Many American jazz musicians traveled to Shanghai during the city's golden age in the 1930s, when "the Paris of the Orient" was the newest horizon on an increasingly international jazz music scene. For Black musicians, who were often excluded from white musicians' unions in the U. S. and subjected to other forms of segregation, Shanghai provided steady, well-paid work, and greater respect than they received in most American venues outside the Black community. Shanghai’s golden age ended on December 8, 1941, when Japanese forces occupied the International Settlement shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many musicians were among the foreigners stranded in Shanghai and incarcerated in camps until the end of World War II in 1945.

This photo, titled in ink on front as "Leaders of the Bands," depicts four band leaders in China. They are identified, left to right, as Jimmy [Carson], Andy, Buck [Clayton], and Earl [Whaley]. Earl Whaley's Seattle-based jazz band, the Red Hot Syncopators, played in Shanghai clubs from 1934 until 1937, when many musicians shipped out after the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. Earl Whaley stayed on, with a mix of old and new band members, and continued to perform until he and others from his band were imprisoned by the Japanese Army between 1941 and 1945.

Handwritten on verso: Sept. 7/38 China

Caption information source: "Earl Whaley Band" at http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/earl-whaley-band
Caption information source: "Jazz in Occupied China: Black Jazzmen at the Japanese Prison Camp in Weihsien, China during World War II" by Desmond Power at blackpast.org.