Can be a single track, a 78 with multiple tracks, early albums (as in literal albums of 78s bound together), a classical piece, a later compilation focusing on the year . . . whatever. Doesn't have to be a list, though of course you can post a list if you want. You can also just post one title at a time as you think of it/run across it (which is what I do in these threads).
An awful lot of great music to choose from, including the premieres of Ravel's Bolero and Brecht & Weill's Three Penny Opera, the release of Jimmie Rodgers' Blue Yodel No. 1 and In the Jailhouse Now, the Carter Family's recordings of "Keep on the Sunny Side" and "Wildwood Flower," Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" and "Monday Date," but I'm going with Duke Ellington's Victor recording of his "Black Beauty."
Quick top five: Fred Elizalde & His Music - Sugar London, c. 15 January 1928 Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra - Every Evening (I Miss You) Chicago, 16 May 1928 George Gershwin - Three Preludes London, 11 June 1928 Charlie Johnson & His Paradise Band - The Boy In The Boat New York, 19 September 1928 Jack Payne & The BBC Dance Orchestra - Hot And Heavy London, 19 October 1928
Super suggestions for a past era of mass musical diversity. This is all my own opinion: Personally, I am passionate with Arnold Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31. His work is not that accessible to a lot of music geeks, but for me this is where it started before I accumulated over 30 records and numerous CD's of his. This piece is most engaging and "easy on the ears" relative to some of his other creations. One of the funnest (not a word) pieces of the Second Viennese School. The year also includes Anton Von Webern's Symphony Op. 21. Dang, this one is overwhelming in a tranquil way. One has to follow along while reading the score in order to appreciate its serial form. Not an easy piece to really "get", I love it but cannot admit to fully understand its complexity.
Gershwin, Armstrong, Lemon Jefferson, Duke Ellington, Willie McTell, Lonnie Johnson .. .. in `28, for perspective, it would be another 8 years yet before Billie Holiday's first recordings would bring the voice that would change Jazz music forever to audiences beyond the Harlem nightclub scene regally transformed in 1933 upon her first singing engagements.
Was Okeh the leading rhythm and blues label of the time? Love the face of the label; same goes for the old Victor recordings. Lots of talent on them too. Somewhere along the lines Columbia absorbed Okeh and the label eventually dissolved or was designated for speciality purposes.
In 1928 they would have called it "race label" instead of "rhythm and blues label". The music that is most commonly referred to as rhythm and blues only took shape in the mid-1940s, and the term "rhythm and blues" was adopted by the music industry (practically overnight) in 1949 to replace the quaint "race" term, and equally dated-sounding synonyms such as "sepia" and "ebony" which some individual labels had used. (If it has a banjo instead of an electric guitar, or a clarinet instead of a tenor sax, it's safe to say that it's too early to be rhythm and blues.) OKeh was originally founded by the German Otto Heinemann in 1918. It was sold to Columbia in 1926, but when Columbia merged with His Master's Voice in Britain in 1931 to form EMI, it divested its US business, which after a number of changes of ownership ended up with CBS in 1938 (and on to Sony in 1991). OKeh must be one of the world's most intermittent record labels: discontinued 1935, revived 1940, discontinued 1946, revived 1951, discontinued 1970, revived 1993 (as a blues label), discontinued 2000, revived 2013 (as a jazz label).
My introduction to the Carter family was about ten years ago when I purchased the Anthology Of American Folk Music CD, which has several songs of theirs. I had heard of them and knew they were pioneers of country music, and was pleasantly surprised by their music...I loved it. Great harmonies and guitar playing. I purchased several more compilations of 20s-30s music with songs of theirs...really enjoy all of their music.
