Ollie Powers

Despite the strength evoked by his surname, Ollie Powers had one of the briefest of all careers in jazz, succumbing to a form of diabetes in 1928. He was a drummer and vocalist who led his own bands, one of which -- Ollie Powers' Harmony Syncopators -- was captured for posterity on a single 1923 recording session for Paramount. A pair of songs were issued from the date: the title of "Jazzbo Jenkins" bravely combines a pair of hipster expressions from the '20s, while "Play That Thing" can be interpreted as a message to all jazzmen, a theme grand enough to have inspired Powers' band to lay down at least four takes of the number.



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