sets and to give them to the two people I
thought would do the best job—Steve Smith for the New Orleans set and
Dave Dexter for Kansas City. Smith was a collector who had started the
United Hot Clubs of America. Dave had been the Kansas City Star’s
crime reporter and knew all about the jazz scene there.

JW: What was your album called?
GA: Chicago Jazz, and it was the first jazz album ever  recorded. It had
six 10-inch 78-rpm discs, which meant a total of 12 songs. I wrote a
12-page booklet, which became the first jazz album liner notes. I
produced those records between my sophomore and junior years at Yale in
1939 and 1940.

JW: Had you written to other record labels?
GA: Yes. And oddly enough, just after my Decca set came out, Columbia
Records answered some of the letters I had written them about reissues.
I had written the company after discovering Okeh Records over the
Thanksgiving weekend in 1936.

++++++++++++

Of course Avakian went on to Columbia doing many of their jazz reissues
(including some that John Hammond takes the credit for).  If Dexter had
instigated the series before he was old enough to vote, how was he a
crime reporter for the Kansas City Star?  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com