Bert Kelly (June 2, 1882 in

Cedar Rapids, Iowa Cedar Rapids () is the second-largest city in Iowa, United States and is the county seat of Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, north of Iowa City and northeast of Des Moines, the state's capital and largest city. ...

– January 1968 in

Long Beach, New York Long Beach is an oceanfront city in Nassau County in New York, United States. It takes up a central section of the Long Beach Barrier Island, which is the westernmost of the outer barrier islands off Long Island's South Shore. As of the 2020 C ...

) was an American musician, who pioneered jazz as a

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

ist, bandleader, educator, promoter, night club owner, and night club operator. After professional stints in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, Kelly moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1914 where he flourished a

ist, bandleader, and promoter. In 1915 — before the U.S. prohibition — he founded and operated a Chicago speakeasy called " Bert Kelly's Stables," where patrons were introduced to early jazz.

Kelly as a musician

Kelly's band

Early gigs : Kelly's first professional engagement was in Seattle Washington, around 1896. He moved to San Francisco around 1899. San Francisco : In 1914, Kelly was in Art Hickman's band playing tea dances in the Rose Room of the St. Francis Hotel in

. Kelly eventually formed his own band and moved it to Chicago in 1914. Chicago : Kelly's band in Chicago included notable early

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Alcide Nunez, Tom Brown,

Gussie Mueller Gustave "Gussie" Mueller (April 17, 1890 – December 16, 1965) was an early jazz clarinetist. The New Orleans, Louisiana-born Mueller was a top clarinetist with Papa Jack Laine's bands in New Orleans before going to Chicago, Illinois with ...

, Emile Christian, and Ragbaby Stephens.

Early use of the word "jazz"

Kelly claimed that his band, Bert Kelly's Jazz Band, was the first to publish the word "jazz" in 1915. * In 1914, use of the word "jass" (forerunner to the word "jazz") was forbidden in mixed company in Chicago. Just before winning the Chicago mayoral election in late 1914, Bill Thompson's first police chief ordered Bert Kelly's Stables — the first "joint" on Rush Street — to take down a painted banner advertising "Jass Music." And, public opinion approved. * In the fall of 1915, Kelly's band had been performing at the College Inn in Chicago. Kelly was directing and playing drums, Wheeler Wadsworth ''(né'' Frank Wheeler Wadsworth; 1889–1929) was on saxophone; William Ahearn was on piano, and Sam Baum was on drums. Paraphrasing a 1919 newsprint article by a journalist who chronicled jazz, Walter J. Kingsley (1876–1929), the band played blues, hesitations, and quaint

syncopated 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 "plac ...

melodies, and were quite the craze in the night life of Chicago.

Thomas Meighan Thomas Meighan (April 9, 1879 – July 8, 1936) was an American actor of silent films and early talkies. He played several leading-man roles opposite popular actresses of the day, including Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. At one point he comm ...

, a movie star, gave a party one night and hired the Kelly band for dance music. The guests included Emmy Wehlen,

Julian Eltinge Julian Eltinge (May 14, 1881 – March 7, 1941), born William Julian Dalton, was an American stage and film actor and female impersonator. After appearing in the Boston Cadets Revue at the age of ten in feminine garb, Eltinge garnered noti ...

Jeanne Eagels Jeanne Eagels (born Eugenia Eagles; June 26, 1890 – October 3, 1929) was an American stage and film actress. A former Ziegfeld Girl, Eagels went on to greater fame on Broadway and in the emerging medium of sound films. She was posthumously ...

, and

Grace George Grace George (December 25, 1879 – May 19, 1961) was a prominent American stage actress, who had a long career on Broadway stage and also appeared in two films. Biography Grace George was born on December 25, 1879. She married producer Willia ...

. Richard Travers filmed it. In a segment showing the musicians, he inserted the caption, "The Originators of Jazz." Thereafter, Kelly's band was known as a "jazz band." * In a 1973 article, Dick Holbrook, a researcher, refuted Kelly's claim and challenged Kingsley's published account.

Kelly as a jazz club entrepreneur

Chicago

In the early 1920s — during U.S. prohibition — he founded and operated a Chicago speakeasy called " Bert Kelly's Stables," located at 431 Rush Street, in Chicago's Tower Town. It rapidly gained regional and national popularity as one of the jazz hotspots of the 1920s. The first house band featured Alcide Nunez, whose featured number "

Livery Stable Blues "Livery Stable Blues" is a jazz composition copyrighted by Ray Lopez ''(né'' Raymond Edward Lopez; 1889–1979) and Alcide Nunez in 1917. It was recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band on February 26, 1917, and, with the A side "Dixieland J ...

" inspired the name of the venue. Later artists at Kelly's Stables included Freddie Keppard. The brothers

Johnny Dodds Johnny Dodds (; April 12, 1892 – August 8, 1940) was an American jazz clarinetist and alto saxophonist based in New Orleans, best known for his recordings under his own name and with bands such as those of Joe "King" Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, ...

and

Baby Dodds Warren "Baby" Dodds (December 24, 1898 – February 14, 1959) was an American jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He is regarded as one of the best jazz drummers of the pre-big band era, and one of the most important ...

were featured in the house band after their break from

King Oliver Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he ...

's band.

New York

Kelly later opened another jazz club, Kelly's Stables, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, which was prominent on the

52nd Street 52nd Street is a -long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan, New York City. A short section of it was known as the city's center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s. Jazz center Following the repeal of P ...

jazz scene in the 1930s and 1940s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly. Bert 1882 births 1968 deaths Musicians from Cedar Rapids, Iowa Musicians from Chicago American jazz bandleaders American jazz banjoists Jazz musicians from Illinois