"Witching Strains: Art Hickman and Sweet Jazz in San Francisco" exhibit June 1 - August 31.

Arthur G. Hickman, Art Hickman, “Hick." A. Lipman, The Chutes, c. 1906
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

Sweet jazz was born at the Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco in 1914. The birth was attended by bandleader and Oakland native, Art Hickman.

Listen to "Hold Me."
 
Hickman was born June 13, 1886 and was destined to become a drummer, pianist and dance bandleader. His father was a saloon keeper, his mother had worked in vaudeville, and thirteen year-old Art and his sixteen year-old sister Pearl performed cakewalk dances even before moving across the bay.  The family moved to San Francisco about 1900.

Art Hickman’s Orchestra.  Bain News Service, ca. 1919
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

Art worked as a messenger boy in the Barbary Coast. He absorbed the sounds and rhythms of New Orleans jazz (as yet, unnamed) while pausing at Purcell’s African American dance hall on Pacific Street. Pearl had developed an Irish step-dancing act, and ran a dancing school on 12th Street.  After 1903, Art was employed by the Chutes Theatre, and by 1910 was managing it; Pearl regularly performed at that venue.  Art left the Chutes to manage a Sacramento theatre.

Del Howard running, possibly Boyes Hot Springs.
San Francisco:  News-Call-Bulletin, ca. 1911-1914
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

The term “jazz” had first been used in a newspaper baseball story in 1912, and it was used in connection with Hickman and the San Francisco Seals in a San Francisco Bulletin column in March, 1913. Hickman was hired to organize entertainment for the Seals baseball team during spring training at Boyes Hot Springs.  In 1914, hotelier James Woods discovered Hickman - who also played piano and drums - and whisked him away from the resort to play at the Hotel St. Francis.

The music was danceable, reminiscent of ragtime but with a decidedly New Orleans character, and Hickman’s orchestra was very popular at the Hotel.  (The inclusion of the banjo and saxophone qualified the group as a “jazz orchestra.”) Other hotels refused to offer “jass” music, so the St. Francis attracted the curious.  They came in droves; in 1919, Hickman claimed as many as 2,000 locals would come out, any night, to hear jazz.

The band traveled to New York City in 1919 to make recordings, was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., and played at the Biltmore.  In 1920 the orchestra again went to New York, playing for twenty weeks in Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1920; the San Francisco Examiner reported Hickman was America’s highest paid orchestra leader. While they played several long term engagements in other cities, Hickman’s loyalty was to San Francisco.  He worked with various musicians in San Francisco into 1928, and died in 1930.

Several of Hickman’s band members became notable musical forces; saxophonist Clyde Doerr and conductor Walt Roesner are two.  Paul Whiteman, also influenced by jazz sounds coming out of the Barbary Coast, elaborated on Hickman’s work.  Today considered early “pop” music, and hardly suggestive of New Orleans jazz, “sweet jazz” can be traced to a messenger boy, who listened to the music he heard at Purcell’s dance hall on Pacific Street.

Walter Roesner leading The Capitolians, Capitol Theatre, New York City.  Apeda Studio, New York, 1928
[Courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection,
San Francisco Public Library.]

Listen to "Rose Room."

For more information about Hickman and his music, see the Art & Music Dept's recent  blog post and don't forget to visit the SF History Center on the 6th floor to see the exhibit "Witching Strains: Art Hickman and Sweet Jazz in San Francisco."