THE GOUGE OF ARMOUR AVENUE, A LEGENDARY TROMBONE SOLO, AND A PRONUNCIATION
THE GOUGE OF ARMOUR AVENUE & a most important passage of music, played on trombone as a pivotal early Jazz solo.
This essay will undoubtedly prove to be the conclusion of over 40 years of research – in a way nearly 60 years – about a song, W.C. Handy’s composition “The Gouge of Armour Avenue”; the pronunciation and definition of the second word in the title of that song; and a passage of music, known as a Jazz solo for trombone, that was played by Big Charlie Green with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra on their recording of the song done on July 31, 1924.
I might have said unfortunately rather than undoubtedly in suggesting that this narrative will be the conclusion of my longtime research, as the essential questions raised by these matters go largely unanswered. One of the few concerns that may have been pinned down was resolved by of all people – Shirley Temple!
Setting parameters, I’ll explain the importance of the music and the corresponding concerns; then I’ll tell of the research, as a story, in fairly chronological order.
Any composition by the “Father of the Blues”, W. C. Handy, is important. While “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” has not proved to be a well-remembered or frequently performed piece created by Maestro Handy, W. C., himself, thought it of consequence - he had it included in his legendary “Blues, An Anthology”. Once a work of music is deemed of consequence, interest in its title certainly follows – and there is intrigue to the title “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” centered on that second word “gouge” and secondarily, perhaps, on “Armour Avenue”. So, there is substance to researching the W. C. Handy composition “The Gouge of Armour Avenue”. And while the piece is not a Blues, stronger interest in research on the piece, itself, rests within the Blues camp. In the Jazz field, interest centers on a passage of music that, apparently, makes its first appearance on the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra recording of the song done on July 31, 1924. That passage is played by Big Charlie Green on trombone on that recording (Vocalion {A} 14859) and the intrigue is in the provenance of the passage. Is it improvised or composed? If it is composed, then did W. C. Handy conceive this solo or did somebody else author it, perhaps Don Redman (who arranged the work for Henderson), Charlie Green, himself, or some anonymous craftsman from the music publishing business? If it is an improvisation, then is Big Green’s performance of the solo on July 31, 1924 the moment of creation, or is he copying another performance, by himself, previously, or by another? Why does this passage – completely severed from “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” – take on a life of its own, played by trombonists and quoted on essential records, including one by Louis Armstrong And His Hot Five? The passage is an earthy, soulful stretch of music. As played by the various trombonists (Green, Kid Ory, and Dicky Wells) on key records of the middle 1920s, the solo is a most potent (and early) illustration of true Jazz content. This passage, for its greatness, warrants the research that I (and others) have done – whatever the limitations of the results to the search.
The story to my part of that research starts in 1955 or thereabouts when my father, Walter Schaap, briefly returned to translating into English Jazz commentaries authored in French. Prior to my birth, from 1937 – 1949, a component to my father’s career had been as a French to English translator. With few exceptions – one would be some translating in North Africa as part of his U.S. Army service in World War II – all of Walter’s translation work was in the Jazz field. Around 1955, my father undertook to translate André Hodeir’s “Hommes et Problemes du Jazz” that would be published in English as “Jazz: It’s Evolution and Essence” in 1956. Dad eventually bowed out of this project due to his very limited musical literacy, but the several chapters he did translate were published though uncredited. This would include the book’s fifth chapter on Dicky Wells. Initially, my father was nonplussed over how to bring Hodeir’s description of the flavor of Dicky Wells’ solo work to life as well as into English. Bringing my mother, Marjorie Wood Schaap, in to help, mom blurted out “romantic screwball”. My father chose to modify her most appropriate appraisal by changing “screwball” to “imagination” and the chapter’s English title is “The Romantic Imagination of Dickie Wells”.
André Hodeir devotes a fair chunk of that chapter to Dicky’s solo on “Symphonic Scronch” (entitled “Symphonic Screach” in the book) and uses the playing as the foundation to explaining Wells’ genius. My family had never heard the record and my father made an effort to get this track – not an easy thing to do in 1955-56 – and the Lloyd Scott Orchestra recording of “Symphonic Scronch” done on January 10, 1927 with a 19 year old Dicky Wells became a staple of the Schaap household. Dicky’s playing, as Hodeir knew, is magnificent. Translating that chapter also allowed my father to reestablish his friendship with Dicky Wells. They had met in Paris in 1937 but had fallen out of touch. Our families became close. Among other benefits to knowing Dicky, we learned – too late for André Hodeir’s book – that William C. Wells preferred his nickname spelled with a “y” and not “ie”.
