Teagarden was also a respected jazz singer and developed his own blues vocal style. His fans ran the gamut from Louis Armstrong to Thelonious Monk. Using alternate positions and an embouchure that was apparently extremely flexible (meaning he could change the pitch of a note using only small changes in his lips, mouth, and face muscles), Teagarden could play in the way that appealed to him. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues in particular became a signature piece for him. When in 1951 he left Armstrong and with his wife Addie, who became business manager, formed the sextet, he had settled into the life of a responsible jazz musician and family man with Addie and Joe Teagarden, his newborn son. Teagarden left Pollack in 1933, and signed a five-year contract with Paul Whitemans orchestra. Teagarden was born in 1905 in Vernon, Texas. he is survived by his widow, Adeline; three sons; a daughter; his mother; brother Cubby, and a sister, Norma. They are 3.5mil truncated eliptical, 2.3mil truncated conical, 2.8mil truncated conical, 3.3mil truncated conical. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. After Kelley, with whom he played from 1921 to 1922, others followed, among them Red Nichols, Paul Whiteman, and finally in mid-47 Louis Armstrong when together the two traded choruses and vocals for four years across the mikes of countless American nightclubs from Frisco to The Big Apple. He made his first recording in 1927 as a member of the Kentucky Grasshoppers, an offshoot of Pollacks group. [2] In late 1951, Teagarden left to again lead his own band. Trombonist Jack Teagarden, right, records with Louis Armstrong, left, in 1948. Teagarden had a mechanical bent and a life-long interest in tinkering with things, and he invented the water glass mute effect, in which the bell section of the trombone is removed and an empty water glass placed over the end of the instrument tubing (of the mouthpiece section). We follow it with an insightful article written September, 1960 for Connchord Magazine. Instead, he used his lips, like a trumpet player, to form many notes. He has a natural way with anything mechanical and spends a lot of time plying his tools in his home workshop. His style was remarkable for its effortless flow of melodic ideas, technical poise, and the tender beauty of its overall effect. The placards urge patrons to write their con gressman protesting the tax which has hurt the means of livelihood of many musicians and entertainers. Instead, he played higher in the instruments range, using mostly the first and second positions, and rarely moving beyond fourth position. In a voice segment spliced into the documentary, Teagarden says black bandleader Fletcher Henderson and musician Fats Waller befriended him in New York, and took me places I dont think any other white boy had ever been., From there his career soared. For several years, however, Jack continued to play with local groups. Such a man is Jack Teagarden, in the New Orleans vanguard when Dixieland was in its heyday, and after thirty years still its most enthusiastic and gifted exponent. Teagarden's early career was as a sideman with the likes of Paul Whiteman and lifelong friend Louis Armstrong. Theres a sentimental streak in Teagarden that immediately warms an audience, whether it is made apparent in a song or a gracious act onstage, or even an introduction. recorded with his own small groups and played notably as a sideman with He did some playing and recording with other groups at this time, most notably with his brother Charlie and saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer as the Three Ts. His mother was a piano teacher, and Teagarden began playing piano by the age of 5, the baritone horn by 7, and the trombone by 10. Interested? As he spoke about the elder Goldie, there was a genuine catch in his throat. Who Is Jack Teagarden's Wife? He tried to avoid long road trips, mostly playing clubs in Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The masterful Teagarden was an American original whose style and vocals epitomized authenticity both in their execution and sound. Teagarden has appeared in movies, has sung on the air and on TV, and has recorded actually thousands of sides. By 1928 he played for the Ben Pollack band. His father, an amateur comet player, worked in the oilfields, and his mother was a local piano instructor and church organist. Born on Aug. 29, 1905, Teagarden learned trombone by the age of 10. Fort Lauderdale civic activist Vernajean Atwell, stepdaughter of noted trombonist Jack Teagarden plays with her adopted dogs. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. From 1939 until 1947 he toured with his own big band, which, though financially unsuccessful, produced both good music and good musicians (including Charlie Spivack and Ernie Caceres). Teagarden was buried in California. The Texas town in which Teagarden grew up had a large black population, and he must have heard spirituals, work songs, and blues from a very early age; in fact, revivals were commonly held within earshot of his home. With his sextet, he covered a circuit extending from Hong Kong to Okinawa with concerts in Bombay, Colombo (Ceylon), Tokyo, and Karachi (Pakistan). And wherever he is now, I hope the guy from Texas has a big sliphorn to make that noise that brings him peace. Of this venture, nothing but praise-both musical and personal-rang from