People, Locations, Episodes

John Coltrane, Saxophonist born

On this date in 1926, jazz saxophone player John Coltrane was born. He was an African American composer, small group or combo leader, and a major figure in the evolution of the jazz styles known as bebop and free jazz.

Coltrane was born in Hamlet, NC, and grew up in nearby High Point. He began playing the clarinet in a community band at the age of 13 and switched to the alto saxophone during his final year of high school. In 1945, he was drafted into the United States Navy, eventually serving most of his two-year term with a Navy band stationed in Hawaii.

Joe Hill Louis, Musician born

On this date in 1921, Joe Hill Louis was born. He was an African American musician who played many instruments.

Lester (or Leslie) Hill, as he was named, was from Tennessee. He ran away from home at age 14, living instead with a wealthy Memphis family. A fight with another youth that young Hill won earned him the “Joe Louis” nickname.

Oscar Brown Jr., Playwright, and Songwriter born

Oscar Brown, Jr., was born on this date in 1926. He was an African American actor, director, playwright, songwriter, lyricist, activist, essayist, and television host.

Born at Chicago’s Provident Hospital, he was the first child of Helen, a schoolteacher, and Oscar Brown, Sr., a prominent lawyer and real estate owner. Oscar Cicero Brown, Jr., was raised in a two-church household: St. Edmond’s Episcopal Church and Pilgrim Baptist Church. He attended Willard Elementary and Englewood High Schools. By age 15, he had honed his elocution skills in Studs Terkel’s children’s radio series.

Ray Brown, Jazz Bassist born

Ray Brown was born on this date in 1926. He was an African American jazz bassist.

Chuck Berry, Musician, and Songwriter born

On this date in 1926, Chuck Berry was born. He was an African American Rock & Roll musician and songwriter.

Charles “Chuck” Edward Berry was born in San Jose, California, and grew up in St. Louis. In the early 1950s, Berry led a popular blues trio at night and worked as a beautician by day. He made friends with Muddy Waters, who introduced him to Leonard Chess, head of Chicago-based Chess Records. It was the song on his audition tape called “Ida Red” that won the record company”Maybellene.”

Jimmy Heath, Jazz Saxophonist born

*Jimmy Heath was born on this date in 1926. He was a Black jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader.   James Edward Heath was born in Philadelphia.  His father, an auto mechanic, played the clarinet, performing on the weekends. His mother sang in a church choir. The family frequently played recordings of big band jazz groups around the […]

Lou Donaldson, Saxophonist born

*Lou Donaldson was born on this date in 1926.  He was a Black jazz alto saxophonist.   Louis Donaldson was born in Badin, North Carolina.  He started playing the saxophone at 15; he attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro in the early 1940s. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was trained at the Great Lakes bases in Chicago, […]

R.L. Burnside, Musician born

R.L. Burnside was born on this date in 1926. He was an African American blues musician.

From Oxford, MS, he began playing music at age 16, learning from such Delta Blues men, as Mississippi Fred McDowell and Muddy Waters. Burnside started out on the harmonica but soon switched to the guitar. As a child, his family moved to Holly Springs, MS, where he has remained ever since. R.L. began singing and playing the blues in the 1950s at local jukes, dances, and parties. He worked on farms or as a fisherman most of the time.

Big Mama Thornton, Blues Singer born

Big Mama Thornton was born on this date in 1926. She was an African American blues singer, songwriter, drummer and harmonica player.

Willie Mae Thornton was raised in a religious setting in Montgomery, AL. Her father was a minister and her mother sang in the choir. Thornton’s musical aspirations led her to leave home in 1941 at age 14 and join the Georgia-based Hot Harlem Revue. Her seven-year tenure with the Revue gave her significant singing and stage experience and enabled her to tour the South, settling in Houston in 1948.

Donald Shirley, Pianist, and Composer born

*Donald Shirley was born on this date in 1927. He was a Black classical and jazz pianist and composer.   Donald Walbridge Shirley was born in Pensacola, Florida, to Jamaican immigrant parents Stella Gertrude, a teacher, and Edwin S. Shirley, an Episcopal priest. Young Shirley started learning the piano when he was two years old. He briefly enrolled at Virginia State […]

Amos Milburn, Singer born

*On this date in 1927 Amos Milburn was born. He was an African American blues musician and singer.

Born in Houston, Texas on April Fools Day, he was one of twelve children, six boys and six girls. His father was a builder’s laborer. It is believed that young Milburn could play Jingle Bells on at the age of five. His early influences included Rhythm & Blues legend Louis Jordan along with boogie-woogie musicians Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis & Albert Ammons.

Babatunde Olatunji, Percussionist born

*Babatunde Olatunji was born on this date in 1927. He was a Nigerian musician specializing in percussion.

Born and raised in Nigeria, Olatunji was educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta and the New York University Graduate School. At Morehouse, he began performing casually, entertaining students. As the demand for his music grew, he turned professional. In 1959, Columbia Records released Olatunji’s first album, Drums of Passion, which became a worldwide hit. It was the first album to bring genuine African music to Western ears, selling over five million copies.

Cornbread Harris, Musician born

*Cornbread Harris was born on this date in 1927. He is a Black musician and composer.  Born James Samuel Harris in Chicago, he was one of two James and Claudine Harris children. The death of both his parents at the age of 3 left him and his younger sister orphans. Intensifying his anguish, Harris’s legs […]

Connie Kay, Jazz Drummer born

*Connie Kay was born on this date in 1927. He was an African American jazz drummer.

Self-taught on the drums, Kay played in the mid-’40s with Sir Charles Thompson, Miles Davis, and Cat Anderson. He was in Lester Young’s quintet off and on during 1949-55, a time in which he also worked with Beryl Booker, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and others. In February 1955, he joined the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ), traveling the world with the band up until it called it “quits” in 1974.

Barbara Dane, Singer and Activist, born.

*Barbara Dane was born on this date in 1927.  She was a white-American folk, blues, and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and activist. Barbara Jean Spillman was born in Detroit, and her parents arrived from Arkansas in the 1920s. She was the eldest child of a pharmacist. In 1936, her father publicly admonished her for […]