No information about Miss Crippen, who was probably singing in clubs around Harlem when Harry C. Pace was starting Black Swan Records,the first Black-owned record company ever. About that time, 20-year -old James Fletcher Henderson arrived in New York, intending to earn a graduate degree in Chemistry. But then he fell in with a bunch of musicians, and you know the rest of that story... Henderson went on to be a leading composer-arranger, and a pioneer in big band arrangement until his death in 1952, And just think-- it.. he had only finished school, he could have spent the rest of his life trying to find a college that would hire a Black Chemistry professor.
Katie Crippen, vocal; accompanied by Henderson's Novelty Orchestra: Fletcher Henderson, piano; others unknown.
New York NY 2/21 Black Swan 2003
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