Jack Teagarden
Encyclopedia
Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden (August 20, 1905 – January 15, 1964), known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an influential jazz
trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".
, his brothers Charlie
and Clois "Cub" and his sister Norma
also became noted professional musicians. Teagarden's father was an amateur brass band trumpeter and started young Jack on baritone horn
; by age 10 he had switched to trombone
. He first heard jazz
music played by the Louisiana Five
and decided to play in the new style.
era, and did much to expand the role of the instrument beyond the old tailgate style role of the early New Orleans brass bands. Chief among his contributions to the language of jazz trombonists was his ability to interject the blues or merely a "blue feeling" into virtually any piece of music.
By 1920 Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, including with the band of pianist Peck Kelley
. In the mid 1920s he started traveling widely around the United States
in a quick succession of different bands. In 1927, he came to New York City
where he worked with several bands. By 1928 he played for the Ben Pollack
band.
Within a year of the commencement of his recording career, he became a regular vocalist, first doing blues material ("Beale Street Blues", for example), and later doing popular songs. He is often mentioned as one of the better white male jazz vocalists of the era; his singing style is quite like his trombone playing, in terms of improvisation (in the same way that Louis Armstrong sang quite like he played trumpet). His singing is best remembered for duets with Louis Armstrong and Johnny Mercer
.
In the late 1920s he recorded with such notable bandleaders and sidemen as Louis Armstrong
, Benny Goodman
, Bix Beiderbecke
, Red Nichols
, Jimmy McPartland
, Mezz Mezzrow
, Glenn Miller
, and Eddie Condon
. Glenn Miller and Teagarden collaborated to provide lyrics and a verse to Spencer Williams' Basin Street Blues
, which in that amended form became one of the numbers that Teagarden played until the end of his days.
In the early 1930s Teagarden was based in Chicago
, for some time playing with the band of Wingy Manone
. He played at the Century of Progress
exposition in Chicago.
Teagarden sought financial security during The Great Depression and signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman
Orchestra from 1933 through 1938. The contract with Whiteman's band provided him with financial security but prevented him from playing an active part in the musical advances of the mid-thirties swing era.
Teagarden then started leading his own big band
. Glenn Miller
wrote the song "I Swung the Election
" for him and his band in 1939. In spite of Teagarden's best efforts, the band was not a commercial success, and he was brought to the brink of bankruptcy.
In 1946 Teagarden joined Louis Armstrong's All Stars. Armstrong and Teagarden's work together shows a wonderful rapport, in particular their duet on Rocking Chair. In late 1951 Teagarden left to again lead his own band, then co-led a band with Earl Hines
, then again with a group under his own name with whom he toured Japan
in 1958 and 1959.
Teagarden appeared in the movies Birth of the Blues (1941), The Glass Wall
(1953), and Jazz on a Summer's Day
(1960), the latter a documentary film
of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival
. He was an admired recording artist, featured on RCA Victor, Columbia
, Decca
, Capitol
, and MGM Records
discs. As a jazz artist he won the 1944 Esquire magazine Gold Award, was highly rated in the Metronome
polls of 1937-42 and 1945, and was selected for the Playboy
magazine All Star Band, 1957-60.
Teagarden was the featured performer at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1957. Saturday Review wrote in 1964 that he "walked with artistic dignity all his life," and the same year Newsweek praised his "mature approach to trombone jazz."
Richard M. Sudhalter
writes (in 'Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz', Oxford University Press
, 1999): "The late trumpet player Don Goldie, who spent four years in Teagarden's band and had known him since childhood said that he 'always got a feeling that a lot of happiness was locked away inside Jack, really padlocked, and never came out..."
"Jack Teagarden died, alone, of a heart attack complicated by bronchial pneumonia in his room at the Prince Conti Hotel in the French Quarter
of New Orleans on January 15, 1964. He was only 58. "I sometimes think people like Jack were just go-betweens," Bobby Hackett told a friend. "The Good Lord said, 'Now you go and show 'em what it is', and he did. I think everybody familiar with Jack Teagarden knows that he was something that happens just once. It won't happen again. Not that way..."
