He was an inventor, redesigning mouthpieces, mutes, and water valves and inventing a new musical slide rule. He was an admired recording artist, featured on RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca, Capitol, and MGM discs. I dont want a coat, she wailed. Jack Teagarden, byname of John Weldon Teagarden, (born August 20, 1905, Vernon, Texas, U.S.died January 15, 1964, New Orleans, Louisiana), American jazz trombonist, unique because he developed a widely imitated style that appeared to have arrived fully formed. Teagarden became ill in Japan, and returned after the tour a very weak and very sick man. Unfortunately, he had neither the dominant personality nor the business smarts to be a good bandleader, and by the end of that year he was already $46,000 in debt. 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. Soundtrack: Reminiscence. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jack-Teagarden, All About Jazz - Biography of Jack Teagarden, Texas State Historical Association - The Handbook of Texas Online - Biography of Weldon Leo Teagarden, Jack Teagarden - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Your email address will not be published. The tax is murder, he says. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. It was the first time I became aware of segregation, she says. The secret, she says, was a lot of yelling and marching and to get the neighborhoods youth involved. 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. They are 3.5mil truncated eliptical, 2.3mil truncated conical, 2.8mil truncated conical, 3.3mil truncated conical. 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. 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 . Biography The musicians thought he was some kind of gag. As one columnist put it, his visit was worth ten diplomats. From a down-on-his-luck jazzman to senior statesman and musician extraordinary, Teagarden has come up the hard way to stand as one of the truly permanent figures in American jazz. About 1923 he briefly attempted to enter the oilfield business in Wichita Falls but soon gave up the venture and returned to music. His father, an amateur comet player, worked in the oilfields, and his mother was a local piano instructor and church organist. I found this short bio at Ancestry: Born in 1905 in Vernon, Texas, Jack Teagarden was an influential jazz trombonist and singer, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone." His musical abilities were largely self-taught and for that reason, unrestricted. They are 3.5mil truncated eliptical, 2.3mil truncated conical, 2.8mil truncated conical, 3.3mil truncated conical. He was identified with such tunes as I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues, St. Whats the big rush? A bulky, sadfaced man with a husky baritone voice, Mr. Teagarden was one of the few musicians whose work aroused enthusiasm among all the splinter groups in contemporary jazz. The following year the family moved to Oklahoma City. Jazz critic Martin Williams recently flipped in print over a solo passage Teagarden played on a concert recording made well over ten years ago. His father played trumpet, as did brother Charlie, while brother Clois played drums, and sister Norma played piano. Born: August 20, 1905Died: January 15, 1964. Mr. Teagarden was generally regarded as one of the masters of the jazz trombone. Born in Texas, raised in Oklahoma, Teagarden grew up in a world richly colored with Negro folk songs and hymns. Historians and critics widely agree: No one disputes Jack Teagardens place in the trombone pantheon(Morgenstern, 2004, p.292). 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. Sorry! Crosby helped Teagarden deal with his financial complications, and from 1947-1951 he was a celebrity sideman with Louis Armstrongs All-Stars; their collaborations on Rocking Seat are traditional. After Teagardens band failed, Bing Crosby brought him back to New York, and he eventually joined Louis Armstrongs All-Stars in 1946-47 as a featured soloist. To a guy like Jack, I suspect that was more important than almost anything else in the world. "url": "https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/jack-teagarden" And when hed done with that, he started on the blues, still by himself. He was also among the first white jazz musicians to record with black players. Four stylii were used to transfer this record. Trains, hotels and restaurants often refused them service unless they split up. [2], In the late 1920s, he recorded with such bandleaders and sidemen as Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Jimmy McPartland, Mezz Mezzrow, Glenn Miller, Eddie Condon, and Fats Waller. Mr. Teagarden had shorter arms than most trombone players and as a result did not use the swooping, thrusting style of many of his colleagues. Stars Fell on Alabama - Jack Teagarden's Chicagoans;Jack Teagarden;Billy May;Joe Sullivan;Heinie Beau;Dave Matthews;Dave Barbour;Art Shapiro;Zutty Single;Parish;Perkins Notes Technical Notes: Dupe of GBIA0069802N ,but previously transferred as wrong sides; Pops and clicks The song earned $22,000, Eddie swears, and Jack wouldnt take a dime. 