ArtistInfo

Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra

Band,
Jazz

In the late 1920s, Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra was the most sucessful Jazz band of the Midwest. The band toured all over the country and had a top selling recording in 1927 for Victor named "South". In 1929, the young Count Basie of The Blue Devils joined the band, and several other members of that band soon followed. Among them were bass player Walter Page, trumpeter Hot Lips Page, vocalist Jimmy Rushing and guitarist Eddie Durham (the first guitarist to experiment with proto-amplifiers, in the solo of Band Box Shuffle in October 1929). The acquisition of all these members of the Blue Devils caused the exodus of long-time Moten Band members Thamon Hayes and Harlan Leonard, who founded their own ensemble. When Moten hired Ben Webster and Eddie Barefield in 1932, the modernization of the band was complete. Later that same year, Moten recorded Moten's Swing, one of the first recordings to use a riff, the foundation of Kansas City jazz. Count Basie took over the band after Moten's death in 1935.

Members

	Count Basie p 1904-1984 US
	Eddie Durham tb, g 1906-1987 US
	Ben Webster ts 1909-1973 US
	Eddie Barefield cl, as 1909-1991 US
	Hot Lips Page tr, voc 1908-1954 US
	Walter Page b 1900-1957 US
	Jimmy Rushing voc 1901-1972 US
	Lammar Wright cor 1907-1973 US
	Bennie Moten p 1894-1935 US
	Joe Keyes tr 1907-1950 US
	Jack Washington bs, sax 1910-1964 US
	Ed Lewis tr US
	Dan Minor tb 1909-1982 US
	Paul Webster tr 1909-1966 US
	Harry Cooper cor 1903-1961 FR
	Leroy Berry bj US
	Thamon Hayes tb US
	LaForest Dent g, bj
	Woody Walder cl 1903-1978 US
	Booker Washington dr *1909 US
	Willie McWashington dr US
	Vernon Page b US
	Harlan Leonard cl, as 1905-1983 US
	Prince Dee Stewart
	Buster Moten p
	William Little Jr. voc
	Willie Hall dr
	George Tall