The music career of Albert Marx spanned six decades from the early 1930s well into the 1980s. Leonard Feather wrote a profile of Albert Marx that was published in the October 1982 issue of JazzTimes, “The Marxmanship of Albert.” Feather compared Marx with John Hammond and Norman Granz observing that he differs from the two in that he was less well known.1
“Like both, he has strongly liberal political and racial views. Like Hammond he was born into great wealth, but chose to rebel and make his own career as a producer.” Feather also noted that Marx had the longest track record of the three as his career began in 1929 when he was hired by the American Record Corporation, producer of Brunswick, Perfect, and other labels. Granz launched his career on July 2, 1944, when he recorded the jazz concert at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles that became his trademark, Jazz At The Philharmonic.
Norman Granz’s initial productions appeared on Asch Records in New York, Black & White Records in Los Angeles, and Mercury Records in Chicago prior to established his own imprints: Clef, Norgran, Verve, and Pablo.
Albert Marx produced artists on Brunswick and Musicraft before launching Discovery Records in 1948 and Trend Records in 1954 in Los Angeles.
The similarities end there. Granz became well known, his name almost synonymous with jazz. Marx is virtually unknown. His name is absent from the major chronicles of jazz like The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz and the numerous Leonard Feather encyclopedias of jazz.
Marx was born on July 6, 1911, in New Rochelle, New York. His father, Lawrence Marx, was president of Cohn, Hall and Marx Textiles, one of America’s largest textile manufacturers. Lawrence’s passion was competitive sailing and his sloop, Alberta, won many awards sailing Long Island Sound.
Albert’s mother encouraged his appreciation of music, taking him to Carnegie Hall on Saturdays to hear Walter Damrosch conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra where the music of Debussy, Ravel, Delius, and Bartok became favorites and the core of his classical music collection. Duke Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy” turned Albert on to jazz with Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong expanding his appreciation and record collection. When Duke Ellington opened at the Cotton Club Albert’s father arranged for his son to go there as a birthday present.
Lawrence hoped his son would join him in the textile trade when he graduated from high school — but Albert wanted to skip college and find employment in the record business. Lawrence gave his blessing and Albert set off for New York.
Albert set his sight on working for RCA Victor, one of the nation’s largest record companies at the time. After being turned down, Albert learned about a newly formed company, American Recording Corporation. Harry Grey was impressed by the resolve of young Marx and told him he would have to start at the bottom of the business, ARC’s pressing plant in Scranton, PA. Albert had to rise at 4:00 a.m. daily to work the first shift at the plant pressing platters for ARC’s labels and many other companies. Marx mastered the ins and outs of pressing records after three months.
His next assignment was to learn how to sell records to ARC’s distributors and retail stores. Gray gave Marx the most difficult territories to cover. Albert passed that test as well and moved to the last stage of his apprenticeship, the recording studio.
Marx’s record collection and years of attending live music performances at concert halls and clubs provided the foundation of a critical ear for talent and music well performed. Albert heard a pianist at Central Park Casino where he took his dates for dancing. The society orchestra of Leo Reisman wasn’t remarkable. But the pianist possessed real talent. Marx asked him to put a little band together of his own, rehearse it and come to ARC to audition when they were ready. The pianist was Eddy Duchin. Marx’s grooming in the recording studio under Gray included duties typical of an artist & repertoire head. Albert selected “Stormy Weather” and “Night and Day” as perfect vehicles for the new Eddy Duchin Orchestra. Both became hits for Brunswick.
Marx told Feather about the circumstance of recording Art Tatum for Brunswick. “Someone called me from Ithaca, N.Y. about a pianist he wanted to bring in to make a test. In those days there was no union rule to stop you, so we brought him in, and I couldn’t believe what I heard. I told the engineer to heat up a couple of waxes Harry Smith, the engineer, said, ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard! The guy that had brought him in said, ‘Look, if you put this out, will you pay him something?’ I asked what he thought would be fair and he suggested $10 a tune. And that’s how Art Tatum got to make his first solo session.”
Tatum recorded his first four released solo sides for Brunswick Records on March 21, 1933: “St. Louis Blues,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Tea for Two” and “Tiger Rag.” “The last of these was a minor hit, impressing the public with its startling tempo of approximately 376 (quarter note) beats per minute, and with right-hand eighth notes adding to the technical feat.”2
Art Tatum was present in Brunswick’s studios a year earlier when he accompanied Adelaide Hall in the group backing her on “Strange As It Seems” and “I’ll Never Be The Same” recorded August 5, 1932, and “You Gave Me Everything But Love” and “ This Time It’s Love” recorded August 10, 1932. Adelaide Hall was touring the United States and heard Tatum play in Toledo where she recruited him for her band. Tatum went with Hall to New York.
