Jimmy Dorsey

Son of a coal miner turned music educator and older brother to Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey was a musical child prodigy, playing the trumpet and coronet at local parties with his father at the age of 7. He began his professional career at age 17 playing saxophone with the Jean Goldkette band, then forming "Dorsey's Novelty Six" with his brother Jimmy, one of the first jazz bands to broadcast live. In 1924 he joined the California Ramblers (based in NYC) and continued live broadcasts as well as recording with his brother as session musicians. He joined Ted Lewis' band in 1930, touring Europe with him.

After returning to the U.S. he worked for Rudy Vallee's band as well as his band with his brother. "The Dorsey Brother's Orchestra". In 1935 he broke off to start his own orchestra after a music dispute with his brother. The band became "The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra" and would feature Bobby Byrne, Ray McKinley along with vocalists Bob Eberly and Kay Weber.

In 1939, Helen O'Connell joined the band and the charming "boy and girl next door" chemistry between her and Eberly produced some of the band's biggest hits. Many of the recordings were done in an unusual a-b-c format with Eberly singing the first minute as a romantic ballard, the next part featured Jimmy backed by the band and the third part was sung by O'Connell in a more upbeat tempo, often in Spanish. It's said this format was encouraged by a record producer who wanted to get both singers and the band on a single 3 minute, 78 recording.

In 1953, a few years after the release of the movie, "The Fabulous Dorseys" the brothers reunited and began playing together again until Tommy's death in 1956. Jimmy took over the band but died shortly after in mid-1957.

Betty Hutton

Happy Birthday, Betty Hutton 1921-2007...Singer, dancer and stage, film and television actress, Hutton was described by the NY Times as a, "brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm."

She was raised by a single mother and began singing in the family owned speak-easy at the age of three. As a teenager she sang in local bands and at one point visited New York to try to make it on Broadway but was rejected. She started singing in local clubs in Detroit and was eventually picked up by the Vincent Lopez orchestra which lead to her making some short musical movies in 1939.

She finally made it Broadway in 1940 in "Two for the Show." She signed with Paramount in 1941 where she would make 14 films in 11 years including, "Happy Go Lucky", "Annie Get Your Gun". "Let's Dance" (getting top billing over Fred Astaire) and "Incendiary Blonde".

In 1952, after a contract dispute, she left films for Broadway, nightclubs and concerts. She spent the next 12 years also appearing in television shows like "Gunsmoke" and "Burke's Law". In 1967 her life turned to despair when her mother died in a house fire and she divorced her 4th husband leading her to bankruptcy. Her addiction to pills lead to attempted suicide but she entered rehab and in 1974 she entered Regina University earning a master's degree and an honorary Ph.D. She spent the rest of her life teaching singing and acting at Regina and Boston Universities. Her last public performance was on "Jukebox Saturday Night" on PBS in 1983.

Ida Cox

Happy Birthday, Ida Cox 1886-1967...Cox began her singing career in her local church in Toccoa, Georgia, leaving home in her teens to tour with traveling minstrel shows, often wearing blackface when she performed, eventually headlining at the 81 Theater in Atlanta, Georgia in 1920.

With the advent of Mamie Smith's groundbreaking recording of "Crazy Blues" in 1920, record companies realized there was a demand for "race records" and Ida Cox became part of the classic blues era of female blues singers who ruled in the 20's. From 1923-1929 she made numerous recordings for Paramount Records who heralded her as the Uncrowned Queen of the Blues. She wrote many of her own songs and headlined touring companies through the 30's, sometimes being billed as the "Sepia Mae West". She also headed and managed her own vaudeville troupe, Ida Cox and Her Raisin' Cain Company and Darktown Scandals which criss-crossed the country during the 20's and 30's.

In 1939 she began to perform regularly at Cafe Society in New York and was a member of the cast in the historic Carnegie Hall concert, From Spirituals to Swing which briefly revitalized her recording career. In the mid-40's she had a stroke and retired for awhile from show business. In the late 50's she began performing sporadically and in 1961 she recorded her last album, "Blues for Rampart Street" accompanied by the Coleman Hawkins quintet.

