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In just about every way I can think of, Benjamin “Bennie” Moten rightly belongs in the 1920s. He formed his first band as early as 1918, his first recordings (for the ubiquitous Okeh Records) moved the New Orleans jazz sound to the Midwest, though another, even earlier influence from his native Missouri came in as well: ragtime. He enjoys a niche reputation to this day: according to Wikipedia’s entry on Moten, his 1923-25 recordings for Okeh count among “the more valuable acoustic jazz 78s of the era.”
Full disclosure, I dropped Bennie Moten in the 1930s for no better reason than overlooking him while digging into the 1920s. Still, he and his Bennie Moten Orchestra hit its peak the same year the decade started. More significantly, Moten carried forward the “riffing” approach to popular music and gave jazz a Midwest-inspired spin with the “stomping beat” then popular in Kansas City. A site called The Pendergast Years (one of the few sources for this post, sadly) sums up his beginnings and influence with this intro:
“On September 23, 1923, the Bennie Moten Orchestra made its first recording consisting of eight songs. By strict musical standards, the songs themselves were unrefined and not much removed from existing blues music. But the Bennie Moten Orchestra would soon build upon its earliest recordings to develop a distinct Kansas City style of jazz that later dominated the jazz scene in the late 1930s and 1940s.”
Those two innovations became foundations for a lot of the big band sound - including that of his protégé, and future member of jazz royalty, Count Basie. While I don’t think the phrase “stomping beat” confuses anyone, I want to pause here to confirm that, yes, “riffing” means about what a casual reader thinks it does. Wikipedia’s explainer on the subject gives people from the rock era some examples (e.g., Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or AC/DC’s “Back in Black”), as an aural hook for the basic definition:
“…it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accompaniment of a musical composition.”
[Ed. - While that’s broad, digestible and accurate, I'm compelled to include this: “A riff is a short, repeated, memorable musical phrase, often pitched low on the guitar, which focuses much of the energy and excitement of a rock song,” because “excitement of a rock song.”]
That’s enough on the music. Time to meet the man.
Moten was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1894, grew up in the same and never strayed far away. He started on the piano at an early age, but, as the Pendergast site notes, he never excelled at that quite like he did with scouting talent and building it into a band.
As noted above, he formed his first band in 1918, the B.B.&D. Trio, so named for Moten (who played piano), Bailey Hancock (vocals, and the other “B”), and Dude Langford (drums, and the “D”). The trio nailed down a steady gig a the Labor Temple in Kansas City, “an important gathering place for Kansas City’s African American community as well as local labor leaders, black and white. From there and into the early 1920s, they anchored a Kansas City-centered jazz scene “that was a great source of pride within the black community.”
1923 saw Moten expand his sturdy trio into the full-blow Bennie Moten Orchestra. By the time of his first (and first for KC) recordings, he called on top local talent like cornetist Lammar Wright, trombonist Thamon Hayes, clarinetist Woody Walder and Willie Hall on drums. A local establishment, Winston Holmes Music Store, made the arrangements to get Moten’s Orchestra in touch with the Chicago-based Okeh and they laid down their first famous (and apparently collectible) tunes: “Selma ‘Bama Blues,” “Chattanooga Blues,” “Break o’ Day Blues,” “Evil Mama Blues,” "Elephant’s Wobble,” “Crawdad Blues,” “Waco Texas Blues,” and “Ill-Natured Blues.” [Ed. - Any people following this series, or who just know the history of early blues will hear echoes of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (both profiled earlier) from the days when women fronted blues bands.] It bears noting that Winston Holmes had “concentrated on blues music” to that point.
The Bennie Moten Orchestra’s growing fame opened up new opportunities and venues, including those overseen by Kansas City’s famous political boss, Tom Pendergast (the same man who gave Harry Truman his start) and a local gangster/bootlegger name Johnny Lazia. Between them, the boss and the mobster “worked with” the local police to allow the dancing, drinking, gambling and prostitution to go on without interference, ushering in a thriving /nightlife music scene in the heart of the American Midwest. The Pendergast Years expands on the music that developed in jazz-age Kansas City:
“Their music became known as the ‘Kansas City style,’ characterized by complex rhythms, carefully restrained drum beats, and especially riffs. Riffs referred to the practice of using rhythms to accompany the soloists who became the main focus.”
Moten called in new members throughout the 1920s and, as noted in Wikipedia, continued to develop his sound. When Fletcher Henderson’s more “sophisticated” sound had reached KC, Moten folded it in; when boogie-woogie boiled up from the eastern Texas border country (as profiled earlier), Moten incorporated that as well. Two of his most famous tunes come out of the late 1920s, “Kansas City Shuffle” and, his most enduring number, “South,” both of which he recorded for Victor Records. During the same period, Moten found three key members to orient his orchestra’s sound toward what was to follow: Basie, Walter Page and Oran “Hot Lips” page, along with a regular vocalist named Jimmy Rushing. Here’s Wikipedia on the shift:
“Walter Page's walking bass lines gave the music an entirely new feel compared to the 2/4 tuba of his predecessor Vernon Page, colored by Basie's understated, syncopated piano fills. Another boon to the band was adding Jimmy Rushing as their primary vocalist.”
