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![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Yale-Beinecke_Dixon_Will-H_wm.jpg\")
<\/a>Before his untimely death, Wheeling Hall of Fame member Chu Berry<\/a>\u00a0famously played tenor sax in Cab Calloway<\/a>\u2018s Orchestra from 1937-1941. [1] By the time Berry joined the orchestra, Calloway had already developed his legendary style made famous by appearances in films such as the Betty Boop: Minnie the Moocher<\/em><\/a> short (Paramount Pictures, 1932), Cab Calloway\u2019s\u00a0Hi-De-Ho<\/em><\/a> (1934), and Stormy Weather<\/em><\/a> (20th Century Fox, 1943), all long before his cameo in the 1980 Universal Studios cult classic, The Blue Brothers<\/em><\/a>. \u201cClad in white tie and tails, dancing energetically, waving an oversized baton, and singing,\u201d <\/em>writes Alyn Shipton in his Calloway biography, Hi-De-Ho<\/em><\/a>, \u201cCab Calloway is one of the most iconic figures in popular music.\u201d <\/em>[2]<\/p>\n But prior even to Calloway\u2019s birth, Will H. Dixon<\/a> initiated the style that would lead him to be dubbed the original<\/em> dancing conductor. [3] James Weldon Johnson<\/a> \u2013 American writer, civil rights activist, and early leader of the NAACP \u2014 wrote of Dixon: \u201cAll through a number he would keep his men together by dancing out the rhythm, generally in graceful, sometimes in grotesque, steps. Often an easy shuffle would take him across the whole front of the band. This style of directing not only got the fullest possible response from the men but kept them in just the right humour for the sort of music they were playing.\u201d [4] By the time Calloway was born in 1907, Dixon was not only a famed stage conductor, but an accomplished singer, pianist, actor, comedian, playwright, and composer of both popular and classical music.<\/p>\n And he was a Wheeling native.<\/p>\n John H. Dixon of Baltimore, MD and Mary Putnam of Barnsville, OH were joined in marriage by the Rev. Jeremiah M. Morris of Simpson M.E. Church in Wheeling, June 27, 1872. [5] The Dixons had four children during their time in Wheeling. Their oldest, John Jr. was born in April of 1873. Will was born six years later, August 29, 1879. A younger brother, Harry, was born October 14, 1885, and a younger sister, Estella, followed in July of 1889. [6]<\/p>\n Will\u2019s father was also a musician and played second alto<\/a> in an all-African American brass band in Wheeling. Formed in March of 1875, the group received \u201cmusical instructions\u201d from Professor Schreiner, leader of one of the German brass bands in the city. [7] Referred to ambiguously in the newspapers as the \u201ccolored band,\u201d the members frequently played at celebrations throughout Wheeling, including weddings, Emancipation Day celebrations, Fourth of July parades, and Republican outings in 1875 and 1876. [8] Fellow musicians included Harry Jones and H. B. Clemens<\/a> on E flat; Henry Snyder, first B flat; David Williams, second B flat; Thomas H. Lewis, first alto; Richard Kinney, first tenor; Thomas Jones, second tenor; John Alexander; baritone; David Robinson, bass; Jerry Crawford, base drum; Charlie Clark, tenor drum; Hamilton Davis, cymbals. [9]<\/p>\n While in Wheeling, the Dixon family lived in the historically Black neighborhood of the Second Ward, first at 1045 Eoff Street and later at 1038 Eoff Street. [10] John Sr. worked as a barber and bath attendant in the early 1880s before becoming a train porter at the McLure Hotel sometime before 1888 and rising to head porter by 1890. [11] When the first Wheeling & Lake Erie passenger train pulled up to the passenger station located at the foot of Market Street Bridge, February 1, 1892, The Wheeling Register<\/em> reported John Dixon, representing the McLure Hotel, gathered the first passenger. \u201cA half dozen colored hotel porters were in the crowd, and as the train, after shifting the engine about, drew up to the platform, such familiar exclamations were heard, as: \u2018Hotel Belah, this way,\u2019 \u2018McLuah House your wanting.\u2019 John Dixon, of the McLure, gathered the first passenger. As he threw two grips over his shoulder, he walked proudly off, saying, \u2018I win the first dash out of the box.