Released in 1995 on the Jasmine label, Annette Hanshaw
The Twenties Sweetheart might easily be confused with
Sweetheart of the Twenties, issued in 2006 by Halcyon/Sounds of Yesteryear. The two compilations have 11 titles in common. While Halcyon includes two excerpts from a Hanshaw interview with
Brian Rust, the Jasmine disc contains 21 musical tracks, compared with Halcyon's fourteen. Annette Hanshaw (1901-1985) was one of the first white female singers to make authentic jazz records. She did this in collaboration with some of the best Caucasian improvisers active in New York during the '20s; had the entertainment industry's racially segregated policies not been in place, it is quite likely that she'd have collaborated regularly with some of the top Afro-American artists of the day. (This did happen once, according to Hanshaw herself, who claimed to have recorded two titles with pianists
James P. Johnson and
Clarence Williams in December 1929).
The Twenties Sweetheart begins with the singer's two earliest commercially released records, which were cut on September 12, 1926, and closes with two titles waxed at a session that took place in May 1928. The 1926 material (tracks one-three) with accompaniments by a group fronted by trumpeter Red Nichols and trombonist Miff Mole. 1927 was a magnificent year for Hanshaw as her backing bands grew ever more solid and interesting. On tracks four and five she sings with pianist
Irving Brodsky and
Jimmy Lytell, a capable clarinetist who reappears on tracks 20 and 21 with pianist
Rube Bloom. Tracks six-eight find Hanshaw working with
the Original Memphis Five, which in this case meant Red and Miff with clarinetist
George Bohn, pianist
Frank Signorelli, and drummer
Ray Bauduc. But the heart of this collection exists in tracks nine-fifteen, whereby Hanshaw does some of her all-time best singing in the company of a quartet billed either as Four Instrumental Stars or the Sizzlin' Syncopators. This amazing group consisted of violinist
Joe Venuti, guitarist
Eddie Lang, bass saxophonist
Adrian Rollini (also heard playing goofus, hot fountain pen, piano, and celeste) and drummer
Vic Berton who, on the cheerfully optimistic and rhythmically invigorating "I'm Somebody's Somebody Now," executes what must be the first phonographically recorded jazz tympani solo.
![Title: Coming Forth by Day [180g Vinyl]](https://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0888750646019_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg)
