Multi-instrumentalist musician Zona Lillian McConnell was a music trainer in King and Snohomish counties for many years, nurturing the skills of generations of scholars. She and her husband Dennis moved to the West Coast from the Midwest in 1912 and settled first in Portland after which Seattle, the place she started providing music classes, performing concert events, and taking part in violin on radio applications. Round 1920 she and 4 different feminine gamers have been recruited as a quintet to again an formidable stage manufacturing known as The Sweetest Lady. In 1926 she fashioned an all-female sextet, the Banjoettes, and started touring regionally. By 1930 the band was in Hollywood, had secured a supervisor, and had morphed into Las Senoritas, a nine-piece present band that labored steadily, together with in Prohibition-era speakeasies and varied halls in Alaska. After adopting two youngsters, the McConnells moved to Madrona Seaside on Camano Island, the place Zona opened the Madrona Music Faculty and recruited and led quite a few youth bands out of close by Stanwood. Till retiring within the early Seventies, she continued performing concert events in cities all through the Puget Sound area.
Early Heartbreak
Zona Lillian Nelson was born to Sivert “Sam” Nelson and Anna Nelson in Iowa on June 17, 1884. The household later moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Sam Nelson was a carpenter and Grasp railroad bridge engineer, in addition to a fiddler in an area band. “She instructed me that her dad performed the violin and that he may see that she was inquisitive about music, so he purchased her first violin when she was fairly younger,” recalled Zona’s granddaughter Joan McConnell. “My understanding is that on his day off he was a healer. And they’d go by horse and buggy round to the totally different cities and he would do the laying on of the palms after which she would play her violin. She would rise up at the back of the buggy and arise and play her violin for everyone whereas he did his factor [laughter]” (Joan McConnell interview with creator).
On November 30, 1904, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she married Dennis Edward “Mac” McConnell (1884-1956), who, like Zona’s father, labored for the railroad. Over subsequent years the couple skilled the heartbreak of getting pregnancies finish in miscarriage, and in 1908, Zona gave beginning to child Lucille, who lived solely eighteen months earlier than succumbing to sickness. “She couldn’t recover from her grief,” Joan McConnell stated. “She stated she put her violin away … she couldn’t play … and that’s when her and her husband determined that they wanted a change. So, they headed west” (Joan McConnell interview).
Change of Surroundings
It’s thought that the couple traveled by prepare whereas Dennis was inspecting tracks. “She instructed me that they camped in a tent alongside the way in which, and he or she realized how you can fireplace a gun and kill rattlesnakes. They made their manner out and ended up in Portland,” stated Joan McConnell (interview). After arriving, the couple opened McConnells Confectionary and ice cream store round 1914. Zona discovered the desire to take up her violin once more, and studied classical method with Miss Nettie Owens on the N. W. Regular Faculty of Music and Artwork, after which with E. O. Spitzner. She acquired concerned with Portland’s classical music group and carried out at public recitals. She dreamed of becoming a member of a philharmonic orchestra, and even auditioned a time or two, however was upset after not making the minimize.
The couple resettled in Seattle round 1918 and acquired a home on Queen Anne Hill at 3007 eleventh Avenue N. Dennis acquired a job with the Pacific Coast Railroad Firm, which hauled coal from the mines at Black Diamond to steamships on the Seattle waterfront. Working from his workplace on the Colman Dock Constructing, he served as a foreman. At instances his work took him to Alaska, the place he inspected firm docks at Sitka and Juneau.
The Sweetest Lady
On August 14, 1918, Zona McConnell paid her first union dues and charges to hitch Seattle’s American Federation of Musicians Native No. 76. She was a pure participant who, along with the violin, had taken up the banjo. She would change into fluent in different devices together with accordion, piano, saxophone, drums, and ultimately guitar. This completely fashionable girl wore males’s clothes when she selected to, and owned and drove her personal car. A number of early promotional images present her gazing fondly at her beloved violin, or fingering her banjo. Round April 1920, she started operating adverts in The Seattle Instances that said: “WANTED – Violin pupils; particular consideration given freshmen. Room 220 Yale Constructing” – a spot at third Avenue and Union Avenue the place quite a few musicians and instructors had studios.
