And although his playing style was also technically brilliant, featuring difficult techniques such as lip trills, his laid-back, vocal style of delivery " often described even as a lazy sound " effectively disguised his technical proficiency (lazy and lightning-quick(. 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. Teagarden proved helpful within the Southwest in a number of territory rings (especially using the renowned pianist Peck Kelley) and caused a feeling when he found NY in 1928. Fine, we said. 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". Sorry! Upper register solos, the lack of a strict solo beat, and the use of lip trills were some of his characteristics. He led his own band (193947), played with Louis Armstrong (194751), and re-formed his band (195157). Jack Teagarden (born August 20, 1905, Vernon, Texas, USA - died January 15, 1964, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA) was an American jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer and vocalist. Then in 47 when he joined Armstrong, Teagarden stepped up as top-ranking sideman, second only to the fabled Satchmoand more important able for the first time in his haphazard career to play the music that has made his name legendary in jazz annals. Atwell has never forgiven the media for that. The authors favorite Teagarden chorus (and everyone who professes a liking for jazz must have at least one favorite Teagarden chorus) is the one Jack plays on Jack Hits the Road, recorded for Columbia some twenty years ago, In it, Teagarden neatly demonstrates the things to come on his instrument. Born on Aug. 29, 1905, Teagarden learned trombone by the age of 10. It isnt only that I like to sing, but people come to the stand, wanting me to sing, but people come to the stand, wanting me to sing particular tunes. We have been all over this silly town. In what the documentary calls one of the most important jazz recordings ever made, Teagarden and Armstrong ignored the advice of friends in 1929 and joined together to makeKnockin A Jug. Trombonist, singer. Though he was extremely shy, he talked freely with her. Jack Teagarden Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden (August 20, 1905 - January 15, 1964), known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an American jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone". But the cymbalom chap did manage to pick the books he wanted to bind, and the first tome he put back into reading condition was a treatise on the sliphorn. It keeps me busy explaining why I cant.. Refusing to give up, he started a second band in early 1940, and this one he managed to keep going until late 1946, in spite of losing far too many good musicians to the draft. 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 . 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. Teagarden became ill in Japan, and returned after the tour a very weak and very sick man. With abuse heaped upon him, Teagarden became the first white musician to travel on the road with an all-black band. 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. It was this background that was probably the greatest influence on all of Teagardens work, both vocal and instrumental, and his use of the blues idiom was so convincing that Fletcher Henderson apparently suspected that Teagarden was colored. Tall, gangling, his horn wrapped in newspaper, Teagarden asked for an audition. At this point, he was also the grand old man of the instrument, well-respected both by traditionalists and (unlike many other traditionalist players) also by the more modern generation of trombonists. 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. Mr. Teagarden was responsible, in the late twenties, for an addition to jazz folklore. The tax is murder, he says. { He died in a motel room only hours after playing his last set from a chair because he was too weak to stand. Hit hard by both the war and the competition from bebop, several of the more famous big bands called it quits in 1946, and so did Teagarden. And as he drove along another car hit him from the rear. He was a nervous guy, never quite comfortable sitting down or standing still. "image": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/photos/profile/musician/e0e7e2a4dbeb66bf0ce1964893bdd.jpg", See the article in its original context from. We had to agree with Pee Wee, wed never heard anyone play trombone like that. He passed away from a coronary attack four weeks later and it has yet to become replaced. 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. 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. During the next 12 years Mr. Teagarden played with bands headed by Ben Pollack, Mal Hallet and Paul Whiteman. Although it was not as important an influence as his trombone playing, Jack Teagardens approach to singing was also unique and influential. Los Angeles-based La Santa Cecilia is really a Latin group that pulls inspiration from all , Your email address will not be published. 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. 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.". 