LAURENT RECORDS
Laurent, with an address at 750 Post Street, San Francisco, took its name from its owner, Frank Laurent, a white business man who among other business ventures founded the San Francisco Sun (1). The address of the label was that of a garage which he owned. The Oakland Tribune of October 15 1945, under the headline ‘S.F. Garage Owner Robbed of $7000’; reported that:
Trapped in the rest room of his garage at 750 Post Street, San Francisco, Frank Laurent was robbed by an armed bandit of two wallets containing more than $7000. After taking the money, the robber tied Laurent to a water pipe. The garage owner was released about an hour later by one of his attendants, Walter Crawford.
The label began in 1946; a report in The Billboard of August 24 1946 said that “Latest label to enter race is Laurent Records Ltd., headed by Frank Laurent, with assistance of Ray Gorum, Marsha Sieberg and Bettye Green. Laurent enterprises include an artist management firm, music publishing outfit, hotel and garage. Diskery plans on cutting batch of sides by top Duke Ellington sidemen, with Russell Procope heading group. Other talent to be cut include Phil Snyder trio, Vivian Lane Gadabouts and Possum Trot Quartet.” (2) It does not seem to have lasted beyond 1947 and issued only a handful of records.
It was probably Gorum who dealt with the music side of the business. Rayfield William (Ray) Gorum was born in Springfield IL on April 13, 1913; he was still there for the 1930 Census and appears to have escaped that of 1940 so it is not known what brought him to the West coast. I have found no references to his involvement in music before the formation of the Laurent company but afterwards he had a long and varied musical career. In 1949 he promoted the Dave Brubeck Octet’s first fully-fledged public concert at the San Francisco Marine Memorial Auditorium. From 1951 to 1954 he was resident in Monterey; the City Directory of 1951 gave his occupation as “cook” but in 1953 he was listed as “musician El Nido Nest” and in 1954 as “musician Black Orchid.” By 1956 he was back in San Francisco where he and Dave Glickman opened a nightclub at 473 Broadway, the Jazz Workshop, notable for booking Monk Montgomery’s group, the Mastersounds. In 1957 it was reported that he was opening “a joint of his own . . to be called the Offbest Room (on Kearny).” In 1958 the Three Clefs, (pianist Arthur Fletcher, drummer Ray Gorum, and Johnny Lewis playing an electronic, two-necked string instrument that combined guitar and string bass) were at the Lucky 13 Club in San Leandro. From 1961 to 1963 he was playing drums with his Mark III Trio at various clubs (the Lodge in Palo Alto, Pete’s Chicago Club in Sunnyvale, the Escort in Sunnyvale, the Caravan Inn in Palo Alto, the Stardust Motel, Milt Hubbard’s Ann Darling Bowl in San Jose). Other members of the group included Eddie Hammond on bass and at different times Rudy Rudolph and Frank Jackson on piano. In 1964 Wax Records got an injunction ordering Frank Kosto and Ray Gorum to stop using the names, “The Bumblebees, Bee Bumbles and Bee Bumble” in their musical act in Sunnyvale, and in 1965 Ray Gorum was providing the music for topless swimmers and female impersonators at the Rogue Room in San Jose. After that I have found no more about his musical activity but he lived on for many years, dying in San Diego on May 12, 1999
The following are the issues of which I know, though the matrices on known issues run from V-102 to V-145, suggesting that (if they were all issued) there must have been rather more issues than the thirteen known. It will be noted that all but the first two were manufactured by Trilon Records.
1 VOCAL PEE WEE CRAYTON THE KINGS QUINTET
Pee Wee’s Boogie V-134
QUE MARTYN BLUE VELVET SEXTETTE
Will I Ever Figure You Out? V-142
2 HELEN WILSON with BLUE VELVET SEXTET
Looking For My Man V 139
PEE WEE CRAYTON KINGS QUINTET
Why Did You Go V-133
1451 PEE WEE CRAYTON and THE FOUR KINGS
After Hours Boogie
Why Did You Go V-133
1051-A VIVIAN LANE and THE GADABOUTS
Yesterday V-115
1052-A You’ve Got Me Under Your Skin V-117
1101-B GEORGE BLEDSOE EDDIE YOUNG, Guitar; GEORGE BLEDSOE, Bass JOHNNY COOPER, Piano
Got A Penny, Benny V-109
1102-B GEORGE BLEDSOE and STANLEY MORGAN TRIO
All My Life V-104
1151-A JO JO HENDERSON with THE FOUR KINGS
Jealousy V-103
1151-B Tabby The Cat V-102
1152-A THE FOUR KINGS
I'll Be True (Vocal John Henton) V-121
1153-B The King's Boogie V-105
1201-A THE GADABOUTS
Dark Eyes V-113
Hawaiian War Chant (vocal Chick Gandel) V-125
1251-A POSSUM TROT QUARTET
Shoo Fly Pie V-114
1251-B Detour V-124
1402 SWEETIE MITCHELL and THE FOUR KINGS
Fine And Mellow Blues V-132
1003-A STANLEY MORGAN TRIO [VOCAL EDDIE HAMMOND]
Let ‘Em Roll Baby V-107
1502 QUE MARTYN’S SEXTET
Sumpin Jumpin V-140
1504 QUE MARTYN’S SEXTET featuring JEROME RICHARDSON
Dianne V-142
1501 HELEN WILSON WITH QUE MARTYN’S SEXTET
Looking For My Man
1503 HELEN WILSON WITH QUE MARTYN’S SEXTET
There’s Nothing You Can Do
1552 VIVIAN LANE and THE PHIL SNYDER TRIO
Cockles And Mussels V-144
1553 Now The Day Is Over V-145
The numbering "system" is extremely erratic; 1402 and 1003-A are two sides of the same record. The duplication of matrix V-142 (if correct - I have not seen that side of Laurent 1) is noteworthy - it is, I suppose, conceivable that the same recording was issued with different titles but only aural comparison of the two issues will settle the matter.
