Strictly Jive is the Hep label's 25-track salute to
Chick Webb, a formidable percussionist who led one of the toughest big bands of the 1930s.
Strictly Jive concentrates upon the years 1935-1940, a period of time that represents the second half of the ten-year
Webb dynasty. The
Chick Webb orchestra was a jazz incubator from which emerged seasoned instrumentalists like
Taft Jordan,
Sandy Williams,
Garvin Bushell,
Hilton Jefferson, and
Eddie Barefield, as well as future bandleaders
John Kirby and
Louis Jordan, and renowned composer and arranger
Edgar Sampson. Saxophonist
Wayman Carver, one of the few flutists in jazz during the 1930s, was a featured soloist with
Chick Webb and may be heard piping away in front of the band on
Wilbur Sweatman's "Down Home Rag." Most people who have heard of
Webb associate him with his star vocalist
Ella Fitzgerald, a dynamic woman who assumed leadership of the band after 30-year-old
Chick Webb succumbed to spinal tuberculosis on June 16, 1939 in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.