Jimmy Bertrand

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Bertrand 1900-1960...A jazz and blues percussionist and xylophone player, Bertrand was active on the Chicago scene during the 20's, recording with musicians as diverse as Louis Armstrong, Tampa Red, Ma Rainey, Big Bill Broonzy, Jimmy Blythe and Blind Blake. He came from a musical family in Mississippi with cousins and uncles going on to their own acclaim. His sister was Mable Bertrand, a Chicago showgirl who was married to Jelly Roll Morton from 1928 until his death.

Bertrand got his start with Erskine Tate's band in 1919 and played with him for the next decade. He started his own band, Jimmie Bertrand's Washboard Wizards with Louis Armstrong and Johnny Dodds as members. He kept his own bands going and worked with a few other band leaders through the 40s.

Perhaps his greatest talent was as a teacher. Starting in the 20's, as an instructor of both drums and keyboard percussion, Bertrand helped to focus the talents of several students who would become major figures in jazz including Lionel Hampton and Big Sid Catlett. In interviews, Hampton commonly referred to Bertrand as "my idol". Bertrand retired from music in 1944.

James Reese Europe

Happy Birthday, James Reese Europe 1881-1919...Eubie Blake said of Reese, "He was our benefactor and inspiration. Even more, he was the Martin Luther King of music." Reese earned his praise by being a tireless innovator, not only in his compositions and orchestrations but in his organizational ability and leadership.

Europe got his start in New York in 1904 working as a pianist, quickly making connections in the thriving scene of black theater music. composing and directing for several productions. In 1910 he formed the Clef Club, an organization of over 200 men with it's own orchestra and chorus that also functioned as a union and contracting agency for black musicians. On May 2, 1912, the Clef Club put on an historic "A Concert of Negro Music" in Carnegie Hall to tremendous success. The 125 man orchestra, which included banjos and mandolins, played music solely composed by African-Americans and was the first proto-jazz band to play Carnegie Hall. Reese stood firm to his few critics saying,"We have developed a kind of symphony music that, no matter what else you think, is different and distinctive, and lends itself to the playing of the peculiar compositions of our race. We colored people have our own music that is part of us. It is the product of our souls; it's been created by the sufferings and miseries of our race."

In 1914, with his new Society Orchestra, Reese formed an association with Vernon and Irene Castle, introducing the turkey-trot and fox-trot to American audiences, gaining him national recognition. He also made several recordings for the Victor Record Company at that time including "Castle House Rag" which is included in the National Registry of Recordings.

When WW1 became a reality for Americans, Reese signed up and was commissioned to put together the best band he could muster for the 369th Regiment; the highly acclaimed Harlem Hellfighters, which would take France by storm, traveling over 2,000 miles showcasing it's brilliant and original music to American, British and French troupes and civilians. This would be the first exposure for a European audience to ragtime music and created a huge demand.

Americans took note of Europe's success oversees and he was welcomed home in 1919 as a hero after the war. He became even more determined that, "Negroes should write Negro music. We have our own racial feelings and if we try to copy whites we will make bad copies." He immediately embarked on a tour with his Hellfighters, playing in New York to rave reviews, then moving on to Boston where during intermission, he was stabbed in the neck with a pen knife by one of his drummers in an argument, dying later that night. His tremendous impact on American music was cut short but set the stage for all black musicians and organizers who would come after him.

Nina Simone

Happy Birthday Nina Simone 1933-2003... Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone showed musical promise when she began learning the piano at age three. She played for her church as a preteen and had her first classical recital in 1945, an event that would also put her on a path toward involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Her parents sat proudly up front until a white couple arrived and they were asked to move to the back of the auditorium. The 12 year old Simone refused to play until they were reinstated at the front.

After being rejected by the Curtis Institute, Simone move to New York to continue her classical education at Julliard, working at the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City to pay for her lessons. Singing was required as part of the job and Simone began developing her repertoire of jazz, blues, pop and classical music, gaining a small but devoted following. She began playing in small clubs in New York in 1958 and recorded her only top 40 success in the U.S.that year,"I Loves You Porgy", a song she learned off a Billie Holiday album. Her first album "Little Girl Blue" would follow shortly after.

