'Ellington and Braud demonstrated that the string bass, when properly miked, had a more explosive, incisive quality than the tuba - Ellington credited Braud with "crowding the microphone." Duke made sure Braud was placed so he would be prominent on records, and the innovation was so successful that Duke - and later pretty much everyone else - gave up using tuba in jazz rhythm sections.'

• Born on a rice farm owned by his father in St. James Parish, New Orleans. Family is farmers and brickmasons, living in Brookstown, La.
• Surname originally spelled Breaux.
• Played violin when he was 12.
• Moved to New Orleans at age 16 or 1911.
• Began professional career playing drums.
• When he left New Orleans at age 20, Wellman was a fiddle player, also mandolin, and he played guitar before leaving New Orleans at age 20.
• In Chicago he played trombone until his lip went bad in 1916 or 1919 and he took up string bass. Hadn't studied or read music until he started playing trombone. Studied with a Professor Jackson in Chicago.
• Played a year with Kid Ory.
• In 1919 was in the 17 piece Creole Band, led by Charles Elgar.
• Went to Europe with Will Vodery's Plantation Orchestra in a Blackbirds revue with Florence Mills, returned in 1923.
• Saturday Night Function was his first recording. It used no drums so he played percussively. (Elsewhere he remembers other records being his first, including something in 1919.)
• Played sousaphone on some Ellington recordings.
• Bass Edwards was a tuba player and didn't play string bass; Braud came into the band on string bass, so it should be easy for researchers to identify the bassist on early Ellington records.
• Claims to have written Double Check Stomp
• Denies there were two basses when he was with Ellington.

• 'I found it interesting that Wellman says his dad changed Breaux to Braud because so much mail was addressed to Breaux it got mixed up. The pronunciation [of Breaux] was "bro" and Wellman pronounced Braud the same way.
• There is no recording of Saturday Night Function with Ellington and without drums. Braud first recorded with Ellington on 1927 10 06. The earliest known recording of Saturday Night Function is the 1929 01 16 Victor recording. The only recordings listed in discographies by Braud that predate his joining Ellington are four sides by Thomas Morris and His Seven Hot Babies recorded for Victor on 1926 11 12 & 24 on which Braud plays string bass.'
• We can prove that Billy Taylor played bass and tuba alongside [Braud] in late 1934 and early 1935.'
• 'The label of Victor V-38129 credits Double Check Stomp to "Bigard-Brand[sic]-Hodges," while that of Brunswick 4783 credits "Bigard." ASCAP's Ace title search credits DCS to Bigard and Irving Mills and shows the publisher as EMI Mills Music Inc. I haven't checked the copyright, but assume it agrees with ASCAP's listing. Given Braud's statement in the interview that "I wrote Double Check Stomp," don't we wish we could go back to 1930 and ask Bigard and Braud exactly who wrote what?'
• 'I heard the interview with Braud in the 1990s when I visited Tulane. Since then I've bought a copy of "New Orleans Style" by Bill Russell (compiled and edited by Barry Martyn & Mike Hazeldine), Jazzology Press, 1994, a book that condenses Russell's interviews with many of the most significant New Orleans musicians. In the book, Wellman makes the statement (which I suppose we'll find somewhere in the audio interview) that "I think I'm the first person to start the walking bass." This is to me the most significant statement to be found in the interview and HIGHLY inclusion-worthy in TDWAW.'

• 'Braud, paraphrased at p.112 of "New Orleans Style":

  "I always played for tone, just like when I'm playing sousaphone on The Mooche. I was always curious about things in music. Always asking questions. Anyhow, one day I went over to the Rochester Theater and got talking to the sousaphone player. He was hitting four tones at once on his horn. He said that he had been first brass bass with John Phillip Sousa for twenty-five years. I knew he had to know what he was doing and in fact, he made that horn sound like a string bass. You have to take the dumb side if you want to learn with a professional, so I asked him how he got that tone. He told me it came from the strike of the tongue and so I went home and practiced on that for a long while. That's how I got the effect on The Mooche with Duke's band." '

'Tom Whaley - Footnotes and Whole Notes in Jazz History
If Billy Strayhorn was the "shadowy figure" of the Duke Ellington organization, then Tom Whaley operated under deep cover. When mentioned at all in the annals of jazz, he typically appears in the footnote as Tom Whaley 1892-1986, chief copyist for Duke Ellington 1941-1968 [recte 1971].
  ...Whaley was a trained musician and pianist who began his career in 1912; ... He recalls meeting Ellington in New York in 1923... By the late '20s, Whaley began orchestrating as a musical director for various New York theatres. His duties included rehearsing acts and vocalists for popular amateur nights. ... he rehearsed [Ella Fitzgerald] for a Lafayette Theatre amateur night and recalls that he ... introduced her to Chick Webb and his wife. Whaley remembers introducing Sarah Vaughn to Earl Hines while working ... as director of the Harlem Opera House. In 1931 [recte 1935], he began a long association with the Apollo Theatre.
 ... The music manuscripts in the Ellington Archives tell many tales. Scattered throughout are many scores in Whaley's hand...
 ...I believe Tom Whaley, who considered himself "Head Librarian" of the Ellington organization...
 ...Ellington reportedly displayed disregard for his own music manuscripts... It is my personal notion that Ellington could afford such a casual public stance because he was well aware that Tom Whaley was behind the scenes documenting Ellington's role in 20th century American music... '

