"I basically went in there to record Julia Lee. That's when she was officially signed to Capitol Records by journalist and producer Dave Dexter Jr., a Kansas City native who grew up watching Lee perform. Staying in Kansas City didn't stop her from catching her big break in 1946. "And so she was very reluctant to travel and that really held her career back." “She kind of found herself in a lot of ways at home in Kansas City,” says Haddix. She was also wary of the racism that touring African Americans experienced on the road in those days. Lee was traumatized after being involved in a car crash that killed a fellow band member. That’s partly because she famously hated traveling. While the Kansas City musicians Lee came up with - like Bennie Moten and Count Basie - were touring the country, she remained a mainstay in Kansas City jazz clubs. And the only way he could do it was he had to get an empty instrument case and sit up there with the band, like he was a band member." "And my grandfather wanted to see her play. "Only the entertainers could be Black, not the audience," Duncan recalls. Julian Duncan remembers hearing stories of Lee's performances from his grandfather, Frank Duncan, catcher and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs baseball team. Lee also played at many clubs that catered to an exclusively white audience. "There were Black and Tan clubs where during the time of segregation, African Americans and white people could mix freely," says Haddix. But jazz clubs were one of the rare places where races came together. Lee Novelty Singing Orchestra - at a time during Kansas City's jazz heyday when it was extremely uncommon for women to perform as instrumentalists. Lee Band was locked in a "friendly rivalry" with the Bennie Moten Band - but Julia Lee's vocals and general showmanship helped her older brother's band eventually come out on top.īy age 18, she was already professionally playing piano and singing with her brother’s band, the George E. UMKC University Libraries In the 1920s, the George E. I mean, she was one of a number of women who were asserting themselves musically and socially when that was not socially acceptable," says Haddix.īorn in 1902 to a musical family, Lee studied music at Lincoln High School in Kansas City before going on to study advanced piano techniques at Western University in Quindaro, Kansas. "Julia Lee certainly deserves more than a spotlight. There is a lot more to her story than just lyrical wordplay, though. "She was Kansas City's most popular entertainer through the 1920s up until her passing in 1958." In 1941, Lee was banned from playing at a popular Kansas City club by liquor control agents due to "the type of song she sang and the way she sang it" - but her fans protested and eventually the ban was lifted.Īt the height of her career in 1949, Lee performed her iconic "King Size Papa" for President Harry Truman at the White House. It was double entendre," says Chuck Haddix, co-author of “ Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop.”
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