EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRASS IDIOMS:
Art, Jazz, and Other Popular Traditions

HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY

Edited by Howard T. Weiner

The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Lanham, Maryland 2009

Chapter 10
The Early Career of Spiegle Willcox: Influences to 1930
Ralph T. Dudgeon & William Lane (discography)

Published here with permission of Scarecrow Press. Text and figures kindly supplied by Ralph T. Dudgeon. Discography kindly supplied by William Lane. Some of the images are courtesy of the Willcox Collection, Department of Performing Arts, SUNY Cortland.


Text With Figures and Notes. Ralph T. Dudgeon.

Newell Lynn “Spiegle” Willcox (figure1) was born 2 May 1903, the youngest of four children and only son of Lynn Dee and May Newell Willcox of the village of



Figure 1 .Newell Lynn “ Spiegle” Willcox in his late 20s.  (Courtesy of the Willcox Archives,
SUNY Cortland) This image was used on many of Willcox’s posters that advertised his
orchestra’s engagements from 1927 through the mid-1930s.

Sherbourne, Chenango County, New York. The family moved to Cortland, New York, in 1911 so that Spiegle’s sisters, Lois, Charlotte, and Genora, could be educated properly at the “Normal” School (now the State University of New York, College at Cortland). This was in Spiegle’s eighth year, but he had already displayed an aptitude for music. In an interview, he told me that his first memories of performances involved playing and singing for the daily opening convocations at the “Normal.” These early gigs involved hymn singing and a piece by a student orchestra. Apparently, his sisters who studied piano, monitored his participation in the orchestra and insured that he practiced and got to the convocations on time.1

Today, Cortland is a sleepy college town with a respectable, but hardly outstanding cultural life. However, at the turn of the century, Cortland was a buzz with music fueled by the presence of a major railroad link and a rising immigrant population of music-loving Italians. The Italian community passionately made music for the greater part of their discretionary time away from their jobs at the Wickwire, Brockway, and Cortland Corset factories. In a county that had more cows than people, there was a rich mix of music cultures that shared one common media – the band. There were mechanics bands, YMCA bands, community bands, church bands, fraternal bands, school bands, several Italian bands, and a variety of professional bands like the Cortland Civic Band and Pat Conway’s Ithaca Band. Sousa and Gilmore performed at Cortland’s Opera House on several occasions and Cortland was one of the first small communities to found a local chapter of the American Federation of Musicians. There is documentation for impressive band activity in Cortland County from the mid-nineteenth century on.2 Some of the early performances were by military bands that featured keyed bugles and ophicliedes (figure 2).




Figure 2. Adam’s Band of Rochester, New York performing on keyed bugles and ophicleides in Homer, NY, 8 July 1846. 
(Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

By 1869, valve brass bands, such as the Cortland Silver Cornet Band directed by Professor D. H. Stubblebine, were the norm (figure 3).



Figure 3. Professor D. H. Stubblebine directed the Cortland Silver Cornet Band. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

Many of the local brass bands had less than a dozen players and performed arrangements of popular tunes, dances, and operatic airs. On 15 February 1878, the combined forces of the Homer Cornet Band, the Odd Fellows Band, and the Cortland Cornet Band, totaling thirty-five players, gave a formal concert under the direction of the noted cornetist, bandleader, and arranger, T. H. Rollinson (figure 4).




Figure 4. United Musicians of Cortland and Homer under the direction of T. H. Rollinson. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

In hiring, local business people often gave preference to workers who could contribute to the cultural life of the town by playing in a factory or town band. Ads reading, “Wanted: Blacksmith who can play cornet,” were common in papers of the era. The 1884, the Cortland Mechanics Band was an example of men who shared both professional and musical interests (figure 5).



Figure 5. The Mechanics Band of Cortland in 1884. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

Local bands imitated the success of professional ensembles by adding indoor concert formats to their repertoire. For example, the Homer Cornet Band featured Cortland-resident and saxophone virtuoso Fred Graham on 10 June 1886 at the Opera House. Graham became a featured member of Pat Conway’s Ithaca Band (figure 6).



Figure 6. Program bill featuring Fred Graham as soloist. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

Patrick Gilmore’s Band made its first appearance at the Cortland Opera House on 2 March 1886. On 16 May 1890, “The Great Gilmore and his Wonderful Band” returned to Cortland Opera House for a gala featuring Herman Bellstedt as cornet soloist (figures 7 and 8).



