Elmer Chambers
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Elmer Chambers
Dallas Elmer Chambers, also called Frog and Muffle Jaws Chambers (1897, Bayonne, New Jersey - ca. 1952, Jersey City, New Jersey) was an American jazz trumpeter. Chambers played in marching bands while serving in World War I, where he met bandleader Sam Wooding. He played with Wooding in Atlantic City, Detroit, and New York City, but left his service before Wooding's tours abroad. In 1923 he began playing with Fletcher Henderson in both large and small ensembles, and played on recordings behind the blues singers Alberta Hunter, Rosa Henderson, Clara Smith, and Ida Cox. He played with Louis Armstrong, and recorded with him on sessions for Decca, Verve, and Paramount. While with Armstrong he played alongside Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman, Buster Bailey, and Joe Smith. Chambers left Henderson in 1926 and played subsequently in the bands of Ellsworth Reynolds (1926), Billy Fowler (1926–27), and Russell Wooding (1930). He played in pit orchestras, in touring revues, and with ...
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Bayonne, New Jersey
Bayonne ( ) is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is situated on a peninsula located between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east. As of the 2020 United States census, the city's population was 71,686. Bayonne was originally formed as a township on April 1, 1861, from portions of Bergen Township. Bayonne was reincorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 10, 1869, replacing Bayonne Township, subject to the results of a referendum held nine days later.Snyder, John P''The Story of New Jersey's Civil Boundaries: 1606-1968'' Bureau of Geology and Topography; Trenton, New Jersey; 1969. p. 146. Accessed February 9, 2012. At the time it was formed, Bayonne included the communities of Bergen Point, Constable Hook, Centreville, Pamrapo and Saltersville. While somewhat diminished, traditional manufacturing, distribution, and maritime activities remai ...
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Alberta Hunter
Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter from the early 1920s to the late 1950s. After twenty years of working as a nurse, Hunter resumed her singing career in 1977. Early life Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Laura Peterson, who worked as a maid in a Memphis brothel, and Charles Hunter, a Pullman porter. Hunter said she never knew her father. She attended Grant Elementary School, off Auction Street, which she called Auction School, in Memphis. She attended school until around age 15. Hunter had a difficult childhood. Her father left when she was a child, and to support the family her mother worked as a servant in a brothel in Memphis, although she married again in 1906. Hunter was not happy with her new family and left for Chicago, Illinois, around the age of 11, in the hopes of becoming a paid singer; she had heard that it paid 10 dollars per week. Instead of finding a job as a singer she had to earn mon ...
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June Cole
June Lawrence Cole (1903, Springfield, Ohio – October 10, 1960, New York City) was an American jazz bassist, tubist, and singer. Cole's first major employment in music was with the Synco Jazz Band in Ohio; this group later became McKinney's Cotton Pickers while Cole was still a member. He left the Cotton Pickers in 1926 to play under Fletcher Henderson, with whom he stayed until 1928. While with Henderson he played on recordings behind Bessie Smith. In 1928 he toured Europe with Benny Peyton. He remained in Europe for over ten years, playing in the bands of Sam Wooding and Willie Lewis, but spent most of the years 1936-1939 out of music while recovering from a prolonged illness in Paris. He returned to the United States in 1941, leading his own bands in New York and playing in a quartet with Willie "The Lion" Smith in 1947. He continued playing locally in New York through the 1950s, and also ran a record store in Harlem. References * June Coleat Allmusic *Leonard Feather ...
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Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France. Biography Early life Bechet was born in New Orleans in 1897 to a middle-class Creole of color family. Bechet's father Omar was both a shoemaker and a flute player, and all four of his brothers were musicians as well. His older brother, Leonard Victor Bechet, was a full-time dentist and a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Bechet learned and mastered several musical instruments that were kept around the house (he began on the cornet), mostly by teaching himself; he decided to specialize in the clarinet (which he played almost exclusively until about 1919). At the age of six, he started to perform with h ...
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Fats Waller
Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz piano. His best-known compositions, " Ain't Misbehavin'" and " Honeysuckle Rose", were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999. Waller copyrighted over 400 songs, many of them co-written with his closest collaborator, Andy Razaf. Razaf described his partner as "the soul of melody... a man who made the piano sing... both big in body and in mind... known for his generosity... a bubbling bundle of joy". It is likely that he composed many more popular songs than he has been credited with: when in financial difficulties he had a habit of selling songs to other writers and performers who claimed them as their own. Waller started playing the piano at the age of six, and became a professional organist at 15. By the age of 18, he was ...
