Maestro Sam Wooding y sus Chocolate Kiddies

The Sam Wooding Chocolate Dandies later renamed as Chocolate Kiddies has been a favourite band of mine for long time.

It was one of the first bands that made jazz popular in Europe. The band made a tour through Europe and visited the major cities between May 1925 and February 1927. The tour started at Hamburg on May 17th 1925 and ended in Paris. As far as I know they didn't perform in the Netherlands. The band brought us the Chocolates Kiddies Revue, a kind of musical show.

Some musicians of the band played in other orchestras before, like Tommy Ladnier who had played in Oliver's band and names as Herb Flemming. Garvin Bushell, Gene Sedric ( he was for a long time one of the members of Waller's Rhythm), Doc Cheatman and Freddy Johnson, became known for their recordings later.
The Biograph BLP-12025 LP gives us the opportunity to listen to the music this orchestra made and the 1925 Berlin recordings and a 1929 Barcelona recordings feel fresh and well arranged.

I had this record in my collection long time ago, taped it and sold it. Now I found myself a new copy again and I enjoyed it.

The 1929 Barcelona tracksI remember that it felt special to insert the Barcelona sides in my card-tray ( my database-before-the-computer-era) as the records were labeled as Maestro Sam Wooding y sus Chocolate Kiddies, a bit exotical for a fifteen year old boy !!