• Circa 1923: met at Robinson's Restaurant in NYC where Tom was playing the piano
• 1941 - 1950: Hired by Ellington as copyist, taking over from Juan Tizol
• 1950: Left Ellington in a dispute over money, returning in 1951.
• Circa 1965: Became choirmaster for the Sacred Concerts
• 1969: Conducted Ellington band at White House for Medal of Freedom Award and birthday celebration

'Attached is the 1940 census, which shows his occupation as orchestra manager. Also attached is a copy of his death certificate. Even though it says he was a lifelong resident of Dallas, the Social Security Death index shows he obtained his card in New York... Here's a link to his headstone'

'You don't hear much about Boyd but reviews of Ellington stage performances during the '30s laud the dramatic effects of the stage lighting, highlighting the band's soloists in different colors.'

'Irving Mills began managing us when we were in the Kentucky Club. It was imperative that we have a man like that, a front man, because I don't think we could have done it alone without his guidance. When anything important pertaining to Ellington came up, he was there in person. He didn't send someone else out. When he made the second European trip with us, he was so sick he had to have a doctor in attendance twenty-four hours a day, but he made it every step of the way. He was a businessman, sure, but he always saw to it we had the best in transportation. The band didn't know what a bus looked like in the early days. We had private Pullman cars, with 'Duke Ellington' on the side, and a private baggage car, through every state of the union, and we were the only band in the country, white or colored, that had that. On one-nighters, we lived out of the train, and everybody had a lower berth. We parked the cars in a station, and there was no running around looking for rooms, north, south, east, or west. That was the Mills regime. When it ended, we came to the covered wagon – the bus.
  You could be so comfortable in that parlor car. If Duke wanted to get up and write music, all he had to do was put his robe over his pajamas. You could rest all day if you wanted to, and that meant you arrived at the next engagement in good shape. Duke liked to rest, but this way of traveling also gave him such isolation. He wasn't bothered with people worrying him about a hundred different things all day long. When we played a long engagement, we gave up the cars, but closing night the Pullmans would be back in the station.'

• [This webpage showed Sonny's] birthdate as 1902-12-03, the date Greer gave to Balliet in the 1974-12-23 New Yorker interview Tucker republished in the Ellington Reader.
• ...Per Mark Tucker, [the] most recent State Dept. passport found for Greer, dated 3/21/39, shows 12/13/02.
• The 1933 Majestic passenger list gives his birthdate as 1902 12 13, consistent with the passport.
• Find-a-grave shows Greer at Woodlawn Cemetery, and cites date of birth as 1895-12-13
• Brooks Kerr, who you will recall knew and gigged regularly with Greer for many years, says Greer told him his actual date of birth was 1895-12-13, and Brooks heard the same date from Greer's wife Millie (born in Brooklyn, 1892-01-14 according to Brooks).
• In 1931, Wellman Braud (b. 1891) was the band's oldest member [but per] the Chicago Defender profile of Greer by Chester Nerges from the Chicago Defender (reprinted in A Cotton Club Miscellany), Greer [at 36] was the oldest member of the band, and began his musical career at Chattel High School in Long Branch in 1914.

• The census records don't give dates of birth but do show ages.
  • The 1910 census has a William A. Greer, age 14, living in Long Branch, in Monmouth County, N.J., but the place of birth is South Carolina.
  • The 1930 census gives Sonny's age as 29, suggesting birth in 1899 or 1900.
  • The 1940 census gives his age as 39, again suggesting he was born in 1899 or 1900.
  • I couldn't find him in the 1920 census and I thought there was also a special census for 1925 but I couldn't locate it just now.
• The Majestic 1933 passenger list gives Sonny's age as 30 and his date of birth as 13th December 1902.
• The Île de France passenger list May 3, 1939 has William Greer, age 39, which indicates a birth in 1899 or 1900.
• The Associated Press 1982 announcement of Sonny's death gives his age as 78. The New York Times News Service gave his age as 78 and his year of birth 1903.
• The source of the Find-A-Grave entry is not disclosed. A photo of Greer's headstone would be helpful.

'In "Duke Ellington in Person" (pp. 34-41) Mercer Ellington describes Ned's role in Ellington's career at length, with precise dates and details, such that one might reasonably suspect these pages were in part ghost-written by Ned himself.'

'His monopolistic dominance as a creator of black floor shows for nearly every colored nightclub in New York City throughout the 1920s and 1930s was matchless....

At the Hollywood Inn on Times Square in New York, Harper hired Duke Ellington, who had played background for The Kentucky Club Review with Fats Waller...