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Joe Smith (musician)
Joe "Fox" Smith ''(né'' Joseph Emory Smith; June 28, 1902 – December 2, 1937) was an American jazz trumpeter. Career Known throughout his childhood as "Toots", Smith originally started as a drummer but was convinced by Ethel Waters that he was far better as a trumpet player. It has been said that when he reached New York in 1920 he already had a fully formed style, which achieved "the vocalized sound, the blues spirit and the swing which makes for convincing jazz performance". In 1921, Smith joined the Black Swan Jazz Masters in Chicago, Illinois, directed at the time by Fletcher Henderson who described Smith as "the most soulful trumpet I ever had". He also worked with the Jazz Hounds, the Broadway Syncopators, and finally with McKinney's Cotton Pickers throughout the 1920s. He became famous from his work accompanying Bessie Smith, recording over 30 records. She stated that Smith was her preferred cornetist when recording, due to his reserved additions to her voice. Some of t ...
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Buster Bailey
William C. "Buster" Bailey (July 19, 1902 – April 12, 1967) was an American jazz clarinetist. Career history Early career Buster Bailey was taught clarinet by classical teacher Franz Schoepp, who also taught Benny Goodman. Bailey gained his start with W.C. Handy's Orchestra in 1917, when he was just fifteen years old. After two years of touring with Handy, Bailey quit the orchestra while the band was in Chicago. In 1919, Bailey joined Erskine Tate's Vendome Orchestra and remained with Tate until 1923 when he joined up with Joe "King" Oliver. As a member of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Bailey met and became friends with Louis Armstrong, who was also a member of the band at that time. In 1924, Armstrong left King Oliver's Jazz Band to join Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra in New York. Within a month, Armstrong extended an invitation for Buster Bailey to join him as a member of Henderson's band. Bailey accepted and moved to New York City. Mid-career In New York during the la ...
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Don Redman
Donald Matthew Redman (July 29, 1900 – November 30, 1964) was an American jazz musician, arranger, bandleader, and composer. Biography Redman was born in Piedmont, Mineral County, West Virginia, United States. His father was a music teacher, his mother was a singer. Beginning by playing the trumpet at the age of three, Redman joined his first band at the age of six and by the age of 12 was proficient on all wind instruments ranging from trumpet to oboe as well as piano. He studied at Storer College in Harper's Ferry and at the Boston Conservatory, then joined Billy Page's Broadway Syncopaters in New York City. He was the uncle of saxophonist Dewey Redman, and thus great-uncle of saxophonist Joshua Redman and trumpeter Carlos Redman. Career In 1923, Redman joined the Fletcher Henderson orchestra, mostly playing clarinet and saxophones. He began writing arrangements, and Redman did much to formulate the sound that was to become swing. A trademark of Redman's arrangements ...
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Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969), nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Yanow, Scot"Coleman Hawkins: Artist Biography" AllMusic. Retrieved December 27, 2013. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained: "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". Hawkins biographer John Chilton described the prevalent styles of tenor saxophone solos prior to Hawkins as "mooing" and "rubbery belches." Hawkins cited as influences Happy Caldwell, Stump Evans, and Prince Robinson, although he was the first to tailor his method of improvisation to the saxophone rather than imitate the techniques of the clarinet. Hawkins' virtuosic, arpeggiated approach to improvisation, with his characteristic rich, emotional, and vibrato-laden tonal style, was the main influence on a generation of tenor players that included Chu Berry, Charlie ...
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Paramount Records
Paramount Records was an American record label known for its recordings of jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey, Tommy Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Early years Paramount Records was formed in 1918 by United Phonographs, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, which trademarked its record brand from Port Washington and began issuing records the following year on the Puritan and Paramount labels. Puritan lasted only until 1927, but Paramount, based in the factory of its parent company in Grafton, Wisconsin, published some of the nation's most important early blues recordings between 1929 and 1932. The label's offices were located in Port Washington, Wisconsin and the pressing plant was located at 1819 S. Green Bay Road in Grafton. The label was managed by Fred Dennett Key. The Wisconsin Chair Company made wooden phonograph cabinets for Edison Records. In 1915 it started making its own phonographs in the name of its subsid ...
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Verve Records
Verve Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, and Oscar Peterson, among others. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records. Verve also served as the original home of rock acts such as The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. The restructured Verve Records is now part of the Verve Label Group (VLG), a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. This company is also home to historic imprints including Verve Forecast, Impulse! and Decca Records. History Norman Granz created Verve to produce new recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, whom he managed; the first album the label released was ''Ella Fi ...
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Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group. The U.S. Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG (Universal Music Group). Label name The name dates back to a portable gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word "Mecca" with the initial D of their log ...
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