Rediscovering the Ingenues - Newsletter #1
Who Were The Ingenues?
A chance discovery of a Rolling Stones record bearing the name Ginny Zender led to an unexpected friendship—and the forgotten story of the Jazz Age band known as The Ingenues.
Ginny & Juel is ultimately a film about The Ingenues, one of the most famous “all-girl” bands of the 1920s.
But to understand the band, you need to understand the era. The word ingenues was ubiquitous in the 1920s and used to describe alluring yet innocent young women. After all, the 1920s was the Jazz Age, and young women enjoyed newfound freedoms – freedoms that were not known by their mothers or grandmothers. On stage and on screen, the ingenue became a popular trope that captivated audiences. Hollywood stars like Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, and Colleen Moore embodied the type, while the flapper became the cultural symbol of a generation of women embracing new freedoms.
Riding on the popularity of this ideal, The Ingenues were created in the vaudeville tradition in 1925 by E.G. Sherman who sought to capitalize on the ingenue trope. Their innocence and youth were the marketing hook, and that hook often overshadowed the incredible talent these women had. Indeed, these women were multi-instrumentalists, playing upwards of 4 to 6 instruments.Their polished performances blended choreography, stage spectacle, and orchestrated jazz-age dance music. Formed in Chicago, the Ingenues performed first all over the country, eventually landing a gig in New York City in 1927 performing with the famed Ziegfeld Follies. Next, came several world-wide tours and two Vitaphone short films: “The Syncopating Sweeties” and “The Band Beautiful.” While in Brazil in 1928, The Ingenues also recorded at least 4 songs for the Columbia label.
Although Jazz emerged in the African-American community in New Orleans two decades earlier, the “All-Girl” bands of the 1920s were almost exclusively white ensembles and the music they played was often called “jazz” but really was orchestrated popular music, a pastiche of the jazz that was playing in places like the Cotton Club in New York and The Sunset Cafe in Chicago. Like much of American society at the time, these bands reflected the racial segregation of the era.
Although The Ingenues were not the only “all-girl” band at the time, they were arguably the most famous. In fact, several of the band members received notable media coverage. Ginny Zender’s mother, Juel Donahoe, joined the Ingenues in 1927 and was often described as the “youngest” of the band. Her older sisters Mary and Dorothy were already members, and the three Donahoe sisters traveled the world, along with their mother who had to accompany Juel, who was a minor at the time. Unfortunately, the coming Depression and a changing world forced these women out of the spotlight and into far quieter lives.
Ginny & Juel explores this history and the never-before-told story of Juel, Dorothy and Mary Donahoe.
From the Film:
Two of the Donahoe sisters, practicing in an alley, year unknown. Dorothy (left) and Juel (right)
Jazz Age Jukebox
“St. Louis Blues” is a Jazz standard, composed by W.C. Handy in 1914. Bessie Smith recorded it in 1925, and Louis Armstrong in 1929. Since then, it has been performed by hundreds of artists, including this version by The Ingenues, recorded in Brazil, 1928. Click on the image to listen.
This newsletter was written by Bruce Janu
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