And here are some of the Owls recordings of "Traditional Dixieland" tunes:
  "Dynamite", (441 kb): The New Orleans Owls

  "Alligator Blues", (635 kb): The Owls recording as " John Hyman's Bajou Stompers"

  "Thats A-Plenty", (514 kb): The New Orleans

  "West End Romp", (517 kb): The New Orleans Owls

And here is how the Owls used their Dixieland style playing some of the "Popular" tunes of the day:
  "Tampeekoe", (517 kb): The New Orleans Owls

  "Pretty Baby", (518 kb): The New Orleans Owls Owls

  "Oh Me! Oh! My!", (554 kb): The New Orleans Owls

Thanks to Mr Leonard Schwartz for contributing these tunes which have also been digitally re-mastered

Personnel:
Benjie White-Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Leader
Red Bowmen-Cornet, Vocals
Sigfre Christensen-Piano
Earl Crumb-Drums
Moses Farrar-Piano
Rene Gelpi-Banjo, Guitar
Nappy Lamare-Banjo, Vocals
Dan LeBlanc-Tuba
Frank Netto-Trombone
Bill Pardon-Cornet
Lester Smith-Tenor Saxophone
Pinky Vidacovich-Clarinet, Alto Saxophone

In private correspondence, Mr. Fritz Steiner (LCDR, USN (Ret) Huntsville, AL, USA) has recalled:
       "Benjie White, was more than just a name to me. Benjie
       was the father of one of my close boyhood friends, Frank
       D. White. Benjie and his brother owned "White Brothers"
       jewelry store on Canal Street. Benjie was also an early
       Ham Radio operator. He had his "rig" in the attic of
       their home. His call sign was W5EDY, which he'd phoneticize
       as " E-England, D-Denmark. Y-Yesterday" when he was " CQ-ing"
       As a young boy, it was fascinating to be up there with
       him as he talked with other hams all over the world. It was
       like a magic carpet to let my imagination conjure up what
       someone in England or Australia looked like and what their
       country was like."
The Database thanks Mr. Verne Buland and Mr. Fritz Steiner for their contributions on "The Owls".

       [ Red Nichols and his Five Pennies ]
b. May 8, 1905 Ogden, UT, USA. d. June 28, 1965, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
né: Ernest Loring Nichols. Cornet and Bandleader.
Overview
Here's a photo of a very young Red Nichols, who was one of the most recorded white jazz bandleaders of the late 1920's, - and deservedly so. Aside from Brunswick recordings done under his own name of Red Nichols and the Five Pennies, he recorded for many other companies under a host of different names including The Red Heads, The Louisiana Rhythm Kings, The Charlston Chasers, and The Arkansas Travelers. Here are the Arkansas Travelers and their very early 1924 hit
"Those Panama Mamas (Are Ruining Me)", digitally re-engineered here. Red was very often one half of a great duo...always teamed with his good friend Miff Mole (Trombone). During 1928-9, Red toured the West Coast. In the early 1930's he led a big band and also worked in the radio studios, returning to small group jazz in the late 1930's. The 1959 biopic 'The Five Pennies' brought him renewed popularity. From 1960 through 1964, Red toured Europe. The University of Oregon at Eugene, houses his personal papers while his private collection can be found at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, in the Archives of Recorded Sound.

Red's musical abilities were developed as a child when he studied cornet with his father, a college music professor. His style, greatly influenced by Bix Beidebecke, was polished and incisive with a somewhat narrow emotional range that befited the Dixieland music he so loved. While many Dixieland groups of the day played in a 'loose' or 'head' style, Red's ensembles were always well drilled using wide-ranging harmonies.

In the late 1920's, his ensembles would include musicians such as Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Vic Berton, Jimmy Dorsey, Adrian Rollini, Fud Livingston, Pee Wee Russell, and Miff Mole. Later, Red's bands included sidemen who would in time go on to become bandleaders themselves. Musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw would receive a good deal of their band training with Red.