Figure 7. Gilmore broadside of 19 March 1888. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)



Figure 8. Gilmore broadside of 16 May 1889. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

In 1897 John Philip Sousa appeared in Cortland. By 1912, there were enough professional musicians in Cortland to justify the establishment of a local of the American Federation of Musicians, which in turn sponsored a Citizens Band from its membership (figure 9).



Figure 9. American Federation of Musicians Citizen Band c. 1912. (Courtesy of Cortland County Historical Society)

Meanwhile, the new Italian population founded its own parish church, and Arturo D’Orsi (of Syracuse’s Duca Degli Abruzzi Banda) and Frank Crisara (of Cortland) founded Cortland’s first Italian ensemble, the Mascagni Band. “Professore” Crisara trained hundreds of musicians and had a lasting impact on the music culture of Cortland. His son Ray Crisara went from Cortland to play trumpet under Toscanini in the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Arnold Gabriel, the former conductor of the United States Air Force Band was also an alumnus of Frank Crisara’s ensemble (figure 10).



Figure 10. Saint Anthony Band directed by Frank Crisara (center). June 1932. (Courtesy the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

Thus the ground was fertile for the young and impressionable Newell Willcox who got a healthy dose of high-level brass playing on a daily basis.

 Spiegle’s first musical instruction was from his father, an active trombonist in several of Cortland’s better bands. “My dad was my best critic,” Willcox recalled.3 Figure 11 shows father and son together in the YMCA Band of Cortland in 1913, when Spiegle was ten years old.



  Figure 11. YMCA Band of Cortland, NY c. 1913.  Newell Lynn Willcox is the euphonium player - far left, second row.  His father, Lynn Dee Willcox,
is the valve trombonist – top row, third from the right. (Courtesy of the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

Russ Tarby of the Syracuse New Times wrote:

While many parents recoiled when their youngsters danced the Charleston to the raucous rhythms of tunes like "Tiger Rag" and "Fidgety Feet," Spiegle's folks encouraged their son's modern musical explorations. His disciplined marching band background coupled with his sense of melody and crystalline tone made him a valuable addition to the dance bands that became popular attractions at hotels and dance halls throughout the Twenties.4

In 1915, at the age of twelve, Spiegle gave his first solo on the trombone at a Normal School Alumni Banquet at the Hotel Breslin at 29th and Broadway, New York City. It was reported that he was put on top of a table so that the three hundred people in attendance could see where the big, full, round sound was coming from. He played the valve trombone to begin with because he couldn’t reach the lower slide positions. By 1917, Spiegle was playing the slide trombone and had been awarded a full scholarship to Saint John’s Military Academy in Manlius, New York. At Manlius, he mastered music sight-reading and acquired his enigmatic nickname, Spiegle.5

He left the Manlius Academy in 1920, without graduating, to begin his professional playing career, joining the Al Deisseroth Orchestra in Syracuse, New York (figures 12 and 13).




Figure 12. Al Deisseroth’s Orchestra, Syracuse, NY c. 1920. (Courtesy of the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)



Figure 13. Poster for a Deisseroth Orchestra appearance. C. 1920 (Courtesy of the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

In the summer of 1921, Spiegle played near Jamestown, New York, on Lake Chautauqua in Tige Jewett’s band. Jewett was a Cornell graduate and apparently lent a certain Ivy League flare to the band’s character. Jewett’s contacts with fraternities and sororities on the Cornell campus proved advantageous for bookings. After the stint with Tige Jewett in 1922, Spiegle joined Bob Causer’s Big Four (actually an octet) later that same year (figure 14).



Figure 14. Bob Causer's Big Four. Standing, left to right - Spiegle Willcox, Stub Washburn, Bob Causer, Fred Bellenger. Seated, left to right – Red Ewald,
Jimmy Lynch, Charlie Dean and Roy Johnston. (Courtesy of the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)


He stayed with this group when it became Paul Whiteman’s Collegians in 1924. Under its new management, the group gigged mostly in New York City and made recordings (figures 15 and 16).



