Louis Armstrong—”A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas” (1930)
In the early-summer of 1930, 29-year old Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), who was still largely unknown to the general public, made a transcontinental train journey to the west coast for an engagement with a small orchestra in the Hollywood club of Frank Sebastian on Washington boulevard at Culver City. The band, led for the first few weeks after Armstrong’s arrival by trumpet-player Vernon Elkins, had the name of the club, located in the building formerly known as the Green Mill: Sebastian’s Cotton Club Orchestra. Among it’s members were two exceptional young jazz players: 21-year old drummer Lionel Hampton and the 22-year old trombonist Lawrence Brown, who subsequently would join the band of Duke Ellington. On Monday July 21, 1930, they made this record for Okeh in Los Angeles.
Louis Armstrong & His Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra: Louis Armstrong-trumpets and vocal; Leon Elkins-trumpet; Lawrence Brown-trombone; Leon Herriford and Willie Stark-alto saxophones; William Franz-tenor saxophone; L.Z. Cooper-piano; Ceele Burke-banjo; Reggie Jones-tuba; Lionel Hampton-drums.
Hampton later recalled: “I worked and played with Louis when we were at the Cotton Club, and I’ve never heard anyone play the stuff that he played on trumpet there. No other musician has contributed as much as Louis, the greatest living force in jazz, who has influenced the whole music business. Satch has put down the key for everyone.”
“I’m A Ding Dong Daddy (From Dumas)” was the first record Louis Armstrong made with the Elkins band. That song was composed by a Texan from Rural Shade near Corsicana called Philip Kerley Baxter (1896-1972), who got his talent from his father, a traveling piano salesman. As a 14-year old boy, Phil Baxter played piano at a roller skating ring. And although Phil only knew one tune, the skaters didn’t mind, for the noise of their rollers was louder than the piano music.
When the first world war broke out, Baxter served in California at the Mare Island Naval Base, to which violinist Paul Whiteman was also assigned. The two sailors met and together they would entertain the troops there with violin and piano selections. Shortly after leaving the Navy, Phil formed his own orchestra and was featured in the El Torrean Ballroom in Kansas City with broadcasts over KMBC. Piano-playing orchestra leader Phil Baxter also organized the first red hot jazz band in Dallas.
Back in the Twenties and Thirties it was hard to keep your feet on the ground when you heard one of Baxter’s songs, for which he wrote both the music and the lyrics. One of the most popular songs he wrote was “Piccolo Pete” which the Ted Weems band recorded for Victor, and they made it a hit for the record company. Overnight Phil Baxter was famous, for that song proved the most popular in recent years of all novelty entertaining songs. Phil recalled that the royalties for that song in one month were $30.000. That made him one of the most successful composers during the Great Depression.
But the main toe-tapper that Phil wrote was “I’m A Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas.” “I generally went for alliteration in my titles,” Phil said, “ ‘Piccolo Pete,’ ‘Harmonica Harry,’ ‘Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas,’ ‘Dirt Dobber,’ Poetica Phil, that’s me.” The radio station in Dumas, Texas, is named after the song, KDDD-FM, and the three D’s stand for Ding Dong Daddy.
