Davenport’s Historic Fredlo Studio Shows its Roots Through an Historic Undocumented Jazz Recording
In May 2023, Special Collections staff applied and were awarded the State Historical Society of Iowa’s Historical Resource Development Program (HRDP) Grant. With this grant, we strove to digitize and make the Fredlo Recording Studios Collection accessible. The project was completed in 2025. Now, we are ready to share this collection of Quad Cities music history through stories about individuals, groups/bands, ensembles, and other unique contributions.
We are thrilled to partner with Neal Smith to present these stories found within the Fredlo Recording Studios Collection.
The Fredlo Recording Studios Collection at the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center has recently acquired a set of previously undocumented jazz recordings made at Inter-City Recording Service in Moline on March 15, 1948. Inter-City Recording Service, a direct predecessor to Davenport’s storied Fredlo recording studio, operated from its location at 1715 15th Avenue, Moline, between March 1947 and September 1949. Run by recording engineer and former dance band leader Fred Mauck, the company engaged primarily in the production of acetate recordings for personal and commercial broadcast use, with the business listed as a “transcription recording service” in the 1949 Moline city directory.
The set of records in the collection consists of two aluminum-base acetate discs: a single-sided 10” and a 12” with a song on each side. Both records spin at 78 r.p.m., the standard playback speed of the era. Before tape recorders were made available and affordable to the average consumer, acetate discs could be created, one at a time and on the spot, using cutting lathes which were common in smaller studios like Inter-City. The ephemeral nature and limited durability of these recordings meant that they were best suited for use in radio, as demo recordings, or as personal audio keepsakes. Such recordings were almost always made without fanfare and exist in remarkably limited quantities.
The three tracks recorded that day, “Shaw ‘Nuff,” “Shave Tail,” and “Dawn on the Desert,” were credited to The All-Star Sextette, an ad hoc ensemble of nationally-recognized jazz luminaries who were all on break from their respective touring bands to play a month-long engagement at The Horseshoe Club, 1601 2nd Avenue in Rock Island. Tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec, who had recently been featured with Cab Calloway’s band, was at The Horseshoe most of the month, although Ben Webster had been the saxophonist on the bill when the gig started. Bassist John Simmons, who may have been best known as a fixture in Benny Goodman’s rhythm section at the time, had recently added recording sessions accompanying Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, and Benny Carter to his discography. Trumpeter Charlie Shavers, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, and drummer Louis Bellson were all enjoying their busman’s holiday in the Quad Cities while their bandleader, Tommy Dorsey, vacationed on his yacht off the coast of Florida before marrying his third wife at the end of the month.
Although Hank Jones, a pianist for Benny Goodman, was with the sextette at The Horseshoe Club, the pianist on the Inter-City recordings was Bellson’s former Moline High School classmate, Keith Greko, who had been performing nightly at Beulah’s Beautiful Club Belvedere at 4600 9th Street in Rock Island with The Lou Black Quintette. It’s difficult to speculate about the reasons for Jones’ absence on the recordings, although a second recording ban imposed by the musician’s union (the first ban being from July 31, 1942, to November 11, 1944) may have been a contributing factor. Though Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman both had integrated dance orchestras, the musicians’ union remained segregated throughout the 1940s. This more recent recording ban, which lasted from January 1 until December 14, 1948, was in part a response to royalty distribution as it related to the relatively new medium of television. Stepping into a recording studio in 1948 may have been a risk Jones was not willing to take.
Jazz clubs, like Al Barnes’ Horseshoe Club, were among the first public venues in the U.S. where racial barriers began to break down. It was often difficult for integrated groups to find welcoming venues, and even more challenging for musicians of color to find accommodations on the road. One of the perks of working with Louis Bellson in the Quad Cities during this time was that his family home at 2515 6th Avenue, Moline, doubled as an inclusive bed and breakfast location for his musical colleagues. That was the home address provided to police when, toward the conclusion of their month at The Horseshoe, Shavers, Quebec, and Simmons were arrested on charges of intoxication and disturbing the peace when they refused to leave a Rock Island Lines passenger train at its 31st street depot. Quebec pursued legal action against the Rock Island police, maintaining that the three had liquor contained in their pockets, not in their bloodstreams. “The New Pittsburgh Courier,” a weekly African-American newspaper based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reported that “the incident made [jazz tenor sax legend] Illinois Jacquet so angry he almost changed his first name.”
