Redhotjazz.com was a crown jewel of the early internet. Starting in the mid ’90s it made the offline discographies and biographies of early jazz available to the online public. It also hosted thousands of audio files donated by people who were digitizing their 78 RPM record collections, making many obscure recordings available for the first time. This all started long before Youtube and even before Wikipedia was much more than an idea.
We are duplicating the content of the Red Hot Jazz Archive from a snapshot saved in Archive.org’s Wayback Machine. Keeping with both the original intent and mission of Redhotjazz.org everything will be publicly available outside of our paywall. For ease of use we are improving each entry to meet the norms of the phone friendly modern internet.
The downloadable music files are mostly MP3s but some are in the ancient Real Audio (.ra) format. Rather than opening a new tab so you can stream or download them the Real Audio files will immediately download when you click them. Don’t be frightened. You don’t need Real Audio player to play them but they won’t work on Windows Media Player. We recommend the free and open source VLC player.
For more information read: About the Archive
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Chocolate To The Bone (I’m So Glad I’m Brownskin) (Frankie Jaxon) 7-20-1937 Chicago, Illinois Decca 7360 A I Knocks
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Fan It (Frankie Jaxon) 2-1-1929 Chicago, Illinois Vocalion 2553-A Fifteen Cents 7-29-1933 Chicago, Illinois Vocalion 2603-A Mama Don’t Allow
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company My Secret Flame Vocal Chorus by Hilda Rogers (Lil Armstrong / Avon Long) 3-17-1940 New York, New York Decca 7739
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Baby Daddy (Lil Armstrong / Williams) 4-4-1950 Chicago, Illinois Gotham G 241 A Baby Daddy (Lil Armstrong) 4-4-1950 Chicago, Illinois
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Everything’s Wrong, Ain’t Nothing Right Vocal Chorus by Lil Armstrong (Lil Armstrong / Evans) 9-8-1938 New York, New York Decca 2542
Lil’s Hot Shots was a pseudonym for Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. This name was used when recording for Vocalion. Title Recording Date
Sugar Johnnie’s New Orleans Creole Orchestra was a somewhat forgotten, yet important band that played at the De Luxe Cafe at 3503 South State Street
Ray Charles had a hit record with Lil Armstrong’s song “Just For A Thrill” in 1959. Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Bluer Than Blue Vocal
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Confessin’ (Doc Dougherty / Ellis Reynolds) 1-9-1945 New York, New York Black & White 1210-A East Town Boogie (Lil
This is likely a photo of the Midnight Serenaders that recorded for Paramount in 1928. If so they were led in the studio by Bill
Bill Haid played banjo for the Coon Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra and led several small recording sessions in Chicago and New York for Paramount and Broadway
Clifford Hayes was born in Green County, Kentucky. He moved with his parents to Jeffersonville, Indiana, before 1910 and then relocated to Louisville. He played
Long before Guy Lombardo with his Royal Canadians became famous for playing “Auld Lang Syne” at New York’s Waldorf Astoria on New Year’s Eve they
Curtis Mosby was a drummer, promoter, bandleader and club owner in California in the 1920s through 1940s. He was leading his own band in Oakland,
The top White band in Buffalo, NY during the 20s was the Buffalodians aka the Yankee Six and the Yankee Ten Orchestra. Founded by ex-Earl
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,
Title Recording Date Recording Location Company Bugle Call Rag (Elmer Schoebel / Jack Pettis / Meyers) 8-1-1923 Los Angeles, California Golden B-1865 No No Nora
The Clicquot Club Eskimos was a banjo orchestra under the direction of Harry Reser. The band was quite well known because of its nationwide weekly half-hour
Although Irving Mills is remembered mostly as a music publisher and for being the manager of the Duke Ellington Orchestra he was also a singer and songwriter. Mills contributed vocals to
Here is a nice little recording that was never released and existed only as a test pressing. “Everything Is Hotsy Totsy Now” was a very
Irving Mills was a music publisher and owner of Mills Music with his brother Jack. He also was a singer, songwriter, A&R; man and manager of
Clarence “Pine Top” Smith (June 11, 1904 – March 15, 1929) was one of the earliest pianists to recorded a boogie-woogie” piano solo. His 1928
Lucille Bogan’s recording career came to an end in 1935 and she eventually returned to Birmingham where she reverted to her real name and performed
Dolly Kay (12 June 1900? – 26 August 1982) was a vaudeville and cabaret singer who started performing sometime around 1920 on the Orpheum curcuit
