While the string bass was part of the early New Orleans jazz scene from its start, with Jimmy Johnson (1876-1937) and his bass being seen in the famous photo of Buddy Bolden’s band from the late 1890s, it took some time for it to become an indispensable part of many jazz bands. The instrument was originally bowed until around 1910-15 when several jazz bassists began to pluck its strings to keep time. Bill Johnson claimed to be the first slap bassist. He claimed that he was forced to spontaneously invent that technique when a drunk broke his bow one night although other bassists of the time have also claimed to be the inventor of the slap style.
The string bass had two major disadvantages in comparison to the tuba (or sousaphone) during the early days of jazz. It obviously could not be part of a New Orleans marching brass band (despite the later term of “walking bass”). And on recordings of the acoustic era, it was virtually inaudible. It was not until the development of electrical recording in 1926 that string bassists began to appear regularly on records. Due to its flexibility, by the early 1930s it had replaced the tuba in most jazz bands. Almost no swing era big bands used the tuba and by then it was rare for a combo of more than four or five pieces to lack a string bass.
The first jazz bassist to be heard on record was Harry Barth (1897-1947) who played tuba with Ted Lewis during 1921-32. On Lewis’ recording of “Milenberg Joys” from June 22, 1925, Barth switched to bass but that was a one-time event. He also led an occasional recording group (Harry Barth’s Mississippians) during 1922-29 that included some members of the Lewis band but, when he played bass rather than tuba, he is barely audible.
While such bassists as Ed Garland (impossible to hear on his 1922 recordings with Kid Ory), John Lindsay (prominent on some Jelly Roll Morton sessions from 1926), Sidney Brown (with Sam Morgan’s New Orleans band), Joe Tarto, and Walter Page (making his recording debut in 1929 but much better known after the mid-1930s) were important, five bassists of the 1926-29 period made a particularly strong impact on the instrument’s history: Bill Johnson, Steve Brown, Wellman Braud, Pops Foster, and Thelma Terry.
Bill Johnson was born Aug. 10, 1872, in New Orleans. He originally played guitar starting in 1887, not starting on the bass until 1900 when he was already 28. Johnson worked with a variety of local bands including the Peerless Orchestra and Frankie Dusen’s Eagle Band, switching to tuba at times in order to play parades. One of the first New Orleans jazz artists to leave the Crescent City, he moved to California in 1908. In 1914, Johnson formed the Original Creole Orchestra which featured cornetist Freddie Keppard. With that group, he performed in the black vaudeville circuit, helping to introduce the new unnamed jazz music to Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. During this period Johnson had the opportunity to make the first jazz recordings with the Original Creole Orchestra but the performances went unreleased, probably because his string bass could not be heard.
Johnson helped to put together King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band which he joined in 1921 but, while he was present on their first recording date, it found him playing a largely inaudible banjo. However he was responsible for spontaneous shouting out “Oh play that thing” on “Dippermouth Blues.”
It was not until 1928 that Bill Johnson, who was based in Chicago, finally began to record. He appeared on 25 sessions during 1928-29, playing bass with the Dixie Four, the Chicago Footwarmers, Johnny Dodds, the State Street Ramblers, Junie Cobb’s Grains Of Corn, the Midnight Rounders, Ikey Robinson, Sippie Wallace, Ikey Robinson, Tampa Red, Chippie Hill, Rev. D.C. Rice and his Sanctified Congregation, the Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers, and on two songs by his own Louisiana Jug Band (featuring Half Pint Jaxon). Johnson’s playing on these recordings is consistently exuberant, adding to the excitement of the music.
Steve Brown was born Jan. 13, 1890, in New Orleans. The younger brother of trombonist Tom Brown, he often played tuba in his brother’s band while growing up. He eventually switched his focus to the string bass, moving to Chicago with his sibling’s band in May 1915. Brown freelanced for several years, impressing local musicians. In 1922 he was a member of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, appearing on the eight songs that they recorded on Aug. 29-30, but he cannot be heard. The following year one can hear Brown playing on six numbers by the Original Memphis Melody Boys, but on tuba.
Brown joined Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra in 1924 and from then on he was a bassist. On his first recording session with the band on Jan. 28, 1926, his bass is prominent on “Dinah.” While he often utilized the bow in early parts of his recordings with Goldkette, he really swung the band during its final chorus as can be heard on “Dinah.” Brown’s bass playing became influential and was an important factor in jazz groups gradually shifting away from utilizing a tuba in favor of the bass.