Only two years prior to The All-Star Sextette’s session in Moline, a new style of jazz known as bebop made its major label debut when Dizzy Gillespie signed to RCA’s subsidiary, Bluebird. Bebop was, among other things, a reaction against the pleasant and intricately arranged music of big dance orchestras fronted by bandleaders such as Glenn Miller, Les Brown, Guy Lombardo, and Lawrence Welk. Characterized by complex melodies and harmonies, virtuosic improvisation, and brisk tempos that alienated dancers, bop sounded abrasive to many music fans who were acclimated to the polished presentations of established big bands. Tommy Dorsey, in fact, famously proclaimed that “bebop has set music back 20 years.” With half of The All-Star Sextette’s musicians on break from Dorsey’s outfit during a recording ban, these six young upstarts must have been feeling quite rebellious during their time in the studio.
Dizzy Gillespie’s bop standard, “Shaw ‘Nuff” (misspelled on the Inter-City label as “Show ‘Nuff”), a tribute to early advocate and promoter of bebop Billy Shaw, appears as one of two tracks by the sextette in this new style, the second being a Bellson/Shavers original titled “Shave Tail.” The latter track, featuring an energetic drum solo from Bellson, clocks in at a blistering 300 beats per minute and features stunning solo turns from each of the three wind players. Based on a 12-bar blues form, this 1948 rendition of “Shave Tail” has little in common with later Bellson recordings under the same title attributed to Bellson and Shavers. The third cut from the group, “Dawn on the Desert,” had been recorded by its composer, Charlie Shavers, twice in 1939, with Tommy Dorsey for RCA Victor and with John Kirby’s orchestra for the Vocalion label. A feature of the tune unique to the Inter-City acetate version is a brief but evocative spoken-word offering, presumably by Shavers, during the opening melody.
Bellson-Shave-Tale-1948-lead-sheet Bellson-Shave-Tail-1979-lead-sheetIt’s not known if any other copies of these acetates exist or if the sextette cut any more tracks during their time in Moline. The two All-Star Sextette acetate discs were purchased within the last year from a record dealer in downstate Illinois and donated to the library’s Fredlo Recording Studios Collection by a local private collector. They were digitized to archival standards and enhanced for public use by Vintage Audio Restoration of Davenport and can only be heard here.
The Fredlo Recording Studios Collection, curated by the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center, is believed to be the largest existing collection of recordings and artifacts from the Inter-City Recording Service (Moline) and the Fredlo recording studio (Moline and Davenport). The preservation of this collection was made possible by a Historical Resource Development Program grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa in September 2023. Anyone interested in loaning or donating recordings relating to the Inter-City or Fredlo labels is encouraged to contact Kathryn Whalen at kwhalen@davenportlibrary.com.
Recorded March 15, 1948, at Inter-City Recording Service, 1715 15th Avenue, Moline, Illinois. Engineered by Fred Mauck.
10” 78 r.p.m., single-sided, no catalog number: “Shave Tale” (3:02) – composed by Charlie Shavers and Louis Bellson
12” 78 r.p.m., no catalog number: “Show ‘Nuff” [should be “Shaw ‘Nuff”] (2:56) – composed by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker
“Down on the Desert” [should be “Dawn on the Desert”] (3:46) – composed by Charlie Shavers
The All Star Sextette: Charlie Shavers, trumpet
Ike Quebec, tenor saxophone
Buddy DeFranco, clarinet
Keith Greko, piano
John Simmons, bass
Louis Bellson, drums
SOURCES:
Bebop music and segregation in 1940s jazz: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/modern-jazz-late-1940s
“Capitol News” issues archived at: https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/digital/collection/popmusic/search/searchterm/Capitol%20News/page/1
Blog post about Dorsey and racial integration: https://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2006/julaug/2.24.html
“50 Great Moments in Jazz: The Emergence of Bebop” from “The Guardian”: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/jul/06/50-moments-jazz-bebop
“The Dispatch” of Moline, Illinois, March 4, 1948, page 20, advertisement
“The Rock Island Argus” of Rock Island, Illinois, March 5, 1948, page 14, advertisement
“The Daily Times” of Davenport, Iowa, March 10, 1948, page 24, “Postman’s Holiday – Louie Bellson, Moline Drummer, Who Is Now on Vacation, Scores Hit in Appearance in Rock Island Club; Other Popular Musicians With Group”
“The Rock Island Argus” of Rock Island, Illinois, March 19, 1948, page 14, advertisement
“The Rock Island Argus” of Rock Island, Illinois, March 29, 1948, page 14 “Refusal to Leave Train Costs Three Men $106 in Court”
“The New Pittsburgh Courier” of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1948, page 16
(posted by Kathryn)
