Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 saxophonist and tubist

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

 best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era.

He started his musical career playing with George Morrison's band, but then went on to join Terrence Holder

Terrence Holder

Terrence Holder was an American jazz trumpeter and territory band leader. While he did not achieve fame in his own life, he worked extensively with bands in and around Kansas City and was an important member of the city's musical life in the 1920s and 1930s.Holders played with Alphonse Trent in...

's Dark Clouds of Joy. In 1929 he was elected leader after Holder departed. Renaming themselves Twelve Clouds of Joy they set up in the Pla-Mor Ballroom on the junction of 32nd and Main in Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

 and made their first recording for Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records

Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...

 that same year. Mary Lou Williams

Mary Lou Williams

Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Williams wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records...

 came in as pianist at the last moment, but she impressed Brunswick's Dave Kapp

Kapp Records

Kapp Records was an independent record label started in 1954 by David Kapp, brother of Jack Kapp . David Kapp founded his own label after stints with Decca Records and RCA Victor Records. Kapp licensed its records to London Records for release in the UK.In 1967, David Kapp sold his label to MCA Inc...

, so she became a regular member of the band. The pianist she replaced, Marion Jackson, did not take well to this but otherwise Kirk's band would be fairly stable with the incorporation of Williams.

Kirk recorded for Brunswick 1929-late 1930. In mid-1936, he was signed to Decca

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 and made scores of popular records until 1946. He presumably disbanded and reformed his band during that 6 year recording layoff.

In 1942, Kirk and His Clouds of Joy recorded "Take It and Git", which on October 24, 1942, became the first single to hit number one on the Harlem Hit Parade, the predecessor to the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 R&B chart. In 1943, with June Richmond on vocals, he had a number 4 hit with "Hey Lawdy Mama

Hey Lawdy Mama (blues song)

"Hey Lawdy Mama" is a Piedmont blues song recorded by Buddy Moss in 1934. The song became popular among jazz musicians with early recordings by Count Basie and Louis Armstrong. In 1943, a version recorded by Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, with vocals by June Richmond, was a hit,...

".

Clouds of Joy

The band at various times included Buddy Tate (tenor saxophone

Tenor saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...

), Claude Williams

Claude Williams (musician)

Claude "The Fiddler" Williams was an American jazz violinist and guitarist.Williams was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1908, and by 10 he had learned to play guitar, mandolin, banjo and cello. Upon hearing Joe Venuti play, he was inspired to take up the violin...

 (violin), Pha Terrell

Pha Terrell

Elmer "Pha" Terrell was an American jazz singer.Terrell was working in nightclubs locally in Kansas City in the early 1930s as a singer, dancer, and emcee when he was discovered by Andy Kirk, who hired him to be the vocalist for his group the Twelve Clouds of Joy...

 (vocals), Mary Lou's then husband, John Williams, Bill Coleman

Bill Coleman

William Johnson Coleman was a jazz trumpeter from the swing era.He had his musical debut in 1927. Coleman's first recordings were with the Luis Russell orchestra, but all solos on record went to the rising star Henry "Red" Allen. This led to Bill Coleman's departure from the band. By 1935 he...

, Ken Kersey

Ken Kersey

Ken Kersey was a Canadian jazz pianist who spent most of his life working in the United States....

, Dick Wilson

Dick Wilson (musician)

Dick Wilson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, best known for his work with the Andy Kirk big band....

, Don Byas

Don Byas

Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...

, "Shorty" Baker

Shorty Baker

Harold "Shorty" Baker was a jazz trumpeter.Baker started on drums, but switched to trumpet in his teens. He began on riverboats and played with Don Redman in the mid-1930s. He also worked with Teddy Wilson and Andy Kirk before his more noted association with Duke Ellington...

, Howard McGhee

Howard McGhee

Howard McGhee was one of the very first bebop jazz trumpeters, together with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Idrees Sulieman. He was known for lightning-fast fingers and very high notes...

, Jimmy Forrest

Jimmy Forrest

Jimmy Forrest was an African American jazz musician, who played tenor saxophone throughout his career....

, Ben Smith

Ben Smith (musician)

Benjamin J. Smith was an American jazz alto saxophonist, tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He was born in Memphis.- Early career :...

, Fats Navarro

Fats Navarro

Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown.-Life:Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, to Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage...

, Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

 (briefly), Reuben Phillips

Reuben Phillips

Reuben Phillips was an American jazz saxophonist, arranger and bandleader, born in Providence, Kentucky....

, Ben Thigpen

Ben Thigpen

Ben Thigpen was an American jazz drummer. He is the father of drummer Ed Thigpen.Ben Thigpen played piano as a child, having been trained by his sister Eva. He played in South Bend, Indiana with Bobby Boswell in the 1920s, and then moved to Chicago to study under Jimmy Bertrand. While there he...

, Henry Wells

Henry Wells

Henry Wells was an American businessman important in the history of both the American Express Company and Wells Fargo & Company.-Early life:...

, Milt Robinson, Floyd Smith

Floyd Smith (musician)

Floyd Smith was an American jazz guitarist.Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Smith studied music theory as a teenager and leared ukelele as a child before taking up guitar...

, Hank Jones

Hank Jones

Henry "Hank" Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award...

, Johnny Lynch, Joe Williams

Joe Williams (jazz singer)

Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...

, Big Jim Lawson, Gino Murray and Joe Evans

Joe Evans (musician)

Joe Evans is a jazz alto saxophonist.Active between 1939 and 1965, he played in the big bands of Jay McShann, coinciding with Charlie Parker, Jimmy Forrest and Gene Ramey; Don Redman; Andy Kirk and Louis Armstrong.Other musicians he performed with include Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Bill...

.

In 1948, Andy Kirk folded the band and continued to do music after that, but eventually switched to hotel management and real estate and also served as an official in the Musicians' Union.