Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra · Bennie Moten, born in 1893 in Kansas City, Missouri, was an American pianist and bandleader. He led his Kansas City Orchestra, the foremost of the regional, blues-based orchestras of the Midwest in the 1920s. He helped develop the riff style that would later characterise many big bands of the 1930s, and the jazz standard Moten Swing bears his name. He died in 1935.

Music and breakthrough

The orchestra made its first recordings on 23 September 1923 for OKeh. They still sounded like the New Orleans style of King Oliver and others, with the influence of ragtime and the stomping beat for which the band was known. In 1926 the band signed with Victor and let itself be influenced by the more refined style of Fletcher Henderson. In 1927 many names from Kansas City music played in it, such as Harlan Leonard, Jack Washington, Ed Lewis and Lamar Wright, with a smooth saxophone section above tinkling piano and a bass drum. In 1928 South appeared. The real change came in 1929, when Moten hired Count Basie, Walter Page and Hot Lips Page. Walter Page's walking bass lines gave the music a completely new feel, with Basie's sparing, syncopated piano figures on top. Jimmy Rushing joined as a singer. Later Ben Webster also played in the band. The last session, on 13 December 1932, gave the first traces of what would become the Basie sound, four years before Basie recorded under his own name.

Influence

In this way Moten's orchestra formed the bridge between the stomping blues of the 1920s and the swing of Count Basie. Anyone who hears the records from 1923 to 1927 hears the beginning of Kansas City jazz.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1990Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra 1923-1927

In School of Rock

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