In the era of “Swing” music and “Big Bands,” 1930s to 1940s, a long list of talented Jazz musicians attended Alabama State University (ASU) where they showcased their skills at the local, state, and on a national stage. Student musicians traveled near and far in one of several school sponsored Jazz ensembles, the Bama State Collegians, the Revelers, and the Cavaliers. In addition to raising money for the institution, these young musicians were part of a musical tradition that enriched student life and influenced American popular culture.
Born out of necessity, the ever-increasing popularity of Alabama State University’s Jazz bands attracted to ASU a generation of talented musicians. These young artists would go on to become key figures on the American music scene. In 1929, during the depths of the Great Depression, school president Harper Councill Trenholm organized the Bama State Collegians to raise desperately needed funds for the school. Probably the most famous student artist of the early to mid 1930s was Erskine Hawkins, who continued to call his band the Bama State Collegians, even after the group’s 1936 departure from the school. Hawkins would go on to write and produce Tuxedo Junction, which registered number 7 on the American Pop Charts in 1939.
Other members of the Collegians, Revelers, and Cavaliers, would leave ASU to play among the nation’s leading Jazz groups. Among the ASU musicians shaping the American Jazz scene were Don Hill who played with Louis Armstrong, “Lucky” Thompson who jammed with “Dizzy” Gillespie, and Matthew Gee who played for County Basie and Duke Ellington. Other Bama State musicians included Curtis Love, Joe Morris and Morris Lane, all of whom played with Lionel Hampton’s band. In addition, former Collegian Joe Newman played with Lionel Hampton, Count Basis, and Illinois Jacquet. Former Collegians Rheuben Phillips made a name for himself as musical director at the Apollo Theatre in New York City. These and other Bama State Jazz musicians made the school a mecca for aspiring Jazz artists during the 1930s, 1940s and into the 1950s.
After World War II, the school only maintained one band, the Bama State Collegians, and they became more of a “recreational orchestra” than Big Band. The new Collegians were smaller with a piano, bass, drums, trumpet, and alto saxophone.
Meanwhile, during the 1950s and early 1960s, the entertainment scene began to change, as Charlie Parker and the Be-Bop movement became the dominant Jazz genre. Meanwhile, Rhythm and Blues, the sound of Motown, as well as Rock & Roll, began to redefine popular dance music. By the early 1960s, Jazz was no longer preferred by young party goers, and by 1963, the Bama State Collegians were disbanded.