Figure 15. The Collegians. Standing, left to right – Charlie Dean, Spiegle Willcox, Red Ewald, Roy Johnston, and Fred Bellenger.  Seated, left to right – Stub Washburn, Bob Causer, and Jimmy Lynch.
(Courtesy of the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)



Figure 16.  Paul Whiteman’s Collegians poster 4 July 1923. (Courtesy of the Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

Vaudeville headliners and silent film stars like Will Rogers and William S. Hart attended Collegians’ dances and performances. Gilda Grey, the Ziegfeld Follies’ shimmy queen, dated the owner of the Rendezvous nightclub where the octet held forth and occasionally brightened the backstage with a few girls from her Broadway revue.6<>

"People didn't come to listen to the music in those days. They came to dance."7   

Spiegle enjoyed the flamboyant fashions of the twenties, while eschewing its infamous excesses. Unlike some of his band colleagues, Spiegle rarely drank. “It just never hooked me,” he said.8 He was earning one hundred dollars a week and purchased a Stutz Bearcat. He also made a present of a raccoon coat, which matched his own, to his fiancé, Binghamton-native Helen Gunsaules (“Pigeon”). Helen was a stabilizing element in Willcox’s life. Their courtship and marriage in 1925 provided Spiegle with a healthy distraction that other musicians didn’t have. He told me, “The other guys just came back to an empty hotel room and a bottle after the gig. I had Pigeon.”9 They remained happily married until her death in 1986, shortly after their sixtieth wedding anniversary.

Willcox remained with the Whiteman organization for nearly three years, before quitting the band early in 1925. After a few months of helping his father with the family business in Cortland, Spiegle worked with the Lakeside Park Band in Auburn, New York, during the summer of 1925 (figure 17).


Figure 17. Lakeside Park Band in Auburn, New York in summer of 1925. (Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

It was a steady job in a “dime-a-dance” hall at Auburn’s Owasco Lake (now the Merry-go-round Playhouse and Emerson Park). This simple gig was to open the door to an even bigger break than he’d had with Whiteman. Willcox recalled being approached to play with the Goldkette band.

"One day between sets, a few of us were out behind the bandstand getting some sun, and this fellow wandered over, kind of a snappy-looking guy with a little mustache. I could tell he was a musician by the way he talked, so I asked him who he played for, and he said, the Jean Goldkette Orchestra out of Detroit."10

The musician turned out to be Fred “Fuzzy” Farrar, a trumpeter enjoying a vacation in the Finger Lakes. “We asked him to sit in and I guess he liked what he heard, because after a few numbers, he told me, ‘Goldkette needs someone to replace Tommy Dorsey. How about you?’”11

On several occasions Willcox mentioned to me in conversation that Tommy Dorsey had always been very kind to him. Several autographed pictures of Tommy Dorsey in the Willcox Archives document their friendship. Spiegle probably met Dorsey when the latter was playing with the Scranton Sirens. The Cortland/Binghamton area was a short train ride to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre – towns noted for their dance halls and good musicians. A number of Scranton Sirens personnel signed up with Goldkette. In later years, Dorsey also provided Spiegle with many custom arrangements for his Cortland-based dance orchestra. Willcox considered the offer from Farrar while playing briefly at the Ramblers Inn in Pelham, a Westchester suburb of New York City, with the California Ramblers (figure 18).




Figure 18. California Ramblers at Rambler Inn, Pelham, NY, 1925. (Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

The Ramblers pose a special challenge to discographers today because they recorded under many names with frequent changes in personnel. This ensemble, at least during the brief time that Spiegle was in the band, was obviously heading toward a more sophisticated swing feeling than many of its stiffer dance orchestra competitors. This increased hip factor can be explained by the group’s relatively stable rhythm section and the impressive musicians, such as the Dorsey brothers, Miff Mole, and Red Nichols, who were members of the band between 1921 and 1937.

During the period with the California Ramblers, Goldkette wired Willcox three times asking for a decision. Spiegle finally agreed and left for Detroit in October (figure 19).




Figure 19. The Goldkette Orchestra in action at the Greystone Ballroom, Detroit, Michigan 1925. (Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)


Willcox’s original function was to replace the lyrical or sweet trombone quality that Dorsey had brought to the Goldkette orchestra. Willcox’s playing style during this period appears to be a combination of his legitimate band training, Dorsey’s influence, and the style of Miff Mole, who was active in New York City scene at the same time that Spiegle was working with the Collegians. As most jazz fans know, Mole broke the mold of early jazz trombone clichés by avoiding the glissando effects and tailgate bass lines of the New Orleans style. Mole’s style featured angular, accurate and generally faster rhythmic configurations in his improvisations.

