Red McKenzie

Red McKenzie ( born October 14, 1899 in St. Louis, † February 7, 1948 in New York City ) was a white American jazz musician ( bandleader, singer, comb ) of the Chicago jazz and music agent.

Life and work

McKenzie played the early 1920s, in addition to his job as a bellboy with some friends (Dick Slevin on kazoo, Jack Bland on banjo and guitar, McKenzie on the crest and as a singer ) in St. Louis ( also Mound City named after the nearby ancient Indian city ) street music. The band leader Gene Rodemich she heard and organized in 1924 a common receptacle for Brunswick in Chicago: " Arkansas Blues " and "Blue Blues" with the Mound City Blue Blowers, the nearly one million sold times. After this success, they were in New York, where Eddie Lang came to, and played as McKenzie 's Candy Kids 1925 in London. With his Mound City Blue Blowers ( in varying order) later played among others Muggsy Spanier, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Eddie Condon, and later Frank Josh Billings. With Condon he took in 1927 as a " McKenzie and Condon's Chicagoans " on Okeh on, with Gene Krupa and many famous Chicago jazz musicians. 1928 Pee Wee Russell had his first recordings with them. On a recording from 1929 with the Mound City Blue Blowers also Coleman Hawkins and Rex Stewart play with, so it was sometimes regarded as one of the first interracial jazz recordings.

From the late 1920s, McKenzie worked as a music agent, eg the the first recordings of Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer for Okeh mediated. In addition, he also appeared as a singer on, worked during the Depression of the 1930s in St. Louis in a brewery and played in the jazz clubs of the 52nd Street in New York in the 1930s an important role. Since he was of hot temper, he sometimes let it speak fists. In 1944 he moved back to New York where he played with Eddie Condon. He was an alcoholic and died relatively young age of 48 from liver cirrhosis.

Disco Graphical Notes

Okeh Records 52nd Street (Manhattan)
675572
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