Of Lefse, Jazz, and Monetary Policy

There are few advantages to having an ethnically distinct, consonant-rich surname. For one thing, I've already spent precious hours of my mortal years spelling it for clerks, tellers, receptionists, etc. And the temptation to mangle it maliciously was irresistible to classmates. "Nordhog" had already taken root on my older brother when I reached school, and it clung to me like fungus for a few years. Of course, "NordBlog" might be my redemption, but the current title stays for now. However, the name Nordskog certainly makes the google-sifting easy. A few years ago I came across knowledge that one of my tribe who drifted westward played a role in the popularization of America's elemental art form.

My great-grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant, made his first home in Story City, Iowa, where a brother had settled before him. After marrying in 1899, my progenitor migrated to northern Minnesota, where he endured a diet of herring, spruce bark, and Lutheran guilt. But his nephew and namesake Andrae, Iowa born in 1885, took a more adventurous turn, leaving Story City for life on the road as an opera singer. Settling in sunny southern California, Andrae became general manager of the Hollywood Bowl in 1920. Soon after, he founded Nordskog Records in Santa Monica, the first commercial recording studio on the West Coast. There he produced what are widely considered to be the first jazz recordings made by an African-American band from New Orleans, including a recording of "Ory's Creole Trombone" by Spikes Seven Pods of Pepper Orchestra, a session name for Kid Ory's Original Creole Jazz Band. (Kid Ory went on to greater acclaim with Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five in Chicago.) It's a raucous track, guaranteed to put you in a good mood. The tale has its sordid side, though: the pressing was supposed to carry the Sunshine Records label, as expected by the local impresarios who had arranged the session, John and Benjamin “Reb” Spikes. They refused to pay the full cost of the pressing and relabled some of the stock. Andrae sued them for full payment and won, and Sunshine set upon the wide Pacific.

Nordskog Records was also short-lived. The company from New Jersey that pressed records from Nordskog masters fell into bankruptcy. They failed to return more than 80 masters, including lost recordings by King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton--although those might have been lost during shipment across the desert, when the wax cylinders would often melt. Andrae closed up shop after releasing 27 titles and turned to other interests, inserting himself into the volatile world of California water politics, voicing a public-affairs radio show, and publishing The Gridiron, a weekly rant against graft. One contemporary described his writings as those of "a bond salesman with a yen to be a poet." I don't know if anyone ever called him "Nordhog," but dilletante, self-styled, amateur, and gadfly are other common labels. Andrae even tilted his lance at the White House, with a short-lived run for Vice-President with the Liberty Party in 1932, until he was bumped off the ticket because he and the Presidential nominee were from the same state, a constitutional no-no. His final blip on the mediasphere was a notorious suit against the Federal Reserve in 1936, but he no doubt went right on nordblogging until his death in 1962. For reasons I don't fully grasp, nor will I endeavor to, he appears to be gaining new life as a dead pundit in the distant cyber-bunkers of fiscal policy flat-earthers.