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). The song earned $22,000, Eddie swears, and Jack wouldnt take a dime. For several years, however, Jack continued to play with local groups. James Infirmary (1947, with Louis Armstrong). He also started using Ponds Cold Cream and Pam Cooking lubricant on his trombone. Although gifted with an amazing technical virtuosity, the curiously mixed scale of feeling Teagarden draws from his horn has its origin in this childhood heritage. The two musical geniuses, whose mutual admiration knew no bounds, play those horns united in soul and sound. As a jazz artist he won the 1944 Esquire magazine Gold Award, was highly rated in the Metronome polls of 1937-42 and 1945, and was selected for the Playboy magazine All Star Band, 1957-60. 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. His tombstone reads simply, Where there is hatred, let me sow love, Courtesy of the Miami Herald, e-mail:sreisinger@herald.com As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. T, Big T (to brother Charlies Little T), Jackson, Gate, and Big Gate (again, Charlie was Little Gate), Jack Teagarden was by all accounts a big, easy- going, friendly man, well-liked throughout his career by his fellow musicians. Among the many landmarks of the jazz scene is one that seems destined to last forever. It was the first time I became aware of segregation, she says. His style was remarkable for its effortless flow of melodic ideas, technical poise, and the tender beauty of its overall effect. He and his mother played duets (trombone and piano) as background to the silent films at a Vemon theater. The musicians thought he was some kind of gag. Teagarden was born in 1905 in Vernon, Texas. Pollack's recordings were Teagarden's first. More recently, she founded the Progressive International Civic Association, which lowered the crime rate in her inner-city neighborhood by 40 percent in two years. Atwell and her younger brother, Joe, have hired an attorney to try to claim the rights to, and royalties from, all the dozens and dozens of recordings of their father, plus recorded radio broadcasts and six films he made. Weve been hearing a lot about you. It is difficult to realize that Teagarden is, after all, largely a self-taught musician. In 1918, after his fathers death, the family moved to Chappell, Nebraska, where he and his mother again worked in the local theater. 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 . In addition, he was an inventor, redesigning mouthpieces, mutes, and watervalves and inventing a new musical slide rule. All rights reserved. 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. It is for that kind of lyric and melodic beauty that we should listen to Jack Teagarden, because such are the standards he has set for himself. And they had a rule: if one side couldnt eat, then the other side didnt eat.. 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. Jack Teagarden was among the first white musicians to absorb and project the Negro blues tradition. Some sources claim his unusual style of trombone playing stemmed from the fact that he began playing before he was big enough to play in the farther positions. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Through the early and mid 1920s, he played with several other territory bands, including Doc Rosss Jazz Bandits, and the Orginal Southern Trumpeters. Jack Teagarden was the top jazz trombonist to emerge before World War II. Teagarden was also a respected jazz singer and developed his own blues vocal style. Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden was an American jazz trombonist and singer. His daring solos with Ben Pollack triggered Glenn Miller to de-emphasize his very own using the music group, and through the past due-20s/early Depression period, Mr. [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". He was also an outstanding jazz singer. Both were deeply affected by a knowledge of and ease with the blues that was available to few white players of the time. By 14, Teagarden was playing professionally. I asked, Do your really want a fur coat that much?, She stared and then she laughed bitterly. His movies included Birth of the Blues (1941). Even while playing with big bands, he recorded with small units led by Mr. Nichols as often as possible. with his own band. I guess thats the only time.. Drummer Cotton Bailey gave him the nickname Jack when he was 15 or 16 because Bailey didnt think Weldon was suitable to a musician, and it stuck. Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you. Charlie is still active with a band in Las Vegas. Its the trombone artistry of Jack Teagarden. His widow, Addie, a pioneer woman aviator and big band manager, eventually moved from Broward to South Dade, and then back to Fort Lauderdale, where she lived with Atwell until she died penniless in 1997. Teagarden divorced and married his second wife, and this marriage lasted three years before he divorced and married his third, a hotel phone operator. It apparently also greatly appealed to other musicians as soon as they heard it, but it relied so heavily on using unusual slide positions and on his ability to bend notes with his unusually flexible embouchure, that his style is generally considered to be literally inimitable.. He did not follow the traditional Dixieland tailgate treatment of his instrument. 