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“Chicago Jazz” is a term created in the 1930s to identify the free-wheeling, New Orleans-inspired jazz initially played by young, generally middle-class white musicians from Midwest America. Guitarist, bandleader, nightclub owner and organizer Eddie Condon (from Indiana) spent his life promoting Chicago Jazz. His first session, on December 8, 1927, is a benchmark in the style. The group, which included drummer Gene Krupa, pianist Joe Sullivan, and short-lived but much-admired clarinetist Frank Teschmaker (on their first recordings), made jazz standards of the two tunes they recorded that day, “China Boy” and “Sugar.” Cornetist Muggsy Spanier, a true Chicagoan, spent much of his youth enraptured with the New Orleans jazz played by his idols Louis Armstrong and Joe “King” Oliver when they held forth at the Lincoln Gardens nightspot. A 1940 session for indie Commodore Records combines Spanier with vocalist Lee Wiley and Benny Goodman’s pianist, Jess Stacy, for a moving version of Maceo Pinkard’s tune.
Chris Tyle - Jazz Musician and Historian
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