Sam Morgan's Band Stayed in New Orleans, and Columbia Came to Them for Four Last Sides in a Downtown Office Building

Most New Orleans bandleaders of the 1920s chased work and record deals to Chicago or New York. Trumpeter Sam Morgan stayed home and played dances along the Gulf Coast, so in 1927 Columbia traveled to him, at the urging of the music retailer Philip Werlein. On April 14 the band cut four sides there. On October 22 it returned for a second session, held at the Godchaux Building, and recorded "Bogalousa Strut," "Down by the Riverside," "Over in the Gloryland" and "Short Dress Gal," with Morgan himself singing a chorus on the last. Those eight sides, with Jim Robinson on trombone and Morgan's brothers Isaiah and Andrew alongside him, are the entire recorded legacy of the band. Morgan died in New Orleans on February 25, 1936. The sheet music for "Bogalusa Strut" and "Mobile Stomp" did not exist in print until the scholar John Joyce transcribed them in 2014, nearly nine decades later.