Based in Illinois, Archeophone Records, Archeophone Records specializes in releasing music from the “acoustic era” of recordings, meaning vintage sounds from the 1890s through the Roaring 20s. They fill in important historic and musical gaps through their impressive catalogue.
The most recent is this 2 cd set by violinist Joseph C. Smith (1883-1965) who was one of the pioneers in forming the radical idea of a “dance band. Similar to bandleader Paul Whiteman, who came along just a bit later than these sessions, Smith was on the cusp of figuring out the right combination of instruments in order to present music for the wild and provocative dances like the fox trot, turkey trot and one-step. Most of the music here includes a evolutionary sound of a pair of violins, a cello, bass clarinet, cornet, trombone, piano and traps, sometimes with either string bass or tuba. The music is highly melodic, and a number of the tunes, such as “Poor Butterfly,” “Rose Room” and “Yellow Dog Blues” became standards through the years.
Here, they and the other “blues” pieces such as “Money Blues” and “Rainy Day Blues” are highly stylized, and you also get things like an exotic “Karavan” (not the Ellington one) and lots of stately pieces such as “Missouri Waltz” and the swaying “Three O’Clock in the Morning.” Some vocals by Harry MacDonough on “Mary” and “Peggy” as well as by Smith himself on “Rainy Day Blues” serve as a fascinating record of how revolutionary Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were, as well as Louis Armstrong was when he began singing just a few years later. Still, this music holds up amazingly fresh, and the recording sound quality is startlingly alive and clean. An important footnote of an era needing to be appreciated.