That’s where it stood for around 15 years. I had no awareness of Handy’s “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” or any classic song or record that used the word “gouge” or that Big Green had recorded the same solo that Dicky Wells played on “Symphonic Scronch” nearly two-and-a-half years earlier. That research would have to wait until I grew up. Back then, I was simply enjoying my dad’s friend and now my friend, Dicky Wells. And, yes, I continued to enjoy Wells’ potent 1927solo and shared André Hodeir’s assessment of its value.
It wasn’t until I had bought both volumes of the Collector’s Classic Lps of “Fletcher Henderson And His Orchestra” (Volume One, catalog CC27; and Volume Two, CC28, issued in Denmark) that I could even begin the research that concludes with this essay. The second volume contained the July 31, 1924 Henderson recording of “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” with Charlie Green doing Dicky’s solo – except it was the other way around. That’s when the digging truly started.
In the Fall of 1973, I obtained Walter C. Allen’s “Hendersonia” and subsequently interviewed him pursuant to the Fletcher Henderson Festival, a broadcast on WKCR that I produced in December 1973. That interview was a broad one on Henderson and the book; so, I didn’t query Allen about Big Green’s effort on “The Gouge of Armour Avenue”. But on page 113 of “Hendersonia”, it was there in black and white, “ … and a subsequent solo on GOUGE OF ARMOUR AVENUE (Vocalion 14859) was surely one of the earliest HOT trombone solos of lasting merit to be recorded: it was copied note-for-note 2½ years later by Dickie Wells on Lloyd Scott’s Victor record SYMPHONIC SCRONCH … ”. I sang that solo for Dicky and did it well enough for him to respond “Who’s that? Big Green?”. Nearly 30 years ago, I was in locked step with Walter C. Allen: Big Charlie Green played a genuine Jazz solo, a pioneering landmark on the July 31, 1924 Fletcher Henderson Orchestra recording of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” and a nineteen year old Dicky Wells copied it for his solo on the January 10, 1927 Lloyd Scott Orchestra recording of “Symphonic Scronch”.
Less than a month after the Fletcher Henderson Festival, I launched what would prove to be a long-lived Jazz program at a famed bar, The West End. W.C. Handy’s family became regulars (as audience members) at the club. I spoke often with W. C. Handy’s children, his son Wyer and daughter Katharine Handy Lewis. They didn’t have too much to say about “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” and were entirely unfamiliar with the Fletcher Henderson recording of the work. As a broadcaster, I was preoccupied with saying the name of this obscure piece correctly on the air. I asked Katharine Handy “Is it gouge?” as in price-gouging “Or is it gouge?” as in Scrooge. She stated that she didn’t know for sure but thought it was gouge as in Scrooge. Eventually, I was able to get her to embrace a total conjecture on my part that it was gouge as in Scrooge and that a gouge was an ingénue or fortune teller type person that one would go to for advice or potions, etc. I was entirely responsible for inventing this explanation of a gouge. My concept became an impediment to obtaining any genuine new information from a primary source about the word or the song.
Further hindrance to my research into gouge’s etymology came when Dorothy Donegan – one of the few Jazz musicians who claimed to remember “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” – embraced my false definition of gouge and the ‘as in Scrooge’ pronunciation.
It’s not gouge as in Scrooge, it’s gouge as in price-gouging and you’ll never believe who gave me the dope – Shirley Temple! Shirley Temple is Little Miss Marker in the 1934 film of the same name. Little Miss Marker is adopted by some shady characters such as bookies and nightclub singers, and one of this crew’s members is called Benny The Gouge, played by Sam Hardy. It is clearly pronounced “gouge” as in overpricing or blinding (remember Oedipus and his eyes). I believed I had found the truth on how to say “gouge” as in “The Gouge of Armour Avenue”.
