The Versatile Four

The Versatile Four, an Afro-American string ensemble occasionally billed as the Versatile Three, emerged from the Versatile Entertainers Quintet that had appeared at James Reese Europe's Clef Club in May 1910. Its central members were banjoist Anthony Tuck, born near Danville, Virginia, around 1880; pianist Charles Wenzel Mills, born near Quincy, Illinois, circa 1883; and Chicago-born drummer Charles Wesley Johnson, whose birth year is believed to be 1885. These three musicians shared a further professional tie to James Reese Europe when they were engaged to back exhibition dancers Vernon and Irene Castle on their 1913 summer tour of France. By November the instrumentalists had reached London, where they joined banjoist Gus Haston to establish the Versatile Four. Born in St. Louis around 1879, Haston had studied music in Toronto, toured Europe in 1905 as mandolinist with Ernest Hogan's Memphis Students, and settled in London soon afterward. The quartet worked across England and the European continent, withdrew to the United States after the First World War began, and then returned to Britain after encountering scant employment prospects for Black performers in America. Early in 1915 they appeared at the London Pavilion and Murray's Club, and they cut their first disc sides in February 1916 with banjolines, piano, snare drum, and woodblock. Saxophones entered the act from 1915 onward, and evidence shows the musicians performed as a saxophone quartet in 1917. Charlie Johnson returned to the United States in December 1917. Thereafter the Versatile Three sometimes worked with drummer George Archer or with Liverpool's Afro-British percussionist Gordon Stretton. In February 1919 the Versatile Three began recording for the Edison Bell Winner label. Starting in September 1919 Gus Haston used C-melody saxophone on studio dates, and an alto saxophonist, possibly Edmund Jenkins, appears on certain November 1920 sides. The group recorded in 1921 as the Diplomat Orchestra, accompanied Dewey Wineglass' Dancing Demons, made several discs for English Columbia in March 1923, and returned to the United States in 1926 to tour the Orpheum circuit billed as a British act. After Mills left the ensemble, Julius Maceo Covington replaced him and joined the Versatiles on a subsequent trip to England, but the group disbanded permanently in February 1927. Covington died soon afterward in Paris. Haston appeared in New York to record six sides for Victor in December 1931 before disappearing from public view. Tuck eventually reached Argentina, where he performed in Buenos Aires in 1936 with a band led by Gordon Stretton.