Author(s): Dempsey J. Travis

Pre-Loved Books | Music Biography

Dempsey J. Travis learned to play the piano at an early age from his father Louis, and began to play professionally when he was thirteen. By the time he was sixteen, Travis was the youngest bandleader belonging to the American Federation of musicians. Many members of the Travis band later joined other orchestras: Nat Jones joined Duke Ellington; Pee Wee Jackson went with Jimmie Lunceford; Josh Jackson soloed on the tenor sax with Louis Jordan; John Simmons went to Benny Goodman, Henry Fort to Nat "King" Cole, "Streamline" Ewing, in turn, to Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton, and Gail Brockman
Gillespie. house-rent parties in Chicago in the 1920s blew trumpet with Earl Hines and Dizzy In this book we have an insider's view of and '30s; of the black social scene where innumerable dancehalls and nightclubs,
elet many of them syndicate-controlled, proved a fertile spawning-ground for some of the most famous jazz artists who ever lived. Travis has interviewed such people as Dizzy eturn Gillespie, Sy Oliver, Clark Terry, Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Art Hodes, Dorothy Donegan, Bud Freeman, Johnny Griffith and many others who tell their own stories about the pains and pleasures of life in jazz, and who share their memories of
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Fats Waller, and Roy Eldridge, Rights days when whites were not allowed Miami, and blacks could not patronize New to name a few-and of those pre-Civil optien to dance to the music of black bands in command York's famous Cotton Club where the starring acts were black.
Here is the frank story behind the jazz greats, illustrated with over two hundred rare, previously unpublished photographs.