Milt Larkin (October 10, 1910,
Navasota
Navasota is a city in Grimes County, Texas, Grimes County, Texas, United States. The population was 7,643 at the 2020 census. In 2005, the Texas Legislature designated Navasota as the "Blues Capital of Texas" in honor of the late Mance Lipscomb, ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
– August 31, 1996) was an American
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
trumpeter, bandleader and singer.
[Campbell, Robert L. and Leonard J. Bukowski, and Armin Büttner "The Tom Archia Discography"]
Retrieved 3 July 2013.
Biography
Early career
Larkin was an
autodidact
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individua ...
on the trumpet, and got his start playing in Texas in the 1930s with
Chester Boone and
Giles Mitchell. Between 1936 and 1943 he led his own band, touring the southwest United States, with gigs in
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
, and at the
Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, as well as a 9-month residency at the
Rhumboogie Café
The Rhumboogie Café,
also referred to as the Rhumboogie Club, was an important, but short-lived nightclub at 343 East ...
in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, on occasions coinciding there with, and backing,
T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker (May 28, 1910 – March 16, 1975) was an American blues musician, composer, songwriter and bandleader, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues, West Coast blues, and electric blues sounds. In 2018 ''Roll ...
.
[Pruter, Robert and Campbell, Robert L. "The Rhumboogie Label"](_blank)
Retrieved 3 July 2013.
Personnel in the band included
Arnett Cobb
Arnett Cleophus Cobb (August 10, 1918 – March 24, 1989)
accessed July 2010. was an American tenor saxophonist, somet ...
and
Illinois Jacquet
Jean-Baptiste "Illinois" Jacquet (October 30, 1922 – July 22, 2004) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, best remembered for his solo on "Flying Home", critically recognized as the first R&B saxophone solo.
Although he was a pioneer of t ...
(both of whom went on to join
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles M ...
),
[ ]Eddie Vinson
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (born Edward L. Vinson Jr.; December 18, 1917 – July 2, 1988) was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and rhythm and blues, R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in whi ...
(who left to join Cootie Williams
Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams (July 10, 1911 – September 15, 1985) was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter.
Biography
Born in Mobile, Alabama, Williams began his professional career at the age of 14 with the Yo ...
),[ ]Tom Archia
Ernest Alvin Archia, Jr. (November 26, 1919 – January 16, 1977) known as Tom Archia, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Early life
Archia was born in Groveton, Texas, moving with his family as a child to Rockdale and then Baytown, n ...
, Cedric Haywood
Cedric Haywood (December 31, 1914 – September 9, 1969) was an American jazz pianist.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Haywood played as a teenager in a high school band with Arnett Cobb. His first professional engagement was with Chester Boon ...
, Wild Bill Davis
Wild Bill Davis (November 24, 1918 – August 17, 1995) was the stage name of American jazz pianist, organist, and arranger William Strethen Davis. He is best known for his pioneering jazz electric organ recordings and for his tenure with t ...
, Alvin Burroughs
Alvin Burroughs (November 21, 1911 – August 1, 1950) was an American swing jazz drummer.
Burroughs played in Kansas City with Walter Page's Blue Devils in 1928–29Rye, Howard"Burroughs, Alvin".''Grove Music Online''. Oxford University Press ...
, Joe Marshall and Roy Porter
Roy Sydney Porter, FBA (31 December 1946 – 3 March 2002) was a British historian known for his work on the history of medicine. He retired in 2001 from the director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College L ...
.[ Vinson and Cobb had been with the band since its creation at the Aragon Ballroom in Houston in 1936.][ This ensemble won high praise but never recorded, on the one hand, because of the "recording ban" imposed on August 1, 1942, just after the band arrived in Chicago,][ and on the other hand, because Larkin wouldn't accept the low wages that record companies offered to black musicians.][
Having already lost several members to the draft board,][ Larkin disbanded the group when he himself entered the ]Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
. From 1943 to 1946, he played in Sy Oliver
Melvin James "Sy" Oliver (December 17, 1910 – May 28, 1988) was an American jazz arranger, trumpeter, composer, singer and bandleader.
