Jimmie Lunceford
Encyclopedia
James Melvin "Jimmie" Lunceford (June 6, 1902 – July 12, 1947) was an American
jazz
alto saxophonist and bandleader
in the swing era
.
, Mississippi
. Little is known about his parents, though his father was a choirmaster in Warren
, Ohio
, before the family moved to Denver. Lunceford went to high school in Denver and studied music under Wilberforce J. Whiteman, father of Paul Whiteman
, whose band was soon to acquire a national reputation. After high school he continued his studies at Fisk University. In 1922, he played alto saxophone in a local band led by George Morrison which included Andy Kirk
, another musician destined for fame as a bandleader.
, he organized a student band, the Chickasaw Syncopators, whose name was changed to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra when it began touring. Lunceford was the first high school band director in Memphis. This band recorded in 1927 and 1930. After a period of touring, the band accepted a booking at the Harlem
nightclub The Cotton Club in 1934. The Cotton Club had already featured Duke Ellington
and Cab Calloway
, who won their first widespread fame from their inventive shows for the Cotton Club's all-white patrons. Lunceford's orchestra, with their tight musicianship and often outrageous humor in their music and lyrics made an ideal band for the club, and Lunceford's reputation began to steadily grow.
Comedy and vaudeville
played a distinct part in Lunceford's presentation. Songs such as "Rhythm Is Our Business", "I'm Nuts about Screwy Music", "I Want the Waiter (With the Water)", and "Four or Five Times" displayed a playful sense of swing, often through clever arrangements by trumpeter Sy Oliver
and bizarre lyrics. Lunceford's stage shows often included costumes, skits, and obvious jabs at mainstream white jazz bands, such as Paul Whiteman's and Guy Lombardo
's.
Despite the band's comic veneer, Lunceford always maintained professionalism in the music befitting a former teacher; this professionalism paid off and during the apex of swing
in the 1930s, the Orchestra was considered the equal of Duke Ellington
's, Earl Hines
' or Count Basie
's. This precision can be heard in such pieces as "Wham (Re-Bop-Boom-Bam)", "Lunceford Special", "For Dancers Only", "Uptown Blues", and "Stratosphere". The band's noted saxophone section was led by alto sax player Willie Smith
. Lunceford often used a conducting
baton to lead his band.
The orchestra began recording for the Decca
label and later signed with the Columbia
subsidiary Vocalion in 1938. They toured Europe
extensively in 1937, but had to cancel a second tour in 1939 because of the outbreak of World War II
. Columbia dropped Lunceford in 1940 because of flagging sales. (Oliver departed the group before the scheduled European tour to take a position as an arranger for Tommy Dorsey
). Lunceford returned to the Decca label. The orchestra appeared in the 1941 movie Blues in the Night
.
, Oregon
, Lunceford collapsed and died from cardiac arrest
during an autograph session, aged 45. Allegations and rumors circulated that he had been poisoned by a fish-restaurant owner who was unhappy at having to serve a "Negro" in his establishment. This story is given credence by the fact other members of Lunceford's band who ate at this restaurant were sickened within hours of the meal. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis
.
and Joe Thomas
kept the band going for a time but finally had to break up the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra in 1949.
In 1999, band-leader Robert Veen and a team of musicians set out to acquire permission to use the original band charts and arrangements of the Jimmie Lunceford canon. The Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Orchestra officially debuted in July 2005 at the North Sea Jazz Festival
.
The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival was founded in 2007 by Ron Herd II a.k.a. R2C2H2 Tha Artivist and Artstorian, with the aim of increasing recognition of Lunceford's contribution to jazz, particularly in Memphis, Tennessee
. The Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Awards was created by the Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival to honor exceptional musicians with Memphis ties as well as those who have dedicated their careers to excellence in music and music education.
On July 19, 2009, a brass note was dedicated to Lunceford on Beale Street
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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...
alto saxophonist and bandleader
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
in the swing era
Swing Era
The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...
.
Biography
Lunceford was born in FultonFulton, Mississippi
Fulton is a city in Itawamba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 3,882 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Itawamba County.This city is part of the Tupelo Micropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. Little is known about his parents, though his father was a choirmaster in Warren
Warren, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 46,832 people, 19,288 households and 12,035 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,912.4 people per square mile . There were 21,279 housing units at an average density of 1,322.9 per square mile...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, before the family moved to Denver. Lunceford went to high school in Denver and studied music under Wilberforce J. Whiteman, father of 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"...
, whose band was soon to acquire a national reputation. After high school he continued his studies at Fisk University. In 1922, he played alto saxophone in a local band led by George Morrison which included Andy Kirk
Andy Kirk
Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era....
, another musician destined for fame as a bandleader.
Career
In 1927, while teaching at Manassas High School in Memphis, TennesseeMemphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, he organized a student band, the Chickasaw Syncopators, whose name was changed to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra when it began touring. Lunceford was the first high school band director in Memphis. This band recorded in 1927 and 1930. After a period of touring, the band accepted a booking at the Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
nightclub The Cotton Club in 1934. The Cotton Club had already featured Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
and Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
, who won their first widespread fame from their inventive shows for the Cotton Club's all-white patrons. Lunceford's orchestra, with their tight musicianship and often outrageous humor in their music and lyrics made an ideal band for the club, and Lunceford's reputation began to steadily grow.