Between 1920 and 1943, Harper produced some 2000 shows. ... When the Cotton Club first opened ... as the Club DeLuxe ... Harper directed the first uptown Cotton Club revue. He was instrumental in helping to establish the Cotton Club as the most prestigious showcase for black musical talent in New York...'

• Some sources give his birthplace as Vega Baja or San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• Tizol migrated to New York in 1917 but didn't stay. His Oct. 1918 draft registration card ("Tarjeta de Inscripción") gives his address as Cruz 31, S.Juan, Porto Rico, and shows his birthdate as Enero 22 1900, and his occupation Musico, employed by Manuel Tizol in S.J., Porto Rico
• He returned to New York 1920 09 21,, living there for a short while before settling in Washington.
• Tizol and Ellington met in late 1920 when Tizol played the Howard Theatre with Marie Lucas' Puerto Rican Orchestra.

• Steven Lasker:

  The late Brooks Kerr told me he had been told by the pianist Cliff Smalls (b. Charleston, 1918) that "Bubber was born in our hometown, Charleston, S.C. and raised in Aiken."

• The 1915 state census has James Miley at 239 W. 62nd St. with mother, Eva, 38, the head of the household, and his sisters Gladays, 20, Willie, 17 and Connie, 8.
• Wikipedia says Miley served in the Navy for 18 months. Ancestry.ca World War I navy cards confirm Miley, James Westley [sic}, service no. 142-82-96, enlisted at Navy Recruiting Station, New York, N.Y. March 14, 1918. His age at entrance was shown as 18 yrs 10 mos., his rating was Mess Attendant 3 class, his home address was 239 West 62nd. Called up April 5, he served on U.S.S. Matsonia from April 29 to Nov. 11, 1918. Since the card shows service during the war, which ended Nov.11, it seems likely he was in the navy past that date.
• Wikipedia says that after 18 months in the Navy,

  'he joined a jazz formation named the Carolina Five, and remained a member for the next three years, playing small clubs and boat rides all around New York City. After leaving the band at the age of nineteen, Miley briefly toured the Southern States with a show titled The Sunny South, and then joined Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds, replacing trumpeter Johnny Dunn. They regularly performed in famous clubs around New York City and Chicago.'

• The 1920 U.S. census lists James Miley at 239 62nd St., New York, as an 18 year old elevator operator, living with his mother, Eva, age 42, sisters Connie, 14 and Rose, 21, and two of Eva's grandchildren.
• Sometime in September or October 1923, Miley replaced Arthur Whetsel in the Washingtonians - see 1923 09 00 below.
• The 1925 New York state census has him still living at the same address, 239 W. 62nd St., occupation Musician.
• Ellington replaced Miley with Cootie Williams sometime in early 1929.
• Miley then joined Noble Sissle's orchestra and went to Europe, returning 1929 06 29 aboard the S.S. Paris. He is listed in the passenger manifest as Miley, James, 26, born April 2 [sic], 1903 in Aiken S.C., passport no. 26400, address 105 Edgecombe Ave., New York City.
• He then recorded with several groups, cutting six sides for Victor in 1930 as Bubber Miley and his Mileage Makers.
• He died 1932 05 20 from tuberculosis - see the entry for that date
• Lasker:

  ' Here's a link to a discography of most of Bubber's recordings, omitting those issued under Ellington's name.
  http://www.harlem-fuss.com/pdf/soloists/harlem_fuss_soloists_miley_bubber.pdf'

• Fredi co-starred with Ellington in the 1929 film Black and Tan and would marry Ellington trombonist Lawrence Brown in 1933 (separated 1948, divorced 1950), then married dentist Anthony Bell in 1952. Gossip abounds that Brown disliked/hated Ellington because of an affair Duke had had with Fredi.
• Miss Washington began her career as a dancer in New York, toured with Shuffle Along, and danced at Club Alabam. In 1926 she co-starred with Paul Robeson in the stage play Black Boy under the stage name Edith Warren (her photograph under that name is in the Oct. 7 1926 New York Sun review of the play. She formed a dance team, Moiret and Fredi, which went to Europe, and she returned to the United States in December 1928.
• The 1929-08-01 Standard Union reported the team had joined the Waller, Brooks and Razaf revue "Hot Chocolates," but this may not have lasted long, since Black and Tan, her first movie, was filmed that August.
• She would go on to make several films and perform on the stage, co-found the Negro Actors Guild and become active in the civil rights movement, participating in boycotts and demonstrations and writing for the weekly newspaper published by Isabel's husband, civil rights leader Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
• While her 1994 obituary in the Baltimore Afro-American says she sang and danced at the Cotton Club with Ellington, Steven Lasker observes:

  'Despite what we read in Fredi's BAA obit,... I've found no evidence she ever worked at the Cotton Club with Duke Ellington. '

