Bix Beiderbecke: There's a Cradle in Caroline
Track
There's a Cradle in Caroline
Artist
Bix Beiderbecke (cornet)
CD
Bix Beiderbecke Vol. 1: Singin' the Blues (Columbia CK-45450)
Musicians:
Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Frankie Trumbauer (C-melody sax),
The Broadway Bellhops directed by Sam Lanin: Irving Kaufman (vocals), Hymie Farberman (trumpet), Bill Rank (trombone), Don Murray (clarinet), Bobby Davis (alto sax), Joe Venuti (violin), Frank Signorelli (piano), John Cali (banjo), Joe Tarto (tuba), Vic Berton (drums)
.Composed by Fred E. Ahlert & Joe Young
.Recorded: New York, September 29, 1927
Rating: 85/100 (learn more)
If this song about a homesick Tar Heel lacks sincerity, perhaps it's because the singer was born in Syracuse, New York, and the musicians were Easterners and Midwesterners whose cradles never moseyed within 400 miles of North Carolina. But note the recording date: precisely one week before Al Jolson's burnt-cork "My Mammy" in Hollywood's The Jazz Singer swept America's infatuation with a mythical Dixie to its nadir. Sans blackface, bandleader Sam Lanin and singer Irving Kaufman follow the same script of Jewish immigrants assimilating through minstrelsy. Fortunately, they're joined by someone practiced at transcending mediocrity. Only Bix could rock this rickety "Cradle."
Reviewer: Alan Kurtz
Tags: 1920s jazz · cornet
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