Sweet Georgia Brown Freddy Johnson Arthur Briggs All Star Orchestra

Sweet Georgia Brown -- Freddy Johnson-Arthur Briggs All-Star Orchestra
Louis Cole (vocal), arranged by Freddie Johnson, Paris, July 8, 1933

The Johnson-Briggs All-Star Orchestra (aka The Harlemites) was the best African American jazz orchestra in Europe during the early 1930s, yet it only lasted one summer. Jazzmen like these were a vanguard bringing jazz and swing to Europe. The emergence of French jazz and the Hot Club style owe much to these intrepid Franco/Afro/American expatriates.

Development of European jazz lagged far behind America. But this outfit is a rare instance of parity. Johnson’s arrangements, the soloists and ensemble maintain jaunty forward momentum comparable to the Benny Moten or Casa Loma Orchestras.

Freddy (or Freddie) Johnson (1904-1961) was a dynamic jazz pianist and impresario living in Europe continuously after 1928. He and Arthur Briggs supplied the music at Bricktops’ cabaret in Paris. From 1934 to ‘39 Johnson operated music venues and bands in Belgium and the Netherlands, recording with Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter.

Arthur Briggs (1901-1991) well deserved his sobriquet, “The Louis Armstrong of France.” First landing on the Continent in 1921, he lived mostly in Paris after 1931. (And incidentally, this is not his best work.) Briggs larger-than-life story encompasses affiliation with every significant jazz artist in Europe, recording 100 sides in Berlin by 1927 and five-years detention in a French Nazi POW camp.
https://www.dagogo.com/book-review-better-...

Clarinet and alto saxophonist Peter Duconge (1902-1966) came from a musical New Orleans Creole family, studied with reed master Lorenzo Tio, Jr and played on the Mississippi riverboats. Living in Europe 1928-40, he married famed cabaret operator Ada “Bricktop” Smith in 1929 and Louis Armstrong lodged at their villa while visiting Paris.

Duconge joined Satchmo’s 1933-34 European tour and is seen in the famed Copenhagen, concert film    • Louis Armstrong in Copenhagen (1933)-HD  . He subsequently performed, jammed or recorded with Adelaide Hall, Coleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France.

Beginning in 1929, trombonist Billy Burns (1904-1963) played all over Europe with impresario bandleaders Sam Wooding, Noble Sissle, Freddy Johnson and Willie Lewis. He toured, gigged or recorded in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal and Egypt, returning to the USA in 1941.

Frank “Big Boy” Goudie (1899-1964) was a skilled multi-instrumentalist (trumpet, saxophone and clarinet) from Louisiana. This was his first recording session yielding substantial solos on disc, but which went unissued in America. During the 1930s Goudie was prominently associated with Johnson and Briggs, featured at concerts sponsored by the Hot Club of France introducing Django to Parisians.

Recent research reveals that Big Boy was a wandering Creole Johnny Appleseed of jazz who lived performed and toured on three continents, formerly accidentally overlooked by researchers and enthusiasts. From 1924 to ‘39 he toured Europe, jammed and recorded with Django Reinhardt. Marrying a French woman, he settled into domestic French middle-class life before fleeing to South American during WWII.

Curiously, it was because this cohort of musicians spent their prime years in Europe that they’re generally overlooked in narrative jazz history. Their recordings usually weren’t issued in America for decades, there was little contemporaneous press coverage and many of the primary sources aren’t in English. Nevertheless, vivid recent biographies of Briggs, Goudie and others suggest further research can deepen our granular understanding of early jazz.

Youtoobs:
I’ve Found a New Baby -- Goudie plays trumpet, sax, clarinet, 1935
   • I’ve Found a New Baby -- Frank Goudie (tru...  

Django and Goudie
   • Django & Big Boy Goudie, Paris  

Goudie’s Paris, 1930s
   • Frank Goudie's Paris 1924-39  

Willie Lewis Orch, 1936
   • Frank Big Boy Goudie with Willie Lewis and...  

Louis Armstrong in Copenhagen, 1934
   • Louis Armstrong in Copenhagen (1933)-HD  

Big Boy on three continents:
http://www.jazzhotbigstep.com/120601.html
http://www.jazzhotbigstep.com/752934.html
http://www.jazzhotbigstep.com/137101.html
http://www.jazzhotbigstep.com/227501.html

Dagogo (no paywall)
https://www.dagogo.com/frank-big-boy-goudi...
https://www.dagogo.com/frank-big-boy-goudi...
https://www.dagogo.com/frank-big-boy-goudi...

Syndicated Times (paywall)
https://syncopatedtimes.com/frank-big-boy-...

Arthur Briggs recent biography:
https://www.dagogo.com/book-review-better-...
https://syncopatedtimes.com/better-days-wi...