A01=Steven C. Bowie
Alabama AL
Author_Steven C. Bowie
band leader
Benny Goodman
Bud Powell
Cat Anderson
Category=AVP
Category=DNBF
Civil Rights Movement
Dinah Washington
Duke Ellington orchestra
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fletcher Henderson
Ink Spots
Johnny Hodges
Louis Armstrong
Mercer Ellington
Mobile
plunger
Ray Nance
Rex Stewart
Round Midnight
Savoy Ballroom
soloist
talent scout
Thelonious Monk
trumpet
Product details
- ISBN 9781496859440
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 24 Oct 2025
- Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Jazz legend Cootie Williams left home to start his career as a professional musician at the age of fifteen. In 1940, after eleven years as one of the major soloists with the Duke Ellington orchestra, Williams was lured away to the band of Benny Goodman, one of the most popular bands in the country. At the time, it was a controversial move—it was still taboo for African Americans to share the bandstand with white people. Current references to the move usually reduce it to a song written by Raymond Scott, "When Cootie Left the Duke." In reality, it was a seismic event. The Black press predicted Black bands would collapse from raids on their ranks. White musicians were afraid they would be put out of work. And the white press stirred up visions of Black musicians mixing with white women in the new landscape of integrated orchestras.
The twenty years trumpeter Williams spent as a band leader (1942-1962) have been covered in only the barest of details. His involvement in politics and the civil rights movement have not been detailed before. An astute talent scout, Williams and his band launched the careers of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Earl "Bud" Powell, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Pearl Bailey. He also was the first to record the music of a young Thelonious Monk, using two of Monk's compositions ("Epistrophy" and "‘Round Midnight") as theme songs for his band.
Steven C. Bowie respectfully tells Williams’s story, from his Alabama ancestry onward, including many new details rediscovered from the historical archives of the African American press and those gleaned from the author’s interviews with his friends and colleagues.
The twenty years trumpeter Williams spent as a band leader (1942-1962) have been covered in only the barest of details. His involvement in politics and the civil rights movement have not been detailed before. An astute talent scout, Williams and his band launched the careers of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Earl "Bud" Powell, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Pearl Bailey. He also was the first to record the music of a young Thelonious Monk, using two of Monk's compositions ("Epistrophy" and "‘Round Midnight") as theme songs for his band.
Steven C. Bowie respectfully tells Williams’s story, from his Alabama ancestry onward, including many new details rediscovered from the historical archives of the African American press and those gleaned from the author’s interviews with his friends and colleagues.
Steven C. Bowie curates and hosts the Duke Ellington-themed podcast Ellington Reflections. He has presented papers on Cootie Williams and Kenny Burrell for conferences held by the Duke Ellington Society of Sweden and written articles for DownBeat and Jazz Improv magazines.
