Roy Eldridge While the jazz of the thirties was predominantly remembered as coming from orchestras and big bands, seminal soloists continued to record memorable music in small group settings, setting the stage for disruptive industry transitions to come in the 1940s. Leon Brown “Chu” Berry. An influential tenor player whose impact was cut short by […]
Lester Young
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Jazz at 100 Hour 16: Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald (1936 – 1945)
Billie Holiday – Ella Fitzgerald Billie Holiday began recording at 18 years old in 1933 in a session with Benny Goodman and was musically active until her death at 44 in 1959. Ella Fitzgerald also began recording at 18 (in 1935 as the singer with Chick Webb), but in her case, her career surged again […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 13: Count Basie – Dueling Tenors and the Great American Rhythm Section (1937 – 1940)
Lester Young – Count Basie In the eleventh hour of Jazz at 100, we followed Count Basie through the Benny Moten Band in Kansas City and heard his first recordings as a leader. In 1937, after Benny Moten’s death, he took the nation by storm with his driving band lead by the “All American Rhythm […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 11 – Kansas City and the Territory Bands (1927 – 1940)
Mary Lou Williams – “The Lady Who Swings the Band.” Outside of the Chicago – New York nexus, jazz thrived during the late 1920’s and 1930’s in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, with its center in Kansas City. Under the careful control of Boss Pendergast, Kansas City was a wide open town with a thriving night […]