In the 1920s, the top African-American band in Buffalo, NY was the Blue Ribbon Syncopators. They recorded in their hometown for Okeh Records in 1925, and two years later travelled as an augmented unit to the second biggest city in their home state, New York, to record electrically for Columbia Records. They were friends with the Yankee Six (aka the Buffalodians) and a young Harold Arlen (composer of “Get Happy” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”) even “M C’d” for them a few times according to the papers – substantiated by the fact that they recorded his composition “My Gal, My Pal” for Okeh. Their sound was similar to Curtis Mosby’s Blue Blowers from LA, but also had a distinctive Great Lakes toughness. Their banjoist, Gil Roberts later had a career with Josephine Baker. — by Colin HancockA special thanks to James Gallup for his help with the recordings on this page.
| Title | Recording Date | Recording Location | Company |
| Blues In A Minor (Harry Tate) | 3-1925 | Buffalo, New York | Okeh 40349-A |
| Blue Ribbon Blues (Harold Diemer) | 4-29-1925 | New York, New York | Columbia 14235-D |
| Memphis Sprawler (Joe Tarto) | 4-29-1925 | New York, New York | Columbia 14215-D |
| My Gal, My Pal (H. Arluck / H. Cheiffetz) | 3-1925 | Buffalo, New York | Okeh 40349-B |
| Scratch (Harold Diemer) | 4-29-1925 | New York, New York | Columbia 14215-D |
| Whale Dip (Harold Diemer) | 4-29-1925 | New York, New York | Columbia 14235-D |
| Artist | Instrument |
| George West | Piano |
| Willard Brown | Tenor Saxophone |
| Ted Colon | Trumpet |
| Hurley Diemer | Drums |
| Ted Diemer | Alto Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone |
| Gilbert Roberts | Banjo |
| Harry Tate | Trumpet |
| Seymour Todd | Bass Brass, String Bass |
Redhotjazz.com was a pioneering website during the "Information wants to be Free" era of the 1990s. In that spirit we are recovering the lost data from the now defunct site and sharing it with you.
Most of the music in the archive is in the form of MP3s hosted on Archive.org or the French servers of Jazz-on-line.com where this music is all in the public domain.
Files unavailable from those sources we host ourselves. They were made from original 78 RPM records in the hands of private collectors in the 1990s who contributed to the original redhotjazz.com. They were hosted as .ra files originally and we have converted them into the more modern MP3 format. They are of inferior quality to what is available commercially and are intended for reference purposes only. In some cases a Real Audio (.ra) file from Archive.org will download. Don't be scared! Those files will play in many music programs, but not Windows Media Player.