In 1964 she signed with Dutch Philips which gave her free reign to included songs reflecting her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Her recording of "Mississippi Goddamn", done in protest to the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama and the slaying of Medgar Evers, would signal inclusion of pointed political songs into all of her albums and live performances. She spoke and performed at many civil rights meetings, advocating a violent revolution even though in her autobiography she wrote that she thought all races to be equal.

Simone's singing style and haughty bearing earned her the tile "High Priestess of Soul" but she mellowed in her later years, often engaging with the audience, telling stories from her career and and taking requests. Her early volatile behavior (pulling a gun on more than one person in an argument) was later diagnosed as bi-polar disorder and put under control with medication.

Simone moved to Barbados in 1970 to avoid being arrested for tax evasion (she did not pay to protest the Viet Nam War) and later moved to Europe. As a consequence, American audiences became less familiar with her work even though she recorded frequently through the 80's. That changed in 1987 when there was a resurgence of interest in her music after a Chanel No. 5 commercial in England used her version of "My Baby Just Cares For Me". She was an enormous influence on many pop and jazz artists that came after her, many of them covering her specific renditions of songs. She died at the age of 70 after battling breast cancer for several years.

John W. (Bubbles) Sublett

Happy Birthday John W. (Bubbles) Sublett 1902-1986...Vaudeville performer, dancer, singer and entertainer, Sublett was the father of rhythm tap dancing and was responsible for spreading it's popularity on stage and screen. Sublett's style was percussive and played with the traditional eight-bar phrase, slowing it down to allow for more rhythmic freedom and merging his dancing with the improvisational sound of jazz.

He was singing onstage at the age of 7, later teaming up with Ford "Buck" Lee Washington to become Buck and Bubbles. The two danced together for four decades appearing in the Zeigfeld Follies of 1931, Broadway revues, were the first African-American artists to perform at Radio City Music Hall, made films and made the first African-American appearance on rudimentary televison in 1936.

Sublett also starred as Sportin' Life in Porgy and Bess in 1935 and would continue to perform it for the next two decades. He taught Fred Astaire his tap style and Astaire's number "Bojangles in Harlem" was really a tribute to Sublett who was a consultant on the choreography. He toured with USO shows in the 50s and 60s and appeared on talk and variety shows on television. He retired from performing after a stroke in 1967. Micheal Jackson was a great admirer of Sublett, studying his steps for inspiration and naming his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, after him. Sublett's catchphrase, "Shoot the liquor to me john boy" was used by many musicians as a warm tribute.

Harold Arlen

Happy Birthday Harold Arlen 1905-1986...Pianist, singer and above all composer, Arlen wrote over 500 songs in his lifetime, many of them becoming enduring standards still played today. As a boy he was fascinated by ragtime and formed his own band at the age of 15. By age 19 he was in NYC arranging for Fletcher Henderson, working as a rehearsal pianist for theater and radio and writing and singing his own music for his group the Buffalodians.

In 1929 he composed his first hit song "Get Happy" with lyricist Ted Koehler, a partner he would work with throughout the mid-30s writing shows for The Cotton Club, Broadway musicals and Hollywood films.

For most of his life he would do his primary work for films with esteemed lyricists Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, Yip Harburg and Ira Gershwin pinning such classics as "Let's Fall in Love". "Stormy Weather", "Blues in the Night", "That Old Black Magic", "Come Rain or Come Shine", "I've Got the World on a String", "Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Over the Rainbow" voted the 20th century's number one song by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Arlen's music has been covered extensively by jazz musicians because of his ability to incorporate a blues feeling into the conventional American song.

Perry Bradford

Happy Birthday Perry Bradford 1893-1970...Pianist, singer, dancer and composer, Bradford got his start at age 13 in minstrel shows, touring the South and parts of the North with a song and dance act called "Bradford and Jeanette." He worked with Alberta Hunter and lead five recording sessions of his own with a group that included Louis Armstrong and James P. Johnson but it would be his relationship as a manager of Mamie Smith that would be his legacy.