After working with Henry Theis in Cincinnati during the summer break, Spiegle rejoined Goldkette (figure 20).



  Fig. 20. Jean Goldkette Orchestra personnel 1925, left to right - Russ Morgan (arranger), Steve Brown (bass/tuba), Bill Rank (trombone), Spiegle Willcox (trombone), Howard Quicksell (banjo), Fuzzy Farrar (trumpet), Chauncy Morehouse (drums), Louis Longo (piano), Doc Ryker (alto and baritone saxes/clarinet), Don Murray (tenor and baritone sax and clarinet), Ray Lodwig (trumpet), and Jimmy Dorsey (alto sax and clarinet). (Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

Goldkette’s twelve-piece combo was the house band at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom and the pride of Goldkette’s stable of over twenty working dance bands. Goldkette had trained as a classical pianist and seldom fronted his bands. His National Amusement Corporation also managed the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (a black band) and the Orange Blossoms, who evolved into the famous Casa Loma Orchestra. He also had an arrangement with Fletcher Henderson and organized so-called battles between Henderson’s band and the Goldkette group at the Greystone and the Roseland Ballroom in New York. Don Redman’s groundbreaking arrangements and the addition of Louis Armstrong as jazz soloist of the Henderson band from 1924-25 raised the bar for big bands, both black and white. Several tickets, playbills, and posters in the Willcox Archive document the Goldkette/Henderson connection. The brass section of the Goldkette ensemble was a formidable group (figure 21).



Figure 21. The Goldkette brass section: Spiegle Willcox (trombone) Steve Brown (Sousaphone), Bill Rank (trombone), seated; Ray Lodwig (trumpet) and Fuzzy Farrar (trumpet).
(Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

Spiegle explained their rehearsal techniques.

We'd take a stock arrangement and have sectional rehearsals. Trumbauer would take the Saxes somewhere, and the brass – Bix, Ray Lodwig, Fuzzy Farrar, Bill Rank, and me – would go down in the basement or whatever and work out our parts and then come back upstairs and share our discoveries. And we’d incorporate especially some little endings for a tune. Some of those Goldkette endings were different.12

Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer joined the Goldkette ensemble in May of 1926. The band's manager Charlie Horvath also hired Bucknell University band alumnus Bill Challis to write arrangements that showcased the new talent (figure 22).





Figure 22. Tour of New England with the Goldkette Orchestra.  Left to right:  Bill Challis, Spiegle Willcox, Irving Riskin, Bix Beiderbecke, Don Murray, Howard Quicksell, Doc Ryker, Chauncy Morehouse, Fred Farrar, Ray Lodwig, Bill Rank, and Steve Brown on the hood with a cigarette lighter gun.

“[Bill Challis] arranged for the musicians in the band, to fit their style, their range. He did a lot for Bix, and Bix did a lot for him, too. And of course, they both went on to work for Whiteman, and Bill knew how to feature Bix.”13
With its hot jazzmen and well-trained musicians like Spiegle playing Challis’ charts, Goldkette’s Victor Recording Orchestra instantly blossomed (figure 23).




Figure 23. Mug shots of Goldkette members. C. 1926. (Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

Spiegle explained, “In those days it was rare ever to play a full chorus because of the time limit of the 78s. Once, before Bix and Tram joined the Goldkette Orchestra, I did play a chorus on ‘Lonesome and Sorry.’ I played a whole chorus ... When we were recording, the arrangements were all cut up. We didn’t play ’em like that at the Graystone.”14

Spiegle stayed with the orchestra until 23 May 1927 (figure 24).



Fig 24. Spiegle’s last gig with the Goldkette band. 23 May 1927. (Courtesy Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland)

He played his last gig with the group at the Central Park Pavilion in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and then drove north to Cortland to be with his wife, who was about to give birth to their first son. He was also needed at home to help his father run the coal business. Three months later, Spiegle and Pigeon visited the Goldkette band while it was appearing in Atlantic City on 5 September 1927. That evening, Spiegle sat in on a few numbers and had Goldkette and the band members autograph some photos. The inscription from Goldkette reads, “To the finest trombone player I ever had.”15 Less than two weeks later, the group officially disbanded. This also marked the end of Spiegle’s “first” career.

