Gordon Stretton
a study in multiple identities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v4i1.77Keywords:
acculturation, African diaspora, Argentinian jazz, black-cast show, British Jazz, French jazz, Orchestre Syncopated Six, Gordon StrettonAbstract
A Liverpudlian of mixed Jamaican and Irish ancestry, William Masters, born in 1887, provides a fascinating study of a member of the African diaspora seeking and finding an artistic identity. After membership of a Lancashire clog-dancing troupe, he adopted a stage name, Gordon Stretton, in tribute to an Edwardian music-hall artist, then learnt to be a jazz drummer under the tutelage of visiting African-American musician Billy Dorsey. Stretton’s varied career subsequently took him to France and Argentina. He exemplifies the manner in which members of the African diaspora of very varied backgrounds were sucked into currently prestigious North American idioms.
References
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Cheney, Margaret. 2000. Midnight at Mabel’s: The Mabel Mercer Story. Washington, DC: New Voyage.
Chilton, John. 1997. Who’s Who of British Jazz. London: Cassell.
Duclos-Arkilovitch, Jonathan. 1997. Jazzin’ Riviera: 70 ans de jazz sur la Côte d’Azur. Nice: ROM Editions.
Goddard, Chris. 1979. Jazz Away from Home. New York and London: Paddington Press.
Green, Jeffrey, and Howard Rye. 1988. ‘ “To the Mother Country”: Jamaican Entertainers in Britain 1906–1936’. South African Theatre Journal 2.2: 62–75.
Hurrie, Bill. 1934. ‘From Our Buenos Aires Correspondent’. Melody Maker, 22 December: 3.
Lotz, Rainer. 1997. Black People: Entertainers of African Descent in Europe, and Germany. Bonn: Birgit Lotz Verlag.
Miller, Mark. 2005. Some Hustling This! Taking Jazz to the World 1914–1929. Toronto: The Mercury Press.
Mouzon, George. 1946. ‘Meet Gordon Stretton: Composer of 200 Song Hits’. Afro-American (Baltimore), 2 November 1946: 8.
Neder, Alvaro. 2005. ‘Luíz Americano’. Formerly at http://www.icebergradio.com/artist/ 323291/lu%C3%ADz_americano.html (accessed 2005).
Nevers, Daniel. 1984. ‘Gordon Stretton: “Tu verras Montmartre” ’. Jazz Magazine 325: 58–9.
Oliver, Paul, ed. 1990. Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music. Milton Keynes and Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Pernet, Robert, and Howard Rye. 2001. ‘Visiting Firemen 18: Louis Mitchell’. In Storyville 2000-01, ed. Laurie Wright, 221–48. Chigwell, UK: L. Wright.
Pessis, Jacques, and Jacques Crépineau. 1990. The Moulin Rouge, ed. Andrew Lamb. New York: St. Martin’s Press; Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing.
Pujol, Sergio. 2004. Jazz Al Sur: Historia de la música negra en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores.
Risetti, Ricardo. 1994. Memorias del Jazz Argentino. Buenos Aires: Corregidor.
Rye, Howard. 1988. ‘Visiting Firemen 14: Joe Jordan 1915’. Storyville 134: 55–8.
—1990. ‘Visiting Firemen 15: The Southern Syncopated Orchestra (Part 1)’. Storyville 142: 137–46; ‘(Part 2)’, Storyville 143: 165–78; ‘(Part 3)’, Storyville 144: 227–34.
—2004a. ‘Eliot Carpenter’. Names & Numbers 31: 3–7.
—2004b. ‘Mabel Mercer (1900–1984)’. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—2009. ‘The Southern Syncopated Orchestra’. Black Music Research Journal 29.2 (Fall 2009): 9–95.
Sadaic. 2006. Sociedad Argentina de Autores et Compositores de Musica. http://www.sadaic. org.ar.
Stretton, Gordon. 1930. ‘Musician Says Argentina is Land of Opportunities’. The Chicago Defender, 30 August 1930: 9.
Surowiec, Cathy. 1989. ‘A Chronology of Chaplin’s Life, Work and World Events’. In The Worlds of Charlie Chaplin. London: Museum of the Moving Image.
Published
2010-04-07
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Daniels, J., & Rye, H. (2010). Gordon Stretton: a study in multiple identities. Popular Music History, 4(1), 77-90. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v4i1.77