Of course, I could have cut to the chase and gotten it {almost} from the horse’s mouth had it been easy to find a copy of Paramount 12209, a recording of “The Gouge of Armour Avenue” – and for that matter, “The Chicago Gouge” – by a vocalist, Faye Barnes. Faye (also spelled Fae and Fay) Barnes was the actual name of one of the more obscure of the so-called 1920s Classic Blues Singers, Maggie Jones. The better known recordings by the real Faye Barnes are the ones she made as Maggie Jones for Columbia Records, occasionally with Louis Armstrong. [Dig “Good Time Flat Blues” from Columbia 14055-D done on December 17, 1924 and then check out the ‘Farewell to Storyville’ scene in the 1947 released film, “New Orleans”.] On Paramount 12209, the singer is clearly heard singing “gouge” as in price gouging. It would have been a quick answer had I not had to wait nearly 30 years to hear the recording. Walter C. Allen, author of “Hendersonia”, had the record, but Walter died on December 23, 1974. I didn’t know anyone who had a copy of the rare Barnes/Jones Paramount 78. Allen had noted on page 108 of “Hendersonia” that the record, though issued as by Faye Barnes, might be another singer and not the real Faye Barnes/Maggie Jones. Listening to it over 20 years after Walter C. Allen’s death, I felt that Paramount 12209’s Faye Barnes is Columbia Records’ Maggie Jones.
In any case: the bottom line is that it’s gouge as in price gouging or gouging out an eye.
But what does gouge mean in these songs? Why is this slang usage so obscure that only the odd couple of W. C. Handy and Shirley Temple employ it!? And does Little Miss Marker’s “gouge” really match W. C. Handy’s? Even this concern, quite limited in value, is difficult to parse.
In the film “Little Miss Marker”, precisely what the character Benny “The Gouge”, played by Sam Hardy, does is never stated. It’s strongly implied that he is not a bookmaker and it’s clear that he’s not working at the movie’s nightclub where a lot of the film’s action takes place. Benny The Gouge, nevertheless, is clearly associated, somewhat nefariously, with the bookies and the nightclub. The Gouge’s only independent deed in the film is his giving a pair of pugilists or wrestlers $50 to fix, or at least alter the proceedings to, a specific professional fight enabling The Gouge to place a winning bet. As he doesn’t lend but pays the fighters $50, we don’t have an illustration of loan sharking or price gouging. An impression that he is a loan shark can be advanced, but it is not proved by the action in “Little Miss Marker”.
Gauging W.C. Handy’s Gouge also proves difficult.
Around 1924, Handy – an Alabama born musician who spent pivotal and substantial time in Memphis before moving to New York, his base of operations for the rest of his life – connects with Chicago. Parallel to this development, Handy, apparently, launches an offshoot to his music publishing empire that emphasizes the word “gouge”, and composes two songs with “Gouge” in the title. One has a Chicago street in the title: “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”. That it’s Chicago’s Armour Avenue is confirmed in the lyric that denotes the Windy City specific: Armour Avenue being renamed Federal Street. The other tune actually has Chicago in the song’s name: “The Chicago Gouge”. “The Chicago Gouge” is the earlier piece, copyrighted February 16, 1924. “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” was copyrighted August 22, 1924 (after it had been twice recorded!) though it had already been published on June 30, 1924. Neither songs’ lyrics are particularly straightforward about storyline or an absolute meaning of gouge. While my research is far more concerned with “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”, the lyrics to “The Chicago Gouge” are much more helpful in getting a handle on W.C.’s use of gouge.
W. C. Handy’s “Gouge” is an overcharging landlord, specifically one who rents to Chicago’s Southside’s African American residents; but Handy’s “Gouge” also refers to a dance fad. Handy hoped the term and new dance(s) would launch a pop music craze. The Chicago Gouge, from the song of the same name, is a dance that one would do at the rent parties and chitlin’ rags. [Chitlin’ Rags can be House Rent Parties but can also be a more generic gathering where chitlins (stuffed pig intestines) are the main course and where informal music and dancing might be a center of the action in a party for a specialized feast.] Leading Ragtime scholar, Terry Waldo, is most accepting of the theory that the ‘Rag’ in Ragtime refers to dance. Waldo’s most recent lectures on the meaning and etymology of Ragtime – I attended one on March 7, 2013 – cite references where ‘rag’ means dance or a specific dance or style that date back to the mid-Nineteenth Century. Apartment residents would hold Chitlin’ Rags, often as House Rent Parties to raise the rent to a landlord who in writing the lease may have indulged in some price gouging. Alternatively, the Chitlin’ Rags and/or House Rent Parties may be held to entertain such people and their associates. “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” is either that same dance enjoyed robustly on Armour Avenue or a second dance, also a “gouge” type of dance, done on Armour Avenue. Following the lyrics to both songs, an argument might be made that Armour Avenue’s Gouge is that street’s overcharging landlord.