Performance practice

Willcox’s recording career spanned acoustic recording, 78s, LPs, and CDs. He made some comments about the early recording situations to Russ Tarby in an interview a year before his death:

When we made those three Victor records, Paul Whiteman was nowhere to be seen, just the Collegians. There we were – this was prior to microphones – blowing into the big horn, with the same producer, Eddie King, as we recorded with later with the Goldkette Orchestra in that very same room in New York….

 I was right in the middle of that transition. I'm not making it up. I was there. With the Collegians it was acoustic – the [inverted] megaphone. Then with the Goldkette Orchestra, in April 1926, it was electrical when I recorded “Lonesome and Sorry.” But as I remember it, there was only one microphone and Steve Brown played within two feet of it, with his bass right down there. Anytime we’d play a few bars, we’d walk up to it and blow into it and then walk back to the section where we sat.16

The Willcox Archive at SUNY Cortland has two megaphones that Spiegle used to amplify his trombone. Spiegle said,

I learned that from Sammy Lewis, one of Whiteman’s trombone players, while I was working at the Rendezvous nightclub in New York with the Collegians. After our job, we’d go over to hear them play and he had megaphone rigged to a birdcage holder and it seemed to improve his sound. I put together the same rig, but it was too much to carry around. I still have that old megaphone ... even though it’s got holes in it now. Eventually I just balanced it on my toes to keep it up off the floor. I didn’t blow into it directly, into the small end. I’d just put a little piece of the bell up there and I’d get the most marvelous, big sound! But it was cumbersome.17

Three recordings on which Spiegle had a role as a soloist are exemplary: I Cried for You recorded by the Collegians, Show Me the Way to Go Home recorded by the California Ramblers, and finally Lonesome and Sorry recorded with Goldkette shortly before Bix and Trumbauer joined the band. Spiegle’s solos on I Cried for You and Lonesome and Sorry stay fairly close to the original tune and are cut from the sweet trombone cloth of Dorsey. Show me the Way to Go Home shows Spiegle as a somewhat more daring soloist in the arpeggiated and faster style of Miff Mole. These examples demonstrate the growth of Spiegle from a “sweet man” to a more confident and experimental improviser. Many of his other solos can be heard on a series of recordings made by the Victor Recording Company. These include Cover Me Up With Sunshine, Proud of a Baby Like You, I’m Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now, Look at the World and Smile, A Lane in Spain, Slow River, Lilly, and Play It Red. Close contact with Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Lang, the Dorsey brothers, Frank Trumbauer, and Joe Venuti within the context of a hard-working band gave Spiegle a crash course in improvisation and style. Even though Spiegle came to his peak as an improviser long after his pre-1930 first career, many of the traits of his original lyrical style, originating from his band training and the influence of Tommy Dorsey, were retained in his later recordings of the LP and CD eras. Miff Mole also appears to be an influence in some of his solo improvisations. Willcox was never very far from the original melody and improvised on the tune’s essence, rather than demonstrating virtuosity for its own sake. Spiegle’s daughter Cynthia observed that although various groups played convincing transcriptions of the Goldkette repertoire at the many festivals they attended during Spiegle’s third career, none of the trombonists were able to match her father’s unique sound. 18

Coda

In 1927, Spiegle “retired” from the music business to run his father’s coal business. Despite the company motto (There’s no fuel like an old fuel), Spiegle led the company’s transition to fuel oil and developed a successful business while running a big band on the weekends in the Cortland, Ithaca, and Syracuse areas. Occasionally, old friends like Benny Goodman, the Dorsey brothers, and others would drop by to jam. His active life, which always included music, kept his chops in shape for his “rediscovery” in the 1970s. His association with Bix Beiderbecke brought him recognition that he continued to enjoy until his unexpected death at 96. In 1975, Spiegle performed two Bix tribute concerts in Carnegie Hall with five other Goldkette alumni. The exposure created by these tributes yielded European tours, a guest spot on the Tonight Show with Wild Bill Davison, and solo spotlights in a host of jazz festivals in Europe and the United States. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in music from SUNY Cortland in 1988 and crowned the Emperor of the 1995 Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. He also received the Benny Carter Award from the American Federation of Jazz Societies and was the last surviving member of the Goldkette Victor orchestra to have performed with Bix Beiderbecke.