Even though his influence continued - particularly when Basie relocated to New York City with his Kansas-City-inspired “Basie Sound” - Moten’s story more or less trails off from there. Though he recorded during the first years of the Great Depression, they struggled along with the everyone else in the industry. Despite “significant financial hardship, the Bennie Moten Orchestra would record some of its most famous, music-forward songs in 1932 sessions with Victor, including “Moten Swing,” “New Orleans,” “Milenberg Joys,” and “Prince of Wails” (and not “Prince of Wales”; all of which made the sampler).
Bennie Moten passed out of the blue in 1935, when what should have been a routine tonsillectomy went wrong.
About the Sampler
I’ve covered quite a few up above, not least because I drew from the few sources I had on Bennie Moten to whittle down his catalog. I needed that too because Spotify’s collection of Moten’s music files it under different names and scatters it across several collections under them. In the end, I drew from just two of those collections - both fair-sized on their own - The Doxy Collection and Moten Swing (The Best of). To break them down by collection, and excluding songs linked to above:
From Doxy: “18th Street Strut,” “Thick Lip Stomp,” “Justrite,” “Kater Street Rag,” “Sugar,” “Twelfth Street Rag,” “Moten Stomp,” “The Only Girl I Ever Loved,” and “Two Times.”
From Moten Swing: “I Wanna Be Around My Baby All the Time,” “Toby,” “Lafayette,” “Imagination,” “Ya Got Love,” “Professor Hot Stuff,” “As Long as I Love You,” “Somebody Stole My Gal,” “Get Goin’,” and “When I’m Alone.”
Musically…yeah, anything approximating the 1920s sound has started to wear on me, it’s decades outside my experience and I’m a simple, simple man who developed an over-reliance on vocals to hold together a tune. And yet, Moten’s innovations - the repeated rhythmic patterns and steady beat - prefigures modern pop music and, when he really pushed things forward, sounds as much like modern popular music as anything on his side of Cab Calloway (profiled earlier). A man ahead of his time, and he missed it to boot. He lingered in pop culture - e.g., “South” owed its longevity to becoming a staple of the post-war jukebox era - but Count Basie eclipsed him to become the standard-bearer of the Kansas City sound.
Until the next one…and Count Basie will come one after that.
Full disclosure, I dropped Bennie Moten in the 1930s for no better reason than overlooking him while digging into the 1920s. Still, he and his Bennie Moten Orchestra hit its peak the same year the decade started. More significantly, Moten carried forward the “riffing” approach to popular music and gave jazz a Midwest-inspired spin with the “stomping beat” then popular in Kansas City. A site called The Pendergast Years (one of the few sources for this post, sadly) sums up his beginnings and influence with this intro:
“On September 23, 1923, the Bennie Moten Orchestra made its first recording consisting of eight songs. By strict musical standards, the songs themselves were unrefined and not much removed from existing blues music. But the Bennie Moten Orchestra would soon build upon its earliest recordings to develop a distinct Kansas City style of jazz that later dominated the jazz scene in the late 1930s and 1940s.”
Those two innovations became foundations for a lot of the big band sound - including that of his protégé, and future member of jazz royalty, Count Basie. While I don’t think the phrase “stomping beat” confuses anyone, I want to pause here to confirm that, yes, “riffing” means about what a casual reader thinks it does. Wikipedia’s explainer on the subject gives people from the rock era some examples (e.g., Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or AC/DC’s “Back in Black”), as an aural hook for the basic definition:
“…it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accompaniment of a musical composition.”
[Ed. - While that’s broad, digestible and accurate, I'm compelled to include this: “A riff is a short, repeated, memorable musical phrase, often pitched low on the guitar, which focuses much of the energy and excitement of a rock song,” because “excitement of a rock song.”]
That’s enough on the music. Time to meet the man.
Moten was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1894, grew up in the same and never strayed far away. He started on the piano at an early age, but, as the Pendergast site notes, he never excelled at that quite like he did with scouting talent and building it into a band.
As noted above, he formed his first band in 1918, the B.B.&D. Trio, so named for Moten (who played piano), Bailey Hancock (vocals, and the other “B”), and Dude Langford (drums, and the “D”). The trio nailed down a steady gig a the Labor Temple in Kansas City, “an important gathering place for Kansas City’s African American community as well as local labor leaders, black and white. From there and into the early 1920s, they anchored a Kansas City-centered jazz scene “that was a great source of pride within the black community.”
