Adrian Rollini with the California Ramblers (1924-1927)

Tracing the early recordings of the first great bass saxophonist

For Christmas last year I received a copy of Ate Van Delden’s fabulous and extremely detailed biography of bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini entitled Adrian Rollini: The Life and Music of a Jazz Rambler. The book goes into great detail regarding nearly every single recording session, radio broadcast, and live engagement Rollini undertook in his career. Van Delden not only documented all of these many sessions he also took great care to highlight the sides in which Rollini made his most prominent contributions as a soloist on bass saxophone as well as his novelty instruments the hot fountain pen and the goofus.

The California Ramblers, under the leadership of manager and occasional vocalist Wallace Theodore "Ed" Kirkeby, recorded widely in the 1920s for every record label and imprint Kirkeby could strike a deal with including Columbia, Edison, Harmony, OKeh, Plaza, and more. Due to an exclusivity deal Kirkeby made with Columbia regarding the name The California Ramblers he had to fabricate a collection of pseudonyms for the Ramblers and the various “band-within-a-band” small groups to use. These names included; The Little Ramblers, The Goofus Five, The University Six, The Golden Gate Orchestra, The Varsity Eight, The Vagabonds, Ted Wallace & His Campus Boys and Five Birmingham Babies. Under these various names Rollini and the California Ramblers recorded hundreds of sides between 1922 and 1927 before he left for England to join Fred Elizalde’s orchestra.

The California Ramblers (1924) Adrian Rollini second from the left with his bass saxophone

I’ve compiled a list of these recordings that Van Delden highlighted and selected the ones with the most prominent contributions by Rollini on saxophone and arranged them (relatively) chronologically on Spotify which you can find here:

These 46 recordings give us a clear picture of the development of Rollini’s technique and approach to the bass saxophone, both as an accompaniment instrument and as a soloist as the 1920s progressed. For those interested in learning more about Rollini’s work in and out of the California Ramblers I cannot recommend Ate Van Delden’s wonderful book from University Press of Mississippi.

Check it out: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Contributors/D/Delden-Ate-van