The Bronze Age

The dawn of indie record companies in LA....

Last week, our journey found us reunited with the West Coast. It was a happy reunion:

This week, we turn our attention to another fork in that Big River called Jazz. It starts small, but it flows deep and strong to a place called LA’s Central Avenue….

I've known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than

    the flow of human blood in human veins.

Langston Hughes

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Central Avenue

A distinct African American community around Central Avenue was an early twentieth century creation, which Wynton Marsallis once called the “52nd Street of Los Angeles.” This tight community was the result of a rising tide of racism, legally maintained until the late 1940s through racially restrictive housing covenants in property deeds. This segregation forced the community to discover its own resources, that in-turn created a wonderful sense of community with a vibrant cultural and musical scene. This scene had a substantial impact on twentieth century America and would lay the groundwork for the avant-garde of the 1950s. It would also inspire the LA community arts movement from the 1960s to the present. That community arts movement is perhaps best represented by the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, founded in 1961 by Horace Tapscott. Before we look at the Pan Afrikan People Arkestra, we should look back to Central Avenue in the 1940s.

The Central Avenue corridor held approximately 70% of the black population in LA, who relied upon the Avenue to meet nearly all of their social and cultural needs. At that time, Central Avenue, or known locally as just “The Avenue”, boasted a formidable live music scene. Take a few minutes to explore this wonderful link to the clubs that made 1940s Central Avenue swing: Central Avenue club scene.

Here is Billie Holliday at the Club Alabam in the historic Dunbar Hotel, which was the heart of the “The Avenue”.

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Most historians recognize that Cecil Gant’s I Wonder and Joe Liggin’s The Honeydripper, both released by a black-owned independent LA record label in the mid-1940s, effectively began the rhythm and blues industry, and therefore, laid the foundation for Rock ‘n’ roll a little later down the line. Both singles, by black singer-pianists, broke through the music monopoly dominated by the three big major record companies of that time: Victor, Columbia, and Decca. These two singles reached the top of the R & B charts and even crossed over into the pop charts. They would go on to sell over a million copies and change the course of music forever. The sudden success, out of nowhere, of two black artists on independent labels was nothing short of revolutionary.

However, what is not commonly known is that these artists were discovered and recorded first by Leroy E. Hurte at his Bronze Recording Company in south-central LA. Sadly, although Bronze recorded the two hit singles, they were both subsequently re-recorded & released to even more success by other better connected and financed local labels. LA white-owned record labels quickly followed Hurte’s trail-blazing business plan by recording other local African-American talent (labeling the records as “race”) and Hurte lost interest in the record business, turning to his true love European classical music. Hurte eventually sold his Flash Record store and recording catalog of over 100 recordings and moved to NYC to study at the Juilliard School. He excelled in his work and even attended a conducting workshop at Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein.

Leroy Hurte recorded, pressed and released his Bronze records from this building on Vernon street.

Here’s the rest of the story….

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Bronze Records

A small, but not insignificant, part of community life on “The Avenue” was black-owned independent record companies like Exclusive, Excelsior, and later Flash, Cash, and Combo. However, my favorite and perhaps most important was Bronze Records.

After graduating from Jefferson High School in 1934, Leroy Hurte organized a vocal quartet called the Four Blackbirds. Here’s a 1935 clip of the Four Blackbirds featuring Hurte playing the guitar, as they appeared in the Hollywood short Memories and Melodies.

In 1938, after touring and recording with the Four Blackbirds on the Vocalian label, Hurte got a job at Allied Records, one of the few record pressing plants in Hollywood, where he learned how to make records. In 1939, He went into a partnership with Patrick Reynolds in the Flash Electronics Research Lab, later called Flash records. After a few months, he went off on his own and opened Flash Broadcast Studios on Central Avenue, where he broadcast gospel shows over KFOX radio. Soon afterwards, he partnered with John Levy, the owner of Bronze Record and Recording Company. Early in 1940, Hurte bought out Levy, moved to 623 East Vernon Ave., set up his own studio and record cutting lathe, and established one of the first Black independently owned record labels to record African-American artists. World War II interrupted his enterprise until late 1943. Then, in early 1944, he re-started operation of the Bronze Recording Company.

A few months later, the young army private in uniform, Cecil Gant, walked into Hurte’s Vernon Avenue office, and they recorded I Wonder. The first week, more than 1000 records were sold.

Here is I Wonder by piano player/composer Cecil Gant:

Note that this is not the Bronze label. This is the more well known Gilt-Edge label release.

First released by Hurte on his Bronze label (as I prominently and proudly feature at the top of the page), white-owned Gilt-Edge Records unfortunately stole Gant’s contract, re-recorded Cecil, and then released their own hit version of I Wonder. They promoted him as PVT. Cecil Gant, “the G.I. Sing–Sation.” Gilt-Edge quickly was able to flood the market with supply and basically put Bronze out of business. By 1947, Hurte left his recording equipment behind and moved to Central Avenue to open Bronze Record Shop.

