I was laying in bed listening to Bix & Tram when I noticed her voice. Something unique about it stirred me to get up and find out who she was.
Bee Palmer.
"I want all of her records," I thought. But there are none to be found.
Bee Palmer, I discovered, was more than a Vocalist and Vaudevillian. Bee was also a stripper. Was she a marked woman? Is this why the record labels never marketed her studio tracks? Or did they really not hear what I hear in her voice? In an era where labels were over-eager to put out new records, Bee Palmer didn't make the cut.
I don't know, but I love the song. I want more Bee Palmer. I want to raise her from the dead, I want to dig through the stories of her contemporaries, the photos and songs, a singular career lost to the chaos of the Jazz Era.
"Vocalist, Dancer, and Vaudevillian Bee Palmer led the first band to be called "The New Orleans Rhythm Kings". This was her accompanying group, and in 1919 included Emmett Hardy, cornet; Santo Peccora, trombone; Leon Roppolo, clarinet, and Palmer's husband Al Seigal, piano.
Palmer was a very magnetic performer, and concidered a sex symbol. Her shimmy dance was highly acclaimed. She was invited to the recording studio repeatedly in the 1920s (after she and the NORK had split ways), but the record companies never saw fit to issue any of the results. A few test pressings have survived, copies of which are circulated amoung collectors."
Singin' The Blues mp3
The Complete OKeh & Brunswick Recordings Of Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer and Jack Teagarden 1924-1936, Mosaic Records
Bix & Tram Boxed Set, JSP Records.
Labels: jazz era
