Celebrating the Centennial Jazz of 1924

1924 found America deep in the Jazz Age with speakeasies, bootleggers, and hot jazz as the soundtrack. Calvin Coolidge was president (winning re-election in November), the business of America was business, and times were good for many Americans, at least those who did not have the misfortune of being poor. Seven years after the historic recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and four after Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” launched an unexpected blues craze, the record business was booming. 1923 had brought the recording debuts of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, and Bessie Smith as record labels, realizing that there was a strong market in the black populace, eagerly recorded African-American jazz artists. 1924, 100 years ago, was not quite as groundbreaking as the previous year but there were many significant events that took place in recording studios. While recordings were still being made acoustically and drummers were not able to utilize their full set, the general recording quality had steadily improved during the past decade. Jazz itself was starting to change its emphasis from freewheeling ensembles to arrangements and soloists. Here are ten of 1924’s major jazz recording events, in roughly chronological order. Feb. 18 – Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke joined the Wolverines in Dec. 1923. The group, a spirited young octet,