UPDATE:
The Ollie Powers Harmony Syncopators, playing at the
Vendome Theater, most likely around 1923.
This photo was published in Destination Chicago Jazz, by
Sandor
Demlinger and John Steiner (Charleston, Arcadia
Publishing, 2003), p.
16.
It is an enormously improved reproduction over the only
previous
available version known to me, which appeared in
A Pictorial History of Jazz: People and Places from New
Orleans
to Modern Jazz, by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, Jr.
(New York: Crown
Publishers, 1955), p. 37
Many thanks to Brian Goggin for alerting me to this much
more detailed
rendering!
Previously, it was thought that this photo was taken at
the Dreamland
Café, which was one of the venues in which the
Ollie Powers
Harmony Syncopators played.
However, another photo identified as the Dreamland
(here) shows a very
different background. The railing, on the other hand, is
nearly
identical, perhaps leading to the confusion.
Since the two sides Ollie Powers recorded for
Paramount a
month apart
in
1923 had entirely different personnel (Brian Rust: Jazz
Records
1897-1942,
4th ed., p.1245), it is not certain exactly who is
present in this
picture--with
the exception of Ollie Powers, behind the drums.
However, from comparison with other available
photographs it does appear that the pianist is Glover
Compton. Brian Goggin writes also that it is
definitely Tommy Ladnier on cornet. This then
leaves us with the following:
Possibilities: PIANO: Glover Compton;
BANJO: John
Basley
or Mike McKendrick; CLARINET: Jimmie Noone (most likely)
or Stump Evans; TUBA:
William “Bass” Moore; SAXOPHONE: Horace Diemer; CORNET:
Tommy Ladnier; TROMBONE: Eddie Vincent or Preston
Jackson.
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