Ernestine Carroll Davis, (born 1909 or 1910 – January 30, 1994) better known as Tiny Davis, 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 ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

er and vocalist.

Early life and education

Carroll was born in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

. Born to George and Leanna (née White) Carroll, she was the youngest of seven children: four sisters and two brothers. She began playing trumpet at age thirteen while a student at Booker T. Washington High School.

Career

She moved to

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 ...

in the 1930s and joined the Harlem Play-Girls in 1935, playing with the group until late 1936, when she left the group to give birth. In 1937, the Piney Woods Country Life School of Mississippi founded the 16-piece band known as

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all-women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day. They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that inclu ...

. The purpose of the band was to financially support the school, which educated the poor and orphaned Black children in that state. But in 1941, the Sweethearts severed their ties with the Piney Woods Country Life School, moved to Virginia, and recruited seasoned professionals to join their band. This is when Ernestine "Tiny" Davis joined. The Sweethearts were unique for the time as all-female and racially integrated group, featuring Latina, Asian, Caucasian, Black, Native American and Puerto Rican players. Tiny played and toured with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm until 1947, including on

USO The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed F ...

tours during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and in the film ''How About That Jive''. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm also played

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, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, DC, where their debut set a box office record of 35,000 patrons in one week. In the 40s,

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

and

Cab Calloway Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalist ...

, among others, came and stood in the wings to listen to her. Later, her all-female band played opposite Armstrong and

Fletcher Henderson James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson (December 18, 1897 – December 29, 1952) was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. He was one of the most prolific black musi ...

and jammed with many jazz greats. "I could have played with

Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...

, Cab Calloway—the greatest," Tiny said. "But I loved them gals too much. They were some sweet gals." After the Sweethearts disbanded in 1949, she formed her own all-female band from some erstwhile members of the

Prairie View Co-eds The Prairie View Co-eds were an all-female band that formed in the 1940s at the historically black Prairie View A&M University. The band formed in response to more and more males being drafted into the armed forces. The Prairie View Co-eds' succe ...

, which she called the Hell Divers. On June 25, 1950, Tiny Davis and Her Hell Divers performed at the sixth famed

Cavalcade of Jazz The Cavalcade of Jazz was the first large outdoor jazz entertainment event of its kind produced by an African American, Leon Hefflin, Sr. The event was held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, Lane Field in San Diego and the last one at the Shrine Aud ...

concert held at

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...

in Los Angeles which was produced by

Leon Hefflin, Sr. Leon Norman Hefflin, Sr. (August 17, 1898 – November 20, 1975) was a pioneering African-American producer, director, business owner, furniture manufacturer, and entrepreneur. After losing his large and successful manufacturing business in the ...

Also featured on the same day were

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 ...

, PeeWee Crayton's Orchestra,

Roy Milton Roy Bunny Milton (July 31, 1907 – September 18, 1983) was an American R&B and jump blues singer, drummer and bandleader. Career Milton's grandmother was Chickasaw. He was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and grew up on an Indian reservation bef ...

and his Orchestra,

Dinah Washington Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the 1950s songs". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performe ...

, and other artists. 16,000 were reported to be in attendance. Tiny Davis and her Hell Divers ensemble recorded for

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), 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 ...

and toured through 1952, including in the Caribbean and Central America. Tiny Davis was active in performance into the 1980s.

Filmography

Davis was featured in two

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

short

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

s produced and directed by

Greta Schiller Greta Schiller is an American film director and producer, best known for the 1984 documentary '' Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community''. Personal life Schiller received the US/UK Fulbright Arts Fellowship in Film and grants ...

and Andrea Weiss. '' International Sweethearts of Rhythm: America's Hottest All-Girl Band'' (1986) presented a history of the first racially integrated all-female jazz band in the United States. Davis was one of six surviving band members interviewed in the film. In 1988, she was the co-featured artist in the documentary ''Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin' Women'' that focused primarily on Davis' career after leaving the Sweethearts, as well as her 40+-year relationship with Ruby Lucas. ''Tiny & Ruby'' had its premiere at the 1988 Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, with Chicago residents Davis and Lucas in attendance.

Personal life

As a young woman, she married Clarence Davis, and they had a son and two daughters. Several decades later, bassist Ruby Lucas became Davis's

life partner The term significant other (SO) has different uses in psychology and in colloquial language. Colloquially, "significant other" is used as a gender-neutral term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming ...

. Lucas was among the musicians in Davis' Hell Divers group. Davis and Lucas opened a club in Chicago, Tiny and Ruby's Gay Spot, in the late 1940s, which they ran through the 1950s. The couple were together over 40 years, until Tiny's death in Chicago on January 30, 1994.

Discography

* Decca 48122 "DRAGGIN' MY HEART AROUND" (matrix #75440) // "I NEVER GET TIRED DOIN' IT" (75453) eleased 12/1949* Decca 48220 "RACE HORSE" (75438) // "BUG JUICE" (75454) eleased 1950* Decca 48246 "HOW ABOUT THAT JIVE" (75439) // "LAURA" (75455) eleased 1951note: all 6 tracks recorded 10/24/1949 (#75438/75439/75440) and 10/27/1949 (#75453/75454/75455).

References

External links

Official website for ''Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin' Women''Official website for ''International Sweethearts of Rhythm'' documentary
* *
International Sweethearts of Rhythm Collection Spotlight, Because of Her Story, Smithsonian Institution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Tiny Musicians from Tennessee LGBT African Americans 20th-century African-American women singers American LGBT musicians LGBT people from Tennessee Year of birth uncertain 1994 deaths International Sweethearts of Rhythm members American jazz trumpeters American women jazz musicians American women jazz singers American jazz singers Women trumpeters 20th-century births 20th-century LGBT people