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. Well, I took her back to Jacks hotel and I have never, come to think of it, seen the lady since. Weve been hearing a lot about you. And Mom had to explain to me that they werent allowed in the room because they were black. Though Vernajean Atwell was a toddler at the time and Teagarden is actually her stepfather, my earliest memories are of him taking care of me. I was having a couple of drinks With Bud Freeman and Pee Wee Russell one evening Pee Wee began talking about a trombone player, the greatest thing he had heard in this life. Teagarden was born in 1905 in Vernon, Texas. [2] According to critic Scott Yannow of Allmusic, Teagarden was the preeminent American jazz trombone player before the bebop era of the 1940s and "one of the best jazz singers too". Teagarden seems strangely uncomfortable without his trombone in hand and at least a rhythm section nearby to back him up. The cause of death was bronchial pneumonia, which had followed a liver ailment. Would sure like to hear you play.Solo StuffThe guy says, All right, gets his horn out, puts it together and blows couple of warm-up notes and starts to play Diane. His voice is midway between a heavy drawl and an outright yawn. June 1934. The trombonist, nevertheless, was still a large name (he previously fared quite nicely within the 1940 Bing Crosby film The Delivery of the Blues) and he previously many close friends. Sorry! A short digression into the mechanics of trombone playing will explain why. Weldon Leo " Jack " Teagarden (August 20, 1905 - January 15, 1964) was an American jazz trombonist and singer. May 2-7. 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. Instead, he used his lips, like a trumpet player, to form many notes. He was such a fine musician that younger brother Charlie (an excellent trumpeter) was always overshadowed. 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. He also started using Ponds Cold Cream and Pam Cooking lubricant on his trombone. His voice, with an engaging Southern drawl, ranged somewhere between the rasp of Louis Armstrong and the smooth sound of Bing Crosby, with whom he was professionally associated from time to time. Jack Teagarden was a famous jazz trombone player. According to critic Scott Yannow of Allmusic, Teagarden was the preeminent American jazz trombone player before the bebop era of the 1940s and "one of the best jazz singers too". } All these guys include legendary musicians like Bigard, Earl Hines, Bing and Bob Crosby, the Dorsey brothers, and even Walt Disney, who shared Teagardens lifelong love of steam engines and model railroads. I said, Mrs. He performed with Eddie Condon, Bix BeideIbecke, Paul Whiteman, the Dorsey brothers, Bob Crosby, Eddie Lang, Peck Kelley, and others. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. He Jack Teagarden was the top jazz trombonist to emerge before World War II. First time I ever heard Jack Teagarden blow that big sliphorn was like maybe But Whitemans group kept him a little too busy doing highly- arranged popular music, and he left when his contract was up. drinking, he died of a heart attack in New Orleans in 1964. A year or two later, drummer Cotton Bailey suggested that Weldon was not a suitable name for a musician and started calling him Jack. Pee Wee introduced us. He died only a few months later of pneumonia, at the age of fifty eight, in New Orleans. So the traditional trombone stylists specialized in playing simpler accompaniment parts featuring cute special effects like glissandos. 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. The trombone slide has seven positions where traditionally notated (chromatic scale) pitches can be played. 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. Finally, a straight forward look at Jacks life as seen by The Handbook of Texas Online. The All Stars did well, but Teagarden left in 1951, in order to once again put together his own band. 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 performed with Eddie Condon, Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Eddie Lang, and many others. Two drinks later, Pee Wee was back with the guy, who was wearing a horrible looking cap and overcoat and carrying a trombone case under his arm. and inventing a new musical slide rule. 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