• Question: Did Fredi Washington work at the Cotton Club with Ellington?
• Fredi's early career is outlined in an article about her and her sister Isabel (or Isabelle), also an entertainer, in the 1931-09-28 New York Evening Post. That article did not mention either the Cotton Club or the film.
• Two collections of Miss Washington's papers are held in New Orleans (Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, and New York (New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Amistad's Reference Archivist L. C. Moore advises:

'    I've reviewed the Fredi Washington papers, 1925-1979, and did not find any correspondence involving Fredi Washington and Duke Ellington, nor Fredi Washington and her first husband, Lawrence Brown. I did find a telegram from Duke Ellington to Fredi Washington in Box 1, folder 3; he sent his best wishes for a successful performance of Lysistrata (1946)...
    Fredi Washington's resume mentions working at Club Alabam (not the Cotton Club), and also "a nightclub" between 1924 and 1926, but said nightclub is not named (Box 1, folder 6)...'

Additional information might be found in NYPL, but is beyond the scope of this webpage.

'Going through grade school, Duke Ellington was far from outstanding. He wasn't really a dud, because his life could easily have run parallel to that of Einstein, whose grades, I understand, were terrible, too. But what can definitely be said of Duke Ellington is that he was born an artist and that he had the typical ways of an artist from birth. Basically, anything that didn't move or inspire him didn't exist, regardless of how it could be explained in philosophical terms. '

Jenkins in 1929
Click to enlarge

• Orphaned by age 5, never knew his father, heard once that his father had been a singing waiter.
• Raised by his grandmother and aunt; two uncles were musicians.
• At age 5, played Buckwheat in an Our Gang film, shot in New York.
• Injured his right hand as a child:
  '  When I was a little boy, we lived in New York City on 63rd Street, and it sloped downhill west to the Hudson River. All of us kids liked to coast down it on our roller skates, and then grab hold of a truck and get pulled back up.
    One day the back of the truck was crowded with kids and there was no room for me, so I tried to hang onto the side. The truck swerved a little and I started to fall under it. I tried to push away but my fingers got caught in a chain hanging there. Well, it kept me from falling under the truck but my hand was cut pretty bad and they had to cut my finger tips off. Maybe today's surgeons might have saved them, but I guess the man who worked on me didn't know how.
    When I got back to school they tried to teach me how to write with my left hand, but I couldn't do it. So, as soon as my hand had healed I went back to doing everything with my right hand. It wasn't until years later, after joining Duke, that I started playing trumpet with my left hand...
    With Duke, you were in show business, and show business meant just that. You're there to perform, and nothing must interfere with the enjoyment of your patrons. You must try to hide any deformity you have which might divert their attention from what you are doing. You don't want them feeling sorry for you. You want them to enjoy your music.
• Graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, New York and Wilberforce University, Ohio. Did post-graduate studies at Ohio State before returning to New York

• "And there was music in the neighbourhood."
• An instrument repairman, a Mr. Scates ... gave Jenkins his first horn, a peckhorn.
• "Mr. McFarland, who lived about a block away and worked for the C.G. Conn Instrument Company ... organised a boys' band, got some good used instruments from Conn and taught us to play them. ... One day he brought me a cornet and told me if I would learn to play the scales he would give it to me. I practised for about a week and then showed him I could do it. So, I got my first cornet, and then he started giving me lessons. Well, I got into Mr. McFarland's band along with some other kids in the neighbourhood. Among them was Benny Carter ... Mr. McFarland taught us how to march, as well as to play. Sometimes ... we would lead the parade to the park ... we'd get paid for it. So, I guess you could say that I got my start as a professional musician while still in grade school."
• Joined the 369th Cadet Band, led by Lt. Eugene Michaels, formerly an instructor at the Jenkins Orphanage, assistant director of Jim Europe's 369th Regiment Band, and later director of the 15th Infantry Band. "He was a fine teacher and an excellent trumpet player."
• Played in the Public School 87 orchestra, then in the junior high school orchestra. Russell Procope played in the same junior high orchestra and Bubber Miley lived nearby.
• Professional beginnings:
  "From the time I was in Junior High School I was always busy trying to break into the business. Some of us kids used to wangle our way into the entertainment spots to listen to the bands, and beg for tryouts. ...By being around I sometimes got the chance to sit in for some regular band member who failed to show, and they couldn't care how old I was if I could do the job. They would put me in behind the bass drum, where my short pants wouldn't show and, if I could keep up with the band, I'd get paid. So, all through high school I was playing gigs. I even had a tryout with Fletcher Henderson..."
• With Horace Henderson:
  "Smack ... did recommend me to his brother Horace - we called him Little Smack. And, when I graduated from High School, Horace [Henderson] went to see my grandmother and asked if I could go with him to Wilberforce University. He had a band out there called the Wilberforce Collegians, and he was recruiting around New York for young men to go to college there and play in his band. He had already signed up Benny Carter and Rex Stewart and a few others... During the school year we played week-end dates, and during the summer we would go on tour."
  
