Beschreibung:

Title: C.C.P.A. March and Two Step - only known copy of sheet music Author: Chaplain John C. Spikes Place: Hamilton, Ohio Publisher: Colored Citizens Protective Association Date: 1916 Description: Photographic cover + 4pp. of sheet music. 35x27.5 cm (13¾x10¾"). As this may be the only surviving copy of this excessively rare sheet music – neither this title, nor any of the five other compositions listed on the title page appear in the Library of Congress catalogue – we can only speculate that the composer was Jazz musician John Curry Spikes (1881-1955) who, a few years later, settled in Los Angeles where he started a music store, a nightclub, a recording studio and music publishing house, while continuing to write songs, in collaboration with his brother, Benjamin Franklin “Reb” Spikes, and the famous Jelly Roll Morton, who composed the first Jazz published in America (see previous entry in this catalogue). The brothers, according to Wikipedia, had worked together in a traveling band which performed in San Francisco around 1915; later, in 1922, they were first to record an all-black jazz band and possibly first to make a short “talkie” which predated Al Jolson’s Jazz Singer. Spikes and his brother also wrote the lyrics to Morton’s “Wolverine Blues” and composed their own popular “Someday Sweetheart”. If John Curry Spikes was indeed the composer of this earlier sheet music, it may be his first musical publication. Lot Amendments Condition: Two horizontal creases (where folded), moderate wear with chips and tears at edges, a few tears repaired with tape at edges and spine, finger soiling; good. Item number: 234060