Bennie Motens Kansas City Orch. Rumba Negro, 1929

Bennie Moten (1894 1935) was a jazz pianist and band leader born in Kansas City, Missouri. He led the Kansas City Orchestra, the most important bluesbased orchestra active in the South West in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of the 1930s Big Bands. His first recordings were made in 1923, and were rather stiff interpretations of the New Orleans style of King Oliver and others. They also showed the influence of the Ragtime that was still popular in the ar