Notes

1. Spiegle Willcox, video interview by Ralph Dudgeon, 28 July 1998, State University of New York, College at Cortland (hereafter: SUNY Cortland), American Music Graduate Seminar, Willcox Archive.

2. Much of the information, textual and pictorial, on Cortland’s bands can be found in the collections of the Cortland Historical Society. Also see Ralph Dudgeon, “A Celebration of Cortland’s Band Traditions,” program booklet for a concert at SUNY Cortland, 16 November 1988.

3. Quoted in Russ Tarby, “The Sweet Man: Pioneer jazz trombonist Spiegle Willcox still swingin’ at age 95,” Syracuse New Times (22-29 April 1998): 9-11

4. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 9.

5. To further confuse matters, Spiegle’s father, his wife, and Jean Goldkette called him “Bill.” Willcox could not remember who gave him the nickname, or why. Bob Whitman, a reedman and long-time Willcox sideman, believed the name to be derived from Richard Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. Willcox’s love of pranks and jokes seems to have rivaled that of the hero of Strauss’ tone poem.

6. Ted Fenstermacher, Toast speech for the 85th birthday party of Spiegle Willcox, 15 May 1988, typescript in Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland.

7. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 9.

8. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 9.

9. Personal conversation, 28 July 1988.

10. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 9.

11. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 9.

12. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 9.

13. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 10.

14. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 10.

15. Undated autographed photo, Willcox Archive, SUNY Cortland.

16. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 10.

17. Tarby, “The Sweet Man,” 10.

18. Interview with Cynthia Willcox Stubbs, 12 August 2004.



Discography. William Lane.

Spiegle Willcox Discography

1923-1927


The Collegians (Bob Causer’s Big Four)

Spiegle Willcox – tb, Roy Johnston – tp, Stub Washburn – as, Freddie Ballinger –ts, Red Ewald – vn, Jimmy Lynch – p, Charlie Dean – bj, Bob Causer – d.

March 23, 1923, New York

27671-1-2-3-4-5         Little Rover (Don’t Forget to Come

  Back Home)                                      Vic (rejected)

27672-3                       That Red-Headed Gal                         Vic 19049. HMV B-1664

(Split with Whitey Kaufman’s Original Pennsylvania Serenaders, You Tell Her I Stutter)

March 30, 1923, New York

27671-6-7-8-9-10       Little Rover (Don’t Forget to Come

                                      Back Home)                                      Vic (rejected)

28051-1-2-3                Mad (‘Cause You Treat me this

                                      Way)                                                  Vic (rejected)

June 5, 1923

28051-2                       I Cried for You                                    Vic 19093

(Split with The Great White Way Orch, Barney Google)

28052-2                       Papa, Better Watch Your Step            Vic 19105

(Split with Tennessee Ten, Long Lost Mama)

This group was managed and worked under the name of Paul Whiteman’s Collegians. Whiteman’s name does not appear on the labels.

 

California Ramblers


Spiegle Willcox, tb (replaces Tommy Dorsey), Frank Cush & Roy Johnston, tp, Eddie Stannard as, Bobby Davis, cl-ss-as, Freddy Cusick, cl-ts, Adrian Rollini, bsx, Irving Brodsky, p, Tommy Felline, bj, Stan King, d, Arthur Hall, v

September 15, 1925, New York

10574              Sweet Man                                                      Ed  51622

10575              Brown Eyes, Why Are You Blue?                    Ed  51622, Blue Amberol  Cylinder 5069

September 16, 1925, New York

6186-2             You Gotta Know How                                    Re 994, Apex 8401,       

Do 21078, Starr 10062,

Beeda 110

6187-2             She Was Just a Sailor’s Sweetheart                Ban 1623, Do 3595, 21078,

                                                                                                Or 497, Re 9925, Starr 11062

6188-1-2         Fallin’ Down                                                   Or 518, Apex 8408, Do

                                                                                                21092, Starr 10067

<>(Or 497 issued as the Imperial Dance Orchestra; Or 518 issued as the Missouri Jazz Band; Do 21078 issued as Godie and His Orchestra)

