The description of Beckley, the seat of Raleigh County (which straddled both the New River and Winding Gulf coalfields), is revealing of the number of rural communities economically joined to those county seats: “Beckley... is the hub around which revolves the life of more than 200 small mining communities, farming communities, and railroad junctions. Called the ‘smokeless coal capital of the world,’ Beckley is the center of a large area, which annually produces 50 million tons of the finest steam and domestic coals” (West Virginia Writers Project 1941, 458).2
Beckley and its counterparts elsewhere in the coalfields were also sites of National Guard armories, which more than any other location served as venues for dances organized for black Mountaineers. They were large enough to accommodate several hundred people and were regularly rented for such events. The gymnasia of black high schools were also used for dances, though not as frequently. The Alhambra Night Club, founded only in the late 1930s and located in the Ferguson Hotel in Charleston, a black-owned establishment catering to African American travelers, and the Elks Rest, headquarters of the Monongahela Elks Club, a black fraternal organization, were the only nightspots catering exclusively to African Americans in the Mountain State. On certain occasions nightclubs normally patronized by whites could be rented for a dance, one being the Vanity Fair in Huntington, the seat of Cabell County on the Ohio River.
Those responsible for organizing dances for black Mountaineers and engaging bands to play for them may be divided into two groups: social organizations and entrepreneurial individuals residing in the county seats. Both groups were dominated by members of the black middle class. Among the social organizations that booked bands for their own dances were the West Virginia State College Club, which held a dance at Huntington’s Vanity Fair for which Noble Sissle was engaged in December 1930 (PC 12.27.30, 1/8). Another was the Bears, a men’s club in Fairmont that booked two Chicago bands, Walter Barnes’s Royal Creolians and Erskine Tate’s Orchestra, to play at the local armory on separate occasions in 1931 (PC 2.21.31, 2/31; 5.23.31, 2/6). The Parent-Teacher and Alumni Associations of Dubois High School co-sponsored a Colonial Ball on February 19, 1932, at the armory in Mount Hope, northwest of Beckley (and, as noted above, less than two miles from the Price Hill mine) for which a band called the Campus Nighthawks provided music (PC 2.20.32, 2/3). On July 21, 1934, the Southern West Virginia Negro Democratic Convention ended with a dance at the armory in Logan at which Speed Webb’s band from Indianapolis performed (PC 7.14.34, 1/5).
The newspaper record of the period demonstrates that individuals took far more responsibility for booking bands and holding dances than did social organizations. Such work constituted a second source of income for most of these local bookers, but one that entailed a certain amount of financial risk, because only a large turnout could make these entrepreneurs a profit. Samuel Carpenter and his partner James Jackson (then bellhops at the Fairmont Hotel) lost money when they booked Blanche Calloway’s band to play at the Fairmont armory on June 26, 1931, because too few people attended the dance (PC 6.27.31, 2/8). Others fared better. James A. West, butler for a white Fairmont family and sometime local correspondent for the Pittsburgh Courier; Vernon Morrow, a “driver” according to the 1934 Fairmont City Directory; and Quenton Dalton, occupation unknown but allegedly a numbers runner, profitably booked the Sunset Royal Serenaders from Miami, Florida, into the Fairmont armory in July and again in October 1934 (PC 7.28.43, 2/6; WV 10.5.34, 2). In Huntington, Sylvester Massey, owner of a hotel and restaurant catering to African Americans, went beyond booking isolated engagements by acting as regional booker for Alphonso Trent’s band in August and September 1930, when it was touring the West Virginia-Ohio-Kentucky region. In 1935 Massey booked Ruth Ellington and Her Orchestra for a dance at Huntington’s Vanity Fair (PC 8.30.30, 2/7; 12.28.35, 2/7).
