Jap Allen
Jasper "Jap" Allen was an American jazz musician and bandleader. He played tuba, sousaphone and bass violin.[1]
Biography
[edit]In 1925, Jap Allen was a member of the Paul Banks Orchestra.[2] Other band members included Ed Lewis,[1] and Clifton Allen.
In 1926, Jap Allen, on tuba, was still a member of Paul Banks's band, now named Paul Banks's Syncopating Orchestra,[2] with Clifton Banks on alto sax, Miles Pruitt or Ira Kinley on banjo, Robert Moody or Ben Simpson on trombone, James Everett on drums, and Ed Lewis on trumpet.[2]
As bandleader
[edit]In the late 1920s, Allen was leading his own band in Kansas City, which included Joe Keys (Keyes) on trumpet, Clyde Hart on piano, and Ben Webster on tenor sax.[3]
Shortly thereafter, Jap Allen's Cotton Pickers, still with Webster, Hart, and Keys, now had Jim "Daddy" Walker on guitar, and Slim Moore on trombone.[1]
In 1930, Jap Allen's Cotton Club Orchestra featured Joe Keyes, Ben Webster, Jim "Big Daddy" Walker, Clyde Hart, Slim Moore, Raymond Howell on drums,[4] Eddie "Orange" White, Al Denny, O.C. Wynne, Booker Pittman, Durwood "Dee" Stewart.[5]
A later line-up, Jasper Allen's Southern Troubadours, were pitted against Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy[1] competing at a "battle of the bands" during National Music Week, organised by the American Federation of Musicians.
Another battle of the bands took place between Allen's band and McKinney's Cotton Pickers, then with Don Redman as musical director.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Driggs, Frank; Chuck Haddix (2005). Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop-A History, pp. 93, 249, 286. Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195364354 Google Books. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ a b c Russell, Ross (1971). Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest, p. 116. University of California Press, ISBN 9780520018532 Google Books. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ Jet, p. 61. 28 June 1962. Google Books. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ Pearson, Nathan W. (1987). Goin' to Kansas City, p. 75. University of Illinois Press. Google Books. Retrieved 11 December 2022.
- ^ "Jap Allen's Cotton Club Orchestra, 1930". University of Missouri-Kansas City. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ Gitler, Ira (1985). Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s, p. 107. Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780198020707 Google Books. Retrieved 10 December 2022.