#walterpage

Remembering Walter Page on his 126th birth anniversary.

Walter Sylvester Page (February 9, 1900 – December 20, 1957) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist and bandleader, best known for his groundbreaking work as a double bass player with Walter Page’s Blue Devils and the Count Basie Orchestra.

Walter Page’s Blue Devils – Blue Devil Blues (1929)

"Blue Devil Blues" is a 1929 blues/jazz standard by Babe Stovall. It was first recorded in November 1929 by Walter Page and the Oklahoma City Blue Devils, with vocals by Jimmy Rushing. It is described as "not strictly speaking a blues, but a rather simplistic, old-fashioned minor-key piece" in the key of C minor.

The Blue Devils were an early Kansas City Jazz band, several members of this band would go on to and play in Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra and the Count Basie Orchestra. The founder of the Blue Devils was Walter Page. The band started in Oklahoma City in 1925. The Blue Devils played in the Southwest and travelling by car played small clubs and dance halls. In 1928 Jimmy Rushing and Bill “Count” Basie joined the band, and would play with them until the following year when Bennie Moten lured Basie away from the band.

Shortly after Basie’s departure, Durham quit and later Rushing and Lips Page would also join Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra. The Blue Devils regrouped and hired Lester Young and Druie Bess, but Moten ended up absorbing most of the Blue Devils, even including Walter Page.

After a series of misadventures in 1933, The Blue Devils found themselves stranded in Virginia, without instruments or money. They hopped a freight train back to St. Louis. Moten ended up hiring the remnants of the band, including Lester Young. After Moten’s death in 1935, Count Basie took over the Kansas City Orchestra.

Personnel: Alvin Borroughs – drums Walter Page – tuba Hot Lips Page -tumpet Reuben Lynch or Thomas Owens – guitar Ted Manning – alto saxophone Dan Minor – trombone Reuben Roddy – tenor saxophone Jimmy Rushing – vocals James Simpson – tumpet Buster Smith – clarinet, alto saxophone Charlie Washington – piano

Photos: Walter Page’s Blue Devils, sometime in the 1920s. (Page is holding a trumpet in the front row, third from left.). Credit Duncan Schiedt / Dave Dexter, Jr. Collection, Labudde Special Collections, Miller Nichols Library, Umkc.

Walter Page: Freedom Bass Dance