The most prominent booker of the period from 1935 until 1940 appears to have been George Edward Morton (1909–1940), a resident of Beckley. An alumnus of West Virginia State College, Class of 1935, he began booking bands that same year, starting with a dance at the armory in Beckley for which Earl “Fatha” Hines provided music (Flippen 2005; PC 3.30.35, 2/9). So central is Morton to the big band scene in the Mountain State between 1935 and the year of his untimely death that he will be the focus of attention in chapter 8 of this study, where his activities and their significance will be examined in detail. At this point, it will suffice to note that he worked as a regional booking agent for Joe Glaser, initially during Glaser’s association with the Rockwell-O’Keefe agency in New York and later when he headed Associated Booking Artists as manager of numerous bands. Collaborating with associates throughout the southern coalfields and at least one residing in Fairmont in the northern field, Morton repeatedly engaged virtually all of the leading black bands of the swing era for multiple performances in West Virginia.
The promotional activities of Morton and his counterparts throughout the coalfield counties drew miners from the company towns to the county seats and other larger communities where dances were held. The frequency of engagements by national bands and the sizes of the crowds attending most of those dances give reason for taking seriously Herbert Hall’s recollection that all the bands went to the Mountain State because of the high levels of employment in the mines. What is to be demonstrated is that, thanks to the Bituminous Coal Code, West Virginia’s comparatively prosperous mining industry enabled black miners in the Mountain State to pay touring dance bands more per engagement than did African American dancers (and European American ones, for that matter) elsewhere in the region. Recall that Hall’s testimony set West Virginia apart from other states by virtue of its mining industry and the consequent high levels of employment and wages. The next chapter will discuss in detail the compelling evidence in support of Hall’s contention.
CHAPTER TWO
Validating Herbert Hall’s Contention: Paul Barnes’s Gig Book
Herbert Hall’s recollection that “all the bands were goin’ through West Virginia in the 1930s because [emphasis added] the mines were in operation... and everyone was employed” is supported by evidence found in a rarely encountered document: a record kept by the saxophonist/clarinetist Paul D. Barnes (1901–1981) documenting various details of his performances. The term used by certain jazz musicians for such a volume is “gig book.”
A native of New Orleans and known there by his nickname “Polo,” Barnes’s musical career was largely played out in the Crescent City and elsewhere in Louisiana, first as co-leader of the Original Diamond Band with Lawrence Marrero beginning in 1919, later as sideman in bands led respectively by Henry “Kid” Rena, Oscar “Papa” Celestin, and Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. During three separate periods—1927, 1931, and 1934–35—he played for Joe Oliver. In 1932, in between the latter stints with Oliver, he led his own band, the Paul D. Barnes Orchestra. After he left Oliver in 1935, he returned to New Orleans for the next fifteen years or so. After that he divided his time between California and his home town, ultimately playing at Preservation Hall. He retired in 1977. In sum, “Polo” Barnes was one of the legion of highly capable sidemen to come out of New Orleans—“full of elegance and impeccable taste,” was how Marcel Joly characterized his playing in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz—but an individual whose career does not loom large in jazz history. Perhaps more so than for the legacy of his recordings, Barnes merits attention for what his gig book tells us about daily life in one black band in the mid-1930s (Joly 1988, 73).
Barnes’s diary would ultimately fill most of two ledger books covering the period from 1933 to 1952. Each was twelve inches high and seven and a half inches wide, a size that meant each could have traveled in one of his instrument cases. The first covers the period from 1933 to early October 1935. The second embraces a much longer time span, though in less detail: from October 10, 1935, to August 2, 1952.1
What motivated Barnes to maintain such a document may in part be inferred from the fact that the initial entries were made durin
g the period when he led his own band. Having kept records of his own operation during 1933 and 1934, he simply maintained the habit when he joined Oliver. While entries varied in length, almost without exception all provided the following information: the name of the town in which the band played, the race of the audience (either “colored” or white), as well as the amount of money paid to each member of the band. Accompanying many entries were annotations describing various incidents that occurred during the band’s tour, from quarrels among musicians to breakdowns of the band’s bus. What follows is a transcription of entries for December 25 to 28, 1934, reproduced in Figure 2.1:
Dec 25th Orchestra leaves Huntington and Play dance at Ashland, Ky colored @ $5.00 William Purnell joins Orchestra—Orch returns to Huntington W.Va.
