The Original Salty Dogs Jazz Band is a

traditional jazz Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in the United States and Britain in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, played by musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine, based on a reviva ...

ensemble founded in 1947 in

West Lafayette, Indiana West Lafayette () is a city in Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, about northwest of the state capital of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. West Lafayette is directly across the Wabash River from its sister city, ...

, and later based in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. The Salty Dogs play

standards Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

and original pieces influenced by the

Dixieland Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ( ...

artists of the 1910s and 1920s, as well as the 1940s and 1950s "revivalists" such as

Lu Watters Lucius Carl Watters (December 19, 1911 – November 5, 1989) was a trumpeter and bandleader of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band. Jazz critic Leonard Feather said, “The Yerba Buena band was perhaps the most vital factor in the reawakening of public int ...

and

Turk Murphy Melvin Edward Alton "Turk" Murphy (December 16, 1915 – May 30, 1987) was an American trombonist and bandleader, who played traditional and Dixieland jazz. Biography He was born in Palermo, California, United States. Murphy served in the Navy ...

History

A group of

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

students created a club in 1947 to discuss, listen to, and (later) perform jazz music. This club became semi-official when the university created the Purdue Jazz Society. The Jazz Society's performance group called themselves "The Original Peerless Jazz Band" at school functions and "The Salty Dogs" at paid performances at local taverns. Some band members moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

after graduation and continued to perform as a band. By the late 1950s, there were two "Salty Dogs" jazz bands: the one in Chicago and the one on the Purdue campus which was still being replenished by newer students. This occasionally led to misunderstandings, including cases in which, after playing at a venue for a few weeks, the campus band would be fired and replaced by the Chicago band. The Chicago band soon adopted the name "The Original Salty Dogs" in order to minimize such misunderstandings. During the late 1950s, the campus band made a few limited-edition recordings which sold quickly at bookstores and the student union. (Some of these recordings were re-released on compact disc in the 2000s.) Their first widely distributed album was released in 1963 on

Audiophile Records Audiophile Records is a record company and label founded in 1947 by Ewing Dunbar Nunn to produce recordings of Dixieland jazz. A very few of the early pressings were classical music, Robert Noehren on pipe organ, AP-2 and AP-9 for example. Histor ...

. This group soon disbanded as college students began to favor rock music over jazz. Meanwhile, other Chicago-area musicians had joined the Purdue graduates and the Original Salty Dogs were regularly performing at The Red Arrow, The Hunt Club, The Sabre Room and other jazz clubs in city's southwest suburbs. They recorded their first commercial album in 1964 on

Delmark Records Delmark Records is an American jazz and blues independent record label. It was founded in 1958 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. The label originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1953 when then owner, and founder, Bob Koester released a recordi ...

. The band released more albums on the Delmark,

GHB ''gamma''-Hydroxybutyric acid (or γ-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), also known as 4-hydroxybutanoic acid) is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter and a depressant drug. It is a precursor to GABA, glutamate, and glycine in certain brain areas. ...

, Jazz & Jazz (Australia) OKOM, Xylophonia and

Stomp Off Stomp Off is an American jazz record company and label founded in 1980 by Bob Erdos in York, Pennsylvania. The label's first release was ''Feelin' Devilish'' by Waldo's Gutbucket Serenaders. It was described in 1986 as concentrating on "jazz in t ...

record labels and began to play at festivals throughout the United States. The Original Salty Dogs sometimes performed with

The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...

George Shearing Sir George Albert Shearing, (13 August 1919 14 February 2011) was a British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. Shearing was the composer of over 300 t ...

, The Four Freshmen and other notable artists. Several members moved away from the Chicago area in the early 1970s, making regular performances difficult. Nevertheless, the Original Salty Dogs continue to give occasional performances with many of the same musicians who had joined in the 1950s and '60s. Richard "Dick" Karner joined the band in 1953 and played on the Salty Dogs first commercially released recording, a 1954 EP, called ''The Salty Dog Express''. For the next numerous years, he performed with the band on Purdue's campus and at Chicago nightclub venues such as The Blue Note, Hunt Club and the Sabre Room. He passed away March 12, 2021.

References

External links

The Original Salty Dogs Jazz Band

The Story of the Salty Dogs
by Bob Lord & Tom Bartlett

by Birchall Smith, a founding member of the band {{DEFAULTSORT:Original Salty Dogs Jazz Band Dixieland revival ensembles Musical groups established in 1947 Musical groups from Indiana Musical groups from Chicago Delmark Records artists People from West Lafayette, Indiana 1947 establishments in Indiana