The Players
Featured Interview: Wynton Marsalis – Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
“The Gennett studios were so important in the early recording industry…They reflected the sound of all these different, fantastic, phenomenal voices from all across America. We owe those folks a debt of gratitude for helping to capture that early sound and preserve it forever.”
Featured Interview: Michael Feinstein – Broadway Star and Founder of the Great American Songbook Foundation
“It’s really a spectacular story. When the major recording labels of the day were ignoring the new sounds of jazz, blues, country and gospel music, along comes this little label – Gennett – that records these important sounds and, as a result, creates a kind of significant musical history that is unparalleled for any other label in America at that time.”
Featured Interview: Ricky Skaggs – 2018 CMA Country Music Hall of Fame Inductee
“That was certainly a special time in our American musical heritage…The people that recorded pure, original, heartfelt soul music, those people were selling records – and making all of us in America pay attention.”
Featured Interview: Tyron Cooper – Emmy Award-Winning Composer of the Soundtrack to “The Music Makers of Gennett Records”
“The Gennett legacy really touched every stream of American music and is a microcosm of the broader American social fabric, as well as the creative essence of America today.”
Featured Interview: Brent Wallarab – Arranger and Director: The Gennett Suite Concert and Associate Professor of Jazz Studies, Indiana University
“The music that was recorded at the Gennett studios was hugely significant. It was heralding a new voice that would change the landscape of American music forever.”
Gennett Historical Musical Profile: Louis Armstrong – Legendary American Entertainer / First Recorded Solo at the Gennett Studios in 1923
“When Armstrong plays his first recorded solo on “Chimes Blues” at the Gennett studios, you hear not only the clarity and brilliance of this immense, new musical talent. You hear, for the very first time, the future of what jazz music could be and one day would become. It was the signal that everything we thought we understood about American music was about to change.” – Gary Giddins, Jazz Critic
Gennett Historical Musical Profile: Hoagy Carmichael – Famed Composer / First Commercial Recordings at the Gennett Studios in the 1920s
“The studio was primitive, the room was soundproof, and just outside was a railroad spur with switch engines puffing away noisily. Yet this obscure recording studio in a small Indiana city saw a history-making parade of musicians. They made the name of the Hoosier Gennetts one of the greatest names in recorded music.”
Gennett Historical Musical Profile: Bix Beiderbecke – Famed Cornetist / First Commercial Recordings at the Gennett Studios in the 1920s
“Hey Hoagy, why don’t you come over to Richmond with me? I’m doing some records for Gennett. I’ve got some guys who can really go to town…Tommy Dorsey, Howdy Quicksell, Don Murray, Paul Mertz. Just wind us up and watch us go. It’s just the most goddamnest wonderful time.”
Gennett Historical Musical Profile: Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton / First Inter-Racial Recording in American History at Gennett Studios in the 1920s
“The Melrose Brothers had a music store in Chicago back then. And I was writing all kinds of tunes in the New Orleans [jazz] style for them. They began to talk to me about working with the Gennett Record Company. They were the ones who first recorded King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. That’s when things really began to click. Through the record company we began to link the folk-jazz world with the super-stuffy but respectable world of the music business.”
