Troublesome Recordings

This chapter introduces Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy and establishes how their recordings represent a usefully troublesome body of work for illuminating prevailing conceptions of jazz that articulate notions of race with those of musical style. A survey of the extant literature which has previously considered the band’s records, together with that which has broached the entwined topics of race and jazz, suggests the value of the study in reflecting the vital role of the recordings of such interwar black jazz musicians in shaping jazz as a practice and conception. The notion of manipulating stylistic masks, which are donned by the musicians to Signify on racialized styles and identities in creative and often subversive ways, is introduced as the central means for illuminating the records and their musical-racial discourse. That approach is contextualized with reference to Andy Kirk’s upbringing and musical background before the materials, method, and structure for the study are outlined.

‘Walkin’ and Swingin’’

This chapter focuses on the hot-swing numbers that the Clouds of Joy recorded in the period between March 1936 and July 1941. It shows that despite evident qualities of the hot-jazz styles of New York and Kansas City, the swing records of Kirk’s band display a comparatively restrained but elegant character. Unlike other black swing bands, the Clouds of Joy do not impress with rhythmic drive, unusual sonorities, or sheer volume. Their swing style is more subtle, unobtrusive, and refined. So, this chapter asks, how can we account for the distinctively restrained-but-elegant quality in the swing recordings of the Clouds of Joy? This central question is addressed with reference to social dancing, but it is as much about race as style: Kirk and his band continued to develop a black-jazz style that ensured their music appealed to Decca’s race-records market while also Signifyin(g) stereotypes of blackness associated with swing music in a subversive way.

A Mellow Bit of Rhythm

This concluding chapter considers the 1957 album, A Mellow Bit of Rhythm, as a Signifyin(g) form of musical recollection. It rounded off the recorded output of Kirk as a bandleader in a way that re-illuminated the earlier recordings made by his Clouds of Joy within a 1950s hot-jazz context. The retrospective album is shown to be as much a form of stylistic mask-play as the original recordings, as it served to represent a particular kind of ‘authentic’ black-jazz legacy for Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy within contemporary stylistic parameters and expectations. The bigger band and its more voluminous sound are considered relative to contemporary audio technologies and tastes and the louder big-band style is shown to re-present Kirk’s recordings of the previous two decades in fresh stylistic and racial garb. Exploring that album ultimately presents an opportunity to reflect on the whole race-political enterprise of the records of Kirk and his band.

‘Until the Real Thing Comes Along’

This chapter explores the recordings of Kirk’s band from ‘Until the Real Thing Comes Along’, a ‘special’ ballad that Kirk convinced Decca to record in 1936, to the disbanding of the Clouds of Joy in 1949. It primarily addresses the band’s commercial successes with vocal records, which increasingly dominated their Decca releases after 1936. The chapter shows how the popular vocals speak (or sing) loudest of the position and actions of a black band operating within a racist music industry and society. By considering the sweet-styled vocals relative to the band’s rapidly diminishing hot jazz output, this chapter challenges the enduring critical notion that Kirk’s band sold out on black-jazz authenticity with their turn to popular vocal recordings. Instead, it suggests how they found new ways to Signify on their situation within the racist culture in which they operated.

‘Sweet and Hot’

This chapter explores the earliest recordings of Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy that were made during the period 1929–1931. The chapter shows how Kirk inherited the Clouds of Joy from the Texan trumpeter Terrence ‘T.’ Holder and how he worked hard to develop the band to become a versatile and appealing ensemble that played music suited to the tastes of white audiences. When they came to record, however, the Clouds of Joy did not use much of the repertoire that they played for white social dancers in the Southwestern Territories but they offered hotter styled jazz that better fitted racist expectations of what a black band should sound like. Thus, the chapter argues that Kirk’s band effectively donned a stylistic mask of black-sounding jazz that was at odds with the dance-band character that can also be heard in their first records. Recording thereby engaged them in a musical form of masked performance that played with and on prevailing racist stereotypes of blackness and whiteness in jazz.