SAM
WOODING, JR.
Dean of
Jazz
In 1990,
Mrs. Sam Wooding, Jr. made John Byrd the executor to her and her late husband's business
estate for the purpose of publishing his autobiography and to further establish and
promote his significant contribution to our cultural landscape.
“DEAN
OF JAZZ”
The Life and Music Sam Wooding,Jr.
As dictated to Rae Harrison Wooding
Manuscripts and archival materials owned by John E. Byrd
Book proposal
That
the vibrant, brilliant and swinging music of the Sam Wooding, Jr., and his contribution to
Western culture is not fully appreciated or widely known, creates an unavoidable vaccum in
the critical appreciation of jazz history. That
his music is not familiar to fans of Duke Ellington or Fletcher Henderson, or the
connoisseurs of early jazz recordings, has much to do with the fact that Wooding made his
history 3000 miles away from home, and a little to do with the rise of Adolph Hitler in Germany. Ken Burn’s recent documentary
“JAZZ”, and its beautiful accompanying book does little to illuminate
Wooding’s life and musical contribution.
Born
June
17, 1895,
Sam David Wooding, Jr. grew up in Philadelphia
in a proper African-American family whose goal was to participate in the uplifting of the
race. While his siblings were groomed to
become doctor, lawyer, nurse, young Sam was encouraged in his early musical interests in
the piano, as long as it remained respectful glorification of the Lord. His mother found it unacceptable when he became
interested in ragtime music, pronouncing it "low life pimp's and whore's music"
not to be practiced in her household. Instead,
she arranged for Sam to study classical organ under a noted professor. He was to carry on a clandestine affair with the
"lowlier" music much of his school years, becoming a mainstay at local rent
parties where he played his ragtime and blues piano.
Sam's
father worked as a butler for the illustrious Biddle family of Philadelphia,
a moneyed and blue-blood bunch. When the
family spent their summers in the splendid Atlantic
City
resort, the Wooding family also went in tow. There,
Sam feasted, along with the wealthy audiences, on the great colored acts and shows of the
day. Young Sam was awed as he witnessed Bert
Williams perform "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now", and was influenced forever on
hearing Eubie Blake playing ragtime and show tunes beyond anything to date. Since then, only "Anna Piana" figured as
the most important mistress in his life. At
seven, Sam wrote his first composition which so impressed the Biddle family nurse, that
she was instrumental in having it published.
By
1917, Sam was working as a pianist in cabarets, first in Atlantic
City,
then Newark. He had all but become the Prodigal Son, straying
far from the values and aspirations of his parents. The
U.S.
had just entered World War I. The following
year, Sam went to Europe
as a member of Lieutenant Bill Vodery's 807th Pioneer Infantry Band. This band had many fine musicians, including
trumpeter Elmer Chambers and drummer George Howe, both of whom Sam was to later hire for
his own band.
A
civilian again by 1920, Sam Wooding formed his first band which stayed together only
briefly, but allowed him to gain experience in the psychology of shaping his men and his
music. His second band also consisted of a
small cabaret show featuring dancing by the "Two Ethels" (Waters and Williams). It caught the attention of Baron Wilkins, who
engaged Sam to play for the fall session at his Harlem
cabaret. This stint brought Sam and his band
to Baron's and to New
York
where it was all happening.
After
some hard knocks and lessons in making it in the toughest environment he'd known since the
Army and wartime Europe,
Sam finds his way into the world of music in New
York's
Harlem. He sought and found "the sound" that
would make him unique among the many innovative musicians that were flourishing to make
the new American music. The Sam Wooding
Orchestra soon became the talk and rage of the Harlem
gentry. His blending of early jazz with
European classical strains made his music stand out as uniquely cultured and learned among
the many bands coming into vogue. Sam's shows
at the Lafayette Theatre packed them in, many of these shows featured the first
"battle of the bands" which pitted Sam's band against Fletcher Henderson's among
others. Sam made his reputation as the most
popular band at the Nest Club, later to become one of Harlem's
jazz landmarks. This reputation was soon to
travel downtown. An offer came from the famous
Times Square Club Alabam.
The
band replaced Fletcher Henderson's at the Alabam. By
now, Sam and his men were so on top of their form that they came to the attention of
famous Russian impresario, Dr. Leoni Leonidot, whose clients included Feodor Chaliapin and
George Balanchine. Having served as musical
director for the touring company of "Plantation Days" and furthering his
reputation beyond Harlem,
Sam Wooding and his band were what Leonidot was looking for.
Leonidot had come to the U.S.
to recruit a black show for Europe. Sam's band and
"Plantation Days", the show and its performers it accompanied,
were perfect.