Brown was with Goldkette for three years including the period in which Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer were sidemen. On such numbers as “Sunday,” “I’m Proud Of A Baby Like You,” “I’m Looking Over A Four Leaf Clover,” and “My Pretty Girl,” his playing clearly inspired the band during the closing choruses.
After the Goldkette band broke up, Brown followed many of the top sidemen into the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. He is on such recordings as “Washboard Blues,” “Changes,” “Make Believe,” and “From Monday On,” but strangely enough was not part of Trumbauer’s classic sessions with Bix where his bass would have been a major asset. After four months with Whiteman and for unknown reasons, Brown left the orchestra, rejoining Jean Goldkette who had a new big band. While Brown made some additional recordings with Goldkette and in 1929 with pianist Johnny Burris and Vic Meyers, his time as an important force on his instrument soon passed.
Wellman Braud was born on Jan. 25, 1891, in St. James Parish, Louisiana and grew up in New Orleans. He began playing music on the violin when he was seven. After stints on trombone, guitar and drums, he settled on the bass, working jobs as a teenager including in the Storyville district. Braud moved to Chicago in 1917 where during the next decade he played with a variety of bands including the Original Creole Orchestra, Charlie Elgar’s orchestra, Will Vodery’s Plantation Revue (with whom he performed in London), and Wilbur Sweatman plus some shows. He made his recording debut in 1926 on two sessions led by cornetist Tom Morris.
In mid-1927, Braud became the first bassist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Ellington had previously used the ironically named Bass Edwards and Mack Shaw as his tuba players. During his eight years with Duke Ellington, Braud always made sure that his bass was well recorded, a practice that Ellington would continue throughout the decades to follow. While not a major soloist, Braud’s walking bass lines (in four-beat rather than two-beat patterns) set the stage for swing era bassists. He is on all of the Ellington orchestra’s often-classic recordings from Oct. 6, 1927 through Mar. 5, 1935.
George Murphy “Pops” Foster was born on May 19, 1892, in McCall, Louisiana. As was true of Bill Johnson, Steve Brown, and Wellman Braud, Foster grew up in New Orleans. He played cello for three years before switching to bass, doubling on tuba when it was necessary. He was a major part of the early New Orleans jazz scene, working with many groups including Rosseals’ Orchestra, Jack Carey, the Magnolia Orchestra Kid Ory, the Tuxedo Brass Band, the Eagle Brass Band, Armand Piron, and King Oliver. Foster played with Fate Marable’s bands on the riverboats during 1917-21, spent time in Los Angeles working with Kid Ory and Mutt Carey, and was in St. Louis where he played with Charlie Creath and Dewey Jackson. Foster is on bass for two sessions from 1924-25 with Creath’s Jazz-O-Manias and tuba with Jackson in 1926. Skipping Chicago altogether, in 1928 he moved to New York where he briefly worked with King Oliver.
Pops Foster came to prominence in 1929 when he became a swinging anchor of the Luis Russell Orchestra. In addition to his recordings with Russell where he really drove the band, Foster was part of recording sessions with Henry “Red” Allen, the Mound City Blue Blowers, Victoria Spivey, Jelly Roll Morton, Wilton Crawley, Fats Waller, and Louis Armstrong (including “St. Louis Blues”), all before 1930 began. By then he was considered to be Wellman Braud’s main competitor on bass.
Thelma Terry (who was born as Thelma Esther Combes) could have been a close contender. She was born on Sept. 30, 1901 in Bangor, Michigan and grew up in Chicago. She studied bass from an early age and, after graduating high school, played with the Chicago Women’s Symphony Orchestra. However she was more interested in playing jazz and also found that it gave her a better chance of making a living.
For a few years she freelanced in a variety of settings including leading her all-women band Thelma Combes and her Volcano Orchestra. She also worked in the house band in Colosimo’s Restaurant which was owned by Al Capone, singing a bit in addition to playing bass. In 1927 as she began gaining recognition, she started using the name of Thelma Terry, leading an otherwise all-male band called Thelma Terry and Her Playboys. Her drummer was Gene Krupa.
On March 29, 1928, Thelma Terry and her 10-piece group recorded four numbers, and on Sept. 27 of that year (Krupa was gone by then but Bob Zurke was her new pianist) they cut two more songs. Terry was the first female jazz musician who was not a singer or a pianist to lead her own record date and (not counting Harry Barth’s dance band sessions), was the first jazz bassist to record as a leader. Influenced by Steve Brown, her playing on these two sessions was as rhythmically and harmonically advanced as that of any jazz bassist up to that time.