That very same 12 months she recruited different girls – described in a single newspaper account as “college ladies” – and fashioned a jazzy quintet that includes herself on banjo, plus two saxophonists, a violinist, and a pianist (North Seaside Tribune). In 1920 her band was employed because the backing band for a stage manufacturing known as The Sweetest Lady, produced by I. M. Fahey & Co. The present was ballyhooed as being: “A Marvelous, Bewitching, Entrancing GIRLIE SHOW – Introducing Artists of the Increased Class – Comedians And Dancers Unequalled In All The World – A New and Enthusiastic Musical Girlie Romance – The Stylish Girlie Present – 10 Artists – Common Women – 20 Lovely Bewildering Dazzling Robes – Marvelous Music, The Best Comedy, Enticingly Lovely Women In This New Musical Romance – The One Huge Success of 1920” (The Sweetest Lady program). It gave McConnell’s band its first style of life on the highway.
The Women Membership
By February 1923 McConnell had a downtown studio within the Peoples Financial institution Constructing, the place she taught violin, banjo, and piano. In Might 1923 she participated in a live performance at Jensen and Von Herberg’s Mission Theater, performing “Variations of Previous-Time Melodies” on her violin, banjo, and mandolin. In February 1925, she started performing dwell on KHQ radio in Seattle. By August 1925 she once more was operating ads in The Seattle Instances noting that she was providing musical instruction – particularly “PIANO jazz, 13 classes, word or ear,” from the Waterman Piano Faculty positioned within the Yale Constructing. By November she was providing classes in violin, banjo, ukulele, and Hawaiian metal guitar.
In 1927, 50 feminine members of AFM Native No. 76, together with McConnell, based a brand new auxiliary – the Women Membership – for assist and fellowship functions. Round that point a brand new pattern emerged: all-female jazz combos. In Seattle these would come with Frances and her Lady Buddies, Alberta and her Melody Queens, the Rhythmettes, and McConnell’s band, the Banjoettes. Issues weren’t all the time simple for these pioneers. One musician would recall how “male musicians would sit within the crowd and harass them although all of them belonged to the musician’s union. At the moment males felt that solely males ought to type bands … The ladies have been all the time nicely acquired on the dances and ultimately the hazing would cease, solely to be repeated on the subsequent job” (Tanner). In the meantime, the union’s solely girl board member, Ida Dillon, started reserving 5 all-female musical trios to work the Alaska Steamship Firm’s cruise ship circuit on 5 steamers based mostly in Seattle.
Hitting the Highway
The Banjoettes have been a sextet that featured 4 banjos, a drummer, and one participant who alternated between the clarinet, saxophone, and ukulele, relying on the kind of tune. The ensemble grew to become proficient at taking part in a spread of musical kinds, together with classical, pop, jazz, and ultimately songs with a Spanish/Mexican aptitude. They developed a stage act that spotlighted solo performances, duos, and trios, together with numbers that included singing, dancing, and comedy bits. After creating their act regionally, they started a number of years of touring across the area and ultimately down the coast. Making their option to Hollywood, the ladies turned heads, and their music and showmanship grabbed consideration. By 1930 a few music enterprise execs, Stanley and Henry Synder, had supplied their administration companies. For the next few years the band was booked as Stanley’s Hollywood Las Senoritas and promoted as “A Snappy Women Jazz Orchestra” and “The Movie Capitol’s Jazziest Lady Orchestra.” Over time the troupe grew to 9 members – together with Seattle’s KFOA radio star, accordionist “Dainty Miss” Alberta Bailey from the Melody Queens:
- Zona McConnell (chief, vocals, violin, banjo, sax)
- Alberta Bailey (accordion)
- Frances Krauland (sax, clarinet)
- Laurnetta Nelson (violin, sax, clarinet)
- Carmel Teed (piano, vocals, dancer)
- Mae Powell (drums, vocals, dancer)
- Lillian Walker (dancer)
- Patsy Patterson (dancer)
- Irene McKenzie (dancer)
Again dwelling in Washington, Las Senoritas performed a notable present at a dance pavilion on the Lengthy Seaside Peninsula on June 25, 1930. They have been pitted in a Battle of the Bands competitors in opposition to a well-established Black all-male hot-jazz group, the Ebony Serenaders. Ilwaco’s North Seaside Tribune gave the occasion good advance publicity, however there appears to have been no follow-up reportage, so the winner has been misplaced to historical past. The Guardian newspaper in Eugene, Oregon, did point out that the Serenaders have been working their manner up the coast to summer time gigs in Alaska.
