calvino Posted March 15, 2012 Share Posted March 15, 2012 Throughout the 1920s, jazz was performed in scores of venues throughout the city. The South Side in particular boasted the Pekin Inn, the Lincoln Gardens Cafe, the Grand Terrace Cafe, the Sunset, Midway Gardens, the Trianon Ballroom, to name only a few of the more prominent places. Some early South Side venues catered to a racially mixed clientele, making jazz music an integrating factor in a still-segregated city. Chicago was also a center of the music recording industry, with national labels like Vocalion, Okeh, and Paramount opening local studios and producing some of the early mass-market recordings of jazz music. http://southside.uchicago.edu/History/Music.html It looks like there was an Okeh studio here on the South Side. I would like to know where. I know the U of C has a jazz special collection at their library, I am sure I can find out there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted March 16, 2012 Author Share Posted March 16, 2012 Perhaps. Columbia College has indicated they are shutting down their black music history center. What a loss. it would be interesting to kinow where the Okeh studio was. Parmount mostly recorded in Grafton, but I guess they also recorded here too. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
calvino Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Perhaps. Columbia College has indicated they are shutting down their black music history center. What a loss. it would be interesting to kinow where the Okeh studio was. Parmount mostly recorded in Grafton, but I guess they also recorded here too. LouieB Grafton, IL? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted March 16, 2012 Author Share Posted March 16, 2012 Grafton, IL?Wisconsin actually. Although Grafton IL is a pretty cool town. I have never actually been to Grafton WI, just passed it on the highway. The idea of the blues singers from the south having to go to Grafton Wisc always amazes me. But then againi alot of them ended up in NYC to record as well. How Paramount Records ended up in a backwater like that is crazy, but then again the Gennett company was in Richmond, Indiana and a bunch of great old recordings were made there as well. LouieB LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
calvino Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Never heard of Grafton, WI - spent quite a bit time in Grafton, IL (nice wineries) - that's why I wondering where the hell in Grafton, IL would there would have been a studio. The town is about a city block long. It is interesting that there was one in Grafton, WI. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LouieB Posted March 16, 2012 Author Share Posted March 16, 2012 Never heard of Grafton, WI - spent quite a bit time in Grafton, IL (nice wineries) - that's why I wondering where the hell in Grafton, IL would there would have been a studio. The town is about a city block long. It is interesting that there was one in Grafton, WI.Yea, I was in Grafton IL last year for the first time. Interesting place. Google some of the material on Paramount. There is some pretty interesting stuff about it. When you consider that most of those we now think of as the major country blues figures traveled there to cut records, it is stunning. I know this isn't about jazz any more. Someday I would like to check out Grafton WI, even though there isn't much really left there. I mean who would have thought a back water place like that would hold so much musical history. LouieB Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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