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. My Jack Teagarden Research at the IJS. I promised my wife a mink coat six months ago, before I hit the road. One such occasion was recounted by Jimmy McPartland in Hear Me Talkin to Ya, a book telling the story of jazz in the words of the musicians who live it. While still in his childhood he moved to Oklahoma. Four trombones wailed their lament at the funeral. Unfortunately, this band also cannot really be considered a success. While shaking his head in amazement at the creative prowess of the trombonist, Williams also delineated some of the mans superb talent. After two months with the Tommy Gott Orchestra Teagarden secured a position in Pollacks organization, where he beat Glenn Miller for the seat of first trombone. 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. I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues in particular became a signature piece for him. Eddie Shields, the circulation driver who writes songs, phoned the minute he read about Jack. Reset your passwordClick the eye to show your password. Jack began on piano at age group five (his mom Helen was a ragtime pianist), turned to baritone horn, and lastly used trombone when he was ten. 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. 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. I was outraged. Teagarden later recorded with many of Americas jazz greats including Red Nichols, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong. singer, charming and warm, with influences from the African American So my Hungarian friend went on the book-binding project but he toted his cymbalom along and the book bindery became the most melodious WPA project that never got off the ground. First is a delightful biographic sketch of Jack Teagarden written for the January, 1960 issue of International Musician Magazine. The Fort Lauderdale daughter of jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden recreates the glory days of jazz in the life story or her legendary father. Jack Teagarden. 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. He has played with Paul Whitemans big band, Benny Goodmans recording groups, Louis Armstrongs All Stars, Ben Pollocks band, countless groups and orchestras, many of them under his own leadership. Atwell participated in a documentary of Teagardens life and plans to create a Web site and write a book about him. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 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. But they could not keep him from sitting on a fence near his home and listening to theNegroes singing in a church next door. His father was an amateur brass band trumpeter and started him on baritone horn; by age seven he had switched to trombone. Both have since died. Her latest rescue efforts are Troy, a Rottweiler, and Laroux, a red Dobie. His wife is Adeline Barriere (1942 - 15 January 1964) ( his death) ( 1 child), Billie Coates (1938 - 1941) ( divorced), Claire Manzi (1930 - 1936) ( divorced), Ora Binyon (1923 - 1930) ( divorced) ( 2 children) Jack Teagarden Net Worth His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Albums include Pop Music: The Early Years 1890-1950, Mis'ry and the Blues, and The Golden Years. 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. It was studded with many highlights. the tootler from Texas strode in. The All Stars did well, but Teagarden left in 1951, in order to once again put together his own band. When Jack was in Cambodia, the jazz-loving, clarinet-playing king of that country presented the trombonist with a medal for meritorious service to the arts. 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. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. His brothers, Trumpeter Charlie and drummer Clois, have played on stand with him, off and on during the decades Jack has been blowing jazz. Later the same year (1921) Teagarden joined Peck Kelleys Bad Boys in Houston. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); 1905 in Vernon 1920s - 1960s 1964 in New Orleans Al Grey Amiable/Good-Natured August 20 Big Band Bing Crosby Bunny Berigan Carefree Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Confident Day Driving Dixieland Earl Hines Dixieland Al - At the Olympia Theatre Early Jazz Elegant Exuberant Family Gatherings Fun Housework Indulgent Jack Teagarden Jack Teagarden - 100 Years from Today Jack Teagarden - Jazz Great Jack Teagarden - Mis'ry and the Blues Jack Teagarden - The Club Hangover Broa Jack Teagarden - The Indispensable 1928- Jack Teagarden-Earl Hines All-Stars January 15 Jazz Johnny Mercer LA Mainstream Jazz Nostalgic Playful Refined Reminiscing Road Trip Show/Musical Sidney Bechet Sophisticated Stylish Sunday Afternoon Swing TX Uplifting Vacation Visceral Warm Weldon Leo Teagarden Whimsical. 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