  "...The band did well financially ... when I graduated I had 1,600 dollars in my pocket and two cars. I stayed with the band for another year..."
• Lena Horne's father, Teddy, bought a Conn gold trumpet for Jenkins.
• Returning to New York, Jenkins organized his own band, the Jenkins Jumpers, which became the house band at the Savoy.
  "... while we were there ... I was invited to join Duke.

• Joined Duke in 1928 on, according to him, Bubber Miley's recommendation (Storyville 46, p.126). He replaced Louis Metcalf, who claimed to have put Jenkins in in his place - see the personnel change discussion at 1928 10 00 below.
• "All of us were well educated and well trained musically and quite capable of composing. Naturally, we improvised most of our own solos and, whenever we came up with something like a complete composition that was good enough for the band, the Duke paid us liberally. Where the piece didn't require too much work to fit the band, the guy might share in the ASCAP credit...
• '... I think we got more numbers out of a session than many bands could. And, I think that was because everyone in the band was endowed with so much natural talent. We didn't have to pray over anything and write it all out. Duke, or someone, would just set down a background to give us the chord level and general idea, and that took only about ten minutes. Then Johnny Hodges, or someone, would start some figure, like -ba'da'ta'da'ta'da'Bing, and that was it. Everyone would hear his own part in his own ear, and we'd set up and do it that way. So, a lot of our stuff was created right in the studio and, if it sounded good, we'd record it and Duke would write it down later from the record. Sometimes, he'd add a little here or there to stretch it out for dance or concert purposes, and we'd look at it the next day and wouldn't recognize it. Duke would laugh and say 'This is just what you were doing yesterday.
  
  We had a lot of fun with Duke. He is warm and vibrant, sometimes a little serious but he never loses his sense of humour. He is a man anyone can accept totally. Sometimes you like certain traits in a man. and dislike other traits. But, you love Duke all the way.
  
  Did you know that Duke developed his own technique and styles mainly by utilizing the band? He used to set us on the stand and pay us union scale, maybe for five hours, just to help him formulate chords. He'd assign different notes to every instrument in the band and say 'Play that, B'a'a'm!', and it might produce a big C'13th, what we call a Christmas Chord. Then he'd take those same notes and switch them to different instruments and while you'd still have a big C'13th, it would sure sound a lot different. Sometimes he'd do that three or four times before he found just the combination he wanted.
  
  ...Duke was testing for what we called techni-choir. One thing among many he discovered, was that if you get sounds pitched very close together they would produce a mike-tone. Like a trumpet, upper register trombone and lower register clarinet would produce a mike-tone that would sound almost like a fourth instrument. And, that's the way Mood Indigo came into being. Another time we worked five hours on a passage using seven different relative keys. We didn't know what that was all about at the time, but later it was the intro to St. Louis Blues, and it worked.'

• left Duke in December 1934 due to illness (Ulanov 1946, says tuberculosis) and was admitted to Harlem Hospital (Chicago Defender 1935-01-05; Baltimore Afro-American 1935-01-05).
• recovered in 1935 and played in Adrian Rollini's Tap Room Band and in 1936, at Connie's Inn, leading Luis Russell's band before becoming a club owner.
• returned to Ellington at the Cotton Club in March 1937. A photo in Rex Stewart's Boy Meets Horn shows the seven-man brass team of Whetsel-Williams-Jenkins-Stewart-Nanton-Brown-Tizol there.
• In late 1937, temporarily "bedded following an intricate throat operation" (Melody Maker 1937-11-13).
• last known gig with Ellington was at Randall's Island 1938-05-29.
• Pittsburgh Courier, 1939-11-25 p.21

  'Cleveland, Ohio, Nov.22 - Cleveland friends of Freddie Jenkins ... who is now in Sea View Sanitorium, Staten Island, will circulate a petition to be signed and sent to various New York publishers, asking that they consider publishing songs written by Jenkins while a patient at the sanitorium. The petitions, according to friends, will be sent to certain band leaders also.'

• Jenkins:
  "...the time came when I knew I'd had it, so I stepped down off the bandstand. I didn't actually quit, and Duke didn't fire me. I don't think Duke ever fired anybody in his life. I just became inactive, and technically that's where it still stands today."
• Haufman writes that by the end of 1935, Freddie joined Adrian Rollini's Tap Room Band, made six recordings under his own name in 1935, and became a member of Luis Russell's band at Connie's Inn and occasionally directed it. After leaving Duke again due to health, but after he recovered, he played in a small band led by Hayes Alvis.
• Freddie went on to be a song writer, press agent, advance man and booking agent, "musical adviser," disc jockey, press correspondent, real estate and insurance broker, and a sheriff's deputy in Fort Worth, Texas (see 1972 05 17).