Life
Sy Oliver was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. His mother was a piano teacher, and his ...
's army band, also playing on trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
. Larkin first recorded after leaving the service, recording with a number of ensembles over the next decade. In 1956, he moved to New York and led a septet
A septet is a formation containing exactly seven members. It is commonly associated with musical groups but can be applied to any situation where seven similar or related objects are considered a single unit, such as a seven-line stanza of poetry. ...
at the Celebrity Club. In the 1970s he returned to Houston and retired.
Later career
From 1979 to 1994, Milt Larkin was the leader of the Milt Larkin Allstars and the founder of Get Involved Now, a non-profit group that served inhouse audiences in Houston, Texas. Members of his group included Jimmy Ford lto sax
LTO may refer to:
Science and technology
* Linear Tape-Open, a computer storage magnetic tape format
* Link-time optimization, a technique used by compilers to optimize software
* Low Temperature Oxide, a form of silicon dioxide used in microfabr ...
Arnett Cobb enor sax Basirah Dean iano/keyboard Clayton Dyess uitar Terry T. Thomas ass
Ass most commonly refers to:
* Buttocks (in informal American English)
* Donkey or ass, ''Equus africanus asinus''
**any other member of the subgenus ''Asinus''
Ass or ASS may also refer to:
Art and entertainment
* ''Ass'' (album), 1973 albu ...
and Richard Waters rums
Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Phili ...
as well as. many other musicians who sat in his big band, including Buddy Tate
George Holmes "Buddy" Tate (February 22, 1913 – February 10, 2001) was an American jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.
Biography
Tate was born in Sherman, Texas, United States, and first played the alto saxophone. According to the website All Ab ...
.[ He did hundreds of performances for crippled and burned children, special needs children, mentally ill patients and elderly audiences. He was the recipient of the Jefferson Award for community service and performed regularly on the Annual Houston Jazz Festival and the Annual Juneteenth Blues Festival in Houston. Milt Larkin was featured in a documentary which was produced and aired on ]PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
called ''The Bigfoot Swing''. Although he suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the last few years of his life, he performed flawlessly at the Milt Larkin birthday bash on October 10, 1994 for his 84th birthday. He died on August 31, 1996 of pneumonia and his funeral was attended by many musicians, politicians and members of the press.
His son, Milton "Tippy" Larkin, is also a trumpet player and played with Larkin's various bands.[
]
Discography
As leader
* ''Down Home Saturday Night'' (Copasetic, 1976)Blues Valley (album cover)
Retrieved 3 July 2013.
As sideman
* Arnett Cobb
Arnett Cleophus Cobb (August 10, 1918 – March 24, 1989)
accessed July 2010. was an American tenor saxophonist, somet ...
, ''Arnett Blows for 1300
''Arnett Blows For 1300'' is an album by the American jazz saxophonist Arnett Cobb, compiling recordings from 1947 originally released on Apollo Records (1944), Apollo Records, that was released by the Delmark Records, Delmark label in 1995. '' (Delmark, 1994)
References
;Footnotes
;General references
*Scott Yanow
Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.Allmusic Biography/ref>
Biography
Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles.
Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles an ...
, Milt Larkin
Milt Larkin (October 10, 1910, Navasota, Texas, Navasota, Texas – August 31, 1996) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader and singer.[Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...]
External links
* Larkin, Milton and Louis Marchiafava and Charles Stephenson
Milton Larkin Oral History
Houston Oral History Project, January 5, 1988.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Larkin, Milt
1910 births
1996 deaths
American jazz bandleaders
American jazz trumpeters
American male trumpeters
American jazz trombonists
Male trombonists
20th-century American musicians
20th-century trumpeters
20th-century trombonists
People from Navasota, Texas
Jazz musicians from Texas
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians