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

[David Lennick]

Anybody got Dexter's book handy? I had a copy but it disappeared years ago, so 
I'm relying on faulty memory (as Dexter might have been).

dl

On 10/8/2010 10:33 AM, Michael Biel wrote:
> 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
>
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