W. C. Handy was a New York based “aging” pop star, who had ridden a pop music wave to the upper echelons of the music business. Part of his success was: his clear understanding of a small slice of folk music that was The Blues; his keen sense that some stanzas in these folk Blues contained threads to potential songs; his brilliant musicianship that guided him to codifying the structure to folk Blues so that professionals could readily play them; and his own genius in synthesizing all of this so that Handy, himself, could composed in the somewhat obscure idiom he had come across and developed it into a genuine new music. Now, 1924, at least in part, W. C. Handy was investing his songwriting skills and music publishing track record in getting in on the ground floor of what he had observed, apparently in Chicago, “Gouge”, and his faith or thought that it might take off as a pop fad.
It didn’t! Conceivably, The Father Of The Blues just made up Gouge. More likely Handy is a discoverer of a new, perhaps Chicago-centric, slang that never really enter the vernacular. There must be some explanation to Shirley Temple and Hollywood using “Gouge’ ten years after W. C.’s fling with it. If Little Miss Marker’s Benny The Gouge was a landlord, then W. C. Handy’s and Shirley Temple’s “gouge” match. Still, it remains a very odd that connection.
It is a fact that W. C. Handy pushed hard to make his investment of creativity, time, and money in Gouge pay off. The surviving outcropping that this is so is the inclusion of the two Gouge songs in Handy’s legendary book, “Blues Anthology” – still in print! But contemporaneous documents to when these tunes were brand new are more astonishing. Handy created a trademark, “GougE”, a branding that he placed on the 1924 published sheet music to “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”. GougE seems to be a separate music publishing entity of Handy’s. Conceivably GougE is a subsidiary of Handy Bros. Music Company. A 1924 GougE advertisement, without any reference to the/a parent firm, billboards “HANDY HITS of 1924” and places “The Chicago Gouge” and “The Gouge of Armour Avenue – which were not hits – at the top of the list and in bigger print. The Pittsburgh Courier, Steel Town’s primary Afro American periodical, took note of all this. In fairly perceptive commentary, the Courier asserts that Handy was trying to create a new phenomenon named or to be named “Gouge” by seizing on what we would now call a buzz word and applying his wizardry in writing pop music rooted in African American folk music. This evidence is supportive to the theory that “Gouge” was made up by W. C. Handy. Elliott Hurwitt’s research and writing, no doubt, will sort this out as best can be done in the 21st Century, but I am moving on.
The trombone passage was always the center of my attention anyway, long before I knew of Fletcher Henderson’s recording of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” with that very passage played on trombone by Charlie “Big Green” Green. That solo has also fascinated Dick Spottswood, a founding member of ARSC, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. In several articles since the end of the 1990s, Dick has cited the passage as played by Big Green and the essential quotations of it. Spottswood has used the passage as a springboard to study other passages of music that are different but that Dick feels represent the same sense of purpose as the trombone passage in “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” or a relatable function. My focus is the one specific passage, but if you know Dick Spottswood’s writing and read on, then you’ll find a bit of intersection. Here is the result of my research and my analysis of that solo’s provenance.
I have found no antecedent to Big Green’s playing of this passage on that July 31, 1924 record. It does not appear in the published music for Handy’s “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” either in the 1924 publication of the piece as a single work, nor in W. C. Handy’s “Blues, An Anthology” first published in 1926. “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” was published on June 30, 1924 nearly two months before it was copyrighted. But this published music does not contain and would never contain the specific passage or Big Green’s notes.
Where did he get them?
The first concern to this matter would be whether the music is written or improvised. While Dicky Wells’ response to my singing the passage so many years ago indicates that Wells quite likely thought it was a Big Green creation – a genuine Jazz solo – I hear it as fixed and prepped music. Colleagues, including trombonist and educator John Wriggle, concur: this excerpt is written.
OK, who wrote it?
I believe it is an interlude, entirely separate from the W. C. Handy composition, intentionally inserted in the arrangement played by the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. That leads to the suggestion that this nugget of trombone and musical wonder was written by Don Redman, Henderson’s Musical Director and the “Dean of the Arrangers”.
Did he?