every port of the bands call. On short notice, he joined Roger Wolfe Kahn's orchestra for a recording datewearing the largest hangover on Manhattan Island, Kahn recalled later, yet reading the arrangements like a veteran and booting out a pair of choruses which were mildly sensational.. I Ain't Lazy - I'm Just Dreamin'. His tombstone reads simply, Where there is hatred, let me sow love, Courtesy of the Miami Herald, e-mail:[email protected] Among his most famous recordings areThe Sheik of Araby, Stars Fell on AlabamaandBasin Street Blues. Collier says he was the leading, and virtually the only, white male singer in jazz. Yanow lists him with Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby (who was a friend and was apparently influenced by Teagardens style) as the most important male vocalists of the early 1930s. Schuller calls him a remarkable and wholy unique singer, undoubtedly the best and only true jazz singer next to Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong (whom he, unlike dozens of others did not imitate).. Weldon Leo (Jack) Teagarden, jazz musician, known also as Jackson T., Mr. T, and Big Gate, was born in Vernon, Texas, on August 20, 1905, to Charles and Helen (Geinger) Teagarden. Trains, hotels and restaurants often refused them service unless they split up. What he heardhelped shape his style. Made in 1962, precisely two years before his death, it reflects much that was important about the man and musician; the uncanny precision and languorous passion of his trombone playing, the intimacy . After working in the Southwest and in Mexico with pickup bands, he came to New York in 1927. Born Weldon Lee Teagarden or Weldon John Teagarden (more sources say Weldon Lee, but John makes more sense considering his nickname), Jacks earliest performances were working with his mother Helen, who played ragtime piano, in theaters. Sometimes there would be more teens at the meetings than older people.. Photo by Emily Michot / Herald Staff. 1936. Besides his brother Charlie. The effect is a stifled, plaintive sound which makes the instrument sound even more like a blues singer. In 1941, while at the St. Louis airport, he met and fell in love with a pioneer woman pilot. Now she wants to create a Web site and write a book about him, before all those who knew him and heard him play are gone. Teagarden is considered by many critics to be the finest of all jazz trombonists.(Kernfeld, 1988) Teagarden single-handedly created a whole new way of playing the trombone " a parallel to Earl Hines and the piano comes to mind " and did so as early as the mid-twenties and evidently largely out of his own youthful creative resources.". All the music I've played has finally paid off, he said. I wanted to know how all those people could come to see this wonderful talent and then not want to sit in the same room with them.. And what do you know? During the next 12 years Mr. Teagarden played with bands headed by Ben Pollack, Mal Hallet and Paul Whiteman. But my friends in the band didnt come over and say hello. She remembers one incident It must have been around 1949 or 50 and the band was playing in Las Vegas. And they had a rule: if one side couldnt eat, then the other side didnt eat.. It is well known, that he was rarely content to let his nights work end when the band trouped off the stand, but would always be ready for some after-hour sessions. He really blew it. He punched his solos with the brashness of a trumpet, a critic wrote some years ago, substituting for glides a series of triplets or runs designed to treat each note in the tonal scale as an entity. The Fort Lauderdale daughter of jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden recreates the glory days of jazz in the life story or her legendary father. Four stylii were used to transfer this record. Teagardens first vocal recording was made with Condon, and also the first recording featuring his use of a water glass as a mute. Mr. Teagarden was generally regarded as one of the masters of the jazz trombone. Heand Adeline or Addie, became engaged before he was divorced, and she would eventually become his forth and final wife. "@context": "https://schema.org", There have been times when Teagarden didnt need a rhythm section. Teagarden made his first trip to New York in 1926 as a performer on the eastern tour of Doc Rosss Jazz Bandits. She also worked with disadvantaged youth. The listener knows she is in the presence of something rare and wondrous and magical two spirits soaring to the beat of one drummer, a drummer no one else can hear. Miller and Teagarden collaborated to provide lyrics and a verse to Spencer Williams' "Basin Street Blues", which in that amended form became one of the numbers that Teagarden played until the end of his days. An honest kind of artistry, Teagardens tromboning is generally credited with having advanced the instrument to the high level of technical achievement it enjoys among todays modern musicians, and, at the same time, has stated a case for the lyrical quality in jazz for the nearly forty years he has been playing professionally. Its a rare day when he opens his trombone case and hauls out his horn without moving a book or two on electronics or some phase of mechanics out of the way first. Even at the earliest stages of his career, he exhibited an extraordinarily elastic and modern technical facility with his lips and slide. The ease with which Jack pumps