Wed. Dec 26th Orchestra Plays Welch West Va white world war Veterans’ Hall—@ $4.00 reside overnight.
Thursday Dec 27th Orchestra plays Williamson W. Va. (Col) @$4.00 on this trip (to Williamson) from Welch The left front wheel of the buss [sic] was coming off. Eldridge who was riding on the outside saw it in time to prevent an injury—Orch hires truck and taxi to town about 8 miles.
Friday Dec 28th Orchestra hires taxie [sic] to Kermit W. Va.—White—@ $4.71—tips included—Lionel Bob goes on train—Buck brings the Buss afterward and get it stalled near dance Place. Bob gets truck to Push Buss [sic] which got it started.
Fig. 2.1. The upper portion of page 68 of Paul Barnes’s “Gig Book,” showing citations for December 25–28, 1934, concerning engagements in Ashland, KY, as well as in Welch, Williamson, and Kermit, WV. (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)
One piece of information that Barnes provided, though not consistently, was the gross amount paid to the band’s manager, Ross McConnell, by the organizers of the dances for which the band performed. McConnell had joined the band as booking agent in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on April 2, 1934, perhaps not coincidentally the first date on which Barnes recorded his affiliation with Oliver. McConnell’s presence may have aroused Barnes’s attention, since having managed a band himself he may have been curious to learn how another manager might operate.
From early April until the end of September of that year, the band played mostly in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. It appeared on two occasions in Williamson, West Virginia, and also played in Virginia. On the last day of September, it arrived in Huntington, West Virginia, and Oliver and/or McConnell apparently decided soon thereafter that the band would use that city as its base of operations for an indefinite period. There are several reasons, some logistical, others economic, that may have accounted for this.
Table 2.1. Engagements Played by King Oliver’s Brunswick Recording Orchestra during the period of the Huntington, West Virginia, “residency,” October 1934 to February 1935.
With a population of 75,572 in 1930, Huntington was the largest city in the state and the largest city in the Ohio Valley between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Its size alone may have been attractive: where there are a lot of people, there may be gigs. It also had a small black community that could provide accommodations for the band. Among its residents was Sylvester Massey, owner of a hotel and restaurant catering to African Americans, whose activities were occasionally reported on in the Pittsburgh Courier, including his work as regional booking agent for Alphonso Trent’s band during what turned out to be an ill-fated tour of the upper Midwest (PC 9.6.30, 2/6). Presumably, either McConnell or Oliver might have known of Massey and may have hoped that, given his prior experience, he could assist in setting up engagements in West Virginia and adjacent states.
From a logistical standpoint, Huntington had other attractions. West of the highest ridges of the mountains and lying on the south side of the Ohio River, it was the junction of three major east-west highways through the Appalachians. Perhaps the most important was U.S. Highway 52 that paralleled the route of the Norfolk & Western Railway through the heart of the southern coalfields where potentially large African American audiences might be found. Highways running west, north, and south from Huntington provided equally easy access to Kentucky and Ohio as well.
By the end of the summer of 1934, evidence was mounting of the improved economy of West Virginia, thanks to the positive impact of the Bituminous Coal Code. From the perspective of Oliver’s musicians, who had played their way from New Orleans north to the Midwest that summer, such news might well have provided sufficient incentive to take up residence in the Mountain State, at least for a time.
Table 2.2. Financial data and analysis of 21 West Virginia dances (10/1/34-2/25/35) for which Joe Oliver’s Band provided music.
Summary:
Notes
1. Barnes noted that the earnings per musician at the end of the engagement in Kermit included tips.
2. Barnes’s reference to “Jews” was explained by a report in the Huntington Advertiser, December 31, 1934, that the Oliver Band was performing for a dance sponsored by the local chapter of B’nai B’rith held at the Spring Valley Country Club just outside of Huntington.
In the five-month period from the beginning of October 1934 to the end of February, Oliver’s band played a total of fifty-three engagements: twenty-two in West Virginia, the remainder in seven other states. Table 2.1 arranges these figures by month (reading from left to right) and by state (reading from top to bottom). This table reveals that the most extensive touring by the band during this period occurred in October before winter would hamper travel through the central Appalachians even with the best of vehicles at one’s disposal. The most frequently visited state outside West Virginia throughout this period was Kentucky, in which the band performed eight times: once each in Harlan, Jenkins, and Lexington, twice in Maysville, and three times in Ashland. With the sole exception of the Harlan engagement, the audiences for the band’s Kentucky appearances were African American, and apart from the Lexington and Maysville gigs, all of the engagements were in or very close to the eastern Kentucky coalfields.
The Oliver Band’s Earnings in West Virginia
Knowing where the band played facilitates a comparative study of the wages it earned in West Virginia and those earned elsewhere. Drawing on Barnes’s record of wages paid to each musician, I will begin with the band’s earnings for the twenty-one engagements it played in the Mountain State (see Table 2.2).
The wide variation in income per dance shown in this table, as well as in the next one, serves as a reminder that not all bands were paid the fixed fee that Joe Glaser demanded for the New York–based bands he managed. The vast majority of black dance bands in the 1930s did not have national managers. Instead, they either relied on the services of a regional booker or upon their own ingenuity to find engagements. Rather than being paid by the week, they were paid by the gig, and the amount each player received was a reflection of the total number of tickets sold for the dance.
Bands operating in this context played what were called “percentage dates.” The organizer of the dance agreed to pay the band a certain percentage of the gate, one standard being 70 percent. In turn, musicians were compensated according to the “commonwealth” principle, meaning that the total amount paid to the band was divided into equal shares among the musicians. In some instances, the leader might take two shares, and it was also the case among the more fiscally prudent bands that a certain percentage be held out to cover travel costs to the next engagement. Such expenses could include those attendant with maintaining and fueling the band’s bus or its several automobiles, depending on the preferred mode of transportation.2 An open question was how much did the organizer of the dance take in? Sensing that bands all too often were shortchanged, many band leaders made it a point to count the number of attendees in an effort to ensure they were not cheated out of some portion of their earnings by the local booker.3
The Oliver Band’s Income from Dances in States Adjacent to West Virginia and in the Deep South
With the data from West Virginia engagements providing a basis for comparison, attention now turns to the
earnings of King Oliver’s band from twenty-nine engagements played in neighboring states during the same five-month period, shown in Table 2.3. The band played three additional dances as well; however, Paul Barnes neglected to indicate the race of the audience for these three engagements, so their data are not included here.
The contrast is dramatic between income earned in West Virginia and in the other states it visited during its Huntington residency. This is most obvious when comparing the total earnings of the band in each category. For twenty-one dances in-state, it must have received at least $741.00 in order that each player receive the wages Barnes recorded in his gig book, whereas for the twenty-nine dances played elsewhere in the region, it received a total of only $399.76. The difference of $342.24 means that those twenty-nine engagements earned just 54 percent of what the band was paid for playing twenty-one engagements in the Mountain State. Comparing individual earnings shows similar gaps. Black dances in West Virginia paid slightly more than 62 percent of all income from black audiences, while white dances in-state paid 73 percent of all income from white patrons.
My earlier assertion that black miners’ wages were superior to those of African Americans living both in the industrial North and in the agricultural and even urban South is corroborated by Paul Barnes’s continued documentation of income from King Oliver’s engagements following the band’s departure from West Virginia on March 31, 1935, until he quit the band in Biloxi, Mississippi, at the end of June. During that three-month period, the band worked the southeastern states, playing for forty-four dances in Florida, fifteen in Georgia, and a dozen in North Carolina, in addition to engagements in Mississippi and South Carolina (ten each), Alabama (five), and Louisiana and Virginia (one apiece): in all, ninety-eight engagements. Of these, Barnes noted that eighty-eight were for black audiences and four (all in Florida) were for white dancers. In six instances, he neglected to indicate the race entertained.
Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia Page 7