1923 saw Moten expand his sturdy trio into the full-blow Bennie Moten Orchestra. By the time of his first (and first for KC) recordings, he called on top local talent like cornetist Lammar Wright, trombonist Thamon Hayes, clarinetist Woody Walder and Willie Hall on drums. A local establishment, Winston Holmes Music Store, made the arrangements to get Moten’s Orchestra in touch with the Chicago-based Okeh and they laid down their first famous (and apparently collectible) tunes: “Selma ‘Bama Blues,” “Chattanooga Blues,” “Break o’ Day Blues,” “Evil Mama Blues,” "Elephant’s Wobble,” “Crawdad Blues,” “Waco Texas Blues,” and “Ill-Natured Blues.” [Ed. - Any people following this series, or who just know the history of early blues will hear echoes of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (both profiled earlier) from the days when women fronted blues bands.] It bears noting that Winston Holmes had “concentrated on blues music” to that point.
The Bennie Moten Orchestra’s growing fame opened up new opportunities and venues, including those overseen by Kansas City’s famous political boss, Tom Pendergast (the same man who gave Harry Truman his start) and a local gangster/bootlegger name Johnny Lazia. Between them, the boss and the mobster “worked with” the local police to allow the dancing, drinking, gambling and prostitution to go on without interference, ushering in a thriving /nightlife music scene in the heart of the American Midwest. The Pendergast Years expands on the music that developed in jazz-age Kansas City:
“Their music became known as the ‘Kansas City style,’ characterized by complex rhythms, carefully restrained drum beats, and especially riffs. Riffs referred to the practice of using rhythms to accompany the soloists who became the main focus.”
Moten called in new members throughout the 1920s and, as noted in Wikipedia, continued to develop his sound. When Fletcher Henderson’s more “sophisticated” sound had reached KC, Moten folded it in; when boogie-woogie boiled up from the eastern Texas border country (as profiled earlier), Moten incorporated that as well. Two of his most famous tunes come out of the late 1920s, “Kansas City Shuffle” and, his most enduring number, “South,” both of which he recorded for Victor Records. During the same period, Moten found three key members to orient his orchestra’s sound toward what was to follow: Basie, Walter Page and Oran “Hot Lips” page, along with a regular vocalist named Jimmy Rushing. Here’s Wikipedia on the shift:
“Walter Page's walking bass lines gave the music an entirely new feel compared to the 2/4 tuba of his predecessor Vernon Page, colored by Basie's understated, syncopated piano fills. Another boon to the band was adding Jimmy Rushing as their primary vocalist.”
Even though his influence continued - particularly when Basie relocated to New York City with his Kansas-City-inspired “Basie Sound” - Moten’s story more or less trails off from there. Though he recorded during the first years of the Great Depression, they struggled along with the everyone else in the industry. Despite “significant financial hardship, the Bennie Moten Orchestra would record some of its most famous, music-forward songs in 1932 sessions with Victor, including “Moten Swing,” “New Orleans,” “Milenberg Joys,” and “Prince of Wails” (and not “Prince of Wales”; all of which made the sampler).
Bennie Moten passed out of the blue in 1935, when what should have been a routine tonsillectomy went wrong.
About the Sampler
I’ve covered quite a few up above, not least because I drew from the few sources I had on Bennie Moten to whittle down his catalog. I needed that too because Spotify’s collection of Moten’s music files it under different names and scatters it across several collections under them. In the end, I drew from just two of those collections - both fair-sized on their own - The Doxy Collection and Moten Swing (The Best of). To break them down by collection, and excluding songs linked to above:
From Doxy: “18th Street Strut,” “Thick Lip Stomp,” “Justrite,” “Kater Street Rag,” “Sugar,” “Twelfth Street Rag,” “Moten Stomp,” “The Only Girl I Ever Loved,” and “Two Times.”
From Moten Swing: “I Wanna Be Around My Baby All the Time,” “Toby,” “Lafayette,” “Imagination,” “Ya Got Love,” “Professor Hot Stuff,” “As Long as I Love You,” “Somebody Stole My Gal,” “Get Goin’,” and “When I’m Alone.”
Musically…yeah, anything approximating the 1920s sound has started to wear on me, it’s decades outside my experience and I’m a simple, simple man who developed an over-reliance on vocals to hold together a tune. And yet, Moten’s innovations - the repeated rhythmic patterns and steady beat - prefigures modern pop music and, when he really pushed things forward, sounds as much like modern popular music as anything on his side of Cab Calloway (profiled earlier). A man ahead of his time, and he missed it to boot. He lingered in pop culture - e.g., “South” owed its longevity to becoming a staple of the post-war jukebox era - but Count Basie eclipsed him to become the standard-bearer of the Kansas City sound.
Until the next one…and Count Basie will come one after that.
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