It would be hard to prove that he didn’t. This key component to my research became a quality topic in my now nearing 50 years of communication with a Prince – Vince Giordano. As John Wriggle would declare a few decades later, Vince Giordano was confident that Big Green was playing written music. We both knew that the passage does not exist in the knownpublished music to “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” but Vince felt it likely that a published arrangement – a “Stock” – existed. For many years, Vince Giordano ran point in the search for any arrangement to the piece. I worked with Vince on this and I had a singular purpose in doing so. I wanted to find an arrangement that could be demonstrated to have existed on or before July 31, 1924 to see if that key passage was already known. Vince wanted the arrangement regardless to when it was crafted and/or published or whether it contained the music played by Big Green. The Fletcher Henderson recording of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” was made over three weeks before the piece was copyrighted. The July 31, 1924 recording date, however, does postdate the publication of the tune (June 30, 1924) but I believe that my search for the passage in an (UNtraced) published stock that precedes August 1924 is moot. I don’t believe it exists or ever existed. Still, I pressed on.
I contacted more recent generations of the Handy family – granddaughter, Minnie Handy Hanson (since deceased, November 2, 2011) and great-grandchildren, Doal E. Hanson and Edwina Handy DeCosta. But it was Handy scholar Elliott Hurwitt who clarified that if Handy Brothers Music had ever published an arrangement of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”, then it no longer existed in the Handy holdings. Coupled to Vince Giordano’s research which had never turned up a trace of the existence of such a stock arrangement – whether published by Handy Bros. / GougE / or others, I stopped looking.
The remaining loose end was Don Redman’s music housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a part of the New York Public Library. Redman’s descendant, Ilona Anderson, graciously consented to a full perusal of her illustrious relative’s papers. Dutiful examination of the holdings at the Schomburg reveals nothing connecting Don Redman to “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”.
A fair statement could be that I’ve been telling you a shaggy dog story. I hope there has been some entertainment to these stories and their many dead ends. In telling them, however, I had a genuine purpose: I was actually looking to the future rather than dwelling on the difficult research that is now becoming part of my past. I assert that the trombone passage that Big Green played is a splendid demonstration of Jazz trombone and will be a compelling music statement forever. Historically, it is pertinent to the study of early Jazz solos. Interest in it and the mystery to how it was created will continue to exist as long as Jazz survives. This narrative is my best attempt to save future researchers of this passage a lot of time. This essay provides finalized research some of which could not even be started in the future. And while it’s frustrating that the main questions go unanswered, I do have my analysis and “best guess” conclusions.
ONE
I’m aligned with Vince Giordano and John Wriggle – among others – the passage is not improvised. I still believe, however, that the young Dicky Wells knew the passage from Vocalion 14859 and perceived it as a real Jazz solo, even finding out that it was played by Big Green. Wells’ subsequent expansion of Jazz trombone and Jazz improvisation is rooted in this passage whatever his misperception.
TWO
I not only don’t believe that Big Green is the source of this prepped music, I don’t believe that Don Redman wrote it either. I feel that although no antecedent can be found, this passage is rooted in an untraced routine connected to Chitlin’ Rags. To be clear: I feel sure that this passage was known music, probably folk music, previous to Henderson’s recording (July 31, 1924). I assume and assert that within the African American community it had a specific purpose – likely to have brought on a dance, dancing, a specific shift in step while dancing, or some knowable routine at Chitlin’ Rags including its House Rent Party subset. This is where there is intersection with Dick Spottswood’s analysis.
THREE
While Handy had nothing to do with the passage appearing in an arrangement of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”, the composer’s scenario sets in motion the arranger’s use of known music for such a scene. Whatever liberties W. C. Handy takes in his ballyhoo that might make GougE a pop craze, his gouge songs – at least the earlier one, “The Chicago Gouge”, references chitlin’ rags and both songs speak to the dancing at such events. Somehow Handy’s concept triggers Redman’s – appropriate - employing of the pre-existing passage.
