The Mississippi Rag - December 2007 Issue

The December 2007 issue of The Mississippi Rag was the very last one published. For its final year The Rag  was published online.

In it there were articles covering some of Duke Ellington's  singers. These included Ivie Anderson, Kay Davis, Adelaide Hall, Al Hibbler, as well as others.

There is also a tribute to the 95 year old tenor saxophonist Franz Jackson and a look at his long career.

A mandolinist, Dennis Pash, a member of the Kansas City's Etcetera String Band, is examined. Plus there is coverage of  the Oklahoma Centennial Ragfest, the EarlyJas Festival, Brighton's Swing Jazz Party, Sunnie Sutton's Jazz Party and the Doc Evans Centennial Celebration.

There is also a salute to the Hall Brothers Jazz Band and remembrances Lowell Schreyer and ragtime icon John Arpin.

On page 26 George A. Borgman's last Yankee Jazz Beat column covers musician and radio host Ray Smith's 35 years as host of his radio program The Jazz Decades. He also mentions Ken Badger's Trio, Dr. John Clark's Wolverine Jazz Band, Craig Ball's Back Bay Rhythm Maker's Quintet and Stan McDonald's Blue Horizon Jazz Band.

George leaves off with these words of wisdom, "Take a teenager to a traditional jazz gig or festival. When they have the opportunity to hear trad jazz, they'll probably love it."

Here is the December 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. December 2007

Jack Everette and His Orchestra

One of the bands that George A. Borgman played saxophone and clarinet with in 1946 was the Jack Everette Orchestra a Mid-west territorial big band.

The leader was John Everette Jackson, who was born in Watkins, Iowa on August 22, 1905 to John T. and Katie May (Wells) Jackson. He would use "Jack Everette" for his first band in 1926 in Cedar Rapids because there was another popular Mid-west group known as Jack Jackson and His Orchestra. Three years later, Jack married Alice Leroy Hart on March 4, 1929 in Iowa City.

The Jack Everette Orchestra started gaining it's popularity after the band began broadcasting from Station KWCR on a weekly radio show. The band had a long run at the Mayfair Club in Des Moines and had built up its prestige by the mid-thirties. The Orchestra was fairly successful during the Big Band years and worked a territory everywhere from Cincinatti to Salt Lake City and from Houston to Canada. His band had a long list of performance dates and occasionally they'd travel to Chicago and to Kansas City where they would play at the PlaMor Ballroom.

The band was disbanded during World War II, during which time Jack opened a restaurant in Springfield, Missouri.

With the end of the war Jack reformed his band with many of the same players as before. In a February 9, 1946 advertisement in Billboard he asked for, "TENOR SAX, TRUMPET MEN; commercial ideas and diligence required," to play with his "established territory band." Perhaps this ad led to George's stint with the band on saxophone. Whenever George joined it would not be for long, because he would join the U.S. Army in 1946 too and would become part of the Army of Occupation when he was sent to Germany in 1947.

 

The Jack Everette Orchestra continued its run until 1956. In that year his son Dave started his own orchestra. Jack and Dave would then start the Jackson Artist Corporation, a booking agency, in Kansas City, Missouri in 1962. Ten years later Jack would pass away on July 9, 1972.

Find out more on Jack E. Jackson at Family Tree Maker Online.