the Club McKenzie: Your 1920s Jazz Speakeasy

Series produced by Guy Rathbun

Caption: Joe "King" Oliver
Joe "King" Oliver 

A weekly program of Music and Stories for "The Jazz Age."

Across the spectrum of pop and jazz from the late teens to the early 1930s, this weekly series from the Club McKenzie invites you the share in the talents and tales of the musicians and performers that created an unforgettable era.


624 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Alberta Hunter
This program is a cross section of Southern jazz artists who brought their music to the big stage in the 1920s. Alberta Hunter, Sippi Wallace, the ...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Dec 04, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Jack Hilton
Jack Hilton was one of the biggest names in music across Europe in the 1920s and ‘30s. Inspired by symphonic jazz popularized by Paul Whiteman in A...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Dec 11, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Louis Prima
In the transition from traditional jazz in the late 1920s and the emergence of the Swing Era of the 1930s … the big bands managed to hold on to the...

Bought by KCBX


  • Added: Dec 18, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: 1920s Christmas
Secular Christmas music had been around for decades before jazz began to incorporate the season into their music. When they finally did in the mid ...

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  • Added: Dec 23, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Cotton Club
By the mid 1920s, Harlem had completed its renaissance in art and literature. Now it was time for the music to complete the circle. At its height, ...

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  • Added: Dec 30, 2020
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Henry "Red" Allen
Although the isn’t as well known today, Red Allen was favorably compared with Louis Armstrong in the 1920s and ‘30s. He managed to perform with som...

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  • Added: Jan 07, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: James P. Johnson
Master and pupil, James P. Johnson and Thomas “Fats” Waller. James P. created stride. He and Fats popularized it. Their work in the 1920s influenc...

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  • Added: Jan 15, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: young Sidney Bechet
Soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet is among the giants of early jazz. An equal of Louis Armstrong. Yet, he is not that well remembered. Part of the ...

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  • Added: Jan 21, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Piece image
In the earliest years of jazz, the process of recording wasn’t close to being perfected. Microphones didn’t exist. Vocalists had to belt out their ...

Bought by KVCR and KCBX


  • Added: Feb 04, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Don Redman, leader
You’d be hard press to find more enthusiastic musicians who anticipated and relished every beat. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers were a young group who a...

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  • Added: Feb 11, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Art Hodes Riverboat Club
Quite a number of jazz musicians who were too young to take part in traditional jazz of the 1920s, joined the Revivalist era of the 1940s. To them ...

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  • Added: Feb 18, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Sonny Greer
This program features a cross section of musicians … with paraphrases from Bill Crow’s book “Jazz Anecdotes”. Humorous stories about by Louis Armst...

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  • Added: Feb 25, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Prohibionists
The fixture of the 1920s and early ‘30s was a result of the Volstead Act that introduced America to prohibition, and fostered the nightclubs that s...

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  • Added: Mar 04, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Red Onion Jazz Babies , Credit: 78 RPM Record
Buzz translates to rumor, and if Chicago was anything in the 1920s jazz and rumor were the glue. There was constant buss around political intrigue,...

Bought by WXAV 88.3FM Chicago and KCBX


  • Added: Mar 11, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Earl HInes
A commonly used word for someone who played piano. Three of those artists are featured. One from the south, Jelly Roll Morton, East, Duke Ellington...

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  • Added: Mar 18, 2021
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Lionel Hampton
The Blues was never expected to join the British royalty, but in the 1920s, the musical genre morphed and shifted its course. When jazz melded with...

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  • Added: Mar 25, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Fess Williams
Second cousins, you might say. As jazz evolved, it adopted many other musical genres. Vaudeville was a natural. It welcomed the peculiar and experi...

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  • Added: Apr 02, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Irving Berlin
Three of the biggest names in 20th century popular music. All of them started their careers before jazz reached north of Kansas City, but years lat...

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  • Added: Apr 08, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Kid Ory
When musicians began migrating north to Chicago in 1917, there was one item that was a must. Besides their suitcase and instrument, they had to hav...

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  • Added: Apr 16, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Fats Waller
A look at the origins of the word “jazz”. Would you believe that the root of the word is absolutely not what you think it is? After all this time, ...

Bought by WEAA, WNMU-FM, and KCBX


  • Added: Apr 22, 2021
  • Length: 59:01
  • Purchases: 3