Comedy and vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
played a distinct part in Lunceford's presentation. Songs such as "Rhythm Is Our Business", "I'm Nuts about Screwy Music", "I Want the Waiter (With the Water)", and "Four or Five Times" displayed a playful sense of swing, often through clever arrangements by trumpeter Sy Oliver
Sy Oliver
Melvin "Sy" Oliver was a jazz arranger, trumpeter, composer, singer and bandleader...
and bizarre lyrics. Lunceford's stage shows often included costumes, skits, and obvious jabs at mainstream white jazz bands, such as Paul Whiteman's and Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
's.
Despite the band's comic veneer, Lunceford always maintained professionalism in the music befitting a former teacher; this professionalism paid off and during the apex of swing
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
in the 1930s, the Orchestra was considered the equal of Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's, 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...
' or Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
's. This precision can be heard in such pieces as "Wham (Re-Bop-Boom-Bam)", "Lunceford Special", "For Dancers Only", "Uptown Blues", and "Stratosphere". The band's noted saxophone section was led by alto sax player Willie Smith
Willie Smith (alto saxophonist)
William McLeish Smith was one of the major alto saxophone players of the swing era. He also played clarinet and sang. He is generally referred to as Willie Smith.-Biography:...
. Lunceford often used a conducting
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
baton to lead his band.
The orchestra began recording for the 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....
label and later signed with the 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...
subsidiary Vocalion in 1938. They toured Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
extensively in 1937, but had to cancel a second tour in 1939 because of the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Columbia dropped Lunceford in 1940 because of flagging sales. (Oliver departed the group before the scheduled European tour to take a position as an arranger for Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
). Lunceford returned to the Decca label. The orchestra appeared in the 1941 movie Blues in the Night
Blues in the Night (1941 film)
Blues in the Night is a 1941 American musical drama film released by Warner Brothers, directed by Anatole Litvak and starring Priscilla Lane, Richard Whorf, Betty Field, Lloyd Nolan, Elia Kazan, and Jack Carson...
.
Death
On July 12, 1947, while playing in SeasideSeaside, Oregon
Seaside is a city in Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. The name Seaside is derived from Seaside House, a historic summer resort built in the 1870s by railroad magnate Ben Holladay. The city's population was 6,457 at the 2010 census.-History:...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Lunceford collapsed and died from cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest, is the cessation of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart to contract effectively...
during an autograph session, aged 45. Allegations and rumors circulated that he had been poisoned by a fish-restaurant owner who was unhappy at having to serve a "Negro" in his establishment. This story is given credence by the fact other members of Lunceford's band who ate at this restaurant were sickened within hours of the meal. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
.
Legacy
Band members, notably Eddie WilcoxEddie Wilcox
Eddie Wilcox was an American jazz pianist and arranger.-Biography:Born in Method, North Carolina, Wilcox studied at Fisk University, where he met Jimmie Lunceford. He played with Lunceford in college bands and then professionally in the mid-1920s...
and Joe Thomas
Joe Thomas (saxophonist)
Joe Thomas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Thomas played alto sax under Horace Henderson, but played tenor from the time he joined Stuff Smith's band onward. He played with Jimmie Lunceford's band from 1933 until Lunceford's death in 1947, where he soloed often and occasionally sang...
kept the band going for a time but finally had to break up the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra in 1949.
In 1999, band-leader Robert Veen and a team of musicians set out to acquire permission to use the original band charts and arrangements of the Jimmie Lunceford canon. The Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Orchestra officially debuted in July 2005 at the North Sea Jazz Festival
North Sea Jazz Festival
The North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam...
.
The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival was founded in 2007 by Ron Herd II a.k.a. R2C2H2 Tha Artivist and Artstorian, with the aim of increasing recognition of Lunceford's contribution to jazz, particularly in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. The Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Awards was created by the Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival to honor exceptional musicians with Memphis ties as well as those who have dedicated their careers to excellence in music and music education.
On July 19, 2009, a brass note was dedicated to Lunceford on Beale Street
Beale Street
Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately . It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of the blues. Today, the blues clubs and restaurants that line Beale Street are...
.
Selected discography
Prior to Lunceford's success on Decca (beginning September 1934), he made the following recordings:- "In Dat Mornin'"/"Sweet Rhythm" (Victor V-38141)- recorded Memphis, June 6, 1930
- "Flaming Reeds and Screaming Brass"/"While Love Lasts" (Columbia tests - not issued until the late 1960s on LP) - recorded New York, May 15, 1933
- "Jazznocracy"/"Chillen", Get Up (Victor 24522)
- "White Heat"/"Leaving Me" (Victor 24586) - both recorded New York, January 26, 1934
- "Breakfast Ball"/"Here Goes" (Victor 24601)
- "Swingin' Uptown"/"Remember When" (Victor 24669) - both recorded New York, March 20, 1934
The Decca recordings
- Stomp it Off (1934-1935 Decca recordings) (GRP CD)
- Swingsation (1935-1939 Decca recordings) (1998 GRP CD)
- Lunceford Special (1939 Columbia recordings) (ca 1975 Columbia LP)
- Rhythm is Our Business (1933–1940, both periods and record companies, successively) (ASV CD)
- For Dancers Only (GRP/Decca) (1994)
- Jukebox Hits: 1937-1947 (Acrobat) (2005)
- Life is Fine or Quadromania (Membran/Quadromania Jazz) (2006)
Trivia
- The Chickasaw Syncopators made a single 78 record on December 13, 1927 in Memphis (but without Lunceford); it was issued on Columbia 14301-D.