Albert Clifton Ammons was born in Chicago, Illinois in March 1907. As a young man he learned from Jimmy Yancey, who cast a long shadow over Chicago blues pianists through his work at rent parties, social functions and after-hours jobs. Ammons came to know other pianists and the blues specialists gathered together in Chicago to create a coterie, echoing what was happening with the stride pianists in Harlem. Among the ...
(Piano, 1909–56) In the arms race of virtuosity that drove jazz in the 1930s, no player was more dazzling than Art Tatum. The piano had a history of virtuosos, but none approached the levels of sheer athletic aptitude that Tatum tossed off with such nonchalance. It came so naturally that he often seemed bored by his own wizardry, hurtling through a procession of sharp contrasts in tempo and style that changed ...
(Clarinet, bandleader, composer, 1910–2004) If the 1930s comes down to about half a dozen great brand names, Artie Shaw’s is surely one of them. After much freelancing in the early 1930s and several years of band-building, Shaw (née Arthur Arshawsky) hit his stride just as Benny Goodman peaked in 1938. But no one ever confused these two unique, clarinet-playing masters. Shaw had a big, broad-shouldered lyricism that could turn diamond-hard in ...
(Alto saxophone, arranger, trumpet, vocals, 1907–2003) One of the great arrangers and soloists in jazz history, Bennett Lester Carter wrote some of the first big-band music to fully realize the flowing, legato ensemble of the coming swing movement. His saxophone ensembles were smooth projections of his solo style. ‘Lonesome Nights’ and ‘Symphony In Riffs’ were so advanced when Carter recorded them in 1933 that they still sounded at home in the ...
Benny Goodman was the first of the great bandleader virtuosos of the 1930s to achieve global success. Through a combination of personal connections, nerve, enormous talent and sheer luck, he parlayed a sequence of opportunities in 1934–35 into a payoff that changed American music. After forming his first band in New York in 1934, he won a coveted place on NBC’s weekly Let’s Dance radio show late that year, and ...
The parents of William Lee Conley Broonzy were born into slavery. He was born in June 1893 in Scott, Mississippi, one of 17 children. Raised on a farm in Arkansas, Broonzy’s first musical instrument was a home-made violin, which he played at church and social functions. In the early teens he was an itinerant preacher, while also working as a country fiddler. He served in the US Army from 1918–19, and shortly ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1903–82) Joe Lee Williams was born in Crawford, Mississippi to tenant farmer parents and by the age of five he was playing a homemade guitar. He left home in 1915 to hobo through the South. Williams worked tent shows and medicine shows with a jug band and as a soloist from 1918–24. Often accompanied by Little Brother Montgomery, he played brothels, labour camps and barrelhouses throughout Mississippi and Louisiana ...
(Piano, vocals, 1905–53) Major Merriweather was born in Georgia and taught himself to play piano. He moved to Detroit in 1924 and worked at the Ford Motor Company, also playing jobs, mostly as a soloist, before moving to Chicago. There he developed a friendship with Tampa Red and they recorded for Bluebird in 1941. His ‘Worried Life Blues’ is a blues standard, while ‘Chicago Breakdown’ is an instrumental blues masterpiece. He ...
(Vocals, 1908–67) A crooner and scat singer, Billy Banks was a protégé of agency impresario Irving Mills. He headlined a handful of legendary records in 1932 by the Rhythmakers – less interesting for his vocals than for the punchy, eccentric work of the all-star band, which included Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Fats Waller, Eddie Condon, Pops Foster, Tommy Dorsey and Zutty Singleton. Banks also recorded with the Mills Blues ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1908–41) Fuller was born Fulton Allen in Wadesboro, North Carolina and was one of 10 children. He learned to play guitar as a teenager and by the mid-1920s was working for tips around Rockingham, North Carolina. He had lost his sight by 1928. He teamed up with artists such as Gary Davis, Bull City Red and Sonny Terry and worked the area around Durham, North Carolina in the mid-1930s. He ...
(Trumpet, cornet, guitar, 1915–76) After Bobby Hackett was praised in Down Beat by Boston critic George Frazier in 1937, he headed to New York and settled into a group of neo-traditional players loosely associated with Eddie Condon. Although a lifelong fan of Louis Armstrong, Hackett’s gentle, fluid lyricism made him a more logical descendent of Bix Beiderbecke, whom he represented in a historical section of Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. ...
(Guitar, piano, vocals, 1906–77) Booker T. Washington White was raised on a farm outside Houston, Texas; his father taught him guitar in 1915. Two years later he learned piano and by 1921 he was working barrelhouses and honky tonks in St. Louis. Inspired by a meeting with Charley Patton, he hoboed through the South for much of the 1920s. He made his recording debut for Victor in 1930 as Washington White. White ...
(Trumpet, vocals, 1908–42) Rowland Bernard Berigan’s warm sound and fluent style made him a major figure of the swing era. To some extent, his alcohol-related death at 33 has unduly enhanced his legacy, lifting a solid talent to the level of tortured artist-genius. Berigan arrived in New York in 1929 and became a sought-after session player. He played in Benny Goodman’s 1935 band, leaving memorable solos on ‘King Porter Stomp’ and ...
(Bandleader, vocals, entertainer, 1907–94) Cabell Calloway’s orchestra was one of the most successful black bands of the 1930s and by the end of the decade it was home to some of the finest jazz soloists. He arrived in Chicago in the late 1920s and found his niche as a singer, then went to New York, where the band that he fronted replaced Duke Ellington’s at the Cotton Club. He cultivated a jive-talking ...
Charlie Christian was the last great figure to emerge from the jazz scene of the 1930s. He not only brought a perfectly formed approach to his music, but also an entirely new musical platform – the electric guitar. His career in the big time was brief, but Christian was a lighthouse whose beam still illuminates anyone with serious intentions on the instrument. Charles Henry Christian was born on 29 July 1916 ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
CURATED
Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.