The Story Is Told
Bee Palmer

In a previous article (here) Frankie "Tram" Trumbauer recorded a later version of Singin' The Blues on 1st October 1929 sponsored by bandleader Paul Whiteman. Tram was the director on this occasion with various members of Whiteman's orchestra. On that recording a vocalist, Bee Palmer, sang the lyrics and scatted Tram and Bix Beiderbecke's solos from the 1927 famous recording. One attendee says Bix was present at the 1929 recording, but as we noted in our previous article, discographies say that it is not known whether he played on the number and an "unknown trumpeter" is listed. The Syncopated Times casts doubt on this : "... On September 13 (1929), Bix became ill during a recording session. Two days after this, Paul sent Bix home to Davenport to recover. When the orchestra returned to Hollywood in October of 1929 to film the movie King of Jazz, Bix did not make the trip due to illness .... "

 

But who was Bee Palmer? She was certainly an extrovert character who mixed with 1920s jazz society. Bee was widely credited as the inventor of the shimmy ("although other white dancers, including Gilda Gray and Mae West also claimed to have originated the act").

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Wikipedia tells us that Beatrice Palmer was born in Chicago, (the plaque on her grave says she was born in 1984). "She reportedly began performing before World War I "around the cafes of South Chicago where she would sit at tables and croon to guests for small sums". In 1918 she was in the Ziegfeld Follies. "She got a good review for singing I Want To Learn To Jazz Dance. She also won acclaim for her role in the Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic of 1918. Described as "a blonde with trained shoulders who can sing rag and act jazz," she sang Let Me Shimmy And Be Satisfied. Another reviewer was less impressed with the same show, stating that Palmer "did the vulgar shimmy in a tightly fitting cerise dress trimmed merely with a cord at the waistline".

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Bee began touring in 1921 with a revue called Oh Bee! and a band called Bee Palmer's New Orleans Rhythm King that included Leon Roppolo. "However, the act received criticism due to the perception that the shimmy was immoral. With guardians of public morals speaking out against the shimmy and other “modern dances,” at least one theatre is said to have cancelled the show." Bee starred in the Passing Show of 1924 at the Winter Garden".

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The Syncopated Times says: "On December 23, 1928, Paul Whiteman gave a concert at Carnegie Hall, with Bee Palmer as an added attraction. This concert was for the benefit of the Northwoods Sanitarium in Saranac Lake, New York, where show business patients were treated for tuberculosis. Universal Pictures filmed the concert for possible use in the motion picture planned with Whiteman in the following year. The film, “King of Jazz”, was finally completed in 1930, but did not include any of the footage from the Carnegie Hall concert." By the mid-1930s, Palmer had faded from public attention".

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That provides us with the link to Paul Witeman and the 1929 recording of Singin' The Blues.