Focus on The Missourians

Jeff Barnhart: Hal, we’re taking a month break from our exploration of Moten to concentrate on the music of the band we compared to early Moten last month, the band that would become The Missourians, which offered us 12 sides recorded in NYC between June 3, 1929 and February 17, 1930. From 1925 to 1927, the band was known first as The Cotton Club Orchestra and then Andy Preer’s Cotton Club Orchestra. Even when it was no longer performing at the Cotton Club, the name continued until two things happened. First, Duke Ellington’s band premiered at the CC in 1927, and the club then insisted that only the resident band there at any given time would be able to use the name. Second, Andy Preer unexpectedly died in 1927, leaving the band with neither name nor leader. Lockwood Lewis was hired as director, front man and vocalist, while the band chose a name referencing both its physical and stylistic origins. They then toured backing Ethel Waters and in 1929 landed a residency (minus Waters) at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, establishing a reputation as “the band to beat” in the musical duels in which the Savoy specialized. There are accounts they even slaughtered Ellington’s outfit with the sheer ferocity of their attack and power. The 12 sides they recorded do a good job of capturing this excitement. I’ll share when and where I discovered them. I attended the small school Connecti