Putting
together the best musicians he could rally to round out his band, Sam had to replace young
Louis Armstrong with the legendary Tommy Ladnier when Louis couldn't get out of his prior
commitment to join up with Fletcher Henderson's band.
On May 6, 1925, the show, which had been named "The Chocolate
Kiddies" left for Europe, its cast of about forty included many sensational
performers such as Margaret Sims, Adelaide Hall and specialty acts, along with
"beauty" dancers that popped the eyes of Americans across the country. Europe
was in for a startling surprise.
When
he returned to the U.S.,
Sam lived in Harlem
and taught music, singing and piano, a friend had been singing the praises of a teenage
girl singer from the neighborhood. Finally
worn down by pleas to hear her, Sam allowed his pal to bring the young Rae Harrison
around. Under guarded arrangement by her
mother, Rae came with another teenage friend to sing for the middle-aged man. She couldn't care less for impressing Sam. She had been in show business since she was very
young, having performed with the likes of Bunny Briggs, The Nicholas Brothers and others
at Small's Paradise
and the theatres of Harlem. She didn't care for Sam asking her to remove her
chewing gum before she sang for him.
Sam
was more than impressed with Rae as a singer. He
knew this was the voice he was looking for. But
she would prove as formidable as Eliza Doolittle to Wooding’s Professor Higgins as
far as her manners went. She had exceptional
talent, raw, untutored, but with an amazing range and sass.
Sam was determined to tutor and cultivate this girl, to make her over into
the polished talent he would need in his planed return to Europe.
Forging
together a new band, enlisting musicians as he toured with his new singer, Rae, Sam
Wooding returned to the scenes of his early triumphs.
They had not forgotten him in Europe. By now, he was a legend of jazz. The "Dean" had returned as part of 'The
Dynamic Duo of Sam Wooding and the sensational Rae Harrison.' They toured all of the old sites and performed in
the new theatres and concert halls. Sam and
Rae recorded in many countries and soon became familiar as the "International
Duo", as they were billed. The Sam
Wooding Orchestra, always an improvised one, was made up of European musicians who he
instructed, and black expatriates. They remade
musical history in Spain,
South
America
and Japan,
among other countries. Somewhere in between,
the older man and young singer became husband and wife.
Back
in the U.S.
between tours, Rae began typing the manuscripts of Sam's memoirs. Friends and music critics urged him to write a
proper autobiography, one that a professional writer could assist him in polishing. Sam gave countless interviews, appeared on
television (as he did throughout the world) and the Smithsonian Institute recorded an oral
history of Sam as he recounted his life and career. Rae was amazed as she typed diligently
from his notes and dictation, and journeyed again with her husband through his past,
reading of all who had influenced his life, the legendary and those lost to history, the
scandalous and the glorious.
Toward
the end of his life, Wooding received the respect of his peers and historians, as well as
jazz enthusiasts alike. He was honored by both
Presidents Nixon and Carter, and received many awards.
While his contribution to jazz is acknowledged in the many anthologies and
histories of the music, it exists mainly as footnotes that can only give an incomplete and
one dimensional assessment of a life and career, let alone a true appreciation of the man
and his music.
It
is indeed fortunate that Wooding recorded his own full account of his life. He died before he could see to its being published
in some form or another. On reading the
manuscript Mrs. Wooding typed up (in several volumes), it is clear that it is one of the
most significant jazz autobiographies yet to be published.
Since
his death in 1985, the story of this pioneer expatriate is the subject of a biography
based on the memoirs Wooding left to his widow, Rae Harrison. Started as an autobiography,
but never going beyond his reminiscences, Sam's devoted wife kept records, tapes and
photos toward the publication of her husband's important contribution to American music. Along the way, after Sam’s death, she sought
help in her efforts to keep Wooding's legacy alive. As
a writer and friend, I was chosen to edit and prepare Wooding’s memoir for
publication as promised.
With
Wooding's death at ninety years old in 1985, it appeared too many that the last chapter of
his life had come to a close. The case is just
the opposite for those who have been seeking information on Sam from his widow, Rae
Harrison. The Schomburg
Research
Center
for Black Studies has recently collected letters and articles on Wooding which went into
immediate requests. An archive of photos, contracts, recordings and documents are available for publication as well.
Now,
DEAN OF JAZZ, based on Wooding’s memoirs, is being shaped into an autobiography. An odyssey of a young musician's love and mastery
of a new music, his pioneering in the early jazz clubs of New York, being the first to
tour a jazz orchestra in Europe and record jazz overseas, and being the first black
orchestra to give a jazz concert anywhere. To
read the Sam Wooding story is to realize a “missing link”, the gapping omission
in our critical and historical appreciation of the development of jazz.
