Beverly Peer was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 double-bassist.

Peer played piano professionally early in his career before switching to bass. He worked with Chick Webb

Chick Webb

William Henry Webb, usually known as Chick Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer as well as a band leader.-Biography:...

 from 1936 to 1939 and continued to play in the orchestra under the direction of Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

. In 1942 he joined Sabby Lewis

Sabby Lewis

Sabby Lewis was a piano player and band leader.-Biography:He started taking piano lessons when he was 5, and organized his first band in Boston in 1936....

's orchestra. He also worked extensively as an accompanist for vocalists such as Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...

, Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis

John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...

, and Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

. In the 1950s and 1960s he worked with pianists Barbara Carroll and Ellis Larkins

Ellis Larkins

Ellis Larkins was an African-American jazz pianist born in Baltimore, Maryland, perhaps best known for his two recordings with Ella Fitzgerald, the albums Ella Sings Gershwin and Songs in a Mellow Mood .Larkins was the first African American to attend the Peabody Conservatory of Music, a...

, and worked with Bobby Short

Bobby Short

Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.He...

 from the 1970s into the 1990s, often performing at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

He can be heard on Ella Fitzgerald's release "Ella Sings, Chick Swings" as well as other recordings of Ella and the Chick Webb Orchestra.

Aside from music, late in his career Peer also had cameo

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

 roles in films such as Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...

and For Love or Money.