West Coast bandleader Art Hickman introduced his composition in an instrumental version in 1917 while performing in the Rose Room at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. In 1919 Columbia Records brought the band to New York to record, and they waxed “Rose Room” in a marathon session that September. The next year their recording was a bestseller for Columbia Records:

• Art Hickman and His Orchestra (1920, #5)
• Duke Ellington and His Orchestra (1932, #15)

The first recording of “Rose Room” was made by Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra for Victor Records in June, 1918. The group had a residency at the Plaza Hotel in New York and a successful recording career from 1917-1922. Their version of the number utilizes an arrangement similar to that of Hickman’s recording the following year, which might indicate that Hickman arranged the tune for publication as an orchestra “stock” which could be purchased at any music store. Yet Hickman’s recording undoubtedly scored higher with the public due to the prominently featured saxophone and Hickman’s snappy, ragtime piano solo.

It wasn’t until 1928 that a vocal version of the tune was recorded for Columbia Records. Although the band name on the label reads as the Garden Dancing Palace Orchestra, collectors and historians feel it is a Seattle-based group led by trombonist Jackie Souders. Souder’s orchestra was a popular Northwest group with a residency in the mid-1920s at Seattle’s Olympic Hotel, and vocalists Bing Crosby and Al Rinker both worked with the band before heading to Los Angeles for fame and fortune with Paul Whiteman.

“Rose Room” was an unusual tune for its time when ragtime’s popularity was fading in favor of the 32-bar song and the 12-bar blues. Composer Alec Wilder, in his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, calls it “a good, loose, natural song, definitely ahead of its time.” Wilder’s assessment is spot-on, as the tune’s heyday was during the swing era when the open melody and moving chord changes found favor with arrangers and improvisers alike.

Vocal recordings of “Rose Room” are few and far between, with good reason. The lyrics are very flowery, almost an early 20th period piece. No doubt the lyrics were tacked on by a worrisome publisher knowing that instrumental sheet music sold less than songs. The title is never even mentioned in the tune, and the lyrics’ sole purpose is to relate how wonderful it is to be in “sunny roseland,” where flowers sway and breezes blow.