John M. Brewer Jr. - Pittsburgh Jazz

Bessie Smith, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 1892, is considered the Empress of Blues. An orphan by the age of nine, she made money singing with one of her seven siblings on the streets of Chattanooga. She later accepted a challenge to sing professionally with her oldest brother. Smith was full of confidence, stage presence, and perseverance. During one show in Tennessee, when local Klansmen tried to shut her down, she confronted them with aggressiveness. The Klan members backed down and the performance went on. Smith also performed with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra featuring J. P. Johnson and a host of young stars.

Born in New Orleans in August 1901, Louis Daniel Satchmo Armstrong was the greatest jazz artist of all time. His frequent trips to Pittsburgh energized aspiring artists from downtown to Duquesne. Satchmo transformed jazz with his new vocabulary of jazz phrasestones and range on the trumpet that no one ever thought possible. Leading band members often sat in sessions attempting to learn his confusing style. He was even accused of having a modified freak horn that played notes not yet discovered on any scale.

Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., in 1899. A highly intelligent and sophisticated man, he was very superstitious, charming, and perhaps the most dapper band composer that ever lived. His close relationship with Pittsburghs Billy Strayhorn produced compositions for 28 years, and it is still impossible to distinguish where Duke stopped and Strayhorn began. Instead, they are viewed as one very big Ellingtonian force.

William (Billy) Strayhorn, born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1915, moved with his family to Pittsburghs Homewood Brushton district in 1925. While attending Westinghouse High School, he was mentored by nationally known music director Carl McVicker. Strayhorn thrived under McVickers influence, and he took music lessons after school at Mary Dawson Caldwells Negro Opera House, located only blocks from school. Strayhorn became an accomplished musician and composer before he graduated. Shortly after high school he was invited to join Ellington, and for the next 28 years, he published over 200 works with him.

Errol Garner, a Pittsburgh native and jazz pianist, was born in June 1921. His family had a long music tradition, and his father and older brother, Linton, played piano. Garner wrote out his lyrics on paper, and he was never formally taught how to read music. He had a gift of literally hearing and envisioning his compositions as they appeared in his head. At all times, he carried with him paper and a sharpened pencil ready to transcribe what he heard into lyrics.

Earl Kenneth Hines, born in Duquesne in 1905, developed his skill at Schenley High School in the early 1920s. He was nicknamed Fatha Hines because of his mentoring skills. Hines played at every nightclub, bar, and venue in the Hill, as well as on riverboats on the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. He was the first pianist to develop single note, trumpet-like piano solo lines. He progressed from leading a trio to leading a large traveling band, which enabled him to recruit more musicians and popularize his music.

Ahmad Jamal, pianist and composer, hailed from Pittsburghs East Liberty district. Born as Fritz Jones in July 1930, he joined the long list of Westinghouse High School students who later became famous musicians studying under Carl McVicker and Mary Dawson Cardwell. After forming his own group, he recorded a live album But Not for Me , displaying his dazzling techniques and unique use of silence that made him a dominating influence of the 1950s and 1960s.

Eleanor Billie Holiday was an exceptional singer who combined jazz and blues. Her music, such as Strange Fruit (originally a poem by Abel Meeropol), reflected painful experiences of African American victims of racial hate and discrimination, reminiscent of Bessie Smiths music in the 1920s. While touring with Count Basie in Detroit, she was asked to apply skin darkening grease to her light skin so the all-white audience would not think she was white performing with an all-black band.

Maxine Sullivan, born Marietta Williams in 1911, was one of the few black artists allowed to perform in downtown Pittsburghs all-white clubs in the 1920s and one of the first to cohost a nationwide radio program, Flow Gently Sweet Rhythm . Her signature song was a classic Scottish tune Loch Lomond. By the late 1930s, she became the foremost black female vocalist in America, inspiring young musicians like Ella Fitzgerald.