"...Connie Jones
, the New Orleans cornetist working with Jack Teagarden at the time of the trombonist's death, was a pallbearer for the wake, held at a funeral parlor on leafy St. Charles Avenue: 'I remember seeing him there in a coffin, a travelling coffin. They were going to fly him to Los Angeles for burial right after that. The coffin was open and I remember thinking 'Boy he really looks uncomfortable in there'.
"'Not that he was that tall. Maybe five foot ten or so, at most. But he was kinda wide across the shoulders - and most of all he just gave you the impression he was a big man, in every way. In that coffin, - well, I can't really explain it, but he seemed to be scrunched up into a space that was too small to contain him'".
He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills
in Los Angeles, California
.
The coda of Teagarden's recording career is the album Think Well of Me, recorded in January 1962 and made up of his singing and trombone playing, accompanied by strings, on compositions by his old musical associate Willard Robison
: available on Verve CD 314 557 101-2.
, "Shake Your Hips", "Big T Jump", "Swingin' on the Teagarden Gate", "Blues After Hours", "A Jam Session at Victor", "It's So Good", "Pickin' For Patsy" with Allan Reuss
, "Texas Tea Party" with Benny Goodman
, "I'm Gonna Stomp Mr. Henry Lee" with Eddie Condon
, "Big T Blues", "Dirty Dog", "Makin' Friends" with Jimmy McPartland
, "That's a Serious Thing", and "Jack-Armstrong Blues" with Louis Armstrong
, recorded on December 7, 1944 with the V-Disc
All-Stars and released as V-Disc 384A.
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...
trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".
Early life
Born in Vernon, TexasVernon, Texas
Vernon is a city in Wilbarger County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the population was 11,660; it was 11,077 in the 2005 census estimate. Vernon is the county seat of Wilbarger County....
, his brothers Charlie
Charlie Teagarden
Charlie Teagarden was an American jazz trumpeter. He was the younger brother of Jack Teagarden....
and Clois "Cub" and his sister Norma
Norma Teagarden
Norma Teagarden was a notable jazz pianist. She was born in Vernon, Texas, the sister of jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden and jazz musician Charlie Teagarden....
also became noted professional musicians. Teagarden's father was an amateur brass band trumpeter and started young Jack on baritone horn
Baritone horn
The baritone horn is a member of the brass instrument family. The baritone horn has a predominantly cylindrical bore as do the trumpet and trombone. A baritone horn uses a large mouthpiece much like those of a trombone or euphonium, although it is a bit smaller. Some baritone mouthpieces will sink...
; by age 10 he had switched to trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
. He first heard 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...
music played by the Louisiana Five
Louisiana Five
The Louisiana Five was an early dixieland jazz band that was active from 1918-1920. It was among the earliest jazz groups to record extensively.-History:The Louisiana Five was led by Anton Lada, who played the drums....
and decided to play in the new style.
Career
Teagarden's trombone style was largely self-taught, and he developed many unusual alternative positions and novel special effects on the instrument. He is usually considered the most innovative jazz trombone stylist of the pre-BebopBebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
era, and did much to expand the role of the instrument beyond the old tailgate style role of the early New Orleans brass bands. Chief among his contributions to the language of jazz trombonists was his ability to interject the blues or merely a "blue feeling" into virtually any piece of music.
By 1920 Teagarden was playing professionally in San Antonio, including with the band of pianist Peck Kelley
Peck Kelley
John Dickson "Peck" Kelley was an American jazz pianist born in Houston, Texas. Kelley was best known for his 1920s band Peck's Bad Boys, which included Jack Teagarden and Pee Wee Russell, among others.- Career :...
. In the mid 1920s he started traveling widely around the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in a quick succession of different bands. In 1927, he came to 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...
where he worked with several bands. By 1928 he played for the Ben Pollack
Ben Pollack
Ben Pollack was a drummer and bandleader from the mid 1920s through the swing era. His eye for talent led him to either discover or employ, at one time or another, musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland and Harry James...
band.
