New Orleans Rhythm Kings

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

The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were a jazz band of the early 1920s, formed by musicians from New Orleans and Chicago. It began with a telegram from the drummer Mike Stevens to Albert Brunies, about better gigs in Chicago. The trumpeter Paul Mares seized the chance, the trombonist George Brunies followed, and in Chicago they were joined by, among others, the pianist Elmer Schoebel, the saxophonist Jack Pettis and the clarinettist Leon Roppolo. In 1921 the group got a regular place at Friar's Inn, where it kept playing for seventeen months. The name New Orleans Rhythm Kings had first belonged to a group of the vaudeville performer Bee Palmer.

Music and breakthrough

In 1922 and 1923 they made records for Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, at first still under the name Friar's Society Orchestra. In July 1923 Jelly Roll Morton played on one of their sessions. From their repertoire came jazz standards such as Bugle Call Rag, Milenburg Joys, Farewell Blues and Tin Roof Blues. The pop song Make Love to Me from 1954 is based on the last-named piece.

Influence

The band wanted to present jazz more seriously and carefully than the popular Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which presented itself mainly as an entertaining novelty. Young musicians, among them the cornettist Bix Beiderbecke, came to Friar's Inn to listen and sometimes to play along. After Friar's Inn the group broke up and came together only to record, with Mares and Roppolo as the permanent core. Its influence on Chicago jazz and on a younger generation of musicians makes it an important link between New Orleans and the jazz of the 1920s.

Listening

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