Here are portions of an amazing 1995 interview with Leroy Hurte from the University of California library in which he talks about the beginnings of race records, the origins of his Bronze records, and the court case he brought against Gilt-Edge over Cecil Gant’s contract - it’s not as long as it seems.

After talking about his earlier adventures with the Four Blackbirds and Hollywood, he begins to open up about his recording company:

Hurte

Something a little steadier I wanted to get into. So I went to work for John Levy on Central Avenue with the Bronze Recording Company.

Isoardi

That's what he called it?

Hurte

That's what he called it, Bronze.

Isoardi

But this was just a record store?

Hurte

No, he was going to produce records, make phonograph records and distribute them. He didn't get very far because he had to give up his studio. I think he had domestic problems.

Isoardi

Who was he?

Hurte

John Levy was his name. I didn't know too much about him before then, but then after that he went to New York, and I don't know what he did after that.

Isoardi

He's a black man?

Hurte

Yeah, he was a black man. Before he left, when he had to give up his studio, I bought him out to get over, and I went ahead— Because we were trying to be partners in the first place, but he had to give it up and went on to New York. So I took the same name and opened up the Bronze Recording Company. This was right after the record store itself.

Isoardi

Now, how did you get into the record store?

Hurte

This fellow named Patrick Reynolds—"Flash"—and I decided to open a record store, just a store. So we opened it up on Vernon Avenue near Central Avenue. We would buy records wholesale and sell them retail. We advertised and so on. At that time we could do pretty well with certain kinds of records called race records.

Isoardi

That's what you focused on?

Hurte

That's what we focused on. So we would stock up with that kind of record, whereas the stores in Hollywood had to stock up with Bing Crosby and people of that type. They would have a few race records. Finally they began to get more and more and more. But we would sell them because we specialized in them. We stocked that exclusively almost. So then after that I left the Flash Record Store and opened up my own Bronze Recording Company.

Isoardi

That's when you took over John Levy?

Hurte

That's when I took over John Levy and moved further out near Vernon and Avalon [Boulevard].

Isoardi

So where was Bronze Recording Company when it began?

Hurte

Where was it? It was 623 Vernon Avenue, right off of Avalon Boulevard. Because then we were beginning to move further west. In other words, we could live as far as Main Street at that time, in the forties. Because it was Loren Miller, the attorney, who helped overthrow those restrictive covenants.

Isoardi

I think there was also such an influx of people during the war.

Hurte

Oh, yeah. It was growing fast, very fast. That's right.

Isoardi

This seems like a big change from musical composition in high school to the production end of it. Is it the kind of thing where everything about music interested you?

Hurte

In a way it was, but in a way they were so closely related. Because the first people I recorded was the Five Soul Stirrers, the quartet. They would come and sing, and I understood their music. If they needed anything added to it I could do that, help them with it. I went ahead and recorded because at that time I felt that I could be more successful and make more money in the record business.

Hurte

…My biggest recording was "I Wonder" by Cecil Gant.

Isoardi

That was a monstrous hit.

Hurte

It was a monstrous hit. That's the thing that pushed me headlong into the record manufacturing business, because the guy walked into my office and he sang—

Isoardi

Cecil Gant?

Hurte

Cecil Gant. I liked the song, and I recorded it. And the first thing I knew it was being played over the radio stations. And it began to grow, and people started asking for it. That's when I had to get that record press.

Isoardi

Oh, you didn't have a press?

Hurte

I didn't have a press at first. I had Allied pressing my records for me; I paid them to press my records. Then this thing grew so fast that I— And we had this lawsuit with Gilt-Edge Records, and they tried to steal it from me.

Isoardi

On what basis? The song itself?

Hurte

The song itself. We went to court, and I couldn't win over him. He was too big. So Gilt-Edge decided to start pressing those records, but they couldn't stop me from pressing them either, because I'd gotten the copyright.

Isoardi

So "I Wonder" was issued by two different labels?

Hurte

Two different labels, that's right. And I had to print—

Isoardi

[laughter] It was so big it probably—

Hurte

My printing press couldn't print over about one thousand a week. So at the end of the week I'd have a thousand records, and the dealers would line up at my door to buy those. So then I'd have to go back and press another thousand. The next week they'd line up at my door to buy those.

Isoardi

Extraordinary. What a success.

Isoardi

That raises a question. The independent label business— Who else was out there outside of the— I guess there were four major record companies then. But in terms of independents in Southern California, were you the only game in town?

Hurte

We were the first ones, I believe, to start independent record companies. After that they began to come in much more frequently.

Isoardi

In our interview with Joe he talks quite a bit about the impact of your operation, that Cecil Gant tune. How far back do the Renés go? Do you know when they started up?

