Over the years, music scholar Christopher C. King has displayed his erudition, curiosity, and passion on countless projects that uncover fascinating and forgotten corners of history—not just in the U.S. but increasingly also in Eastern Europe, usually digging back between 50 and 100 years. He’s produced crucial multidisc sets focusing on bedrock American sounds, including the entire surviving output of blues legend Charley Patton and the recordings of the so-called Bristol sessions, which created a new paradigm for country music. He’s also shed light on the Polk Miller Quartet (one of the earliest African-American vocal groups), Cajun music, old-timey music, and gospel, among other things.
The set’s title track, a throbbing instrumental for small double-reed horns called pipizi, was recorded in Chicago at the Webster Hotel in 1926, at the height of the jazz age; the notes credit J. Lengas, J. Patsios, and G. Kokotis. “Enas Aetos—Tsamiko,” recorded here that same year by Tchousi, Damalas & Company, features the most powerful vocals in the entire 28-track set, matched by an equally searing violin part. As King writes, the “kinetic feeling” of the performance “is similar to the hot jazz solos that were the current rage.”
