The Chocolate Dandies was the moniker used by different bands from the late 1920s through the early 1940s. This UK record from Parlaphone compiles tracks led by either Don Redman or Benny Carter between 1928 and 1933. The name of the band was adopted from a successful musical of the same name from 1924. Today it sounds dated and patronizing, but is indicative of the hurdles musicians and entertainers had to jump in order to succeed. It also wasn't always entirely correct as some of the bands were mixed racially---the name effectively hid this fact for most people. The bands existed primarily in the studio and in the age before contracts, were able to intermittently record a few songs at a time. These are excellent recordings that document the progression to Swing.
The first seven tracks were led by Redman and feature his arrangements. The first recording session was from September 29, 1928 and was the byproduct of Redman and tenor saxophonist George Thomas (they were both in McKinney's Cotton Pickers at the time) dropping a session with the Dorsey Brothers. Already recorded but not yet issued by McKinney's Cotton Pickers, "Cherry" was the lone song recorded, This is a nice sweet composition and arrangement by Redman. He attends to the details with a nice introduction and coda and is skilled at creating strong moods. A highlight is the reed soli with nice chromatic motion contrasted with muted trumpet with tom-toms.
The next session was on October 10, 1928 and here we basically have the McKinney Cotton Pickers with guest guitarist Lonnie Johnson. "Paducah blues" features nice solos by Milton Senior on clarinet, John Nesbitt on trumpet, and Johnson on guitar. His solos are kind of a nice hybrid of jazz and blues---the character is fundamentally based in the blues, but his rhythms, phrases, and lines are quite complex and long. He tends to overplay at this stage and might be among the first blues musicians to treat the guitar not as another voice, but as an instrument. This is not to mean that he is not expressive, he is, but in a manner that is more detached.
This version of "Stardust" is one of the earliest recordings of the song and surprisingly taken at a medium tempo. The alto solo is really nice and I believe by Senior again. Pianist Todd Rhodes takes a riff-based stride solo. He would later go on to lead his own big bands, before scoring a few rhythm and blues hits in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Redman played and recorded with Duke Ellington and, though he wasn't on the initial recording session, re-arranges Ellington's lesser-known composition "Birmingham Breakdown" from 1926. Redman's chart include some nice call and response between the saxes and the brass, a new shout chorus, "one-by-one" arranging where each instrument layers in to great a chord, and at the coda trumpets against clarinets. This chart has a nice flow, is unpredictable and might be his best chart from this compilation. "Four or Five Times" is a novelty number sung by a few members of the band and also feature some nice call and response between alto (Senior?) and the vocals (Redman?) then alto and the rest of the horns.
The third session from September 18, 1929 features an all-star lineup with Benny Carter, Fats Waller, J.C. Higginbotham, Rex Stewart, and Coleman Hawkins with wonderful solos by all. Redman is still in charge and his charts are excellent. "That's How I Feel Today" was written by Redman and "Six or Seven Times" was written by Waller. Another tune featuring a vocal trio, we are treated to trading between Carter on alto and Waller on vocals, before Carter trades phrases with the rest of the band.
December 3, 1930 finds the Chocolate Dandies with Benny Carter in charge. His arrangements are simpler, focus on the solos, and feature more jam-session-y-type backgrounds. Even though this is 1930, elements of the Swing era are already shaping up here. This time he is playing with members of the Fletcher Henderson orchestra including Bobby Stark, Jimmy Harrison, Coleman Hawkins, and John Kirby. Hawkins doesn't solo much on the last session, but he does here and is a major reason for the move forward into Swing. His tone hasn't quite deepened yet but his vibrato and very loose phrasing is in place. Carter, of course, is the other reason and his alto and clarinet playing is excellent on these tracks as well. Stark on trumpet sounds terrific here as does Harrison on trombone.
"Bugle Call Rag" and "Dee Blues" are noteworthy not only for the solos, but for the loose, jam session-feel that was not yet common. "Dee Blues" doesn't seem to really have a theme and is essentially a string of solos with Carter taking the opening and closing choruses. Also, John Kirby can be heard switching to four-four time, on the tuba. All together, these two tracks highlight the transition to Swing.
The last session from October 10, 1933 was organized by John Hammond and features Carter leading a different all-star band (or future all-stars anyway) with Max Kaminsky on trumpet, Chu Berry on tenor saxophone, Teddy Wilson, and Big Sid Catlett on drums. It was a young band with the average of twenty-two but the playing is first rate. Again the focus is on improvisation, but Carter's "Blue Interlude", an easy going ballad, has a lovely melody with nice chromatic harmonic movement. Carter plays alto on this track, but on trumpet on the others where he sounds equally strong. He is that rare brass/woodwind doubler. Teddy Wilson was twenty years old on these recordings and sounds exquisite. Berry had been playing with Carter for about a year and was already a strong player having already played and/or recorded with Spike Hughes, Teddy Hill, and Bessie Smith.
Under Don Redman, the Chocolate Dandies had great solos with arrangements pointing towards big band and the Swing Era. The band under Benny Carter's lead was also pointing towards the future but with the focus on improvisation and simpler arrangements. The Chocolate Dandies seems to have a popular moniker for bands as here are also recordings by "Sam Wooding and his Chocolate Dandies" (1925-1929), "King Oliver and the Chocolate Dandies" (1931), and "Coleman Hawkins and the Chocolate Dandies" (1940), but only Hawkins' band featured members from previous recordings including Carter himself.
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