People, Locations, Episodes

Ernestine Davis, Jazz Musician born

Ernestine Davis

*Ernestine "Tiny" Davis was born on this date in 1909. She was a Black jazz trumpeter and vocalist.

She was the youngest of seven children born to George and Leanna (nee White) Carroll in Memphis, TN. She had four older sisters and two older brothers. In her youth, she married Clarence Davis, and they had three children: one son and two daughters.

In 1937, the Piney Woods Country Life School of Mississippi founded the 16-piece  International Sweethearts of Rhythm. The band's purpose was to financially support the school, which educated the poor and orphaned Black children in that state.  But in 1941, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm severed their ties with the Piney Woods Country Life School, moved to Virginia, and recruited seasoned professionals to join their band.

This group of professional musicians included Anna Mae Winburn, who previously had been singing with and directing an all-male orchestra, singer/trumpeter Ernestine "Tiny" Davis, and alto saxophonist Roz Cron. They toured the United States extensively, with the high points of their tour being the Apollo Theater in New York, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D. C., where their debut set a box office record of 35,000 patrons in one week.  One such engagement was at The Apollo, where the audience was on their feet, dancing to the unique rhythms those all-male, white big bands would later hire Black arrangers to copy. The energy pulses and throbs as they swing through the moves the new dance form demanded, vibrating the building in Harlem that night.

Louis Armstrong and Eddie Durham stood in the wings, smiling broadly as Ernestine "Tiny" Davis took off in a riveting solo. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm pushed the fevered audience to new levels as Edna Williams, Willie Mae Wong, and Ruby Lucas upped the ante on the song "Swing Shift.” The Sweethearts were unique because they were all females and racially integrated. Latina, Asian, Caucasian, Black, Indian, and Puerto Rican women came together and created music that more than held its own in the Swing Era.

The musicians and the music they played were admired by their peers, including the likes of Count Basie and Louis Armstrong.  Eventually, Armstrong tried (unsuccessfully) to lure Davis away from the band by offering her ten times her salary.  They gained their highest notoriety during the war years and toured heavily until 1945, when the American male workforce returned, and opportunities for women were again curtailed.

While their exposure to white audiences was somewhat limited, they were extremely popular with Black audiences. The All-girl band singer Tiny Davis and her partner Ruby Lucas owned Tiny and Ruby's Gay Spot in Chicago during the 1950s.  In 1988, a short film entitled Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin' Women was made as a tribute to Davis and her lesbian partner of 40 years, drummer Ruby Lucas.  Ernestine “Tiny” Davis died in 1994. Her last surviving sibling passed away in Memphis in 2002 at the age of 103.

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