Hurte

It wasn't too far back from the time I started. René went back to working with John Levy and a group called the Four Tones, I believe. So it wasn't too far back. I'm pretty certain it must have been the early forties, '41, '42.

Isoardi

That they started producing their records?

Hurte

Yeah. It wasn't too far. We both came in pretty close to the same time.

Isoardi

As far as you know, there were no other independents before then in Los Angeles?

Hurte

Not that I know of. Not that I know of. This fellow with this article researched that, and he thinks we were the first.

Isoardi

So Cecil Gant literally just walked in your front door?

Hurte

Just walked in my front door.

Isoardi

In uniform?

Hurte

Yes.

Isoardi

Do you know anything about his background, where he came from? Was he from Southern California?

Hurte

No, he wasn't. He was in the army at the time.

Isoardi

Stationed—?

Hurte

Stationed— I don't know. I'd have to look somewhere. [laughter] But he walked in. Because, see, I had— My business was available. It had a big sign on it and that sort of thing. It was a storefront on Vernon Avenue, a pretty busy street. And the newspapers, the Los Angeles Sentinel, had been writing about me. So he came on in, sang his song, sang a couple of songs. So I recorded two. He came back another day and recorded two more. I was going to put the first one out and then later on put the second one out after the first one started doing a little something, and they both started selling. Both of them started selling.

Isoardi

Really? So it wasn't just "I Wonder"? It was the other disc as well?

Hurte

On the other side was a song called "My Last Goodbye." And then a few weeks later I put the other one out, "Cecil's Boogie," and something else.

Isoardi

[laughter] How did you handle distribution?

Hurte

I called myself going to have my "own distribution," but I had made contacts with some other distributors. One was in San Diego. He wanted to distribute the records. Well, the time came when I couldn't supply him. So he came here along with other distributors and record stores and sat at my door until I opened up to buy records to take back to San Diego to sell. There were others who did the same thing. I couldn't supply them.

Isoardi

Nice beginning.

Hurte

So I hired two or three people. I hired a pressman to do my pressing and hired another fellow to print my labels, because I had a printing press, too. I had to get all of that because the record company that I sued told Allied not to press any more of my records.

Isoardi

Gilt-Edge did?

Hurte

Gilt-Edge did that. So I bought my own press, my own printing press, printed my labels. They couldn't stop me from that. [laughter]

Isoardi

Who was Gilt-Edge that they could do something like that?

Hurte

It was a big record company. I guess they were an independent that came on the scene.

Isoardi

Located—?

Hurte

Hollywood, I think.

Isoardi

That was a white record company, then?

Hurte

Yes, it was a white record company. I hired an attorney and everything, but I don't know what happened. It might have been something going on under the table. I don't know.

Isoardi

Yeah. But they did it.

Hurte

They did it.

So then I started putting out all kinds of records.

I started putting out religious records and so on. There are some classical records. I put out two up there.

Isoardi

On Bronze Records?

Hurte

On Bronze, yeah. And that one [pointing]— There are two or three up there that I put out.

I never did completely leave music. So I stayed with Bronze for a long time, and I began to get interested in classical music. So I went to New York. I went to New York mostly because I wanted to get to— I really went there to get a rest. I had been going, going, going, going, going.

Hurte

…"I Wonder" was what made (the big record companies) notice. So after I lost that case, Decca started recording "I Wonder."

Isoardi

The same recording?

Hurte

No. With Peggy Lee.

Isoardi

Ah.

Hurte

They recorded it with Peggy Lee. I couldn't control anything then, because what they did— I know what they did after I lost the case; they started recopyrighting with new material. The copyright office permits you to record a song again if the material is different. So they put guitar chords to it and called that new material, and Decca put it out. It sold a million copies. And I think I would have sold a million with Cecil Gant if I had been able to do so.

Isoardi

Gee. Any other artists that you might want to mention who passed through Bronze?

Hurte

I have a list of them, but I'm trying to think. The Southern Gospel Singers was a quartet. Let me see. I guess I didn't get those photographs out of them. I started writing a list of all of the people who recorded for Bronze. Here's part of that list. Number 101, the Five Soul Stirrers; 102, the Five Soul Stirrers; 103 and 104, the Five Soul Stirrers. Then I did Arthur Peters, 105, 106; 107 was "He Knows How Much You Can Bear" and "Steal Away" by the Three Gospel Tones; 108 was the Sally Martin Singers; 109 was an experiment; 110 was the Southern Gospel Singers. And there are some I can't find. Then I got up to 117—that was "I Wonder." I had done quite a bit before I got to "I Wonder."

Isoardi

Yeah.

Hurte

And then "It's All Over Now." That was another one by Cecil Gant.

Incredible interview.

