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:
“Worn down by the hoofs of millions of half-wild Texas cattle driven along it to the railheads in Kansas, the trail was a bare, brown, dusty strip hundreds of miles long, lined with the bleaching bones of longhorns and cow ponies. Here and there a broken-down chuck wagon or a small mound marking the grave of some cowhand buried by his partners “on the lone prairie” gave evidence to the hardships of the journey.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Local television shows do not, in general, supply make-up artists. The exception to this is Los Angeles, an unusually generous city in this regard, since they also provide this service for radio appearances.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“Buz, quoth the blue fly,
Hum, quoth the bee,
Buz and hum they cry,
And so do we:
In his ear, in his nose, thus, do you see?
He ate the dormouse, else it was he.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)