The Wolverine Orchestra

The Wolverine Orchestra (sometimes referred to as "The Original Wolverines") was the premier Midwestern territory jazz band of the mid-1920s, and is remembered primarily as the group in which jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke generally became known to audiences. Although over time it changed hands, leaders, and its entire personnel, there was a "Wolverine Orchestra" active in the American Midwest through 1931, and a continuous thread can be drawn forward from the group that featured Beiderbecke through all the other ensembles up to that date. The same cannot be said for the many, many traditional style jazz bands worldwide that have used the tag "Wolverines" as part of their name after 1931. According to Richard Sudhalter, the Wolverine Orchestra got its start at the Stockton Club on Route 4 eight miles south of Hamilton, Ohio in September of 1923. This was a mob-owned roadhouse, and the players in the Stockton Club group were imported from Chicago, led by pianist (and composer of the hit song "Angry") Dud Mecum. When the lead cornet dropped out of the band, clarinetist Jimmy Hartwell sent to Chicago for his friend Bix Beiderbecke to fill the vacant position. The resulting group proved an excellent "hot" jazz band, but was made up of poor readers. As a result they had a tough time working out the straight waltzes, polkas and tangos that were also expected as part of their repertoire. Dud Mecum finally quit in frustration by the end of 1923, but not before unwittingly giving the band its name; they played Jelly Roll Morton's tune "Wolverine Blues" so often that Mecum once quipped "why don't you guys just call yourselves the Wolverine Band?" Early on in their history the Wolverines had a cloth herald made which they used in publicity photos- it reads "Chicago". Although the...