Houston Bound by Tyina Steptoe

Author:Tyina Steptoe [Steptoe, Tyina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520282575
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TEXAS TENORS

The blend of people and cultures that marked Houston’s big band era influenced the rest of the nation during World War II. Big bands of the Swing Era tended to travel, which spread local sounds to new people in distant places. Milton Larkin and His Orchestra began touring in 1937. They charted a path similar to that of other territory bands—outfits that toured venues of a particular region. Larkin at first struggled to recruit band members old enough to travel outside of Texas. He frequently had to substitute other musicians for the high school students who were too young to go on tour. When students did embark on these interstate journeys, Larkin took special pains to accommodate their worried families. He didn’t allow drinking, and when they returned from touring, he would deposit the high school students on their families’ doorsteps first. “I didn’t have any trouble with the kids,” Larkin said. “But they were all young.”62

Although they did not garner the same acclaim as the nationally renowned bands that played in Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York, territory bands left an indelible influence on jazz in the ’30s and ’40s. Territory bands did not tend to record (indeed, Larkin’s orchestra never entered a studio together during their pre–World War II heyday). Instead, they gained a following by traveling from city to city, stopping to perform in small towns and rural areas if those places had venues available. Bands like Larkin’s played in a variety of settings. If segregation ordinances restricted their access to theaters or ballrooms, then territory bands might play at small cafés or even local high schools. By playing in varied settings, these bands took unfamiliar sounds to new places. Larkin’s band helped spread the sounds of Houston ballrooms outside of Texas by crisscrossing the South, Southwest, and West Coast. They traveled to Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and California. In the process, they helped circulate styles between the urban and rural areas, exposing themselves and their audiences to a wide array of sounds.

Milton Larkin and His Orchestra’s days as a territory band ended with an invitation to one of the premier nightclubs in the nation, Chicago’s Rhumboogie. Playing one thousand miles north meant moving beyond their typical musical territory and into one of the most popular venues in the nation, a place frequented by top acts of the Swing Era. According to Larkin, Joe Louis liked his sound, so the boxer pulled strings to get them invited to the popular nightclub. During those first nights in the midwestern metropolis, the young band from the Bayou City had a strong case of the jitters. The shows were “rough” at first, Larkin said, “because we had never played big shows like this. This was competition to the Cotton Club.” To their surprise, the crowd went wild for what they called “the Swinging Band from Texas.” The Houston orchestra drew acclaim by battling other bands at the Rhumboogie. According to Larkin, “one band would play an hour and the next band would play an hour, and then people would applaud what they thought.

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