People, Locations, Episodes

Chico Hamilton, Bandleader born

*Chico Hamilton was born on this date in 1921; he was an Afro Mexican jazz drummer and bandleader.   He was from Los Angeles, CA, born Forestorn Hamilton; his father, Jesse, was Black and white (Scottish) and worked at the University Club of Southern California. His mother, Pearl Lee Gonzales Cooley Hamilton, was a school dietitian. She was […]

Todd Matshikiza, South African Pianist born

*The birth of Todd Matshikiza is celebrated on this date in 1921. He was a Black South African jazz pianist, composer, and journalist. From Johannesburg, SA., Todd Tozama Matshikiza came from a musical family. He graduated from St Peter’s College in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, and obtained a diploma in music and a teaching diploma. He then […]

James Condell, Psychologist and Musician born

*James Condell was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black psychologist, educator, and musician. His piano skill from Louisville, Kentucky, got him a scholarship to Kentucky State College.  Since the college band already had a piano player, he took up a new instrument: the guitar. He also began studying psychology and sociology. He […]

Arturo O’Farrill, Afro Cuban Musician born

Arturo Chico O’Farrill was born on this date in 1921. He was an Afro Cuban composer, arranger, trumpeter, and band leader.

Born in Havana, Cuba, he began playing the trumpet while attending military school in Georgia. Once he returned to Cuba, O’Farrill studied composition and led his own band. In 1948, he moved to New York and began writing and arranging for Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton. He studied composition in Havana, and in the mid-1940s played with a band led by Armando Romeu and with his own group.

Johnny Otis, Singer, and Music Producer born

*Johnny Otis was born on this date in 1921. He was a Greek American singer, musician, composer, and record producer.

Born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes, in Vallejo, California, he was often referred to as the “Godfather of Rhythm and Blues”. Otis was the child of Greek immigrants Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter. He was the older brother of Nicholas A. Veliotes, former U.S. Ambassador to Jordan (1978–1981) and to Egypt (1984–1986).

Thelma Carpenter, Singer, and Actress born

*Thelma Carpenter was born on this date in 1922.  She was a Black jazz singer and actress.   She was born in Brooklyn, NY, the only child of Fred and Mary Carpenter, and attended Girls’ Commercial High School.  As a child performer, Carpenter had her radio show on WNYC in New York and won an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre in 1938.   She […]

The Royal Theatre, (Baltimore) Opens

*The Royal Theatre first opened on this date in 1922.   Located at 1329 Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, it started as the Black-owned Douglass Theatre. It was the most famous theater along West Baltimore City’s Pennsylvania Avenue, one of a circuit of five such theaters for black entertainment in big cities. Its sister theaters were the Apollo in Harlem, the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C., […]

Eddie ‘LockJaw’ Davis, Musician born

*Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis was born on this date in 1922. He was a Black jazz tenor saxophonist. Born in New York City, Edward F. Davis began to make his mark on the jazz scene in New York when Davis worked at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House in the late 30s. Despite this establishment’s close ties with the emergence […]

Dorothy Donegan, Chicago Pianist born

This date recalls the birth of Dorothy Donegan in 1922. She was an African American pianist.

Percy Hughes, Saxophonist, and Bandleader born

*Percy Hughes was born on this date in 1922. He was an African American Musician Postal worker and amateur tennis player.

Charles Mingus, Bassist, and Composer born

This date marks the birth of Charles Mingus in 1922. He was an African American bassist, composer and band leader.

During his lifetime, Charles Mingus was widely recognized in jazz circles as one of music’s most talented contributors. It was only after his death that his brilliance as an indomitable creative force began to be fully realized. Born in Arizona, Mingus was brought up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where he found work early in his bass-playing career with Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton and Red Callender.

George T. Walker, Classical Musician born

*George T. Walker was born on this date in 1922. He was a Black classical composer, pianist, organist, and educator.  George Theophilus Walker was born in Washington, D.C. His father emigrated from Kingston, Jamaica, to the United States, where he became a physician after graduating from Temple University School of Medicine.  His mother, Rosa King, supervised her son’s first piano lessons when he was five. […]

Leigh Kamman, Jazz Ambassador born

*Leigh Kamman was born on this date in 1922.  He was a white-American radio announcer.   Born in St. Paul, Minnesota; he became intrigued with jazz in the 1930s when he was 12 years old, doing odd jobs and working at a resort in central Minnesota. His parents and their friends would get together to […]

Charles Brown, Blues Singer born

On this date in 1922 Charles Brown was born. He was an African American blues singer.

He was born in Texas City, TX. After his mother died and his itinerant cotton laborer father left, he was raised by his maternal grandmother. Urged on by her, at the age of ten he began studying classical piano. She instilled in her grandson the importance of education, and he eventually completed a degree in chemistry, briefly taught school, and worked as a laboratory chemist during the early war years.

Oscar Pettiford, Jazz Bassist born

*Oscar Pettiford was born on this date in1922. He was an African American musician.