Discogs PWA

Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra

In the late 1920s, [a=Bennie Moten]'s Kansas City Orchestra was the most successful Jazz band of the Midwest. The band toured all over the country and had a top selling recording in 1927 for Victor named "South". In 1929, the young [a=Count Basie] of The Blue Devils joined the band, and several other members of that band soon followed. Among them were bass player [a=Walter Page], trumpeter [a=Hot Lips Page], vocalist [a=Jimmy Rushing] and guitarist [a=Eddie Durham] (the first guitarist to experiment with proto-amplifiers, in the solo of [i]Band Box Shuffle[/i] in October 1929). The acquisition of all these members of the Blue Devils caused the exodus of long-time Moten Band members [a=Thamon Hayes] and [a=Harlan Leonard], who founded their own ensemble. When Moten hired [a=Ben Webster] and [a=Eddie Barefield] in 1932, the modernization of the band was complete. Later that same year, Moten recorded [i]Moten's Swing[/i], one of the first recordings to use a riff, the foundation of Kansas City jazz. Count Basie took over the band after Moten's death in 1935.

Members: Count Basie, Eddie Durham, Ben Webster, Eddie Barefield, Hot Lips Page, Walter Page, Jimmy Rushing, Lammar Wright, Bennie Moten, Joe Keyes, Jack Washington, Ed Lewis, Dan Minor, Paul Webster, Harry Cooper, Leroy Berry, Thamon Hayes, LaForest Dent, Woody Walder, Booker Washington, Willie McWashington, Vernon Page, Harlan Leonard, Prince Dee Stewart, Buster Moten, William Little Jr., Sam Tall, Willie Hall (4), and George Tall