The Mound City Blue Blowers were an American novelty jazz ensemble, formed in St. Louis, Missouri and given its nickname. It was co-founded by Red McKenzie and Jack Bland and performed during in the 1920s and 1930s.
First assembled in 1923, the group's original members were Red McKenzie playing comb and tissue paper, Dick Slevin on kazoo, and Jack Bland on banjo. The band also included, in lieu of a drum kit, a traveler's suitcase played with foot and whisk brooms. Their debut recording, the 1924 release "Arkansas Blues" b/w "Blue Blues", was a hit in the Midwest. They recorded twelve tunes in 1924 and 1925; Frankie Trumbauer and Eddie Lang played on some of the tracks.
In 1929-1931 the group also made at least two short performance films: The Opry House (1929) and Nine O'Clock Folks (1931), which included "I Ain't Got Nobody","Let Me Call You Sweeheart," "My Gal Sal" and "St. Louis Blues."
After 1925, McKenzie recorded under his own name as a vocalist, but returned to the Mound City name in 1929 for several sessions with jazz stars including Jack Teagarden, Coleman Hawkins, Glenn Miller, and Pee Wee Russell. In 1931, the group recorded with McKenzie, Hawkins, Muggsy Spanier, and Jimmy Dorsey. The last recordings to bear the Mound City name, 25 songs from 1935-1936, included appearances from Nappy Lamare, Spooky Dickenson, Billy Wilson, Bunny Berigan, Yank Lawson, and Eddie Miller.
Famous quotes containing the words mound, city and/or blue:
“A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I don’t like the city better, the more I see it, but worse. I am ashamed of my eyes that behold it. It is a thousand times meaner than I could have imagined.... The pigs in the street are the most respectable part of the population.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The blue and the gray. Let us march together beneath the star- spangled banner.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)