Through his extensive touring he gained huge exposure to African American folk songs and worked diligently early in his career to break down the barriers of racial prejudice that kept African-Americans from recording in their own characteristic style. Before Bradford's breakthrough, African-Americans had recorded in a style that was closely similar to white dance orchestras.

In 1920, Bradford was able to persuade Okeh records to record Mamie Smith singing his own composition, "Crazy Blues" which would become the first recording of vocal blues by an African-American. Smith also starred in Bradford's revue, "Made in Harlem" which he claimed was the first show to offer blues music to the northern Harlem audiences.

Bradford promoted blues and jazz music and musicians by publishing and managing but the crash of the stock market in 1929 and the changing character of jazz and African-American music in general put an end to his career and he slipped into obscurity. In 1965 his autobiography "Born with the Blues" was published with a forward by Noble Sissle. His best known songs are "Crazy Blues", "That Thing Called Love" and "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down".

Chick Webb

Happy Birthday Chick Webb 1905(7,9)-1939...Although he was small of stature with a badly twisted frame due to childhood tuberculosis of the spine, he was a giant behind a drum set. His childhood doctor recommended he take up a musical instrument to "loosen up" his bones. Webb earned money for his drums selling newspapers and by age 11 was playing professionally on pleasure boats in and around his home town of Baltimore. He moved to New York at the age of 17 and began leading bands in various clubs before settling in for long regular runs at the Savoy Ballroom beginning in 1931. He established himself there as one of the best regarded drummers and bandleaders of the Swing style. He couldn't read music but had an amazing capacity to memorize all of the arrangements for his band and conducted from a platform placed in the center. For his drum set he had custom made pedals, goose-neck cymbals, a 28 inch bass drum and a wide variety of other percussion instruments which allowed him to produce his signature complex, thundering solos, sadly not captured in all of their energetic glory by the primitive Decca recordings of the time. Although his band did not become as influential or revered as some of his contemporaries in the long run, it was feared at the time in the Battle of the Bands at the Savoy. A famous encounter with the Benny Goodman band at it's peak (with Gene Krupa on the drums) left Goodman's band drained and defeated. In 1935, Webb hired the teenaged Ella Fitzgerald after she won a talent contest at the Apollo and from that point on, Webb let the music revolve around her prodigious talents. His biggest hit record in 1938, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" was Fitzgerald's idea based on a childhood rhyme. By November 1938, Webb's health began to decline, although he continued to play and tour in order to keep his band employed during the Great Depression, disregarding his own physical discomfort and fatigue, sometimes passing out between sets from exhaustion. He died after an operation in June 1939. On February 12, 1940, a crowd of over 7,500 people gathered to honor the first "King of Swing". (Like many jazz musicians, Webb's birth year has been disputed. The current accepted date is 1905)

Blanche Calloway

Happy Birthday Blanche Calloway 1902-1978...Singer, composer and bandleader, Blanche Calloway was the first woman to lead an all-male orchestra, the first African-American woman to vote in Florida in 1958! and whose flamboyant, energetic performance style was a major influence on her younger brother Cab. She got her start at 19 in 1921 in Eubie Blakes "Shuffle Along" then went on to make a splash on national tour of "Plantation Days", staying on in Chicago where she would be a popular performer on the scene. She played the popular Ciro Club in New York and continued to tour until she joined Any Kirk's Philadelphia based band in 1931, learning a great deal about band management in the process. By the end of 1931 she had formed her own all-male big band, Blanche Calloway and her Joy Boys, recording and performing until 1938 when she broke up the group, declaring bankruptcy. As a musician she was considered exceptional but she had limited opportunities due to segregation and the expected gender roles of the time. In the mid-40s she became active in local politics in Philadelphia which she would carry through to Florida and back to Baltimore where she grew up. She was a member of the NAACP, The Congress of Racial Equality and served on the board of the National Urban League. She died after a 12 year fight with breast cancer at the age of 76.

