Mosby, Curtis (J.)

Extract

(b Kansas City, MO, July 7, 1888; d San Francisco, June 25, 1957). American drummer, bandleader, and nightclub owner. In the 1910s he toured with the Tennessee Ten and led his own band in Chicago. Having moved to California, he operated a record store in Oakland around 1921 before going on tour with Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds. His presence has been suggested on recordings by Smith made in May 1922, but has not been securely established. Back in California he formed his own band, known from time to time as the Kansas City Blue Blowers or the Dixieland Blue Blowers. In November 1924 the group began a long residency at Solomon’s Dance Pavilion DeLuxe in Los Angeles, during which private recordings were made that have fortuitously survived; in 1927 it moved to the Bronx Palm Gardens and in October it began a series of recordings for Columbia. This band, in which Jake Porter, Les Hite, and Henry Starr were sidemen, was also the house band at the Lincoln Theater. In ...