In the 1930's, Dixieland music was superseded by a 'Swing' style, and Red formed a 'bigband' that played the newer music. But Red's heart was always with Dixieland music. Very late in his career, he formed smaller groups that recaptured the sounds of the 1920's.
Brief Chronology:

1923. Red came to NYC with the Johnny Johnson Orch. 
1925-32. Led his own pit orchestra for Broadway Shows, including two of
     George Gershwin's shows;  Girl Crazy and Strike Up the Band. He also
     put together a band for Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards, who took it
     into the Hotel Pennsylvania (NYC), in 1925.
1931 Fronted a band in Cleveland's Golden Pheasant restaurant.
     In between shows, he also found time to work in the Paul Whiteman,
     Sam Lanin and Ross Gorman bands.   Also worked in the Roger Wolfe
     Kahn Orchestra.
Red did a lot of studio recording at this time using a host of different
names, such as 'The Louisiana Rhythm Kings'; 'Charleston Chasers' and 
'The Red Heads'.
1934. Red fronted a band for the radio series, Kellogg College Prom. This
     band was actually Gil Rodin's orchestra. Gil had been Ben Pollack's
     right hand man. The featured singer was a wealthy Alabamiam name of
     Frank Tenill. This band also recorded a few sides under the name of
     Clark Randall & his Orch. Clark Randall was Frank Tenill's stage name.
1926. Red did a series of recording for the Brunswick Record Company under
     the name of Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. (usually 5 to 10 men)
     The band had such sidemen as: Benny Goodman; Glenn Miller; Eddie Lang;
     Joe Venuti; Fud Livingston; Vic Berton; Miff Mole; Jimmy Dorsey and
     Arthur Shutt.
1930s. Toured with his own big band. Led many studio orchestras including
     the Bob Hope Show.
1938. Worked in and around the Los Angeles Metroplex.
1940  Led his own band into New York's Famous Door Club, on 52nd Strret.
      Among the sideman were: Billy Maxted (piano); Henie Beau (clarinet);
      Harry Jaeger (drums/vocalist) and Bill Darnell on vocals.
1941  Led an unsuccessful band in some Boston dates.
1942  Was a sideman with Glen Gray & the Casa Loma Orchestra briefly and
      then retired to Hollywood where he fronted small jazz groups.
1959. A motion picture of his life entitled "The Five Pennies". The film
      was mostly just the usual Hollywood entertainment stuff, with Danny
      Kaye cast as Red. (You are getting more information reading this than
      was in the entire film!)  The film focused on Red's Daughter and her
      illness. 

Mr. Langdon, a wonderful entertainer in his own right, has further provided us with an insight to Red's character.
"(Red's daughter)...., Dorothy (named after my Mother - Red's sister) contracted spinal meningitis in the early forties. That's when Red and Willa (nee Stutsman, a George White "Scandals" dancer Red met and married in New York - Aunt Willa was a "knockout!" ) moved to San Leandro, California to be close to her (she was living with my folks while Red's band was on the road). That's when he quit the music business and went to work in the shipyards during the war. Those were very hard times for him. He loved his little girl fiercely, but he also loved his music with equal passion, and missed it terribly. Eventually he put a little band together - Red Nichols & the Five Pennies - and began playing small clubs around the area. Before long word got around that "Red is back!", and soon his gigs became jam sessions! His daughter made a complete recovery (from Polio, her actual affliction), married, and made Loring and Willa proud grandparents; three times (Barbara, Mike & Patty Mason). Red & Willa made Southern California their headquarters, living first in Hollywood, then Glendale, and finally building a palatial home in the Crystalaire Mountains near Llano, Ca, where they lived while Red fulfilled engagements from the Wilshire district's chic Zebra Room to the Tudor Room of the prestigious Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Other engagements around this time included George Foster's Marineland and the posh Sheraton in Pasadena, CA. He toured Europe on behalf of our State Department as a goodwill ambassador; was surprised by Ralph Edwards on the Television show "This Is Your Life", featuring buddies like Miff Mole, Phil "Monga" Harris, and Jimmy Dorsey, who related that whenever Red worked "he always saw to it that everybody made a buck, which was dear back when the loot was a little 'on the bias'"! Red and his Pennies did a number of truly vibrant albums for Capitol Records around this time, (by far his best recorded works), and signed to play Disneyland. It was about this time Red & the Five Pennies traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, to fulfill the first of a number of egagements for the new Mint Hotel. Several days into the date Red was asleep in his suite when he was awakened by paralyzing chest pains. He barely managed to call the front desk; an ambulance was called, but it arrived moments too late. That night the Five Pennies went on as scheduled, playing the "happy music" Red loved so deeply, and at the center of the band, in the place usually filled by Red himself, a lone spotlight shone upon a simple chair which held Red's shiny bright cornet, now silenced forever."
The Bigbands Database, and all it's readers, are deeply in debt to Mr Verne Langdon for sharing these wonderful memories with us. Thank you Verne.

