Sherlock Holmes and All That Jazz

Joins

The West End Jazz Band's
6th Annual Hudson Lake Train Excursion
"The Blue Lantern Inn was leased by jazz orchestra leader Jean Goldkette in May 1926 as a showcase for his most talented musicians, including Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Doc Ryker and Pee Wee Russell. The Lantern drew visitors from throughout the region, especially on weekends when crowds from Chicago came up on the South Shore interurban line to hear the band .”
". . . But at Hudson Lake, with frogs thrumming along the shore and a solitary duck on its black, glassy surface, it was usually quiet enough to hear Joy humming her sad song in the twilight - at least until eight p.m. every night except Mondays, when the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, led by Frankie Trumbauer and featuring Bix Beiderbecke on cornet, hit the bandstand of the dance hall across the road. And the music they played wasn't the businessman's bounce, wasn't the gut-bucket of the South Side, but something else; something that drew all those Chicago musicians down to hear them every Saturday and Sunday, something that made the most tone-deaf of the local Hoosiers cock their heads for an instant and listen as if a lover with the sweetest voice was calling them from a long distance away, something that made Joy smile up in her room at the Hotel Hudson, thinking about how the notes flowed slow and golden like honey down from the bell of a horn and slid enticingly into the whorled pink cochlea of her ears, tickling as they went, as she lay on the saggy-mattressed bed and watched the ceiling fan revolve above her head, singing her own sweet songs. . ."
The South Shore Line railroad stop at Hudson Lake, circa 1926.
Excerpt from Laura Mazzuca Toops' novel Hudson Lake, reprinted here by permission of the author. Ms. Toops' novel, HUDSON LAKE, looks at how Bix Beiderbecke, cornetist with the band, influenced the lives of several characters whose paths cross his over the course of the summer of 1926, and speculates on how he reached a turning point in his own life and career. You are most cordially invited to visit Ms. Toops' web page at <http://www.lauratoops.com/hudson.htm> or at her book's Amazon link.

The Date: May 6th, 2007
The Time: 9:00 AM. CST
The Place: Randolph Street Station, Chicago

The South Shore Line Route Map
The South Shore Line runs America's last interurban commuter train. The route to Hudson Lake from Chicago is the same that Chicago's musicians took in that summer of 1926 to hear Bix at the Blue Lantern dance hall.
And members of Sherlock Holmes and all that Jazz wait to board the Jazz Train.
Due to the religious holiday, the group's representation was more limited than we might have wished, but every member who made reservations was present on that warm spring morning. There were no cancellations! Among the eagerly waiting crowd were:
(L to R) Tony Cetera, Donald Izban, Bill Schroeder
(Foreground) Carolyn Senter and Patricia Izban (Marcia Cetera in the background).
Please notice that all are wearing their custom "Sherlock Holmes And All That Jazz" caps.
The special train drawing our private "Jazz cars" leaves the station at 9:30 AM; we are on board!
Bill and Pixie Schroeder (front to back); Don and Patricia Izban, Carolyn Senter
Tony and Marcia Cetera (front); Doloris Patton (Jim Patton is there but out of sight behind Tony)
En Route!
West End Jazz Band performs on board!
Duty calls Bill, the Conductor!
At the Blue Lantern
Jean Goldkette orchestra; circa 1926
West End Jazz Band; circa 2007
Then and Now
Patrons at a Dance Hall; circa 1926
Patrons at The Blue Lantern Dance Hall; circa 2007
The Lake at Hudson Lake
5:00 PM - a great afternoon of jazz, dancing and dining, but time to say goodbye to The Blue Lantern as the interurban train now pauses to collect the modern revelers to return to Chicago
We'll keep you advised as to the next excursion undertaken by Sherlock Holmes and all that Jazz. Maybe next year so many of you may join us that they will have to add extra cars to the train and, perhaps, even hire a couple more bands!

BTW
Here is a bit of interesting railroad trivia which the good folks on the South Shore Line provided for us during our trip.

Think about it.
The US standard railroad gauge (the width between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8 and one-half inches. Now that is an exceedingly peculiar number. Why was that gauge ever used? Because that was the way they built railroads in England, and the early US railroads were built largely by Englishmen. So, why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that was the gauge that they used. But why did "they" use that odd gauge in the first place. Because the people who built the trams used the same machine jigs and tools which had been used for building wagons, and the wagon builders had used the 4 feet, 8.5 inch wheel spacing. Okay, why did the wagon builders use that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, it seems that if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels and axels had a tendency to break on some of the old, long distance roads in England because any other spacing would cause the wheels not to fit into the existing wheel ruts worn into the roads. So, who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (also in England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. Some of those same roads have been used ever since. The ruts in the roads were first formed by Roman war chariots and, subsequently, everybody else had to make the distance between their wheels the same so that the wheels of the newer vehicles would fit the old ruts. So, even today, the standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches still conforms to the original specification for an Imperial Roman War Chariot. But, one might wonder, why the Romans chose such an odd distance. It appears that the distance of 4 feet, 8.5 inches was just the minimum width that a war chariot had to be to fit nicely in the rear of two typical Roman war horses. So, you see, the odd gauge of the modern railroad tracks even today was brought into existence and perpetuated by a couple of horses . . . well, you get the idea.

Eds note: We have no idea as to whether any of this is really true, but it makes sense and, certainly, it makes an interesting story!!