An Unexpected Jazz Landmark

When I attended Earlham College many years ago, there was a tall abandoned building along the river in downtown Richmond, IN that some friends and I would occasionally sneak into at night. We took flashlights so we could step over the broken glass and watch out for the empty elevator shaft that plunged down six floors. It was a dumb thing to do — and probably illegal — but it left an impression. I had a vague sense that something important had once happened in this building, but I had little idea that it helped shape 20th century American music.

Later I learned that Gennett Records, housed in the giant Starr Piano factory, had been a recording mecca in the 1920s. In fact, many major artists made their first records in this building. The list of jazz giants who recorded there is staggering — including King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, and Hoagy Carmichael. It was one of the few studios where Black musicians could make records, and some of those recording sessions featured Black and white musicians together, which was practically unheard of at the time. And it wasn’t just jazz. Country, gospel and blues artists also recorded on the Gennett label.

This city in eastern Indiana might seem like an odd spot to become a recording hotspot, but its location on a railroad line in the middle of the country — with relatively easy access to major cities like Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis —  was appealing. Apparently some recording sessions had to be stopped midstream when trains passed by. And recording back then wasn’t easy. Musicians were surrounded by curtains in an unventilated room, often in intense heat, so the wax disc was soft enough for the stylus to cut in the sound.

Last weekend I went back to Richmond for a college reunion, and I visited the Starr Piano site. Only a shell of the old building still exists — it was being rented out for a wedding reception — and there’s now a concrete path that runs along the river, embedded with mosaic plaques dedicated to these jazz giants. It wasn’t hard to imagine the scene, a century ago, when this place was cooking.

The history of jazz is full of unexpected twists and turns. We tell another origin story in this weekend’s show, "Jazz Migrations," which follows jazz back to Africa, with stops in Ethiopia and South Africa, and traces the cross-pollination of rhythms between continents. And yes, you’ll also hear a lot of great music.

—Steve