San Francisco Jazz Bands

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San Francisco Jazz Bands?  The Magnolia Jazz Band stands proudly in a long tradition of popular San Francisco Jazz Bands. The lineage stretches back to the early 1900’s and includes hundreds of interesting stories.  Here are a few of them.
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Many books and articles (see Wikipedia and another good example) trace the history of jazz.  Most experts agree that jazz style music originated in New Orleans around the turn of the last century.  One of the earliest jazz bands to to visit the San Francisco Bay Area was the 1914 performance of Bill Johnson’s Creole Jazz Orchestra.  This band featured several New Orleans pioneers who made a living touring the vaudeville circuits in those early years, spreading their exciting new syncopated, improvised music throughout the country.

San Francisco’s “Barbary Coast” attracted early jazz bands.  Dating back to the Gold Rush days, this was a notorious “good time” district in San Francisco’s waterfront area (in those days around Pacific Ave & Kearny St) that provided entertainment and diversions to hard-working miners, laborers, seamen, and “slummers”.  Around the time of World War I, several establishments booked many popular jazz bands from around the Bay Area, and others featured out-of-town bands.

One local favorite was pianist Sid LeProtti’s “So Different Jazz Band”, which played in the Barbary Coast from 1906 thru 1921.  One touring favorite was King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring New Orleans musicians then working in Chicago.  “Jelly Roll” Morton, the legendary New Orleans pianist, also performed at the Barbary Coast, in a band with several New Orleans musicians who had moved to Los Angeles.  That hot New Orleans music provided a powerful inspiration to many of the local bands.

In 1918, Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra played a more polite, jazz-tinged dance music in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel.  Many of the city’s large hotels featured similar bands — they were THE thing!  Two years later, billing himself as the “King of Jazz”, Whiteman moved his band to New York City and began recording.  He hired many of the country’s top jazz musicians of the day (and paid them very well), and became a world-wide popular commercial success, his career lasting into the 1960s.  Not bad for a classically trained musician who started out playing viola with the San Francisco Symphony.

San Francisco’s “Fillmore District” (roughly between Van Ness Ave and Divisadero St) was known as the “Harlem of the West” from the late 1930s thru the 1950s.  This ethnically rich neighborhood boasted dozens of nightclubs featuring live jazz, and showcased local Bay Area musicians as well as national headliners including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis.  Of course, many local musicians came by regularly, “checked out” these stars, and learned from them.

A long list of San Francisco Bay Area based headliners also includes Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, and Turk Murphy, and these days you can enjoy many diverse jazz styles throughout the Bay Area — Latin Jazz, Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Free Jazz, and more.

Here is a recent photo showing me working with two of San Francisco’s top jazz musicians — Duncan James and Charlie McCarthy.  The Magnolia Jazz Band never sounded better, and with Duncan’s and Charlie’s inspiration, I’m sure I learned a few new tricks that day.  Thanks to my friend Veronica Aguila for the photo.

These stories hint at one aspect of jazz music that I always find fascinating:  How we grow and improve.  For the past hundred years, all these jazz musicians have listened to their colleagues and their recordings, occasionally worked together, and continually expanded their own styles with new influences they admired.  The same growth process happens in all the arts every day, I’m sure.

What can we learn from history?  Look around and ask yourself:  “Do I grow and improve with everything I observe?

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The Magnolia Jazz Band entertains regularly at weddings and parties throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.  If you’re ever nearby, you’ll love catching us in action, seeing and hearing us create a great mood.  In the meantime, please join our Facebook “fans”, and you’ll get reminders for our public events.

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Meanwhile, the Magnolia Jazz Band entertains at weddings and parties throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. If you are ever nearby, you’ll love catching us in action, seeing and hearing us create a great mood.

How can I help you? Call 408-245-9120 or use [email protected]. Planning a celebration? Ask about our availability.

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