Peter Batten celebrates the great Muggsy Spanier…

My title will probably mean nothing to most of you. Even if you are a jazz fan your enthusiasm and knowledge may not extend back much beyond the 1950s. It refers to a series of recordings made between 1939 and 1940 by a jazz band called ‘Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtimers’.

Muggsy, real name Francis Joseph Spanier, was born in Chicago in 1906. By the early 1920s he was already a professional cornet player. He was to continue playing that instrument for the rest of his career, although most cornet players had switched to the trumpet by the end of the 1920s. Chicago at that time was becoming the jazz centre of the USA. Many influential jazz musicians had come up the river from New Orleans, including Joe ‘King’ Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and the young Louis Armstrong. Jazz bands could be heard at night in many parts of the City. Muggsy soon became an accomplished jazz soloist. Continue reading The Great Sixteen →