Within a year of the commencement of his recording career, he became a regular vocalist, first doing blues material ("Beale Street Blues", for example), and later doing popular songs. He is often mentioned as one of the better white male jazz vocalists of the era; his singing style is quite like his trombone playing, in terms of improvisation (in the same way that Louis Armstrong sang quite like he played trumpet). His singing is best remembered for duets with Louis Armstrong and Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...
.
In the late 1920s he recorded with such notable bandleaders and sidemen as Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Bix Beiderbecke
Bix Beiderbecke
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...
, Red Nichols
Red Nichols
Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader.Over his long career, Nichols recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, and critic Steve Leggett describes him as "an expert cornet player, a solid improviser, and apparently a workaholic, since he is...
, Jimmy McPartland
Jimmy McPartland
James Dugald McPartland , better known as Jimmy McPartland, was an American cornetist and one of the originators of Chicago Jazz...
, Mezz Mezzrow
Mezz Mezzrow
Milton Mesirow, better known as Mezz Mezzrow was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois. Mezzrow is well known for organizing and financing historic recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet. Mezzrow also recorded a number of times with Bechet and...
, Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, and Eddie Condon
Eddie Condon
Albert Edwin Condon , better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion....
. Glenn Miller and Teagarden collaborated to provide lyrics and a verse to Spencer Williams' Basin Street Blues
Basin Street Blues
"Basin Street Blues" is a song often performed by Dixieland jazz bands, written by Spencer Williams. The song was published in 1926 and made famous in a recording by Louis Armstrong in 1928...
, which in that amended form became one of the numbers that Teagarden played until the end of his days.
In the early 1930s Teagarden was based in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, for some time playing with the band of Wingy Manone
Wingy Manone
Wingy Manone was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, singer, and bandleader. His major recordings included "Tar Paper Stomp", "Nickel in the Slot", "Downright Disgusted Blues", "There'll Come a Time ", and "Tailgate Ramble".- Biography :Manone was born Joseph Matthews Mannone in New Orleans,...
. He played at the Century of Progress
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation...
exposition in Chicago.
Teagarden sought financial security during The Great Depression and signed an exclusive contract to play for the Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
Orchestra from 1933 through 1938. The contract with Whiteman's band provided him with financial security but prevented him from playing an active part in the musical advances of the mid-thirties swing era.
Teagarden then started leading his own big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
. Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
wrote the song "I Swung the Election
I Swung the Election
"I Swung the Election" is a 1939 song composed by Glenn Miller and recorded by jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden and his orchestra. Jack Teagarden released the song as a Columbia 78 single in 1939 and as a V-Disc in 1948.-Overview:...
" for him and his band in 1939. In spite of Teagarden's best efforts, the band was not a commercial success, and he was brought to the brink of bankruptcy.
In 1946 Teagarden joined Louis Armstrong's All Stars. Armstrong and Teagarden's work together shows a wonderful rapport, in particular their duet on Rocking Chair. In late 1951 Teagarden left to again lead his own band, then co-led a band with Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
, then again with a group under his own name with whom he toured Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in 1958 and 1959.
The Glass Wall
The Glass Wall is a black-and-white 1953 film directed by Maxwell Shane. The film was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures.-Plot:...
(1953), and Jazz on a Summer's Day
Jazz on a Summer's Day
Jazz on a Summer's Day is a documentary film set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, and filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern and the film director Aram Avakian , who also edited the movie...
(1960), the latter a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the...
. He was an admired recording artist, featured on RCA Victor, Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, Capitol
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, and MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
discs. As a jazz artist he won the 1944 Esquire magazine Gold Award, was highly rated in the Metronome
Metronome
A metronome is any device that produces regular, metrical ticks — settable in beats per minute. These ticks represent a fixed, regular aural pulse; some metronomes also include synchronized visual motion...
polls of 1937-42 and 1945, and was selected for the Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine All Star Band, 1957-60.
Teagarden was the featured performer at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1957. Saturday Review wrote in 1964 that he "walked with artistic dignity all his life," and the same year Newsweek praised his "mature approach to trombone jazz."