Billed by MCA (her booking agency) as “The Beautiful Blonde Siren of Syncopation,” “The Jazz Princess,” and even “The Female Paul Whiteman,” Thelma Terry had plenty of potential. She went on a domestic tour with her Playboys and was set to perform in Europe. But instead she married the owner of a resort in Georgia and broke up the band, settling in Savannah.
The evolution of the string bass would gradually speed up in the 1930s with the rise of Milt Hinton (a fixture with Cab Calloway), Israel Crosby (who on a Jess Stacy session in 1935 was part of the first piano-bass-drums trio to record), Walter Page (part of the classic Count Basie rhythm section), John Kirby, and in 1939 the first jazz virtuoso of the bass, Jimmy Blanton with Duke Ellington. Even Jimmy Johnson, the only member of Buddy Bolden’s band to record, showed in 1936 on sessions with Don Albert that he had evolved with the times. But what happened to the great five bassists of 1926-29?
Three of the five slipped into obscurity. While Bill Johnson was active into the early 1950s, including working in 1947 with Bunk Johnson, he did not record at all after 1929 and was never even interviewed, a lost opportunity on both counts. He settled in Detroit, worked at a variety of day jobs including in the import/export business, and made it to Dec. 3, 1972, several months after his 100th birthday.
Steve Brown also settled in Detroit, just playing on a part-time basis for decades. His only post-1929 recording is on the Dixie Five’s Dancin’ Fool during 1949-50. That Jazzology CD has Brown sounding fine on a variety of vintage standards in a seven-piece group (despite the group’s name) that includes cornetist Andy Bartha and pianist Frank Gillis. But otherwise, Brown was finished after 1929 He passed away on Sept. 15, 1965, at the age of 75.
Thelma Terry also ended her career in 1929, choosing to get married. She had a daughter but the marriage ended in divorce in 1936. After trying unsuccessfully to make a comeback in Chicago, she permanently left music, working as a knitting instructor and moving back to Michigan where her life ended quietly on May 30, 1966, at the age of 64.
In contrast, Wellman Braud and Pops Foster continued to have major careers for decades. Braud was an important part of Duke Ellington’s orchestra until 1935. He was far from inactive during his post-Ellington years, recording with Mezz Mezzrow, Lil Armstrong, Jimmie Noone (with whom he briefly co-managed a club in Harlem), Hot Lips Page, Blue Lu Barker, Pee Wee Russell, Alberta Hunter, Jelly Roll Morton (1939-40), Sidney Bechet (including the 1940 reunion with Louis Armstrong), Rex Stewart, the Spirits Of Rhythm, Cliff Jackson, Baby Dodds, and Bunk Johnson among others. Braud retired from music for a time, running a pool hall and a meat marketing business. But in 1956 he returned to work and record with Kid Ory. Braud turned down opportunities to rejoin Duke Ellington or become a member of the Louis Armstrong All-Stars in the late 1950s, probably not wanting to travel much beyond Los Angeles. Instead his final playing and recording was with singer Barbara Dane in 1961. Wellman Braud passed away on Oct. 29, 1966 at the age of 75.
Pops Foster had the most wide-ranging career of the five bassists. A regular member of the Luis Russell Orchestra starting in 1929, he stayed with the band when it was taken over by Louis Armstrong, remaining until 1940. He was also on record dates headed by Red Allen, J.C. Higginbotham, Mezz Mezzrow, Billy Banks, James P. Johnson, W.C. Handy, and Sidney Bechet, enjoying a longtime association with the latter. While he had been considered a pretty modern bassist in 1929, Foster eventually became identified with traditional New Orleans jazz, rarely ever straying from stating the beat in his occasional solos. His later associations included Art Hodes, Jack Teagarden, Bunk Johnson (the short-lived group with Bechet in 1945), Rudi Blesh’s This Is Jazz radio series (1947), Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Tony Parenti, Jimmy Archey, Earl Hines, Jonah Jones, Wilbur DeParis, Sammy Price, Muggsy Spanier, and Barbara Dane (preceding Wellman Braud). Although less active in the 1960s, he still played with major artists including Hines, trumpeter Keith Smith in England, and Art Hodes (1968). The bassist passed away on Oct. 30, 1969, at the age of 77, two years before his memoirs, The Autobiography of Pops Foster, was published.
While the playing of these five bassists may seem fairly simple when compared to the dazzling acoustic and electric bassists of today, their early contributions to music and their instrument should never be overlooked.
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
