Bugle Call Rag
Galvanising
Sweet Georgia Brown
Central Avenue Boogie
Lady Be Good
Gin Mill Special
Honeysuckle Rose
Diggin’ Dykes
Slightly Frankie
One O’Clock Jump
Tuxedo Junction
Jump Children
She’s Crazy With The Heat
That Man Of Mine
Vi Vigor
Don’t Get It Twisted
The International Sweethearts
of Rhythm were an all-woman big band formed
in 1937. Originally all-black as well – and
coming from Mississippi – it offered a musical
avenue for young, poor and orphaned musicians,
and any financial proceeds accruing along
the way would be ploughed back into Piney
Woods Country Life School. The band prospered,
moved to Virginia, collected Hispanic and
white players along the way and played at
some of the biggest venues. Apparently Louis
Armstrong tried to sign one of their number,
first trumpet Tiny Davis, for his own band
– but she stayed put.
One of the strong points
of the band was the arrangements. Eddie Durham,
of Count Basie’s band, provided some excellent
charts and wrote highly effectively for the
band. After he left Jessie Stone did likewise.
Most of the live broadcast performances here
are uncredited to an arranger; only Maurice
King, who arranged after Stone left, is noted
and then for a couple of lukewarm numbers,
one of which was called Diggin’ Dykes and
is probably best forgotten in all respects
- though I should add in his defence that
in D. Antoinette Handy’s biography of the
band it’s related that he was a "good
teacher" and that the girls in the band
liked and admired him.
As I said these are live
broadcast recordings from 1944-46, the years
before the band’s highly successful European
trip. The Hollywood announcer sounds more
than usually like a congenital idiot but we
must suffer him to hear some fine performances.
Tiny Davis was the star of the band without
question; her solo on Sweet Georgia Brown
is a cracking one and in Anna Mae Wimbourn
the band had a good leader-singer whose bluesy
vocals are creditable. More than once they
do show gauche sides – a frantic and silly
Lady Be Good dominated by Pauline Braddy’s
Gene Krupa-inspired drum solo (she does the
same thing in Honeysuckle Rose.
The Sweethearts are joined
by the Armed Forces Radio Orchestra for One
O’Clock Jump and by the superior Julian
Dash for his own co-composition Tuxedo
Junction. Another of the best players,
Vi Burnside, takes a standout sax solo on
Vi Vigor and there are some good Louis
Jordan licks on Don’t Get It Twisted.
I’m not aware that the Sweethearts
ever made commercial recordings so these select
survivals are to be relished. How good were
they? Some were very fine indeed but on this
showing, deprived of the arrangements by Durham
and Stone, they come across as more of a novelty
band than a band with a soul of its own. Still,
rare sides. But unfortunately very short playing
time.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
Submarine SOUNDS OF YESTERYEAR DSOY692
[45.01] 