Richard M. Sudhalter
Dick Sudhalter
Richard "Dick" Sudhalter was an American jazz trumpeter, scholar, critic, and album annotator.-Biography:...
writes (in 'Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz', Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, 1999): "The late trumpet player Don Goldie, who spent four years in Teagarden's band and had known him since childhood said that he 'always got a feeling that a lot of happiness was locked away inside Jack, really padlocked, and never came out..."
"Jack Teagarden died, alone, of a heart attack complicated by bronchial pneumonia in his room at the Prince Conti Hotel in the French Quarter
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
of New Orleans on January 15, 1964. He was only 58. "I sometimes think people like Jack were just go-betweens," Bobby Hackett told a friend. "The Good Lord said, 'Now you go and show 'em what it is', and he did. I think everybody familiar with Jack Teagarden knows that he was something that happens just once. It won't happen again. Not that way..."
"...Connie Jones
Connie Jones
Connie Jones is an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist from New Orleans.Jones started playing the bugle while in military school, and later changed to trumpet at age 10. His first professional band was the Basin Street Six, a traditional New Orleans jazz group led by him and Pete Fountain...
, the New Orleans cornetist working with Jack Teagarden at the time of the trombonist's death, was a pallbearer for the wake, held at a funeral parlor on leafy St. Charles Avenue: 'I remember seeing him there in a coffin, a travelling coffin. They were going to fly him to Los Angeles for burial right after that. The coffin was open and I remember thinking 'Boy he really looks uncomfortable in there'.
"'Not that he was that tall. Maybe five foot ten or so, at most. But he was kinda wide across the shoulders - and most of all he just gave you the impression he was a big man, in every way. In that coffin, - well, I can't really explain it, but he seemed to be scrunched up into a space that was too small to contain him'".
He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills
Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery is part of the Forest Lawn chain of Southern California cemeteries. It is at 6300 Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, on the lower north slope at the far east end of the Santa Monica...
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
The coda of Teagarden's recording career is the album Think Well of Me, recorded in January 1962 and made up of his singing and trombone playing, accompanied by strings, on compositions by his old musical associate Willard Robison
Willard Robison
Willard Robison was an American composer of popular song. Born in Shelbina, Missouri, his songs reflect a rural, melancholy theme steeped in Americana. Their warm style has drawn comparison to Hoagy Carmichael...
: available on Verve CD 314 557 101-2.
Compositions
Jack Teagarden's compositions included "I've Got 'It'" with David RoseDavid Rose
David Rose was a British-born American songwriter, composer, arranger, pianist, and orchestra leader. His most famous compositions were "The Stripper", "Holiday for Strings", and "Calypso Melody"...
, "Shake Your Hips", "Big T Jump", "Swingin' on the Teagarden Gate", "Blues After Hours", "A Jam Session at Victor", "It's So Good", "Pickin' For Patsy" with Allan Reuss
Allan Reuss
Allan Reuss was an American jazz guitarist.Reuss was born New York City, he began playing professionally as a banjoist at age 12. He learned guitar from George Van Eps. In the middle of the 1930s, Reuss began playing in Benny Goodman's orchestra, playing with him on and off until 1943...
, "Texas Tea Party" with Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, "I'm Gonna Stomp Mr. Henry Lee" with Eddie Condon
Eddie Condon
Albert Edwin Condon , better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion....
, "Big T Blues", "Dirty Dog", "Makin' Friends" with Jimmy McPartland
Jimmy McPartland
James Dugald McPartland , better known as Jimmy McPartland, was an American cornetist and one of the originators of Chicago Jazz...
, "That's a Serious Thing", and "Jack-Armstrong Blues" with Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, recorded on December 7, 1944 with the V-Disc
V-Disc
V-Disc was a morale-boosting initiative involving the production of several series of recordings during the World War II era by special arrangement between the United States government and various private U.S. record companies. The records were produced for the use of United States military...
All-Stars and released as V-Disc 384A.
External links
- Jack Teagarden discography (Music City)
- Jack Teagarden - A short Biography
- Jack Teagarden: Photos & Gravesite
- http://www.jackteagarden.info/