Hayes Alvis
Click to Enlarge

• The 1920 census shows his parents were Hayes and Mary Lou Alvis; he had a brother Winfrey, then just over a year old. His father was a waiter in the steam railroad industry and his mother was a dressmaker working at home.
• A 1953 New York Age feature quotes him discussing his life. His musical training began at the Chicago Music School and with the Chicago Defender Band, which included Lionel Hampton, Big Sid Catlett, Billy Taylor and Billy Franklin, and later, Nat (King) Cole.
• Alvis joined the union in 1924, started playing professionally as a drummer but switched to tuba and bass, played with Jelly Roll Morton in 1927-1928 before joining Earl Hines, for whom he played tuba from 1928 to 1930.
• He played with the Mills Blue Rhythm Band from 1931 to 1934, where he was also the its manager and occasionally played baritone sax. Discographies show him in two late 1936 MBRB recording sessions. The Dec.17,1932 Baltimore Afro-Americanm page 8, has him on bass in MBRB, known on the radio as Baron Lee's Band, and says the organizer and true owner of the band was Edgar Hayes.
• Mr. Alvis joined Ellington May 31, 1935 and left in 1938 to form his own band, apparently taking Freddy Jenkins with him. While he was with Ellington, Duke used two basses (the other was Billy Taylor). Hayes doubled on drums when Sonny Greer was absent.
• He met his wife, a milliner, in 1938 and would sell her hats while on tour. He toured with a bicycle in the baggage car, so he could get around various towns to take pictures.
• His October 1940 draft registration card says he was employed by Benny Carter. He then played with Joe Sullivan, and Louis Armstrong, before his military service, during which he played in Sy Oliver's army band.
• He seems to have continued in music for the rest of his life but in 1953 his interior design business was his focus.
• Hayes' draft registration card, dated Oct. 14, 1940, confirms his given name was Hayes and his surname was Alvis, he was then living in New York, married to Bella Alvis and working for Benny Carter. He was 5'4¹/₂" and 172 pounds. He enlisted in August 1943, was hospitalized in June 1944 with appendicitis, and again in January 1945 with a herniated disc. Discharged in March 1945 as disabled.
• He attended Whitman School of Interior Design and Decorating under the GI Bill and became an interior designer, later he and his wife became interior design contractors.
• His obituary in the New York Times says he was a supervisor of the social services department of the Musician's Union Local 802, before he joined the American Red Cross in 1968 as its labour coordinator.
• Additional facts from an ANP wirestory by Allan McMilian (Baltimore Afro-American 1934-08-25 p.7):
  • Currently managing MBRB, conducted by Lucky Millinder and featuring Edgar Hays
  • Graduated from high school as band captain
  • Began a course in dentistry after high school
  • Within six months of joining Jelly Roll Moten [sic], became the transportationmanager
  • Member of Hine's orchestra for three years.
  • Brought to New York by Jimmie Noone.
  • Joined MRBR when it was at the Cotton Club
• Additional facts from Freddy Doyle's column in The California Eagle, 1936-12-19:
  • Doyle went to school with him, but incorrectly calls him Alvis Hayes and Alvis throughout the column.
  • Attended Lane Technical School in Chicago, was the only drummer of "Color" in the school band
  • Became band leader and graduated with honours.
  • Gigged while in school.
  • Played in bands not mentioned above: Erskin Tate, Fats Waller, Jimmy Noon [sic].
  • Studied to become an aviator like his cousin; and was a director of an aviation magazine.

• Procope's parents were amateur musicians, with his mother playing piano and singing in a choir, his father playing violin.
• Russell and a brother started violin lessons when he was six and he played in the first violin section of the Commerce High School Orchestra.
• His mother bought him an Albert system clarinet when he was 14, and he played Albert with Ellington. He joined the 369th Cadet Boys' Band and when he was sixteen or seventeen, his mother gave him an alto sax.
• Russell's first professional gigs were around age 18 and got his first steady job doubling alto sax and clarinet in a 5 piece dance school band in 1927.
• He later joined Henry Sapiro's [recte Henri Saparo] 10-piece band at the Bamboo Inn, after which he took a dance school band job again, working for various band leaders including Jelly Roll Morton, who took the group on the road as Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers.
• He worked with Omer Simeon, who, with Bigard and Buster Bailey, influenced his style.
• Procope's experience before Ellington included McKinney's Cotton Pickers in Detroit, a one-nighter in Washington D.C. with Ellington, Benny Carter, Chick Webb, Fletcher Henderson, Tiny Bradshaw, Ralph Cooper, Teddy Hill (1934-1937), and the John Kirby Sextet (1937-1943).
• Drafted in 1943, he played in army bands in New York, Kentucky and Arizona, and was able to play outside gigs. When his regiment was due to go overseas, he was tranferred to the Medical Corps, received some training as a medic and then was returned to the army band until October 1945.
• Procope freelanced, played a guest solo in an Ellington broadcast, and rejoined the Kirby sextet.
• In April 1946 Ellington called to ask him to play a Saturday afternoon broadcast in Worcester, Mass. (1946 04 27), replacing Hardwick that evening as well, and day to day for the next 10 days. He appears then to have been offered a permanent job, and played lead alto until 1950, when he was recorded on clarinet in Mood Indigo.
• He would sometimes sub for Carney on bari sax and Ellington bought him a bass sax which he still had in 1979.
• Russell stayed with the Ellington orchestra until Duke's death.
• He played once with the Duke Ellington Orchestra under Mercer Ellington, and from 1974 to 1978 he played in a trio with Sonny Greer and Brooks Kerr before joining a quintet.
• Procope died in New York 1981 01 21, predeceased by his wife Helen, who died in late 1980.