Blanche and her Joy Boys singing her signature song "I Need Lovin'"

Eubie Blake

Happy Birthday Eubie Blake 1887-1983...Born in Baltimore, Maryland to former slaves, Blake showed very early musical promise prompting his mother to buy him a $75 pump organ for 25 cents a week. At the age of 7 he was taking music lessons, at 12 he composed the "Charleston Rag" and by the age of 15 he was sneaking out of the house to play piano at a local bordello. His first big break came when world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play piano at his Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan" club in Baltimore in 1907. Blake soon joined forces with Noble Sissle as a vaudeville act duo and began working on a musical revue which would become the ground breaking "Shuffle Along", the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. Songs from the musical, including "I'm Just Wild About Harry", "Love Will Find a Way" and "Charleston Rag', would become standards and many of the actors, dancers and musicians in the show would go on to greater fame. The duo also made three short films in 1923 now preserved by The Library of Congress. Blake served as a bandleader for the USO during WW2 and as his career began to wind down, went to New York University, earning his degree in 2 1/2 years. The fifties saw a revival in interest in Ragtime music and Blake saw himself launching another career as ragtime artist, music historian and educator. In 1978 his early life and music became the subject of the Broadway hit, "Eubie!". He made numerous television appearances and continued to play and record late into his life up until his death at 96 (Apparently Eubie fudged his birthday to appear even more remarkable than he was . His real birth date has been identified by various documents as four years younger than the 100 he claimed to be at his death. But who really cares)

Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle

Carlton Coon

Happy Birthday Carleton Coon 1894-1932...Band leader, vocalist, drummer and one of the founders of the legendary Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Orchestra, the first Kansas City jazz band to achieve national recognition. Founded in 1919, the band began broadcasting live in 1922 from the Muehlebach Hotel on clear channel radio which reached a nearly national audience. They were called the Nighthawks because of their late night broadcasts from 11:30-1:00am. By 1924, their fan club had reached 37,000 members and fans were encouraged to make requests for songs by letter, telephone or telegraph, a move that proved so popular that Western Union set up a ticker tape between Coon's drums and Sanders' piano so they could be read during the broadcasts. The orchestra moved to Chicago in 1924, first broadcasting from a roadhouse and then from the famous Blackhawk during the winter while they toured during the summer. At their peak, each member of the band had their own Cord automobile in a different color with the name of the owner and the orchestra embossed on the rear. They moved to New York in 1932 for an 11 month engagement but Coon came down with a jaw infection and died. Sanders tried to keep the band going but without Coon, the public lost interest.

Lil Hardin Armstrong

Happy Birthday Lil Hardin Armstrong...Jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer and band leader, this talented woman was also instrumental in forming the career of her second husband, Louis Armstrong. In 1918, at the age of 25 she was working in a music store playing the latest sheet music for customers when Jelly Roll Morton walked in, sat at the piano and introduced her to the world of jazz. Hardin began to add Morton-like embellishments to the music she was playing to the delight of the customers. The store also functioned as a booking agency for musicians in and visiting Chicago and within three weeks at the job she was invited to join Lawrence Duhe's New Orleans Creole Jazz Band. In 1922 King Oliver's band picked her up next where she would meet the very unpolished but extremely talented Louis Armstrong. She took Armstrong under her wing, grooming his sartorial as well as his musical style, encouraging him to leave his mentor for Fletcher Henderson's band while she lead her own band in Chicago. Always ambitious for herself and her husband, Hardin encouraged Armstrong to return to Chicago after a year with Henderson to form their own band which would become the "Hot Five" and the "Hot Seven". Hardin would continue to record with some of the same musicians under her own name. Louis Armstrong had a wandering eye and their relationship began to cool by the late 20s. In 1931 they were separated (divorcing in 1938) and Hardin went on the form an all woman big band then a mixed gender band which would broadcast nationally on NBC radio. During the latter half of the 30's she was the house pianist at Decca, recording 26 titles as a leader and vocalist including her composition "Just for a Thrill". Although she rarely recorded during the 40s and 50s she remained active in Chicago for the last 30 years of her career. She died of a heart attack at the age of 71 playing piano at a memorial for Louis Armstrong who had passed away 4 weeks earlier.



Just for a Thrill was her composition and has been covered by many artists including Ray Charles and Peggy Lee.