North To Alaska
In March 1931, maybe impressed by the Ebony Serenaders, Las Senoritas, which by now included accordionist Lillian Barthelmy, traveled by steamship to Ketchikan, the place regular work awaited them. From the minute Stanley’s Hollywood Lady Band landed, the native newspapers fawned over the ladies with nearly every day protection of their actions each on and off the stage. The primary press account stated: “A brand new and breezy word was delivered to Ketchikan” upon their arrival. After they made their Ketchikan debut, the Day by day Alaska Empire raved: “On The Stage With Dancing, Singing and Pink Scorching Music – Don’t go up the possibility to listen to Miss Alberta Bailey and Miss Bartholomew [sic] on their piano Accordions. This alone is well definitely worth the value of admission. The complete firm are proficient musicians and can stage a DANCE whereas right here if preparations could be made” (“Women’ Band Attracted …”). Preparations have been made, and the band performed a dance for the townsfolk. Then, after wowing Ketchikan crowds for a few nights, the troupe “chartered the Taku, Second, Capt. R. H. Kapper, a 40-horsepower fuel boat, 52 toes lengthy, for the voyage from Ketchikan to Juneau” (Day by day Alaska Empire, March 19, 1931).
Advance publicity in Juneau promised that they’d be bringing “Dancing, Singing and Pink Scorching Music.” They opened with a bang at Juneau’s premier film palace, the Coliseum Theatre, which had been designed for Mr. W. D. Gross by the Seattle-based architect R. H. Rowe and furnished by Seattle’s B. F. Shearer, Inc. Upon its opening in 1924, The Transferring Image World journal predicted, “Gross could have one of many best homes on the coast. It should value within the neighborhood of $85,000 and can seat 1,000. The theatre might be deliberate considerably just like the Liberty Theatre of Seattle, with a ramp going as much as the mezzanine ground the place it divides, circling to the balcony” (“Gross Will Entice …”).
After their efficiency on March 18, 1931, a reporter with the Day by day Alaska Empire filed a report that included fascinating quotes from the band’s drummer, Mae Powell. “At a restaurant luncheon after the present they chatted about miners — they wish to see some — the snow and the peaceable points of Juneau, capital metropolis and wealthy gold camp of Alaska. ‘We just like the North,’ Powell enthused. ‘Alaska is just not with out gratifying surprises in some respects. We have been ready for its lovely surroundings, which is extensively heralded, however not for the peaceable, orderly methods of all its individuals. Maybe, movement footage had led us to count on not less than some shows of lawlessness — carousing and consuming locations, as an example. Why at a desk in lots of cafes in Los Angeles, I wouldn’t dare to maneuver a foot for worry of kicking over a bottle of Scotch; right here it’s a delight to entertain no such apprehensions'” (Day by day Alaska Empire, March 19, 1931).
In a spot the place girls have been comparatively few and much between, the musicians’ femininity was appreciated. As have been their musical abilities. “Even when these maids couldn’t play a word. Their comely seems and profitable methods are sufficient to convey outdated timers operating from the hills and to make jaded younger blades about city carry their eyebrows in shocked admiration. However the ladies could make music. That’s their enterprise” (Day by day Alaska Empire, March 21, 1931).
Not all of Las Senoritas’ Juneau gigs have been glamorous. They carried out between bouts of boxing matches, at an Elks Membership dance and fundraiser for a baseball group, at a dance occasion for the Kayhi basketball group at Pepe’s Café, the Biennial Ball for Alaska’s Tenth Territorial Legislature, a Junior Promenade Spring Dance, a bash on the Moose Corridor, and a sequence of dances on the A. B. Corridor. They have been successful, a lot in order that the Day by day Alaska Empire imagined that they might by no means depart city. “Rejoice,” one information article trumpeted, “‘The Women’ Band is right here to remain … in Juneau Completely” (“Women Engaged to Play …”).
Again House With Household
As soon as again in Seattle, McConnell grew to become lively with the Women Aid Society’s Orphan House, helping and inspiring quite a few pals to undertake children. In 1931, within the depths of the Nice Despair, she noticed a bedraggled 8-year-old lady busking on a avenue nook. Singing songs and dancing, little Lorraine was performing for cash whereas her alcoholic father rested close by. Studying that they lived in a tarpaper shack in Maple Valley, the McConnells requested if they may take the lady into their dwelling as household. They might ultimately undertake her, and Lorraine McConnell (1923-1977) would have her personal profession in present enterprise.
In the meantime, Zona regrouped her band as Zona McConnell and her Serenaders. The band contracted with the Bert Levey Circuit of Vaudeville Theaters, headquartered in Hollywood. In time they returned to the Northwest. Maybe this close-to-home technique was due partly to the truth that in 1937 the McConnells adopted a new child child, who they named Edward Samuel McConnell (d. 2015), and who would go on to take dancing classes with Helen H. Shaffer in Seattle, in addition to piano and accordion classes along with his mom. He did his share of dwell performances over time.
Lorraine McConnell would go on to graduate from Queen Anne Excessive Faculty and the Carolyn Leonetti modeling college, and likewise studied drama on the College of Washington, the place she appeared in performs on the campus Showboat Theater. As a talented accordionist, she was employed by Joe Stancato to function the Nationwide Supervisor of Coaching for his Stancato Faculty of Accordion at 7405 Greenwood Avenue, after which traveled as its West Coast consultant. In time she would meet and marry Dave Ballard, a grandson of Seattle pioneer Captain William Rankin Ballard (1847–1929). Dave Ballard was the classical music director at Los Angeles’ KGFS radio, whereas Lorraine labored as a jazz dancer and scat singer. Each have been actors on the Pasadena Playhouse, and acquired bit components in Hollywood motion pictures. Within the early Fifties Lorraine Ballard started spinning information as a disc jockey for native dances. After they moved again to Seattle, Dave gained some renown for an extended stint as a radio persona. Beginning as a DJ at KING-AM, he moved on to KTIX in 1958, however grew to become finest recognized for his Reflections program that began on KIRO radio in 1960 and featured smooth music backing his readings of unique poetry. Transferring later over to KIXI, his present got here to be syndicated on 26 community stations.
Snohomish County Dwelling
Within the mid-Nineteen Forties Dennis McConnell retired from the railroad, and he and Zona had deliberate forward by shopping for an outdated logging camp web site with a cabin on Camano Island’s Madrona Seaside in 1933. Round 1944 that they had a brand new home constructed there, and the household made the transfer from Seattle. Very quickly, Zona had based her home-based Madrona Music Faculty and change into lively in that group and within the close by city of Stanwood.
In 1951 she self-published a 23-lesson tutorial folio titled Classes in Scales and Chords, which she devoted to her son. That was adopted in 1956 with one other, First Strategy to the Accordion, comprised of eight temporary unique compositions, which was printed in New York. These have been helpful as she tutored her many pupils within the arts of taking part in and efficiency. She fashioned a number of kiddie bands – together with the Stanwood Accordion Band, the Rhythm Band, and the Zona McConnell Accordion Orchestra – and thru the years many group occasions have been held at Stanwood’s circa 1936 Metropolis Corridor constructing, which, along with its jail cells and metropolis council chambers, additionally boasted a ballroom, orchestra pit, and stage. It was right here that for a few years McConnell supplied free public music recitals by her college students.
