(details/comments are copied from the original source)
"Don't Tell Your Monkey Man" Tim Brymn and his Black Devils Orch. Rec'd May 1921 Okeh
"Blackbottom" Annette Hanshaw vocal. Composed by Buddy De Sylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. Rec'd: Sept. 12, 1926, New York, NY for Pathe Actuelle.
"Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" McKinneys' Cotton Pickers. Rec'd: July 12, 1928, Chicago, Illinois. (Victor 21611-B). Written by Spencer Williams
"Down By The Levee" Albert Wynn's Creole Jazz Band, with Cornetist Punch Miller on vocal. Rec'd: October 2, 1928 in Chicago. (Vocalion 1220)
"Dallas Rag" 'The Dallas String Band' from 1927. This group, an early Texas country band, has been called 'the only black string band in history".
"Darktown Strutter's Ball" Mound City Blue Blowers. ca. 1924 [great kazoo... if that's not oxymoronic, or worse]
"Castle Walk" James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra. Rec'd: Feb. 10, 1914, New York, NY (Victor 17553). Composed by James Reese Europe and Ford Dabney (the Pianist), for the famed Castles dance team.
"Johnson Jass Blues" Frisco Jass Band. Rec'd: May 10, 1917 Edison Diamond Disc (Matrix number: 5553-C-2-1) Released: July of 1918 (Release number: 50470-L). Composed: by E. Arnold Johnson
"St. Louis Blues" W. C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band (the composers own band.) Recorded In January of 1922 in New York City for Paramount. (Parmount 20098) According to ASCAP, this was the most recorded song of the first half of the 20th Century, out done only by Franz Shubert's "Silent Night".
"Don't Bring Lulu" The Little Ramblers. fine solos by Red Nichols on cornet (who already improvises the first chorus), Tommy Dorsey (trombone), a clarinet solo that is believed to be by Jimmy Dorsey and drummer Stan King's kazoo, but it is Adrian Rollini's quiet work on bass sax in the background that carries the number. The new electrical recording system was an enormous improvement and from this point the quality of those recordings is quite startling. The timbre of Rollini's bass-sax is particularly well captured by the new recording method.
"Yelping Hound Blues" The Louisiana Five Jazz Orchestra with an April Fool's Day, 1919 Columbia label recording.Written by Anton Lada, Yellow Nuņez & Joe Cawley
Livery Stable Blues W.C.Handy's Orch. of Memphis. Sept. 25, 1917
Maple Leaf Rag The New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Rec'd: March 13, 1923, in Richmond, Indiana (Gennett 5102). Composed by Scott Joplin
"Steel String Blues" Tiny Parham and his Musicians. Composed by Tiny. Rec'd: October 25, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois for Victor.
"Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" rec'd: Chicago, IL, USA. Vocalion on Dec. 29, 1928. (Vocalion 1245) Clarence "Pine Top" Smith was born January 11, 1904, in Troy, AL, USA. A self-taught player who ranks among the most influential blues figures of the 1920s.
"Tain't No Sin To Take Off Your Skin And Dance Around In Your Bones" Marty Grosz, on piano and vocal.
"Ev'rybody Shimmies Now (Introducing 'Give Me A Syncopated Tune')" All Star Trio. Composed by J. Gold & E. J. Porray. Recorded November 5, 1919 in New York, New York by Victor. (Victor 18626-A) The All Star Trio consisted of either Victor Arden or Max Kortlander on Piano, George Hamilton Green on Xylophone and Wheeler Wadsworth on Saxophone.
These are collected for other purposes --orientalist mostly
"Allah's Holiday" Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. (Red Nichols, Jimmy Dorsey, Arthur Schutt, Vic Berton, Miff Mole, Eddie Lang.)
"Here Comes Fatima" California Ramblers. Rec'd: Columbia Records, New York, NY. Oct. 25, 1925.
"In Blinky Winky Chinky Chinatown" Vic Berton's Orchestra Rec'd: March 25, 1935 in New York, NY for Vocalion.
"Chinaman Blues" Erskine Tate Vendome Orch. Chicago, IL June 8, 1923
"Soudan" This tune, and the one immediately below has some interest. The Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band went on to record and play in London in 1920. They recorded 20 tracks for Columbia while in London, including this big hit, "Soudan." (recorded May 14, 1920. Columbia 829) This "Soudan" was composed by Gabriel Sebek (dates unknown).
"Sudan" Raderman's Novelty Orch. Rec'd: ca 1920, Montreal, Canada by Berliner. This "Sudan" was composed by Lew Pollack and Ed Rose. While the two songs are different, they were both meant to be "Oriental Style", and both played here by a "Jazz" band. It's a good opportunity to compare Raderman's Jazz with the ODJB above. Raderman's version was released in September 1920.
"Siam Soo" The Happy Six. rec'd New York Feb. 8 in 1921. Columbia A3379 Matrix 79717. once-upon-a-time a type of dancing called 'Siam Dancing' was quite popular. So popular that the Columbia Grafanola folks made and sold a little gadget that you could put on top of a record as it played. The gadget consisted of a little doll that danced while the record went around and around. And - guess what, the doll's name was Siam Soo. Columbia was so proud of it that had a couple of folks, Motzan & Jerome, write a song by that name. They also had one of their popular recording bands, The Happy Six, record the song.
"Second Hand Rose" Van Eps Trio. ca. 1920.