Sam Wooding & His Orchestra

Sam Wooding & His Orchestra were a popular big band in the early '20s, working in a variety of East Coast clubs just as the audience for this type of music began to blossom. His group was chosen to be the orchestra for a musical revue, entitled Chocolate Kiddies, in 1925, which turned out to be a fabulous opportunity despite geographically separating Wooding's outfit from what would become all-out fanaticism about jazz big band music on the home front. Wooding fronted an 11-piece outfit in the show, which also included comedians, dancers, and 30 chorus girls. If there was a star of this show, it would have been the vaudeville duo of Rufus and Drayton, but there is no question that the great popularity of the show had a lot to do with the zesty, previously unheard new developments in big band jazz the band was playing in a repertoire that included arrangements of some of the earliest Duke Ellington material. Both with and without the revue, Wooding's orchestra toured throughout Europe, including a historic trip into Russia in 1926. They also managed to record for the Spanish Parlophone label, a not so official arm of that country's dictatorship whose image might have been softened very slightly by the release of the band's titles such as "Bull Foot Stomp." The group also recorded for Vox, Polydor, Pathe, and Brunswick. In 1927, the orchestra performed in South America with the revue. Back in America at the end of the decade, Wooding made the decision to turn down a Cotton Club offer in favor of more European work, a move that probably shot the collective group in their feet. The group called it quits in Belgium in 1931, although there was a re-formation in 1935 that featured guest star Sidney Bechet on soprano saxophone and clarinet. When Wooding went back to college...