Southern Syncopated Orchestra

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

The Southern Syncopated Orchestra was an early jazz group that brought Black musicians to the United Kingdom. The composer Will Marion Cook founded it, first in the United States as the New York Syncopated Orchestra. Its members included the clarinettist Sidney Bechet from New Orleans, the British singer Evelyn Dove, who performed under the name Norma Winchester, and the soprano Hattie King Reavis. Between 1919 and 1921 the orchestra toured Great Britain and Ireland.

Music and breakthrough

The programme was broad. The orchestra played classical music, ragtime, blues, spirituals and jazz, and made successful annual tours of Great Britain and the Continent. It was very popular: in 1920, 328,000 people bought a ticket for performances at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. On the farewell tour of 1921 it played for three weeks at the Lyric Theatre in Glasgow, in October, the company's last performances.

Influence

On the way to Dublin the ship SS Rowan sank in thick fog off the coast of Wigtownshire, after being struck by two other ships. Of the 120 people on board, 36 died, among them nine musicians. All the instruments were lost. Theatres in Glasgow organised benefit concerts for the survivors. On 17 October 1921 the orchestra nevertheless performed in Dublin, then in Derry and Belfast, and in November it ceased to exist. In 2013 two of the musicians who died, the singer Frank Bates and the drummer Pete Robinson, were commemorated with blue plaques in London.

Listening

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