April 1, 2004

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  International Sweethearts of Rhythm: America's #1 All-Girl Jazz Band

  
  

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  Broadcast the week of 3/25/04

  
  

  
  Above: Doing the "Susie Q" in front of the bus before boarding.

  
  

  In honor of National Women's History Month in March, Riverwalk Jazz presents a salute to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first racially-integrated "all girl" jazz band of the '40s. 

  
  

  Riverwalk's hour-long tribute to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm features rare interviews with two surviving members of the band, Helen Jones Woods, trombone player, and Roz Cron, alto saxophonist.
  

  Listen to the complete interview with Roz Cron.
  

  Named by Downbeat magazine as America's #1 All-Girl Orchestra in 1944, they enjoyed an enormous following among the African-American audiences who heard them on the black theater circuit at the Apollo in New York, the Paradise in Detroit, and the Howard in Washington, D.C. They played Battle-of-the-Bands concerts with jazz orchestras led by Fletcher Henderson and Earl Hines. Letter-writing campaigns from overseas black soldiers demanded the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and in 1945 the band embarked on a 6-month European tour making them the first black women to travel with the USO.

  
  

  Left: International Sweethearts Sax Section, Chicago, 1944.  Courtesy of Rosalind Cron

  
  

  Back in the USA, even contending with the gas and tire shortages of WWII, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm made two coast-to-coast tours in their bus--Big Bertha. As a racially mixed band, they defied the Jim Crow laws of the south--the white girls in the band wore dark makeup on stage and stayed in the bus when they traveled in order to avoid arrest.

  
  

  Listen to a sample of "Don't Get It Twisted," originally composed for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, by Maurice King. Recorded in New York, October 14, 1946.
  

  Also included are live air-checks of the International Sweethearts performing in 1945-46.

  
  

  

  
  

  Sweethearts in Chicago, 1942, courtesy of Johnnie Mae Rice Graham

  
  

  
   

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