McConnell and/or her youth teams performed Seattle reveals on the Northwestern Faculty of Music, the YWCA’s Tuesday Luncheon Membership, the Alpha Delta Sorority, and even at KING-AM radio. Elsewhere they carried out on the Fraternity Corridor in Auburn, the Lutheran Brotherhood Corridor in Bremerton, the Snohomish County Sportsmen’s Affiliation, the Stillaguamish Grange Corridor, the Sons of Norway Corridor in Blaine, on the Washington State Federation of Ladies’s Golf equipment conference at Everett’s Normanna Corridor, the Northwestern Pageant on the Faculty of Puget Sound, the Washington State Truthful in Puyallup, plus Stanwood’s Sons of Norway Corridor, Jay-Cees Wives Membership, Masonic Temple, and for the crew of Camano Fireplace District No. 1. Wrote the Stanwood newspaper: “Mrs. McConnell is well-known and universally cherished on this district as one among our most completed music lecturers … and has most likely produced extra juvenile musicians than another trainer who ever lived and taught on this locality” (The Twin Metropolis Information).
All through her life, McConnell was an unbiased thinker with can-do gumption, a loving coronary heart, and a beneficiant soul. Along with taking part in music, and educating music (up till about 1973), she additionally had an curiosity in spiritualism, and an innate sense of DIY proto feminism. “She was such a smart girl,” recalled her niece. “She was an enormous affect for me as a result of she was so forward of her time. I admired her for it. I acknowledged that once I was a teen. She was completely fearless. She was so enjoyable to hang around with. She instructed me a whole lot of nice tales” (Joan McConnell interview). McConnell continued driving till Might 1977 when, at age 93, her automotive was struck by one other car. She by no means fairly recovered, and her last months have been spent on the Woodland Convalescent Heart in Woodland. She died on November 24, 1977, and was laid to relaxation at Stanwood’s Anderson Cemetery.
Sources:
Joan McConnell interview with creator Peter Blecha, October 13, 1922, transcript in creator’s possession; Vicki Tanner, The Women In The Band 1925-1935, self-published booklet, 2003, p. 6; The Sweetest Lady, I. M. Fahey & Co. program, Seattle’s Western Present Print, 1920. pp. 1-4; “Gross Will Entice Floating Inhabitants,” The Transferring Image World, June 2, 1923; “Ebony Serenaders Right here At Winter Backyard,” Eugene Guardian, April 29, 1930, p. 4; “New Dance Function Is ‘Battle of Bands,'” North Seaside Tribune, June 20, 1930, p. 1; “Alaska Steamship Co. Hires 15 Women,” Musicland journal, December 25, 1930, p. 19; “Women’ Band Attracted By Lights On Hill – Fairly Musicians Anticipated Some Lawlessness on Final Frontier,” Day by day Alaska Empire, March 19, 1931, newspaper clipping, Zona McConnell’s scrapbook; “Senoritas Play For Dance At Elks Tonight,” Day by day Alaska Empire, March 21, 1931, newspaper clipping, Zona McConnell’s scrapbook; “Women Engaged To Play Dances in A. B. Corridor,” Day by day Alaska Empire, undated, newspaper clipping, Zona McConnell’s scrapbook; “Recital Given In Honor Of Departed Pal,” Seattle Submit-Intelligencer, September 20, 1937, p. 3; “Flanked by Their Son and Daughter, Mr. and Mrs. D. E. McConnell Come Smiling By means of as They Chart a Continued Course on the Second Half of the Century,” The Twin Metropolis Information, December 2, 1954, p. 1; Edward S. McConnell, letter to AFM-76 informing of Zona McConnell’s demise, January 26, 1978, courtesy AFM-76-493; Zona Lillian McConnell, Classes in Scales and Chords (Stanwood: ZLM, 1951); Zona Lillian McConnell, First Strategy to the Accordion (New York: Pietro Deiro Publications, 1956); Historical past Hyperlink.org On-line Encyclopedia of Washington State Historical past, “Seattle Beginnings: Ballard Submit Workplace opens on August 22, 1889,” (by Greg Lange), https://www.historylink.org/ (accessed October 31, 2022); Historical past Hyperlink.org On-line Encyclopedia of Washington State Historical past, “Seattle’s ‘all lady’ jazz group Las Senoritas faces off in opposition to New York’s the Ebony Serenaders in an epic Battle of the Bands on June 25, 1930” (by Peter Blecha), https://www.historylink.org/ (accessed October 20, 2022).
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