wind player

Bailey, Buster (19 July 1902–12 April 1967), jazz clarinetist and saxophonist, was born William C. Bailey in Memphis, Tennessee. Nothing is known of his parents. He attended the Clay Street School in Memphis, where he began studying clarinet at age thirteen. In 1917 he turned professional after joining the touring band of famed blues composer ...

Bechet, Sidney (14 May 1897–14 May 1959), jazz soprano saxophonist and clarinetist, was born Sidney Joseph Bechet in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Omar (or Omer) Bechet, a shoemaker and amateur flutist, and Josephine Michel. An incorrigible truant, after age eight he stopped attending school and started teaching himself clarinet. What basic education he later received came from private tutoring by a cousin. He received some clarinet training from ...

Beneke, Tex (12 February 1914–30 May 2000), saxophonist, was born Gordon Lee Beneke in Fort Worth, Texas. By the age of nine he showed a talent for the saxophone, experimenting with both soprano and alto sax before settling on tenor. During the early and mid-1930s he began his professional career by playing in regional bands, first in Texas and then Oklahoma. In 1935 he joined the bandleader Ben Young's orchestra and toured with the group throughout the Midwest in one-nighters before arriving in Detroit in 1937. A fellow ...

Bigard, Barney (03 March 1906–27 June 1980), jazz musician, was born Albany Leon Bigard in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Alexander Louis Bigard and Emanuella Marquez. Little is known of his family except that it produced musicians: his older brother Alex was a drummer, his uncle Emile was a violinist who played with musicians like ...

Carney, Harry Howell (01 April 1910–08 October 1974), jazz baritone saxophonist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother’s given name was Jenny; other details of his parents are unknown. Carney studied piano at age six, switched to clarinet, and then took up alto saxophone in the seventh grade, when he met saxophonist ...

Coltrane, John (23 September 1926–17 July 1967), jazz saxophonist and composer, was born John William Coltrane in Hamlet, North Carolina, the son of John Robert Coltrane, a tailor, and Alice Blair. Coltrane grew up in the High Point, North Carolina, home of his maternal grandfather, the Rev. William Blair, a distinguished figure in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church. Coltrane’s mother studied music in college, and his father was a country violinist; at age twelve Coltrane began to play the E-flat horn, then the clarinet in a community band, and he immersed himself in practice and study. In high school he discovered jazz and turned to the alto saxophone, influenced by the recorded work of ...

Desmond, Paul (25 November 1924–30 May 1977), jazz saxophonist, was born Paul Emil Breitenfeld in San Francisco, California, the son of Emil Breitenfeld and Shirley King Breitenfeld. His father played organ for silent films and vaudeville acts at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco and wrote arrangements for local bands. (Later, as a teenager, Paul would select the surname Desmond from the San Francisco telephone book for use as a professional name.) The product of a troubled marriage, at the age of five Paul was sent to live with relatives in New Rochelle, New York, where he had his first six years of schooling, including a hands-on musical education with rudimentary instruments....

Donahue, Sam (08 March 1918–22 March 1974), jazz and popular tenor saxophonist and bandleader, was born Samuel Koontz Donahue in Detroit, Michigan. His parents’ names and occupations are unknown. Donahue began clarinet at age nine and saxophone in high school. He played in the Redford High School band while also working locally as a sideman and with his own band from 1933 until 1938. In the latter year he gave his Detroit band over to arranger Sonny Burke and became a soloist in ...

See Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey

Freeman, Bud (13 April 1906–15 March 1991), jazz tenor saxophonist, was born Lawrence Freeman in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a Jewish garment cutter and a French-Canadian Catholic. His parents’ names are unknown. Freeman did not enjoy or do well in school, though he was an avid reader. He recalled that he graduated from Nash Grammar School only because of his athletic ability....

Goodman, Benny (30 May 1909–13 June 1986), jazz musician and bandleader, was born Benjamin David Goodman in Chicago, the son of David Goodman, a garment worker, and Dora Rezinsky. His parents were Jewish immigrants from East Europe, and Goodman was raised in near poverty in Chicago’s Jewish enclave....

Gray, Glen (06 July 1906–23 August 1963), saxophonist and band leader, also known as “Spike” Gray, was born Glen Gray Knoblaugh in Roanoke, Illinois, the son of Lurdie C. Knoblaugh, a clerk in the family store, and Agnes Cunningham.

