Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra - I'm Gonna Charleston Back to Charleston

Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra was founded in 1919, as the Coon-Sanders Novelty Orchestra, by drummer Carleton Coon and pianist Joe Sanders.
Coon was born in Rochester, Minnesota in 1893 and his family moved to Lexington, Missouri shortly after his birth. Sanders was born in Kansas in 1896. Sanders was known as "The Old Left Hander" because of his skills at baseball. He gave the game up in the early 1920s to make dance music his career.
The orchestra began broadcasting in 1922 on clear channel station WDAF, which could be received throughout the United States. They took the name Nighthawks because they broadcast late at night from 11:30pm to 1:00am. By 1924 their fan club had 37,000 members. Fans were encouraged to send in requests for songs by letter, telephone or telegram. That move became so popular that Western Union set up a ticker tape between Sanders' piano and Coon's drums so the telegrams could be acknowledged during the broadcasts.
The group left Kansas City for the first time in 1924 for a three-month engagement in a roadhouse in Chicago, where the band settled later that year. Jules Stein used the profits from a tour he booked for them to establish the Music Corporation of America, with the orchestra as its first client. The orchestra moved into the Blackhawk Hotel in Chicago in 1926, and were broadcast over station WGN. Their reputation spread coast-to-coast through these broadcasts and the many records they made for Victor.
The orchestra later moved to New York City for an 11-month broadcast engagement at the Hotel New Yorker arranged by William S. Paley, who needed a star attraction to induce radio stations to join the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
The Orchestra's popularity showed no signs of abating and their contract with MCA had another 15 years, when in the spring of 1932 when Carleton Coon came down with a jaw infection and died, on May 4.
Joe Sanders attempted to keep the organization going; however, without Coon, the public did not support them. In 1935, he formed his own group and played until the early 1940s when he became a part time orchestra leader and studio musician. In his later years he suffered from failing eyesight and other health problems. He died in 1965 after suffering a stroke.
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• 1920s
• Jazz
• Jazz Age
• Flappers
• Music
• Prohibition
• New York
• Kansas City
• Carleton Coon
• Joe Sanders
• 1925

[TJSurgery]

Someone needs to upload the Nick Lucas version of this song.

[TCDS75]

Muy bonito. Me gusta, Me lleva a mis años jóvenes

[luvebug21]

Awesome rhythm

[thelonelyslayer]

I wanted to buy the cd soundtrack to the movie but for some reason they never made one!? So i went on ebay and bought the original record of it. And then i just downloaded to it my computer. I listen to it on my ipod like every day. haha. ;-)

[TJSurgery]

and it's like impossible to find.

[thelonelyslayer]

Yes! His version from "the great gatsby" is phenonmenal.

[kevindu67350]

Very nice!