The story behind Hurte’s recording of Joe Liggin’s The Honeydripper and its sudden release on the Exclusive label is less clear to me. In the interview, he talks a bit about the Rene brothers, who owned Exclusive and Excelsior labels. It’s clear that Hurte recorded Joe Liggins’s The Honeydripper, but it’s not clear how it was released by Exclusive.

Hurte had ties with Leon Rene in the 1937, when Leon put the male singers of the Four Blackbirds together with the Jones Boys to form the Jones Boy Sing Band, an amazing “human orchestra” broken down into “trumpet”, “trombone”, and “saxophone” section. They worked on Bing Crosby’s film Double or Nothing and evidently did the entire “instrumental” soundtrack. Here’s the “human orchestra” in a 1937 clip:

They also worked as back-up on Otis Rene’s Sleepy Time in Hawaii. A nice tune

You can hear this song here:

With all the trouble he was having with I Wonder, perhaps he just as likely turned over the recording or gave re-recording permission to the Rene brothers, but then again, they could have pulled a “Gilt-Edge” on him too….

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Exclusive and Exclesior Records

In the early 1940s, Leon and Otis Rene, two Creole brothers who settled in LA in 1920s and achieved some success as songwriters with Sleepy Time Down South and When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano, created two independent labels: Excelsior owned by Otis; and Exclusive owned by Leon. In 1946, they achieved a tremendous hit with Joe Liggins’s The Honeydripper:

The Rene brothers would soon be at the center of the R & B scene emerging in LA in the mid-1040s.

It was independent African American-owned record companies like Bronze and Exclusive that paved the way for many important independent R & B, Country, and Jazz record companies like: Philo 1945 in LA; Dial 1946 in LA; Bullet 1946 in Nashville (which we’ll visit soon); Swing Time 1947 in LA; Discovery 1948 in LA; Elko and Dootone 1951 both in LA, and Transition 1955 in Boston. Furthermore, the late 1950s and 1960s was one of the most active periods of artist-owned record labels in the country, like Charles Mingus and Max Roach’s NYC 1952 Debut label and Harry Partch’s Sausalito 1953 Gate 5 label. Perhaps the biggest and most active artist-owned record label was Sun Ra’s Saturn Records in Chicago, which in 1954 began releasing singles and LPs on their own label.

Here is a Saturn releases from 1960:

But our journey will take us to Sun Ra’s world much further down the line….

These important black-owned independent record companies didn’t last long, but they were very important influences not only in the Central Avenue community arts movement in LA, but nationwide.

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Jefferson High School and Dr. Samuel R. Browne

Perhaps, next to Captain Walter Dyett at DuSable High in Chicago, no other jazz teacher has had a greater impact on an extraordinarily large number of young black student jazz musicians than Dr. Samuel R. Browne. In the Fall of 1936, when he became the music teacher at Jefferson High School, Samuel Browne broke the teacher color barrier in LA.

Browne would take students to Central Avenue to hear live jazz, and he also brought performers like Jimmie Lunceford and Nat King Cole into the classroom. The school’s jazz band eventually began performing to sold-out crowds. Browne’s former student, jazz pianist and composer Horace Tapscott, remembered: “He was able to come in and to teach or to inspire, just come and talk with you. He made sure he kept an eye on you and he really dug you. “I dig you, man.” That’s what he’d tell you. “You don’t understand that yet. But I dig you.”

Many of Central Avenue’s most accomplished jazz, blues, and bebop players thrived under Browne’s baton at the high school just off Central Avenue. For example: Dexter Gordon, Frank Morgan, Chico Hamilton, Sonny Criss, Art Farmer, Roy Ayers, Etta James, Don Cherry, and perhaps none as important as Horace Tapscott.

Pianist, bandleader, and social activist Horace Tapscott committed his life to the empowerment of his South Central Los Angles community. In 1961, Tapscott founded the Underground Musicians Association(UGMA). In 1971, they changed its name to the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, working under its umbrella organization: the Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA). Both were at the forefront of a vibrant community arts movement in black Los Angeles.

By the early 1960s, Horace Tapscott and other artists concluded that an alternative value system and aesthetic was needed that drew directly from community aspects of their history and addressed contemporary needs. In my eyes, what makes UGMAA so special was their commitment to offering arts and music as a vital part of everyday life in the community. Here’s the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in a 1965 live performance:

The contribution to Jazz by LA’s Central Avenue flows incredibly deep and wonderful. Perhaps not as wide and well known as the West Coast Sound from the Pacific Jazz, Contemporary or Fantasy labels we covered last week, but every bit as important to that Big River called Jazz.

Next week, that Big River follows Cecil Gant, “the G.I. Sing–Sation”, from LA to Nashville, where we take a look at another very important independent record label, Bullet.

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Feel free to contact me at any time to talk shop. I welcome and encourage that….

Until then, keep on walking….