“After his arrival in New York, Tatum participated in a cutting contest at Morgan’s bar in Harlem with the established stride piano masters – James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, and Willie “The Lion” Smith. Standard contest pieces included Johnson’s “Harlem Strut” and “Carolina Shout” and Waller’s “Handful of Keys.” Tatum played his arrangements of “Tea for Two” and “Tiger Rag.” Reminiscing about Tatum’s debut, Johnson said, “When Tatum played “Tea for Two” that night I guess that was the first time I ever heard it really played.”3
The Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra auditioned for Brunswick at Marx’s urging, but the higher-ups passed on issuing recordings by the innovative band that signed with RCA Victor. Marx’s tenure with ARC spanned 1929-1933. After leaving ARC Marx worked at the Rockwell-O’Keefe agency as a talent scout. Marx introduced Tommy Rockwell to Ray Noble via UK HMV 78’s in his collection. Rockwell was impressed and persuaded Noble to come to America where he formed an all-star American orchestra that recorded for RCA Victor.
Marx enjoyed many friendships with music notables during the mid 1930s — George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Johnny Green, and the Dorsey brothers. He shared an office with Victor Young while he was at ARC. Many of these friendships were nurtured during outings on his father’s yacht. Lawrence Marx acquired a new racing yacht in 1937, an international one design sloop that he also named Alberta. The elder Marx was working on his new sloop when he suffered a fall. He later succumbed to these injuries and complications in May of 1938.
Albert Marx married Helen Wiltschek on January 15, 1937, in Manhattan. Helen was raised in a musical family and as a teen sang with bands in New York City including one led by Eddy Duchin. She adopted the stage name, Helen Ward, when she began singing with the Benny Goodman band in 1934. Ward continued her singing career after her marriage to Marx and recorded with Teddy Wilson, Gene Krupa, and Bob Crosby among others.
Almost a year to the date after his marriage to Helen Ward, Albert Marx executed his greatest contribution to the recorded jazz canon when he arranged to record Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall Concert on the evening of January 16, 1938. Paradoxically he was not employed in the record industry at the time. Carnegie Hall was hallowed ground in classical music circles and had never presented any music outside of “The Three Bs.” Newspaper ads for the event noted that Benny Goodman and his band will invade the fairly sacred precincts of Carnegie Hall on Sunday evening for the purpose of producing some swing music, complete with jam session. The program will include such un-philharmonic items as “One o’Clock Jump,” “Sensation Rag,” “Body and Soul,” and Benny’s current hit, “Bei Mir Bist du Schoen.” The idea of preserving this historic event had not occurred to Goodman and Marx made all of the necessary arrangements for dedicated telephone feeds to recording facilities to capture the entire concert. Marx wanted one set of recordings as as a gift for his wife, with a second set intended as a gift for Goodman. After her marriage to Marx ended, Ward remarried twice, first to man named Newton in 1953, and then to William Savory in 1971.
Goodman’s copies eventually got relegated to a closet in his apartment for 12 years before they were rediscovered by his sister-in-law who brought them to his attention. Goodman passed the masters onto his recording label, Columbia, who, in 1950, issued the first selections (including the famous jam session) ever to be heard by anyone outside the Hall that night. The restoration of Goodman’s transcriptions was engineered by William Savory. The records, among the first to be pressed on 33⅓ long-playing discs, sold over a million copies. In 1985, these recordings were remastered and released on CD. In 1998, after the discovery of earlier aluminum studio masters struck from Marx’s original copies, the full concert was finally released to the music-buying public.4
After leaving employment with Rockwell-O’Keefe, Albert worked for his father’s textile firm, but after five years he returned to the music business in 1944 when the opportunity to buy shares of Musicraft beckoned. Musicraft was formed in 1937 as a small label issuing a mix of classical, folk, and miscellaneous genres. During his tenure with Musicraft the label moved into jazz with releases by Teddy Wilson, Charlie Shavers, Georgie Auld, Red Norvo, Buck Clayton, Duke Ellington, and Ben Webster. Marx recorded Sarah Vaughan with Stuff Smith, Teddy Wilson, and Georgie Auld — recordings regarded as her classic 1946-47 dates.
- Leonard Feather, The Marxmanship of Albert, JazzTimes, October, 1982, 5. ↩︎
- Schuller, Gunther (1989). The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930–1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507140-5 ↩︎
- Lester, James (1994). Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509640-8 ↩︎
- http://www.jitterbuzz.com/carcon.html ↩︎
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