The collector of black music will be familiar with Pee Wee Crayton and Que Martyn but it will be worth while to say something of the other black artists who appeared on the label.
Vocalist Helen Wilson is known only for having appeared in a benefit concert for the Alameda County branch of the NAACP in October 1949 (3).
Laurent 1101 coupled a jive vocal, “Got A Penny, Benny,” by George Bledsoe, backed by a trio consisting of himself on bass, Eddie Young on guitar and Johnny Cooper on piano, with a ballad “All My Life,” also sung by Bledsoe but with backing by the Stanley Morgan Trio. George Bledsoe was born in Kansas City on March 30 1921 and was still there in 1940 when he appeared as a vocalist with the big band of pianist Lawrence Keyes (4). By July 1942 he was in San Francisco with tenor saxophonist George Nealy and his Aces of Rhythm and over the next fifteen years ago he performed steadily on the West Coast both as a vocalist and as a bassist, in which role he worked with jazz luminaries such as Slim Gaillard, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Chico Hamilton, Gerald Wiggins and the Oscar Moore Trio. In about 1961 he was reunited with Stanley Morgan in the latter’s Famous Ink Spots (5) and he was still with them when he died in Honolulu on May 13 1982 (6).
Guitarist Eddie Young had given lessons to Pee Wee Crayton and also played on Tiny Crump’s Universal 78s; most of his work was in the jazz field.
Johnny Cooper (born San Jose CA September 3 1916, died Marin County CA December 4 1992 [7]) also worked primarily in a jazz context but he was a member of Saunders King’s band and played on his records.
Jewel “Sweetie” Mitchell, born in California February 12 1925, was a jazz singer, active mainly in the Bay Area from the late ‘40s more or less up to her death on March 23 1998.
Eddie Hammond, who was born in Lincoln NE on June 22 1917 and died in San Francisco on February 13 2004, was a jazz bass player who worked in the house bands of various clubs in San Francisco, including groups led by Ray Gorum (8).
Stanley Morgan was born in Milwaukee on October 3 1913 and died in Honolulu on November 22 1989. A jazz guitarist, he recorded with Harlan Leonard and his Rockets in 1940 and with the Howard McGhee Sextet in 1945, but was able to turn his hand to rhythm and blues, backing Wynonie Harris in 1945 and Marvin Johnson in 1949. In 1961, along with Charles Martin, Mel Williams, Ted Rambo and George Bledsoe, he formed The Stanley Morgan Famous Ink Spots which with various changes of personnel continued more or less until his death.
Jerome Richardson was featured sax player on one side of Laurent 1502/4 by Que Martyn’s Sextette. He was born in Oakland on November 15, 1920 and by the age of fourteen he was working as a professional musician as well as studying music at San Francisco State College. When the war came he joined the Navy band under Marshall Royal at St. Mary’s Pre-Flight from 1942-1945. Once the war was over he played in the Bay Area until 1949 when he joined Lionel Hampton. Leaving him at the end of 1951 he returned to San Francisco and formed his own small band but in 1953 he joined Earl Hines and subsequently moved to New York, dying in New Jersey on June 23 2000.
Of the other artists on Laurent Vivian Lane was a white vocalist who appeared regularly on KPO in 1945;
the Possum Trot Quartet one would suspect to have been a white country group; Jo Jo Henderson may well be the same artist who appeared in Philadelphia in January 1944, in Detroit in February (described as “singing sensation” and “The Swing-Singing Talk of the Town!”), in Cleveland in April (“Something New in Song”), and back in Philadelphia in January 1945 (“Vocal & Piano Melodies”) and again in March.
Notes:-
(1) Albert S. Broussard, Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900-1954 (1993) 182 says that ‘In 1948 [Carlton B.] Goodlett also became editor and publisher of the San Francisco Sun, another black weekly newspaper, after allegedly winning the paper in a poker game from the white San Franciscan who owned it.’ Goodlett and Daniel Collins already owned the San Francisco Reporter, so they combined the two newspapers and formed the Sun-Reporter. A fuller account of Laurent can be found in his obituary in The Oakland Tribune of April 6 1974.
(2) A fuller version is to be found in the Billboard 1946-’47 Encyclopedia of Music. Who’s Who In Music September, 1945-September, 1946.
Laurent Records
A new disk Manufacturing concern with the intended policy of exploiting new talent and tunes.. Lawrent (sic) Records Ltd., plans to establish national general offices and recording plants to service both the West Coast and New York areas. Firm operates its own national distrib organization and is the founder of the Gold Award Series which transcribes various winners of national magazine music polls. Diskery operates a music publishing subsid known as Lawrent (sic) Publications, Ltd. Offices located at 750 Post Street, San Francisco, Calif. Execs include Frank Lawrent (sic), prexy; Rayfield W. Gorum, general manager; Marsha Sieberg, executive secretary, and Bettye Green, accountant.
(3) The Oakland Tribune October 9 1949.
(4) Plaindealer (KC) April 5 1940.
(5) The California Eagle December 21 1961; Milwaukee Sentinel July 11 1980.
(6) The New York Times May 14 1982.
(7) San Francisco Chronicle December 6 1992.
(8) See the obituary in the SFGate of February 18 2004.
