The Ingenues
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. The Ingenues was a vaudeville all-female jazz band based in the
American Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
, which toured the United States and other countries from 1925 to 1937. Managed by Edward Gorman Sherman (1880-1940), the orchestra performed with great popularity in variety theater, vaudeville and picture houses, often billed as "The Twenty Paul Whitemans of Syncopation." They performed many songs in the
Ziegfeld Follies The ''Ziegfeld Follies'' was a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as ''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Ai ...
of 1927, ''Glorifying the American Girl'', including the first act finale, "Melody Land," featuring 12 pianos. Other Follies numbers featured violins, banjoes and saxophones from The Ingenues. The group performed popular songs, light classical works and novelties. They were celebrated for their versatility, as most members, including star soloist and "trick trombonist" Paula Jones, doubled on both novelty (accordions, harmonicas, banjos) and symphonic instruments. The group toured Europe, South Africa, Asia, Australia and Brazil (where they also recorded for Columbia Records). The band appeared in film shorts including ''
The Band Beautiful ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' and ''
Syncopating Sweeties In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...
'' (
Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one ...
1928) and ''
Maids and Music A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...
'' (RKO, 1937). ''Maids and Music'' was produced independently by
Milton Schwarzwald Milton Edward Schwarzwald (1891–1950) was a film director and musical theater composer and producer. In the 1930s, he directed numerous Mentone Productions comedy musical variety films before departing to produce musical theater in 1939. Leo ...
's Nu-Atlas Productions and released as a 16mm home movie by Pictoreels. Sequences from this and other Schwarzwald short subjects were also re-edited into Soundies; in the case of ''Maids and Music'' the Soundies excerpt was titled "Ray Fabing's Versatile Ingenues".


Further reading

Dahl, Linda. ''Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazz Women'' (New York: Limelight 1984) McGee, Kristin. "The Feminization of Mass Culture and the Novelty of All-Girl Bands: The Case of the Ingenues" in ''Popular Music and Society'' 31/5, 2008: pp. 629–662 McGee, Kristin. ''Some Liked it Hot: Jazz Women in Film and Television, 1928-1959'' (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press 2009): pp. 34–66 Dreyfus, Kay. ''Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of Australia's All-Girl Bands and Orchestras to the End of the Second World War'' (Currency Press 1999)


External links


Brown Family Papers
at the Newberry Library American jazz ensembles from Illinois Vaudeville performers All-female bands Musical groups established in 1925 1925 establishments in Illinois Musical groups disestablished in 1937 1937 disestablishments in the United States {{US-jazz-band-stub