Ernest Hare v, replaces Arthur Hall

September 17, 1925, New York

106261            Desdemona                                                     PA 36318, Per 14499, Sal

                                                                                                297

106262            Fallin’ Down                                                   PA 36304, Per 14485

106263            Show Me The Way to Go Home                      PA  36307, Per 14488, Sal

                                                                                                283

106264            Red-Hot Henry Brown                                     PA 36319, Per 14500,

                                                                                                Reissued on Label X 6007

                        (Sal 297 issued as Orchestre Ernest Hare)  Spiegle is listed as playing the hot solo on PA 36307. However, the Timeless Records web site, The Red Hot Jazz Archive, lists Herb Winfield as the trombonist who plays this solo.  The confusion results from the fact that the Ramblers recorded Show Me the Way to Go Home twice in 1925.  Spiegle plays the trombone solo on the first, September 17 side (matrix 106263) issued on Pathe, Perfect and Salabert.  Winfield plays the solo on the December 7 side (matrix 141355-2), which was issued on Columbia (522-D).

October 7, 1925, New York

                        Dustin’ The Donkey                                        Vic test (un-numbered)

                        Sweet Man                                                      Vic test (un-numbered)

George Troup replaces Spiegle on the next recording session, October 15, 1925.

 

Jean Goldkette and his Orchestra 


Spiegle Willcox (replaces Tommy Dorsey)- Bill Rank, tb, Fuzzy Farrar – Ray Lodwig, tp, Doc Ryker-Jimmy Dorsey, as-cl, Don Murray, cl-as-ts-bs, Joe Venuti, vn, Itzy Riskin, p, Howdy Quicksell, bj, Steve Brown-sb, Chauncey Morehouse-d, Russ Morgan, arr, Frank Bessinger, v

January 27, 1926, New York

34367-3           The Rose Brought Me You                               Vic rejected

34368-1           After I Say I’m Sorry                                       Vic rejected

January 28, 1926, New York

34268-2           After I Say I’m Sorry                                       Vic 19947, HMV EA-46,

                                                                                                 R-7589

34269-1           Dinah                                                               Vic 19947, HMV EA-42

February 3, 1926, New York

34390-3           Behind the Clouds                                           Vic 19965

(Split with International Novelty Orch., Cossack Love Song)

34391-4           Drifting Apart                                                 Vic 19975

(Split with Claude Dornburger and his Orch, My Castle in Spain)

February 4, 1926, New York

34392-2           Sorry and Blue (waltz)                                    Vic 19962, HMV B-5081

(Split with Troubadours, Down by the Vinegar Works)

34493-4           Nothing Else to Do                                         Rejected

February 8, 1926, New York

34367-8           The Roses Brought Me You                             Rejected

April 22, 1926, Camden, NJ

34796-1           Roses                                                               Vic 20033, HMV K-37564,

(Split with Ted Weems, Love Bound on 20033)

34793-4           Jig Walk                                                          Rejected

April 23, 1926, Camden, NJ

Add, Carl Mathieu (tenor voice) and James Stanley (bass voice) on 34799-1

34798-1           Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya? Huh?               Vic 20031, HMV B-5080, K-

3564, R-7561

34799-1           Lonesome and Sorry                                       Vic 20031, 79866,     

Goldkette disbands his band for the summer and records seven sides with almost entirely new personnel for Victor under the name of Goldkette’s Book-Cadillac Orchestra.  Spiegle plays with the Henry Theis Orchestra during this time.  In October 1926 Goldkette reforms with many of men from the previous orchestra.

Spiegle Willcox-Bill Rank, tb, Bix Beiderbecke, c, Fuzzy Farrar-Ray Lodwig, tp, Don Murray, cl-as-bar-Doc Ryker-as- Frankie Trumbauer-cm, Joe Venuti, vn, Paul Mertz, p, Howdy Quicksell, bj, Eddie Lang, g, Steve Brown, sb, Chauncey Morehouse, d, Bill Challis, arr, Frank Bessinger-Frank Magine-Joe Griffin-Frank Marvin, v

October 12, 1926, New York                                                  

36813-2           Idolizing                                                          Vic 20270, HMV EA-152

36814-4           I’ Rather be the Girl in Your Arms                  Rejected

36815-2           Hush-a-Bye (waltz)                                          Vic 20270, HMV EA-152

