People, Locations, Episodes

T. J. Anderson, Musician, and Composer born

*T.J. Anderson was born on this date in 1928. He is a Black musician and composer.  From Coatesville, Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson Anderson has received degrees from West Virginia State College, Penn State University, and a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Iowa. He also holds several honorary degrees. During this time, Anderson married his […]

Art Farmer, Jazz Trumpeter born

This date marks the birth of Art Farmer in 1928. He was an African American jazz musician.

Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Farmer was reared in Phoenix and moved to Los Angeles in 1945 with his twin brother, Addison. During the late 1940s, Farmer worked with the bands of Jay McShann, Johnny Otis, Gerald Wilson, Roy Porter, and Benny Carter on the West Coast. In the early ’50s, he worked with Wardell Gray, and then toured with Lionel Hampton, recording in Europe with Clifford Brown. Moving to New York City shortly thereafter, he worked with Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, and Quincy Jones.

Horace Silver, ‘Bop’ Composer born

*Horace Silver was born on this date in 1928. He was an African American jazz arranger and musician.

Lena McLin, Composer and Educator born

*Lena McLin was born on this date in 1928. She was a Black educator, composer, author, and pastor. Lena Mae Johnson was born in Atlanta, Georgia. At age five, she lived with her uncle, Thomas A. Dorsey. As a child, she attended the Pilgrim Baptist Church, where she was exposed to gospel music and served […]

Cannonball Adderley, Jazz Musician and Composer born

*On this date in 1928, Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderly was born. He was an African American jazz musician, band leader, and composer.

Koko Taylor, Blues Singer born

*Koko Taylor was born on this date in 1928.  She was a Black blues singer.   Cora Anna Walton was born on a farm near Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of a sharecropper. In 1952, she left Tennessee for Chicago with her husband, Robert “Pops” Taylor, a truck driver.   In the late 1950s, she began […]

The Dixie Hummingbirds, Gospel Group is Formed

The founding of the Dixie Hummingbirds in 1928 is celebrated on this date. They are an African American Gospel singing group.

Hampton Hawes, Jazz Pianist born

Hampton Hawes, an African American musician, was born on this date in 1928 in Los Angeles, California.

Hawed came from a musical family (his mother played piano for the church where his father was tge Presbyterian minister). Hawes taught himself to play piano by listening to records of 1930s jazz piano giants. He began to play professionally while still attending Polytechnic High School. Hawes worked in New York but soon returned to Los Angeles, where he became an important piece of the burgeoning “West Coast” school of jazz. He worked with Howard McGhee’s band and Charlie Parker.

Etta Jones, Singer born

On this date in 1928, Etta Jone, an African American jazz singer, was born in Aiken, South Carolina.

Jimmy Smith, Jazz Organist born

Jimmy Smith, an African American jazz musician, was born this date in 1928.

He was born James Oscar Smith in Norristown, PA, near Philadelphia. His mother played the organ in a local church and his father was a tap dancer and a musician. Smith began playing piano for his father’s act at an early age. When he was 14, Smith enlisted in the navy where he played both the piano and the bass in the segregated army band. After a couple of years in the service, Smith moved back to Philadelphia where he worked construction and on the Pennsylvania Railroad to make ends meet.

Harold Land, Tenor Saxophonist born

*Harold Land was born on this date in 1928. He was a Black hard bop and post-bop jazz tenor saxophonist.  Harold de Vance Land was born in Houston and grew up in San Diego. He started playing at the age of 16. He made his first recording as the leader of the Harold Land All-Stars for Savoy Records in 1949. In 1954, he joined the Clifford Brown/Max […]

Bo Diddley, Blues Musician born

Bo Diddley, an African American blues musician, was born on this date in 1928.

He was born Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel on a small farm near the town of McComb, MS, in rural Pike County, close to the Louisiana border. The only child of mother Ethel, at only 8 months of age, he went to live with his mother’s cousin Gussie McDaniel, who raised him.

The family moved to Chicago when young Ellas was 6 or 7 years old. It was in the Windy City that he got the name Bo Diddley from the kids at Willard Elementary School.

Arthur Prysock, Baritone Singer born

Arthur Prysock, an African American singer, was born on this date in 1929.

He was born in Spartanburg, S.C. He moved to Hartford, Connecticut, to work in the aircraft industry in the early 1940s. He also sang with a local band, and was spotted in 1944 by band leader Buddy Johnson, who signed him as a male vocalist. Despite his relative lack of record success, he was a mainstay of the cabaret and concert-hall circuits. Prysock sang on several of Johnson’s hits, first on Decca (“Jet My Love,” 1947 and “I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone,” 1948) and Mercury (“Because,”, 1950).

Ida Guillory, Accordion Musician born

*Ida Guillory was born on this date in 1929.   She is a Black musician specializing in Accordion and Vocals and an author of cuisine.  From Lake Charles, Louisiana, she grew up in the Cajun/Creole communities of Southwest Louisiana and East Texas. Although her lyrics are now bi-lingual, her first language was French, and the songs […]

Jimmy Cobb, Musician, and Teacher born

*Jimmy Cobb was born on this date in 1929. He was a Black jazz drummer and teacher.    Wilbur James Cobb was born in Washington, D.C.  Before his music career, he listened to jazz albums and stayed awake into the late night hours to listen to Symphony Sid performing in New York City.   Cobb started his touring career in 1950 with the saxophonist Earl Bostic. He […]