Willie H. Hightower (October 1889, Nashville - December 1959, Chicago) 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 ...

cornetist and trumpeter. Hightower moved to New Orleans and played with a group called the American Stars from about 1908 to about 1917. He also accompanied the

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

show ''The Smart Set'' alongside pianist Lottie Frost; the pair wed in the mid-1910s, and Frost would become better known under her husband's surname. They played as a duo at the Strand Theater in Jacksonville, Florida in 1916-1917, played in Mississippi in 1917, and moved to Chicago around the turn of the decade. Hightower played regularly in the early 1920s in Chicago ensembles, and joined

Carroll Dickerson Carroll Dickerson (November 1, 1895 – October 9, 1957) was a Chicago and New York-based dixieland jazz violinist and bandleader, probably better known for his extensive work with Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines or his more brief work tourin ...

's group in 1925; following this, he played with his wife's group, Lottie Hightower's Nighthawks. They recorded with

Richard M. Jones Richard M. Jones, born Richard Marigny Jones (sometimes written Richard Mariney Jones), (June 13, 1892 – December 8, 1945) was an American jazz pianist, composer, band leader, and record producer. Numerous songs bear his name as author, includi ...

on the label Black Patti in 1927. In the 1930s he worked with Dickerson once more as well as with theater ensembles, and worked with Andrew Hilaire in 1933. He quit music around 1940.

References

*Michael Tovey, "Willie Hightower". '' The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. 2nd edition, ed.

Barry Kernfeld Barry Dean Kernfeld (born August 11, 1950) is an American musicologist and jazz saxophonist who has researched and published extensively about the history of jazz and the biographies of its musicians. Education In 1968, Kernfeld enrolled at U ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hightower, Willie American jazz trumpeters American male trumpeters American jazz cornetists 1889 births 1959 deaths 20th-century trumpeters Jazz musicians from Tennessee 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians