Chick Webb playing Gladstone “Hand Sock Cymbals” – DOG BOTTOM

DOG BOTTOM Personnel: Ward Pinkett (tp, vo) Edwin Swayzee (tp) Robert Horton (tb) Hilton Jefferson, Louis Jordan (as) Elmer Williams (ts) Don Kirkpatrick (p) John Trueheart (bjo) Elmer James (tu) Chick Webb (d) Recorded June 14, 1929 Brunswick #4450 DOG BOTTOM is William Henry “Chick” Webb’s first record. Curiously, the label does not reference the “Harlem Stompers” (his first band), but instead “The Jungle Band.” This Brunswick session was not the first for Webb. Two years earlier (August 25, 1927), Webb and the Harlem Stompers entered the Vocalion Studios, to record “Low Levee – High Water.” Unfortunately, it was never released and the masters no longer exist. Webb’s “drums” for this session consisted only of the “Hand Sock,” an invention of Billy Gladstone, percussionist at the Capitol Theatre in New York City. Listed in the 1927 Leedy Drum Catalogue, the description reads, “They (Hand Sock) consist of two deep cup brass cymbals, operated by hand-grip