Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

CHOCOLATE DANDIES, The

The name given by several record labels to various pick-up bands for ad-hoc recording sessions, mainly 1928 to 1933. The name may have been suggested by a Broadway show that ran for a couple of months in 1924, composed by Eubie Blake. There were always so many talented black musicians able easily to cut four tracks in a couple of hours that some fine jazz resulted. The discographies are confusing, but here is the information found in Brian Rust's classic Jazz Records 1897-1942.

Don Redman had become music director of the Detroit-based band McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and recorded with it in Chicago in July 1928; then on a visit to New York City in October the band moonlighted, making the first of the Dandies' recording sessions, adding the marvelous guitarist Lonnie Johnson on the first two tracks, 'Paducah' and 'Star Dust', the latter probably the first recording of Hoagy Carmichael's classic, with its original jaunty identity before it became a romantic smoocher a year or two later. The 11-piece Cotton Pickers were billed on various other 78-rpm issues as The Little Aces, The Five Little Chocolate Dandies, etc.

A year later in New York, in September 1929, Redman recorded with a smaller group as The Little Chocolate Dandies, hiring such future jazz giants as Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins and Fats Waller. One source says these two tracks, 'That's How I Feel Today' and 'Six Or Seven Times', were made in 1928, ten days before the sessions with 'Star Dust'; but the later date is more likely, for then Carter took over as the contractor for recording sessions in December 1930 and October 1933. The first of these used men from the Fletcher Henderson band: Billie Holiday's father Clarence may have played guitar on one tune; Hawkins was there, along with trombonist Jimmy Harrison (who sang on 'Got Another Sweetie Now'), Fletcher's brother Horace Henderson on piano, and bassist John Kirby, who played tuba on two numbers. Carter's clarinet intro on 'Dee Blues' is one of the highlights of the entire series.

The last track on the last session, in 1933, was Carter's tune 'Krazy Kapers', which may had Mezz Mezzrow on drums. The 16 official Chocolate Dandies tracks were once compiled on a British LP, then reissued on CD, long out of print, and there have been other scatterings of tracks on CDs. In 1940 Hawkins recorded four tunes for Commodore which were billed as by 'Coleman Hawkins and his Chocolate Dandies', and the moniker was used as a pseudonym on a few obscure pressings, e.g. on a European issue of Louis Armstrong's recording of 'Star Dust'. But the originals will always be classics.