'I enjoyed every day I was a member of the Ellington band, even though it was gruelling trying to keep up with Duke. But I knew I was a part of something that was very special, something that would never die. But the biggest joy I had, and I think the other musicians had too, was the music. Duke constantly surprised me. Musically, I could never predict what was going on in Duke's head.'

'A Small World, To Be Sure!
  A Chester Times staff member recently visited composer-pianist Duke Ellington in New York City. During conversation, Ellington asked: "How's Mr. Doubet? Ever run across him?"
  It developed that years ago, when the Duke of the jazz and popular music world was a little tyke, he worked after school hours in the store the Chester jeweler operated in Washington, years before Doubet made his bow to Chester as a merchant at 7th and Edgmont.
  Surely is a small world, after all.'

'Armstrong was the leading Negro manual training school. Duke went there to study drawing, freehand and mechanical. He was deeply interested in art, interested in little else in the secondary school curriculum, and it was only for those classes that he would show up with regularity. His grades were both sustained and let down by his interests.'

• Mr. Spring says Ellington wrote his first composition, Soda Fountain Rag, in 1914 or possibly 1915. Steven Lasker:

  'Source is Austin Lawrence "Chronology," p405: "Later 1914-Early 1915 Ellington composes his first piece, "Soda Fountain Rag" '

'We had a piano player in the Poodle Dog who was one of the best when he was sober, which wasn't often. When he got to where he couldn't play any better than I could, the boss would throw him out, take my place behind the soda fountain, and have me play piano. The only way I could learn how to play a tune was to compose it myself and work it up, and the first one was Soda Fountain Rag.'

Source is Austin Lawrence, p.405: "Midyear 1915, Ellington's close friend Edgar McEntree dubs him "Duke" around this time, because of Ellington's sartorial elegance and his flashy piano playing.

Lawrence's source is not identified.

'My mother explained that he got his nickname through being so fastidious. He kept himself well clothed and always presented a neat appearance... It was the thing to do then to be smart and attractive, and if he had a patch on his pants, my mother said, the pants were nevertheless always pressed...'

'She attended elementary and junior high schools in the Washington Metropolitan area and finished her basic schooling in New York City ...graduated from ... Columbia University with a degree in biology. In 1941, Ellington established Tempo Music,... installing her as president of the company. ... Ruth's duties at Tempo included signing contracts, arranging some travel at Duke's request, and, most importantly, keeping Duke's music copyrighted. According to her own interview statement, she never arranged bookings. Other interests included hosting a Sunday salon for musicians, appearing at and listening to recording studio sessions once or twice a year, and keeping in touch with the older band members' wives. The older band members ... along with the earlier singers ... were like family to Ruth. After Duke's death ...Ruth maintained Tempo until 1995 when she sold 51% ... to a New York publishing firm, Music Sales.'

' Al Hibbler I met first in L. Rock Ark. I knew he was a singer but had never heard him sing. Our paths crossed from time to time until '43 we were playing the Hurricane Club... and Mary Lou Williams and Shorty Baker came up and told me that Al was downstairs in the Turf Club and that it was possible to maybe get him to sing for us. So I sent for him. They brought him up and he sang something. I naturally liked it - but the thought of adding to the payroll was of quite some concern and a smart business mind would not have considered it. But me - well, my ear makes my decision. So I said great - I like it - you just started work. It was much easier than I thought it would be because he has ears that see. He learned song after song and soon he was our major asset, truly a great investment both $ wise and the luxury of my ear was kept in deep fat - He had so many sounds he told of fantasy beyond fantasy.'

'He wouldn't let anybody touch me, he had a way of bringing me on stage, he called me, just do this, 'Walk towards me,' and I'd walk towards him. I'm the straightest walker you've ever seen in your life, and I'd walk to him, walk me out on stage and he'd take his shoulder and put it against mine and when we get to the mike, he just turn his shoulder like that and a lot of people actually believed I could see for a long time.'

• Arthur Whetsel, trumpet
• Duke Ellington, piano
• William Escoffery guitar
• Otto Hardwick, string bass
• Lloyd Stewart, drums

Source is Austin Lawrence, p406: "Winter 1917, Arthur Whetsel on trumpet and Otto ("Toby") Hardwick on saxophone join Duke's teenage band. They also play with local banjoist Elmer Snowden."

Source is Austin Lawrence, p406: "Spring 1917, Duke drops out of high school, begins an affair with Edna Thompson, a neighborhood girl."

