The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day.[1] They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that included the Apollo Theater in New York City, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, DC[2][3] After a performance in Chicago in 1943, the Chicago Defender announced the band was, "One of the hottest stage shows that ever raised the roof of the theater!"[4] More recently, they have been labeled "the most prominent and probably best female aggregation of the Big Band era."[5]
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Laurence C. Jones founded the Piney Woods Country Life School in Piney Woods, Mississippi, for poor and African American children in 1910. In the early 1920s, he supported the school by sending an all-girl vocal group on the road. Following that success, in 1937 he formed the Swinging Rays of Rhythm, an all-girl band led by Consuela Carter. The band toured extensively throughout the East raising money for the school. In 1941 several girls in the band fled the school's bus when they found out that some of them would not graduate because they had been touring with the band instead of sitting in class.[6]
Shortly thereafter the band settled in Arlington, Virginia, where there was a wealthy Virginian who provided support for them.[7] Members from different races, including Latina, Asian, Caucasian, Black, Indian and Puerto Rican,[8] lent the band an "international" flavor, and the name International Sweethearts of Rhythm was given to the group. Composed of 14- to 19-year-olds, the band included Pauline Braddy (tutored on drums by Sid Catlett and Jo Jones), Willie May Wong (sax), Edna Williams and thirteen others, including Helen Jones Woods, who was the daughter of the Piney Wood School's founder. Soon Anna Mae Winburn was appointed band leader. She had led the Cotton Club Boys in North Omaha, Nebraska,[9] which featured the famous guitarist Charlie Christian until the band was "raided" by Fletcher Henderson.[10]
The first composer for the band was Eddie Durham, with Jesse Stone taking over in 1941. New members included trumpeter-vocalist Ernestine "Tiny" Davis and saxist Vi Burnside. The new 16-piece International Sweethearts of Rhythm featured a strong brass section, heavy percussion, and a deep rhythmic sense, along with many of the best female musicians of the day.[11] At one Howard Theater show, the band set a new box office record of 35,000 patrons in one week of 1941.
After Stone left in 1943, he was replaced by Maurice King, who later arranged for Gladys Knight and the Detroit Spinners. In 1944 the band was named "America's #1 All-Girl Orchestra" by Downbeat magazine.[12] At this point, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm enjoyed an enormous following among the African-American audiences playing "battle-of-the-bands" concerts against bands led by Fletcher Henderson and Earl Hines and selling out massive venues including Chicago's Rhumboogie Club. During World War II, letter-writing campaigns from overseas African American soldiers demanded them, and in 1945 the band embarked on a six-month European tour, making them the first black women to travel with the USO.
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm made two coast-to-coast tours in their bus. As a racially mixed band, they defied the Jim Crow laws of the South. The white women in the band wore dark makeup on stage to avoid arrest.[12][13] Despite being stars around the country, when the band traveled in the South all of the members ate and slept in the bus because of the segregation laws that prevented them from using restaurants and hotels.[14]
Tiny Davis had to turn down the opportunity to tour again with the band in 1946.[15] This, along with other lineup changes, led to the band folding in 1949.
Despite the impact of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm being repeatedly ignored in popular histories of jazz, the band enjoyed a resurgence in popularity among feminists in the 1960s and 1970s. The band was among the first marketed as women's music. There has also been considerable scholarship conducted regarding the "International" aspect of their name and the effect it had on the band's acceptance among African Americans and whites in the South.[16] According to one authority the band consisted of "Willie Mae Wong, the band's Chinese saxophonist; Alma Cortez; Mexican clarinet player; Nina de La Cruz, Indian saxophonist, and; Nova Lee McGee, Hawaiian trumpet player." The first white musicians joined in 1943. There were also several lesbians in the band, including Tiny Davis, whose sexuality was later the subject of Schiller and Weiss' Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women.[17]
In 2004 the Kit McClure Band released The Sweethearts Project on Redhot Records. It is a tribute album recorded entirely with an all-female band using only songs the Sweethearts recorded.[18]
The lineup of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm changed throughout the band's career.
The band only formally recorded four commercial songs during their existence.[20]
The following album is a compilation of many of the live radio appearances they made.
Tracks: Bugle Call Rag, Galvanizing, Sweet Georgia Brown, Central Avenue Boogie, Lady Be Good, Gin Mill Special, Honeysuckle Rose, Diggin’ Dykes, Slightly Frankie, One O’Clock Jump, Tuxedo Junction, Jump Children, She’s Crazy With The Heat, That Man Of Mine, Vi Vigor, Don’t Get It Twisted[21]
There are also a few tracks available on Big Band Jazz: The Jubilee Sessions 1943-1946 on Hindsight Records. A 2004 DVD called The Swing Era: Sarah Vaughan features Vaughan, along with little-seen material from the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.[22]
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm featured in several short films and one feature length film.[20][23] They were:
