The History of Jazz Read Free

records sold well, and by the following year the number of releases increased to five hundred. To meet the growing demand, companies sent talent scouts on field trips to find and record promising black musicians. No fewer than seventeen field trips, for example, were made by record industry representatives to Atlanta during the late 1920s, while Memphis, Dallas, and New Orleans were also frequent stopping points for these song-seeking expeditions. 23
    Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, who was born in Columbus, Georgia, on April 26, 1886, typified the first generation of blues divas. Together with her husband Will—or “Pa Rainey” as he was sometimes called—this immensely popular artist toured the South as part of a traveling minstrel show. She recorded extensively in the mid-1920s, and her throbbing contralto voice graced over one hundred records during a five-year period. In stark contrast to the country blues singers, who usually accompanied themselves, Rainey recorded with some of the finest jazz musicians of her day, including Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins. Her career also reflected the sharp difference between the informal blues stylings of the Delta and other rural areas and the polished stage presentations that marked the classic blues as commercial fare for a mass audience. The Delta musician often traveled with little more than a guitar in hand; in contrast, Rainey brought four trunks of props, backdrops, lighting, and other show business trappings, as well as a lavish array of costumes and fashion accessories. Rainey’s performances served to entertain, indeed to dazzle; they incorporated humor as a characteristic element; and they revealed a more overt connection to the popular music, minstrel shows, and jazz of the day. But a deep artistry coexisted with the theatrical aspects of Rainey’s work. In a piece such as “Yonder Come the Blues,” recorded in 1926, the virtues of her singing are readily apparent: her straightforward declarative manner of presenting a lyric, her succulent held notes, which hang in the air like ripe fruit from the tree, and her sure sense of time, which propels the rest of the band. Rainey’s recordings span a scant half-decade. Like many musicians of her generation, Rainey’s career was irreparably hurt by the barren economic prospects of the 1930s. In 1935, Rainey retired from performing and returned to her native Georgia, where she became active in the Baptist Church. She died in Rome, Georgia, on December 22, 1939.
    Bessie Smith, a protégée of Rainey’s, stands out as the greatest of the classic blues singers. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, probably on April 15, 1894 (although the 1900 census gives an 1892 date), Smith began singing and dancing on street corners for spare change around the age of nine. In her midteens, Smith went on the road as a member of Ma Rainey’s touring show, and though Rainey has often been credited as a mentor and teacher to the younger singer, the exact extent of this education is a matter of conjecture. Smith’s deeply resonant voice was probably evident from the start and may have been the key factor in getting her the job with the Rainey troupe. On the other hand, Rainey’s skills as a performer, as well as her mastery of the blues repertoire, must have been an inspiration to this teenage newcomer to the world of traveling shows.
    Smith soon came to surpass her teacher in the variety of her melodic inventions, her impressive pitch control, and the expressive depth of her music. Inevitably the younger vocalist decided to leave Rainey to further her own career, and was initially employed as a singer for Milton Starr’s theater circuit, the infamous TOBA—which stood ostensibly for Theatre Owner’s Booking Agency, but which was often referred to by black performers, with grim humor, as Tough on Black Artists (or sometimes as Tough on Black Asses). In Smith’s case, the caustic acronym was well deserved: as a TOBA artist she joined Pete