A list of Red's Capitol albums:
 (rarely listed anywhere in Red's discographies)

"Hot Pennies" (T775),
"In Love With Red" (T999),
"Parade of the Pennies" (T1051),
"Meet The Five Pennies" (T1228),
"Dixieland Supper Club" (T1665),
"The All-Time Hits of Red Nichols and The Five Pennies" (ST1803),
"Blues and Old-Time Rags" (ST2065).
"Red Nichols at Marineland" (ST-1163)
"Dixieland Dinner Dance" (ST-1297)

And these independent labels:

(Take Two Records - TT-102),
  "...And That Man From Dixieland...Red Nichols"

(Audiophile Records - 1986 - AP-2),
  "Syncopated Chamber Music - Loring 'Red' Nichols and his Band"

(Broadway Intermission - BR-130),
  "Red Nichols and The Five Pennies at The Jazz Band Ball"

(EMI Electrola C-05481 848).
  "Masters of Dixieland, Vol. 5 - Red Nichols and The Five Pennies"


                       Some Selected Rrecordings
As leader:
That's no Bargain (1926, Bruns. 3407);

With M. Mole:
Delirium (1927, Vic. 20778);
China Boy (1930, Bruns. 4877);
Syncopated Chamber Music, (1953, Audiophile 7-8)

As sideman with M. Mole:
Imagination/Feelin' no Pain (1927, OK 40890)


                           Bibliography
Chilton  W O. Ferguson:
"The Five Pennies", Jazzmen,
    ed. F. Ramsey, Jr., and C.E. Smith (New York, 1939/R1977), 221

R. Venebles and C. White:
A Complete Discography of Red Nichols and his Five Pennies
   (Melbourne, Australia, 1946, 2/1947)

N. Shapiro and N. Hentoff, eds:
Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: the Story of Jazz by the Men who Made it
   (New York and London, 1955/R 1966), 248

H.H. Lange:
Loring "Red" Nichols : Ein Portrat
   (Wetzlar, Germany, 1960)

R. Hadlock:
Jazz Masters of the Twenties  (New York, 1965/R 1985)

A. McCarthy;
Big Band Jazz   (New York and London, 1974), 124

J.R.T. Davies:
"Re-minting the Pennies,"  -  Sv, no. 75 (1978), 107;
   continued as,
"Re re-minting the Pennies," Sv (1978), no.76, p.128: no.77,
   p.176; no.78, p. 224; no.79, p.16, no80, p.56; (1979), no. 81,
   p.107; no.82, p.145

       [ Naylor's Seven Aces ]
       [ Oliver Naylor's Orchestra ]
In 1923, Naylor formed his first band and in 1924 landed a contract to appear in New York's famed Roseland Ballroom. Here's a photo of Oliver Naylor and His Seven Aces", as they appeared on an album cover. They also made their first recordings in 1924. After leaving Roseland, their next venue was the Knickerbocker Grill (also in New York), and in 1925 Naylor returned to Roseland, and subsequently toured as 'Oliver Naylor's Orchestra.'

During 1924-25, he recorded 19 selections as 'Naylor's Seven Aces'. In 1925, the band also recorded some tunes for the Victor label (as Oliver Naylor's Orchestra). but were dropped by Victor due to an argument over royalties. in 1929, Naylor recorded two waltzes for the Okeh label.

All through the 1920's, Naylor's band toured the East Coast, without achieving national fame. Naylor never again recorded, but he did keep his band together into 1939 when he disbanded. For the next seven years, he managed a theatre, and subsequently (1948-60) worked as assistant general manager. for radio station WBRC-TV