\u2019\u201d [12]<\/p>\n Later that same year, when Will was about thirteen years old, the Dixon family would move to Chicago. [13] The entire family was living at 3656 Dearborn Street at the time of the 1900 Census. 51-year-old John Sr. and 27-year-old John Jr. were both working as brakemen for the railroad, while 20-year-old Will was listed as a \u201cTheatrical man.\u201d [14]<\/p>\n When Will turned twenty-one, he would leave the family home in Chicago, taking his talents to New York to attempt to making a living expanding on his theater experience. [15] Like nearly all African-Americans of his generation, his entry into show business was through minstrelsy. Minstrel shows, traditionally musical comedy plays, featured both white and white performers wearing blackface. Black performers often had to act out heartbreaking stereotypes mocking African Americans to make a living. In her book, Staging Race<\/em><\/a>, author Karen Sotiropoulos notes \u201cfor black Americans, the 1890s ushered in a decade of shrinking possibilities, and artists and activists alike desperately sought any avenue for advancement.\u201d [16] Many African American artists saw the minstrel stage as their chance to get their foot in the door while establishing some financial security. Such was the case for Dixon, whose first job was singing with Phil R. Miller\u2019s unfortunately named \u201cHottest Coon in Dixie Company.\u201d [17]<\/p>\n As a multi-talented artist quickly gaining acclaim, however, Dixon rose to fame as a \u201ccentral figure\u201d in Black Manhattan at the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> Century. By 1902 he was singing, acting, and writing his own plays and songs. He also began composing songs<\/a> and musical comedies with Alfred Anderson, one of Chicago\u2019s noted Black lyricists. Dixon\u2019s talents had quickly caught and held the attention of the African-American press, but in the spring of 1904, white America had also started to pay attention. One of the country\u2019s foremost music publishers, M. Witmark & Sons of New York, bought and published several Dixon\/Anderson songs. [18]<\/p>\n In his chronicling of \u201cBlack Manhattan,\u201d James Weldon Johnson noted that though \u201cNegro jazz bands throughout the country had been playing jazz at dances and in honky-tonks\u201d for many years, \u201cthe first modern jazz band ever heard on a New York stage, and probably on any other stage\u2026 made its debut at Proctor\u2019s Twenty-Third Street Theatre in the early spring of 1905. It was a playing-singing-dancing orchestra, making dominant use of banjos, mandolins, guitars, saxophones, and drums in combination, and was called the Memphis Students<\/a>.\u201d Johnson goes on to note the this was the band that introduced the dancing conductor, with Will H. Dixon behind the baton. [19]<\/p>\n Dixon would conduct the orchestra at both Hammerstein\u2019s Victoria Theatre (owned by the father of famed lyricist Oscar Hammerstein<\/a>) in New York City and on their upcoming European tour. On October 19, 1905, The New York Age<\/em> reported, \u201cFrance is soon to be invaded by some of the best vaudeville talent of New York, when, under the management of Will Marion Cook<\/a>, a company leaves New York city next week to begin a three months\u2019 engagement at the Folies Berger theatre in Paris. The company will be recruited mostly from Ernest Hogan<\/a>\u2018s Memphis Students and includes: Will H. Dixon, musical director\u2026\u201d [20] The troupe would go on to play the Palace Theatre in London, the Schumann Circus in Berlin, and many of the principal music halls of \u201call the important cities of Europe.\u201d [21] Dixon\u2019s passport documents indicate he intended to stay overseas for \u201ca year or two.\u201d While in Europe, Dixon would have experienced far more racial freedoms than in America, and used his time abroad to study European music and culture. [22] Upon his arrival back to the United States in 1906, Dixon\u2019s musical compositions began to take on a much more sophisticated European sound compared to his earlier Americana and minstrel pieces (you can hear the progression of Dixon\u2019s music in the below video).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>