out the smooth overall line of the chorus as well as the occasional disagreeing spurts of melody, is still a revelation in the art trombone playing. Jack Teagarden was a trombone player, singer, and band leader whose career spanned from the 1920s territory and New York jazz scenes to shortly before his death in 1964. For instance, Jack and crew jammed with the King of Cambodia who as clarinetist had jammed with his idol, Benny Goodman, when Benny had toured that area few years earlier. My sources disagree concerning which band brought Teagarden to New York, and with whom he made his earliest recording, but there is agreement that he arrived in New York in 1927 and was playing with Ben Pollacks orchestra by 1928. From that moment he was the acknowledged master of his idiom. It was studded with many highlights. The siege of troubled yearsthe mid-thirties through the late fortiesTeagarden spent as an itinerant jazzman, reckless, unsettled, always on the lookout for a place to blow his horn. Although playing his horn and leading his group occupy most of Teagardens waking hours, he manages to find time for his family wife Addie and his son Joe and for his puttering and tinkering. Anyone can read what you share. One source reports that Tommy Dorsey specialized in sweet ballads specifically because he felt his jazz was inferior next to Jack Teagarden and that Glenn Miller de-emphasized his own trombone playing after a stint playing beside Teagarden in Pollacks orchestra. This is a jazz music websitespammers will be deleted. June 1934. Four trombones wailed their lament at the funeral. Among the many landmarks of the jazz scene is one that seems destined to last forever. And Jack had another drink which he poured down pronto. Atwell was only a child then, traveling with the band when she could. Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden was an American jazz trombonist and singer. He is generally considered the greatest jazz trombonist ever. He briefly visited a hospital then was found dead in his room at the Prince Monti Motel in New Orleans on January 15. Privacy Policy | We do not sell or share your personal information | 2023 All About Jazz & Jazz Near You . Since much of Teagardens best work was as a sideman rather than a leader, many of his best recordings are included in collections of other artists work. Sorry! Teagarden was the featured perfomer at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1957. After leaving Armstrong in 1951, Teagarden worked with his own He teamed up with Louis Armstrongs All-Stars for some classic recordings in the late 1940s and formed the Jack Teagarden All Stars Dixieland band in 1951. Teagarden was not a successful band leader, which may explain why he is not as widely known as some other jazz trombonists, but his unusual singing style influenced several other important jazz singers, and he is widely regarded as the one of the greatest, and possibly the greatest, trombonist in the history of jazz. His health grew worse and he suffered recurring bouts of flu and pneumonia. Early in 1964 Teagarden cut short a performance in New Orleans because of ill health. Some critics considered him the best man ever on his instrument and one of the handful of jazz musicians, along with such men as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, who deserved to be called geniuses. But their music, and their lifelong friendship, rose above the bigotry. According to various biographies, as a boy he spent hours engrossed in the black spirituals sung at a neighborhood church, and his music would he greatly influenced by them. A year or two later, drummer Cotton Bailey suggested that Weldon was not a suitable name for a musician and started calling him Jack. On the spot, Teagarden invents a beautiful, original melody, with some brief references to the familiar tune, but one that is very superior to it in almost every way. NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 15 (AP) Jack Teagarden, the jazz trombonist and singer, died today in a New Orleans motel. Lots of clips of Jack, including home movies, as well as interviews with musicians who worked with him, . Yet much as people like the easy-going Big T, they like even more the music that, hour after hour, pours languid, unaffected, strangely absorbed, andsometimeslonesome and full of plain earthy sadness, into a thousand city nights.. . The All Stars did well, but Teagarden left in 1951, in order to once again put together his own band. In the Pollack band, in particular, he worked with some of the most famous jazzmen of the time, including Benny Goodman, Bud Freeman and Jimmy McPartland. And beyond that, Jack had been a loner ever since he blew the scene down Texas way at 15 and went out to try the taste of the world. He died in a motel room only hours after playing his last set from a chair because he was too weak to stand. The musicians thought he was some kind of gag. Teagarden also had a remarkable voice. In 1964, while playing the Dream Room in New Orleans, he succumbed to pneumonia, brought on by a lifetime of too much booze, too many cigarettes and too many one-night stands. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Therefore he has to take something shorter than the original, and make it complete in itself yet not so final that what follows his solo will sound like padding. My Jack Teagarden Research at the IJS. Although has received no medals in this country yet; he has achieved a place of distinction in jazz shared by very few other musicians. He was also a great jazz Each position causes the instrument to be a slightly different length, and the instrument can play a (different) harmonic series at each length. Biography Jack Teagarden played trombone with a relaxed style and a unique He was an admired recording artist, featured on RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca, Capitol, and MGM discs. Los Angeles-based La Santa Cecilia is really a Latin group that pulls inspiration from all , Your email address will not be published. Traveling with Teagardens band, with her mother as band manager, Atwell remembers 21 straight days of one-night stands, playing in three states in one week, driving as much as 300 miles to play the next nights engagement. Few people realize that Teagarden, known as Tea or simply T, lived his last years in South Florida. Teagarden's early career was as a sideman with the likes of Paul Whiteman and lifelong friend Louis Armstrong. Quick Facts Full Name Jack Teagarden Died January 15, 1964, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States Profession Actor, Singer, Bandleader, Trombonist Nationality American Spouse Adeline Barriere, Billie Coates, Claire Manzi, Ora Binyon Parents Charles W. Teagarden, Helen Geingar Siblings Charlie Teagarden, Norma Teagarden, Clois "Cub" Teagarden This All Stars group, a sextet along the same lines as Armstrongs All Stars, with various musicians including at times Earl Hines, Teagardens brother Charlie on trumpet and his sister Norma on piano, was also a success, touring both Europe and Asia and playing traditional jazz in a way that made it sound fresh and creative. I gotta keep moving., So we grabbed a taxi and rode over to a shoddy little cabaret. He played it solo, and Im telling you he knocked us out. Sep. 8, 2021. Pollack's recordings were Teagarden's first. James Infirmary (1947, with Louis Armstrong). He Jack said, Meet me after the last show in the cafe next door and we will go see the town. So I sat around until Jack and the boys earned their money and along about 11:15p.m. Weldon Leo Teagarden was born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma. I went to the kitchen to say hello. Always an innovator, Teagarden made history by removing the body of his horn and, using only his slide and mouthpiece, played an empty water glass stuck on the end of the tubing. His birthplace was Vernon, Texas, and the date was August 20, 1905. The fact that the 56-year-old singer-musician has survived the chameleon-like disposition of the public is largely due to the tremendous impact of his personalitystrong-jawed, smiling, and graciously charming. He told endless stories about a Texas piano player named Peck Kelley, and although almost no one else in jazz ever heard him play, Mr. Kelley became a legend. Sources " Jack Teagarden was one of those rare jazz musicians who seems to have emerged into the world whole, so completely adapted to his instrument that it sometimes appeared he and the trombone had been invented at the same time and had grown up . Relax.. Jack spent considerable time as a youth listening to the music and the hymn singing at Negro religious meetings. Teagardens life story frames the history of the jazz movement in America, rising through the 20s and 30s, struggling through World War II, and nearly drowned out by the screaming birth of rock and roll in the 50s. Looks like we don't have awards information. Having grown up in an area with a large black population, Teagarden developed an early appreciation of black music, especially the blues and gospel He was one of the first jazz musicians to incorporate blue notes into his playing. T. documented frequently numerous groups including systems going by Roger Wolfe Kahn, Eddie Condon, Crimson Nichols, and Louis Armstrong (Knockin a Jug). I tried to get him on the WPA symphony where he deserved to be but the stinking little bureaucrat who directed the symphony refused to recognize the cymbalom as a civilized instrument. He originally planned to join Whitemans ensemble but happened to hear Ben Pollacks band first. Charlie Teagarden (July 19, 1913 - December 10, 1984), known as 'Smokey Joe', was an American jazz trumpeter. JP Jazz Archive /Redferns. The tax is murder, he says. While his most innovative days were in the late '20s and '30s, he remained a viable and highly enjoyable jazzman (and a popular attraction on the Dixieland circuit) up until his death in 1964. Mr. Teagarden was responsible, in the late twenties, for an addition to jazz folklore. It was the first time I became aware of segregation, she says. Born in Vernon, TX in 1905, trombonist and singer John Weldon "Jack" Teagarden was the most accomplished and ultimately best-known member of a very musical family. Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1985. The cause of death was bronchial pneumonia, which had followed a liver ailment. small band for the most of his career. "The Best Trombone Player in the World", by, Red Allen, Kid Ory & Jack Teagarden at Newport, "Jack Teagarden Is Dead at 58; Jazz Trombonist and Vocalist; Some Critics Considered Him a Genius His Technique Was Largely SelfTaught", Discography of American Historical Recordings, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Teagarden&oldid=1149760367, This page was last edited on 14 April 2023, at 07:56.