Territory Band - Styles

Styles

The musicians in the territory dance bands were primarily jazz musicians. Despite the overwhelming view that New Orleans was the cradle of jazz, the itinerant musicians were the ones who first disseminated it.

The dancing public could actually dance and they knew which bands swung and which simply just played well. Audiences responded with great enthusiasm to the black bands in the Midwest. The East Coast black bands were popular in the 1920s; but "Swing" came to that region in the form of Louis Armstrong joining the Fletcher Henderson band when he went to the Big Apple.

Territory bands were not all swing bands. The Midwest settlements of Europeans of various ethnicities brought their community dancing and revelry with them in the form of very popular polka bands (and also old time waltzes, leandlers, and schottisches). They played at all the ballrooms, Elk Clubs, and the like as well. Here's a short exemplary list:

Fezz Fritsche & His Goose-town Band

The Six Fat Dutchmen

The Babe Wagner Band (Babe later played jazz trombone with the Krupa band)

Whoopie John — a very successful and famous polka band from Minneapolis