Not an innovator nor performer of extraordinary gifts, Gray’s significance was more historical than musical, residing in the transitional role he and his Casa Loma Orchestra played in the evolution of the large dance orchestra—the big band—between 1930 and the end of World War II. Together they helped to transform the “salon” commercial dance orchestra of the 1910s and 1920s into the swing-oriented bands that began to dominate the business during the mid-1930s....

Hawkins, Coleman (21 November 1904–19 May 1969), jazz tenor saxophonist, was born Coleman Randolph Hawkins in St. Joseph, Missouri, the son of William Hawkins, an electrical worker, and Cordelia Coleman, a schoolteacher and organist. Hawkins began to study piano at age five and the cello at seven; he then eagerly took up the C-melody saxophone he received for his ninth birthday. Even before entering high school in Chicago, he was playing professionally at school dances. Recognizing his talent, his parents sent him to the all-black Industrial and Educational Institute in Topeka, Kansas, his mother insisting that he take only his cello with him. During vacations, however, Hawkins played both cello and C-melody saxophone in Kansas City theater orchestras, where blues singer ...

Herman, Woody (16 May 1913–29 October 1987), jazz bandleader, reed player, and singer, was born Woodrow Charles Thomas Herrmann in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Otto C. Herrmann, a shoemaker, and Myrtle Bartoszewicz. With his father’s encouragement, the young Herrmann began performing in a kiddie revue at age eight. He tried playing piano and violin before settling on alto saxophone and clarinet. He also studied dance. Billed in vaudeville as the Boy Wonder of the Saxophone, he was performing regularly by age ten while attending a public school. He transferred to St. John’s Cathedral Preparatory School, where teachers and administrators were willing to encourage a boy who sometimes worked late hours in show business....

Hodges, Johnny (25 July 1907–11 May 1970), jazz musician, was born Cornelius Hodges in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of John Hodges and Katie Swan. The family moved to Boston when Hodges was an infant, and he grew up in a rich musical environment. His neighbors included ...

Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey (act. 1922–1956), jazz musicians and bandleaders

James Francis Dorsey (29 February 1904–12 June 1957) was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, and Thomas Francis Dorsey, Jr. (27 November 1905–26 November 1956) was born in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania. They were the sons of Thomas Francis Dorsey, Sr., a miner, and Theresa “Tess” Langton....

Jordan, Louis (08 July 1908–04 February 1975), jazz musician, was born in Brinkley, Arkansas, the son of Jimmy Jordan, a bandleader and music teacher, and Lizzia Read. He was taught both clarinet and saxophone by his father and while still in high school, performed with his father’s band, the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Jordan’s professional career began in 1929 with Jimmy Pryor’s Imperial Serenaders. From 1930 to 1936 he performed with various bands, joining ...

Lewis, George (13 July 1900–31 December 1968), jazz clarinetist, was born Joseph François Zeno in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Henry Louis Zeno, a fisherman, and Alice Williams, a domestic servant. He was called George from birth, and the Louis of his father’s name became Lewis. He used this name throughout his life. He had a sketchy education. His family home was located behind Hopes Dance Hall, and he grew up hearing the sounds of the bands that played there. At the age of seven he bought his first instrument, a fife; at about age seventeen he bought his first clarinet. Like other New Orleans clarinetists he played the Albert System clarinet throughout his life because he preferred the larger bore and more flexible tone of these instruments over the Boehm System....

Marsala, Joe (04 January 1907–03 March 1978), jazz clarinetist and saxophonist, was born Joseph Francis Marsala in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Pete Marsala, a valve-trombonist. His mother’s name is unknown. Starting on clarinet at age 15, Marsala was primarily self-taught, but in 1924 he started taking informal lessons from Johnny Lane, a local clarinetist and bandleader at the Friars Inn. Joe and his younger brother, Marty, a drummer and aspiring trumpet player, frequently stood outside nightclubs and dance halls to hear the hot jazz played within, but their own early playing seems to have been limited to the Jane Addams Hull House Band. It was at this time that Marsala first heard records by the great New Orleans clarinetists Leon Roppolo, ...

Mezzrow, Mezz (09 November 1899–05 August 1972), clarinet and sax player and promoter, was born Milton Miserow (or Misirow) in Chicago, the son of middle-class Jewish parents whose names are not available. Although reared in a well-to-do family on the north side of Chicago, Mezzrow says in his autobiography that he first learned to play the saxophone while serving a jail term in 1917. The story may be more colorful than true, yet it is not inconsistent with the authenticated events one finds in the life of this fascinating jazz figure. Whatever may have been the timing and site of his earliest musical studies, he achieved professional notoriety primarily through his organizational energies and from frequent ventilations of an ever-ready opinion. ...