New Orleans Rhythm Kings - Recordings

Recordings

In 1922 the group released the first of several records for Gennett Records, which is located in Richmond, Indiana. Gennett Records was famously built next to a railroad track, which was cursed by many frustrated musicians whose recording sessions were disturbed by the rattling trains.

In the first session at Gennett, the Friars Society Orchestra (The name that they released the record under) recorded 8 songs: “Panama”, “Tiger Rag”, “Livery Stable Blues” representing the New Orleans Jazz “standbys” as well as some originals of the group, “ Oriental”, “Discontented Blues”, and “Farewell Blues” as well as a never-released ODJB song called “Eccentric”. Paul Mares scheduled another two-day recording session at Gennett later but the band had recently dissolved somewhat, deciding to all move in different directions following their stint at the Friars Inn. For the session Mares got Brunies, Roppolo, Stitzel, and Pollack together to release a record under the name New Orlean’s Rhythm Kings, the first time the name was really used since the days that it had referred to Bee Palmer’s travelling vaudeville act.

This proved to be a fantastic idea: the New Orleans Rhythm Kings were outstanding in that they played a more serious, crafted music than then-famous white jazz group the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB). While the ODJB advertised their music as a novelty act, the NORK sought to distance themselves from the popular image of jazz as novelty and instead market it as a genuine musical genre.

The third recording session occurred after Mares and Roppolo had spent some time playing in a small band in New York. They returned to Chicago and scheduled another session with Gennett Records as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. This session is particularly notable because of the participation of famed jazz pianist and arranger Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. Morton was a Creole from New Orleans, and though he identified strongly with the white “French” side of being Creole, he was generally viewed by society as black (though he was fairly light-skinned and could sometimes "pass" as Latin-American and therefore was subjected to many of the same social pressures as other blacks of the day. In 1923 the country was still largely racially segregated, which included the jazz bands. White bands were beginning to spring up attempting to imitate the “hot” jazz style that the black musicians played, but rarely did any racial mixing occur in a professional setting (In a non-professional setting, however it was becoming more and more common). Jelly Roll Morton’s participation in recording with the all white New Orleans Rhythm Kings was history in the making: it is an early example of mixed race recordings.

Paul Mares and Leon Roppolo went on to do two more recording sessions in New Orleans under the name “New Orleans Rhythm Kings” in 1925 before the group dissolved altogether and went their separate ways.