Arizona Territory Band! "What Do I Care?" Harry Owens' Arizona Biltmore Hotel Orch. (Brunswick 1929)

Harry Owens, t, vn, dir. Lester Lageson, t / Norman Hendrickson, tb / Mike Murray, as, ss, cl / Thomas Hould, ts, ss, cl / bj / Frank Jerge, p / Dick Ward, d, vib / Myran Poole, bb. Owens, Poole, and Murray, vocal trio.
Brunswick Studios
Los Angeles, California 23 Oct. 1929

LAE642-A “What Do I Care?” (v. Trio)–(Harry Carroll–Jesse Greer–Raymond Klages) Brunswick 4599

Transferred with 3.0ML lateral stylus in Audiotechnica VMN70SP cartridge via Audiotechnica AT-LP120 Turntable. Declicked and EQ’d by Colin Hancock. Discographical Info and Research from Brian Rust’s Jazz Records, Brian Rust’s Jazz Records, Newspapers.com, The Billboard, Variety Magazine, Mikiya Matsuda, Kevin Coffey, and Colin Hancock. Recordings and Images from the Colin Hancock Collection.

In the 1920s, Jazz from the “Southwest” is often used to refer to jazz from Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and even Arkansas. While this was southwest of the major population centers of the midwest and east coast of the United States, it is not the true geographical Southwest, comprised of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and parts of West Texas. Part of this is simply due to the remoteness of the region West of the “front” cities of El Paso, Albequerque, Santa Fe, Colorado Springs, and Denver. There just wasn’t a large population and thus there weren’t as many bands or (really) there wasn’t as easy access to recording (George Morrison’s Denver-based band, for instance, had to travel all the way to New York in 1921 to record for Columbia.) But in the late 1920s, more recording began to occur on the West Coast, and when Brunswick (a real pioneer in the Western US) began recording in Los Angeles regularly, the variety of artists from West of the Rockies recording for the label grew substantially, including one of the only true Jazz Age territory bands from the the American Southwest region, and probably the only one based in Arizona to record. This was the band of cornetist Harry Owens, who is far better known for his groundbreaking work in bringing the sounds of the Hawaiian islands to mainstream America via recordings and television broadcasts in the 40s and 50s. But long before that, Owens was a hot cornet and violin player based in Los Angeles.

In 1924 Ownes made his recording debut with Vincent Rose on Victor Records, playing the hot solos on “Helen Gone” and “Sadie” in a very distinctive sour tone with ragged phrasing. As the decade wore on he worked with other artists and put together an eight piece band that played the Lafayette Cafe and Club Casa Del Mar in Los Angeles, and the Cortez Hotel in San Diego. Bing Crosby allegedly worked with this band at one point early in his career. Due to the group’s regional success and flexibility without a devoted home, in 1928 Ownes was asked to put together a band for the opening of the brand new Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. The band played in the Hotel’s lounge with a program of light classical, pseudo-spanish, and popular music of the day. They also broadcast over Phoenix stations KFAD and KTAR, making a hit in the Salt River Valley. When the season ended, they were asked to return the following year and in preparation cut two sides for Brunswick in Los Angeles, which they then promoted in the regional Brunswick dealers. This was not uncommon as trumpeter Frankie Quartell also promoted his Brunswick releases in El Paso during his time there (though he was not operating the same band.) The Owens band’s recordings have a slick, LA type sound but a territory edge not unlike later titles by Jimmy Joy, Tom Gerun, or even Slatz Randall. It seems that the band may have added a banjo player for the session, though their identity is at this time unknown by the author.

In 1930, Owens fell in love with Elisabeth Reagan, a student at the University of Arizona, and at the season’s end decided to leave Phoenix, resettling in San Francisco, and then in 1934 relocating to Hawaii to direct the orchestra of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. While on this gig, Owens wrote the song “Sweet Leilani” which his old friend Bing Crosby heard while vacationing in Hawaii. The tune struck Crosby so much that he persuaded the director of the film “Waikiki Wedding” he was working on to include it in the soundtrack, ultimately winning the best song category of the 1938 Academy Awards.