'They had met while he was still going to Armstrong, a kind of rough high school.'

• Jimmy was born in Dillon, S.C. but the family moved to Philadelphia when he was five.
• His father, an amateur musician, brought home a baritone horn when Jimmy was six. Growing up Jimmy played the baritone, piano, trumpet, saxophone and (Boehm system) clarinet. Hamilton also played flute, but there is no indication he performed with it in Ellington's band.
• Hamilton's father died when Jimmy was 12.
• Jimmy moved to New York around age twenty, studying clarinet with Leo Russianoff. In 1943 he told a writer, Bob Thiele, that he wanted to emulate Benny Goodman's technique.
• Reed says his first New York work was with the Jimmy Mundy band; Haufman says he made his professional debut on trumpet, and his first engagement of real importance was with the Frank Fairfax group in 1937, replacing Charlie Shavers.
• Reed says that after transferring to New York A.F.of M. Local 802 in 1940, Hamilton worked with Teddy Wilson, Eddie Heywood, Benny Carter and Dave Martin. Haufmann has him playing with Lucky Millinder, Eddie Heywood, Jimmy Mundy and Bill Doggett in 1939 and joining Wilson's sextet in 1940.
• In May 1943 he joined Ellington, replacing Chauncey Haughton, who in turn had replaced Bigard.
• Herr Haufmann says Ellington recordings featuring Jimmy are too numerous to list in his article, but he specifically singles out Air Conditioned Jungle, Ad Lib on Nippon, The Tattooed Bride, September 12th Blues, Pretty and the Wolf and Tenderly.
• Haufmann discusses the differences in Hamilton's clarinet and tenor sax styles, and quotes Ellington's nephew as saying Hamilton carried a locking mini-bar on the road so he could sell drinks to other band members.
• Reed says Jimmy began thinking about quitting Ellington about 5 years before he left. Various reasons included the travel and Ellington's failure to credit him for compositions, including as co-composer of Ad Lib on Nippon. The culminating incident appeared to be in March 1968 when Jimmy refused to travel from Las Vegas to Washington D.C. on a day off to perform in an Ellington small group at the White House state dinner for the Liberian president.
• While Reed says he quit "the next time the band was in New York, July 1968," the Ellington octet which began a residency there at the Rainbow Grill in late May did not include Jimmy.
• Hamilton freelanced in New York until moving to the Virgin Islands in 1970.
• He died September 20 1994 in the Virgin Islands, leaving behind a son, four grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren.

Irresistable Jass
The Duke's Serenaders
Colored Syncopaters' '

• Arthur Whetsel, trumpet
• "Brother" Miller, C-melody sax
• Duke Ellington, piano
• Bill Miller, banjo, guitar, banjorene
• Otto Hardwick, string bass
• Felix Miller, drums

• he was 21
• he and his father Wm. Guy were born in Nottaway Co., Va.
• his address was initially shown as 25 West 135 St., but changed to 68 W.142 St. (New York)
• employed at Warner's Sugar Factory, Edgewater, N.J.
• he was tall, with a medium build, brown eyes and brown hair.
• his draft registration card had the bottom left corner torn off to show he was designated for service in a segregated unit.

• Arthur Whetsel, trumpet
• Otto Hardwick, C-melody sax
• Duke Ellington, piano
• Sterling Conaway, banjorene
• Bill Jones, drums

'After a short spell with my father and mother, I was left with my grandfather and grandmother in Washington, while they went off to New York. Thus my relationship with my parents was rather remote except during the summers, when I would go to New York for two or three months. I guess this went on for about eight years, because I was nine when they definitely separated.'

'Come out Decoration Day with
THE VICTORY CLUB
BIG MATINEE AND RECEPTION
at ODD FELLOWS HALL 1606 M Street, Northwest
Friday Afternoon and Evening, May 30, 1919
Duke Ellington's Jazz Matinee – 3.45 to 7.45 P.M.
Admission 30 Cents
Doc Perry's Section of Capital City Clef Club at Night
8.30 to 1.30 A.M.
Night Admission 50 Cents '

BY THE NEW MASONIC HALL COPROORATION
CENTER MARKET COLOSSEUM
Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue
FRIDAY EVENING, JUNE 6, 1919, from 8 P.M. until 2 A.M.
     Literary and Musical Program, one hour, by the following contributing artists: Mr. Frank B. Williams, composer of "Jessaline;" Mrs. Louise Mills Brown, Dr. C. Sumner Wormley, and others. Come and whirl the hours away, for pleasure is assured.

MUSIC BY DUKE ELLINGTON'S SERENADERS
Edward K. Ellington, Director

     The public is especially invited. Your comfort will be our effort. Craftmen and Honored Ladies, remember the cause for which we are laboring.

DANCING UNTIL 2 A.M. REFRESHMENTS IN ABUNDANCE.

COMMITTEE ON ARRANGEMENTS:
...
CARD OF ADMISSION - - $1.00
...