Add Al Lynch and The Keller Sisters v (listed as The Keller Sisters and Lynch)

October 15, 1926, New York

36814-8           I’d Rather be the Girl in Your Arms                Vic 20273, HMV K-5095

36829-2           Sunday                                                             Vic LPM-2323

36829-3           Sunday                                                             Vic 20273, HMV EA-174, K-                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          5095

36830-2           Cover Me up with Sunshine                            Vic 20588

36831-4           Just One More Kiss                                         Vic 20300

(Split with Art Landry, Song of the Wanderer)

Danny Polo, cl-bar replaces Murray, Itzy Riskin, p replaces Mertz, Lang omitted, add Billy Murray, v

January 28, 1927, New York

27579-1           Proud of a Baby Like You                               (LP) Swaggie JCS-33756

377579-4         Proud of a Baby Like You                               Vic 20469

(Split with Franlyn Baur & Nat Shilkret Orch, I Love You, but I don’t Know why)

37580-4           I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover           Vic 20466

(Split with Roger Wolfe Kahn, Yankee Rose)

Spiegle Willcox-Bill Rank, tb, Bix Beiderbecke, c, Fuzzy Farrar-Ray Lodwig, tp, Danny Polo, cl-bar-Doc Ryker-as- Frankie Trumbauer-cm, Joe Venuti, vn, Itzy Riskin, p, Howdy Quicksell, bj, Steve Brown, sb, Chauncey Morehouse, d, Bill Challis, arr, Ray Muerer, v

January 31, 1927, New York

37583-2           I’m Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now                  Vic 20675, HMV B-5363

(Split with Johnny Marvin, Me and my Shadow)

37583-3           I’m Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now                  Vic 25354

37584-2           Hoosier Sweetheart                                         Vic 20471, HMV EA-157

(Split with Nat Shilkret, What does it Matter?)

Add Eddie Lang g, possibly Joe Venuti v (it is possible Lang also played v on 37586-2

February 1, 1927, New York 

37586-2           Look at the World and Smile                          Vic 20472

(Split with George Olsen Orch, Somebody Else)

37587-1           My Pretty Girl                                                 Vic 20588, 25283, HMV B-5324

37587-2           My Pretty Girl                                                 (LP) Swaggie JCS-33756

Add Lewis James-Charles Harrison-Elliott Shaw-Wilfred Glenn, v

February 3, 1927, New York

37738-3           Sunny Disposish                                              Vic 20493, HMV B-5289

(Split with Johnny Marvin, A Little Birdie Told me So)

37738-3           A Lane in Spain                                               Vic 20491, HMV EA-195

(Split with the BF Goodrich Silvertone Cord Orch, If all the Stars Were Pretty Babies)

Lloyd Turner replaces Spiegle on the next recording session May 6, 1927. 

 

Sources:

Carey, D. & McCarthy, A. J. (1950).  Jazz directory, vol. 2.  Hampshire, UK: the Delphic Press.

Rust, B. (1969).  Jazz records 1897-1942, vol.1 & 2.  London: The Storyville Press.

Rust, B. (1975).  The American dance band discography, vol. 1.  London: Crown Press.


Key to Instrument Abbreviations

arr = arranger
as - alto sax
bar = baritone sax
bj = banjo
bs = bassoon
bsx = bass sax
c = cornet
cl = clarinet
cm = C-melody saxophone
d = drums
g = guitar
p = piano
sb = string bass
ss = soprano sax
tb = trombone
ts = tenor sax
tp = trumpet
v = vocalist
vn = violin

Key to Record Label Abbreviations

Apex = Apex
Ban = Banner
Breeda = Breeda
Do = Domino (American)
Ed = Edison Diamond Disc (1/4 inch tick)
HMV = His Master’s Voice (B=British; EA = Australian; K=French; R=Italian)
Or = Oriole
Pathe Actuelle (American)
Pe = Perfect
Re = Regal (American)
Sal = Salabert (French)
Starr = Starr
Vic = Victor

Acknowledgments. I am grateful to Ralph T. Dudgeon and William Lane for their generosity in providing the files for uploading the chapter on Spiegle Willcox. The files were reformatted by Albert Haim.  I thank  Scarecrow Press for permission to upload this chapter to the Bix Beiderbecke website.