FOUR
That the passage is to be played on trombone is its own puzzle. Did the custom (a folk tradition?) already dictate trombone, as the banter of Armstrong’s Hot Five record suggests, or did it become a trombone feature due to Redman’s arrangement for Henderson? The deployment of the passage on “The King Of The Zulus (At A Chit’lin Rag)” by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five in their June 23, 1926 recording on OKeh 8396 makes clear that it’s to be used at a chitlin’ rag. I should disclose that Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra two months after their recording of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”. It is possible that Louis knew of his new colleagues’ recent recording and, perhaps, Satchmo played the arrangement as a member of the band. I’m alerting the reader to the possibility that Louis Armstrong may have brought the idea with him when he left Fletcher Henderson in early November 1925 and moved back to Chicago where he immediately began recording his Hot Five classics. But Armstrong’s use of the trombone passage – here, beyond challenge, a quotation of known music – is so connected to chitlin’ rags that I feel free to dismiss or at least diminish the Armstrong-Henderson connection as the explanation to Kid Ory playing the same solo as Big Green two years earlier. The surviving information gives better support to a traditional usage over Louis Armstrong’s experience with Henderson as the reason Ory plays the passage on “The King Of The Zulus (At A Chit’lin Rag)”. Both examples – and also a third, “Symphonic Scronch” by Lloyd Scott with Wells on trombone – lend some support that the passage, by a known practice, is to be played on trombone. Moving on to “Symphonic Scronch”, the January 10, 1927 Lloyd Scott recording where Dicky Wells the very same passage, we find that a scronch is both a dance and a step or move that can be made in a dance. “Symphonic Scronch” is, therefore, music for dance, a scronch. Whatever Dicky Wells’ felt he was doing in playing the solo that Big Green had played, the passage is, nevertheless, there to bring on whatever it is this passage is to bring on in this undocumented, perhaps folk music, practice. I would surmise that this music tells the dancers to switch to a step, perhaps a scronch step, to be done during the trombone passage. While my connecting the three trombone illustrations to an undocumented root looks a lot like an instance of circular reasoning, I find the passage’s connections to dance and chitlin’ rags too coincidental to be a coincidence. Hopefully, the discovering of the root passage will allow my dots to someday be properly connected.
FIVE
Summarizing, I believe this key passage of music was known before July 31, 1924 and had a function at chitlin’ rags. Redman’s awareness of the passage and his knowledge of Handy’s GougE music’s connection to chitlin’ rags had the arranger employ it as an interlude in “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue’, and whether by custom or aesthetic had it played on trombone. That it was for trombone, meant Big Charlie Green played it on the record. The passage – through the recording – then created a totally separate history as a foundation to jazz improvisation and jazz trombone. I further believe that the use of the same passage on “The King Of The Zulus (At A Chit’lin Rag)” by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five in their June 23, 1926 recording on OKeh 8396 is free-standing and unrelated to the Henderson/Redman/Green usage. The connection is between the passage and chitlin’ rags. Whatever reliance “Symphonic Scronch” has on “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue”, the scronch/dancing connection, alone, supports the use of the passage.
SIX
Itemizing the essentials:
1. Untraced passage of music for non-specified purpose at chitlin’ rags.
2. W. C. Handy cites or makes up the word “gouge” in songs that acknowledge the chitlin’ rag and its relative the House Rent Party and attendant dancing (and other activities?) at such functions.
3. Big Green’s solo is Redman’s incorporation into the arrangement of a set passage of music associated with chitlin’ rags, perhaps for a specific dance step or function at such gatherings. Don Redman, perhaps relying on somebody else who knew the “chitlin’ rag passage”, incorporates it as wonderful interlude that helps flesh out his arrangement of Handy’s “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue” for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra recording. The passage might well be played by trombone by custom or Redman assigned it to the trombonist or the vagaries of activities surrounding the recording sent it Charlie Green’s way – e.g. “Hey, Don, why don’t you let Big Green take that?” “OK”.
4. Kid Ory’s playing the passage on the Hot Five “The King Of The Zulus (At A Chit’lin Rag)” once again links the passage to: chitlin’ rags, trombone, and even Chicago, Handy’s local for it.
5. “The King Of The Zulus (At A Chit’lin Rag)”, as an independent action to Handy’s GougE songs and the Henderson record, is primary to my conjecture that the passage is known and known for this purpose however undocumented.
6. “Symphonic Scronch”, as an independent action to Handy’s GougE songs and the Henderson record, supports my conjecture that the passage is known and known for this purpose however undocumented.
Bless you, Dear Reader, for getting this far. I imagine you could critique my essay as “much ado about nothing”. I actually could go on! For instance: jumping over the “rag equals dance” research, the Chitlin’ Rag / House Rent Party concept predates Jazz and, undoubtedly that is why it’s “rag” – Ragtime, you dig – is the tag. Also note: Handy scrounged for a rhyme with gouge and found the obscure scrouge that means crowd.
But the people who should continue the (re)search are the ones who might someday find the source of the music that Big Green played on July 31, 1924. I believe it exists, but I’m done. Vince Giordano, however, isn’t giving up. Vince and his fabulous Nighthawks are recording the Don Redman arrangement of “The Gouge Of Armour Avenue’ with the still unexplained trombone solo appendage tomorrow.
