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March 8, 2007 - International Sweethearts of Rhythm: America's #1 All-Girl Band
 Sample Audio
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 In honor of National Women's History Month, Riverwalk Jazz presents a salute to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first racially-integrated "all-girl" jazz band in the country, featuring interviews with two surviving members of the band: Helen Jones Woods, trombone player; and Roz Cron, alto saxophonist.
Named by Down Beat magazine as America's #1 All-Girl Orchestra in 1944, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm enjoyed an enormous following performing on the black theater circuit, including the Apollo in New York, the Paradise in Detroit, and the Howard in Washington, D.C. The Sweethearts played battle-of-the-bands concerts against jazz orchestras led by Fletcher Henderson and Earl Hines. Letter-writing campaigns by black soldiers overseas led to the band embarking on a 6-month European tour in 1945, making the Sweethearts the first black women to travel with the USO.
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 WEB EXCLUSIVE
Roz Cron talks with David Holt about life on the road with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, including her arrest in El Paso, Texas for attempting to "pass for black."
Roz Cron joined the Sweethearts in 1943 when she was 18 years old, living at home with her parents in Boston. She received a surprising call one night from backstage at the Apollo Theater. It was the manager of the Sweethearts looking for someone to replace one of the alto players who'd become ill and returned home to Kansas.
Roz was one of only a handful of white women in the band. Most of its members were mixed-race young women in their teens or early 20s. Some were Chinese-American or Native American—and many were African-American. Though it was against the law for a mixed-race group to travel and perform together in the South at the time, it didn't stop the Sweethearts.
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 Back in the USA, contending with gas and tire shortages of the WWII era, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm made two coast-to-coast tours in their bus---Big Bertha. As a racially-mixed band, they defied Jim Crow laws by their very existence, but didn't hesitate to travel extensively in the South.
The Jim Cullum Jazz Band and their guests salute the Sweethearts with performances of Swing Era classics, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" and "String of Pearls." Also heard are the only recordings the International Sweethearts of Rhythm made, live air-checks from 1945-46.
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Guest Profiles: Bob Barnard, Dick Hyman, Bobby Gordon, Allan Vaché, Harry Allen, Clark Terry, Bob Havens, Russ Phillips, Lionel Hampton
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The Kit McClure Band brings to life the music of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm with their CD, The Sweethearts Project (Redhot Records). The band presents the original arrangements as performed by the International Sweethearts of Rhythm as well as reinterpretations by women musicians of the Kit McClure Band.
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, D. Antoinette Handy
American Women in Jazz, Sally Placksin
Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s, Sherrie Tucker
Video
DVD
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm
Streaming
"Jump Children" 1946
On the Web
Sites
International Women in Jazz
Streaming Audio
Listen to a sample of "Don't Get It Twisted," originally composed for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, by Maurice King. Recorded in New York, October 14, 1946.
Text based on Riverwalk Jazz script by Margaret Moos Pick Photos Top: Doing the "Susie Q" in front of the bus before boarding.
Middle: International Sweethearts Sax Section, Chicago, 1944, courtesy Roz Cron
Bottom: Sweethearts in Chicago, 1942, courtesy Johnnie Mae Rice Graham
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