Photograph of Roy Eldridge.
Roy Eldridge

Overview

Roy David Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the Swing Era and a precursor of bebop.

Life

Eldridge was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and originally played drums, trumpet and tuba. He led bands from his early years, moving to St. Louis, and then to New York. He absorbed the influence of saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, setting himself the task of learning Hawkins 1926 solo on "The Stampede" in developing an equivalent trumpet style. , p410</bgref>

Eldridge played in various bands in New York in the early 1930s, as well as making records and radio broadcasts under his own name. His rhythmic power to swing a band was a dynamic trademark of the jazz of the time. It has been said that "from the mid-Thirties onwards, he had superseded Louis Armstrong as the exemplar of modern 'hot' trumpet playing" .

Eldridge was very versatile on his horn, not only quick and articulate with the low to middle registers, but the high registers as well. The high register lines that Eldridge employed were one of many prominent features of his playing, another being blasts of rapid double time notes followed by a return to standard time. These stylistic points were heavy influences on Dizzy Gillespie, who, along with Charlie Parker, brought bebop into existence. Eldridge participated in some of the early jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse. A careful listening to BeBop standards, such as the song BeBop, will reveal how much Eldridge influenced this genre of Jazz.

In May 1941 Eldridge joined Gene Krupa's Orchestra, and was successfully featured with rookie singer Anita O'Day on a series of recordings including the novelty hit "Let Me Off Uptown". However, Eldridge complained that O'Day was upstaging him and the band broke up after Krupa was jailed for marijuana possession in July 1943. Eldridge then joined Artie Shaw's band.

In the postwar years, he became part of the group which toured under the Jazz at the Philharmonic banner. He moved to Paris for a time, before returning to New York, where he worked with Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald and Earl "Fatha" Hines among others. After a stroke in 1980, he continued performing on other instruments for the remainder of his life.

References

*John Chilton: Roy Eldridge, Little Jazz Giant (Continuum: 2002) ISBN 0-8264-5692-8
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This biography says:

...The high register lines that Eldridge employed were one of many prominent features of his playing, another being blasts of rapid double time notes followed by a return to standard time. These stylistic points were heavy influences on Dizzy Gillespie, who, along with Charlie Parker, brought bebop into existence. Eldridge participated in some of the early jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse...

This biography says:

...In May 1941 Eldridge joined Gene Krupa's Orchestra, and was successfully featured with rookie singer Anita O'Day on a series of recordings including the novelty hit "Let Me Off Uptown"...

That biography says:

...In 1938, after a public fight with Goodman at the Earl Theater in Philadelphia, he left Goodman to launch his own band and had several hits with singer Anita O'Day and trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Krupa made a memorable cameo appearance in the 1941 film Ball of Fire, in which he and his band performed an extended version of the hit Drum Boogie...

That biography says:

...Of the 34 sides she recorded with Krupa, it was "Let Me Off Uptown", a novelty duet with Roy Eldridge, that became her first big hit. That year, Down Beat named O'Day "New Star of the Year"...

This biography says:

...He led bands from his early years, moving to St. Louis, and then to New York. He absorbed the influence of saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, setting himself the task of learning Hawkins 1926 solo on "The Stampede" in developing an equivalent trumpet style...

That biography says:

He also performed with more traditional musicians, such as Henry "Red" Allen and Roy Eldridge, with whom he appeared at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, and recorded Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster with fellow tenor saxophonist Ben Webster on December 16, 1957, along with Oscar Peterson (piano), Herb Ellis (guitar), Ray Brown (bass), and Alvin Stoller (drums)...

That biography says:

...(Hampton was so impressed he reportedly asked to perform with the quartet; Bernstein later helped Haden obtain a composition grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.) Opinion was, however, divided: trumpeter Miles Davis famously declared Coleman was "all screwed up inside," (although this comment was later recanted) and Roy Eldridge stated, "I'd listened to him all kinds of ways. I listened to him high and I listened to him cold sober...

That biography says:

...He was born in Cannes, studied at the Nice Conservatory, then in Paris. A child prodigy, by age 14 he was playing jazz piano professionally, with Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, and Kenny Clarke....

That biography says:

...Throughout his career Sandy Williams played with some of the legendary jazz musicians of history, including Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, Roy Eldridge and Art Hodes, to name a few. Williams died in New York City on March 25, 1991.

That biography says:

...Albertson subsequently worked as producer for Prestige Records, supervising sessions by, among others, guitarist/singer Lonnie Johnson, whom he had pulled from obscurity while working in Philadelphia. He also started his own production company, supervising sessions that included Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge, Bud Freeman, Ray Bryant, and Elmer Snowden. In the mid-sixties, following a period as general manager of Pacifica station, WBAI, in New York, Albertson went to work for the BBC in London, advising them on how to adapt their radio programmes for sale in North America...

That biography says:

...Mathewson is best known for his years spent working with Ronnie Scott, but has also done recordings with such artists as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Ben Webster, Philly Joe Jones, Roy Eldridge, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans.

This biography says:

...He moved to Paris for a time, before returning to New York, where he worked with Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald and Earl "Fatha" Hines among others. After a stroke in 1980, he continued performing on other instruments for the remainder of his life.

That biography says:

...Fitzgerald had a number of famous jazz musicians and soloists as 'sidemen' over her long career. The trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie, the guitarist Herb Ellis, and the pianists Tommy Flanagan, Oscar Peterson, Lou Levy, Paul Smith, Jimmy Rowles, and Ellis Larkins all worked with Ella mostly in live, small group settings...

That biography says:

...At just 18 years of age, Lenny auditioned for an empty seat in Gene Krupa's band. Although initially skeptical, Krupa and Roy Eldridge were impressed and called Lenny at home the next day to tell him he got the job and to schedule him for a tuxedo fitting...

This biography says:

...His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the Swing Era and a precursor of bebop.

That biography says:

...In addition to featuring in these epochal moments in jazz, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of what early-jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the "Spanish Tinge". Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop, which was originally regarded as threatening and frightening music by many listeners raised on older styles of jazz...

That biography says:

...Davis belongs to the great tradition of jazz trumpeters from the Southern United States that started with Buddy Bolden and ran through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie. His greatest achievement as a musician, however, was to move beyond being regarded as a distinctive and influential stylist on his own instrument and to shape whole styles and ways of making music through the work of his bands, in which many of the most important jazz musicians of the second half of the Twentieth Century made their names...

This biography says:

*John Chilton: Roy Eldridge, Little Jazz Giant (Continuum: 2002) ISBN 0-8264-5692-8

That biography says:

*Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story *Ride Red Ride - the Life of Henry 'Red' Allen *Roy Eldridge, Little Jazz Giant *McKinney's Music - A bio-discography of McKinney's Cotton Pickers *A Jazz Nursery - The Story of Jenkins' Orphanage Band *Teach Yourself Jazz *Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Story of Bob Crosby's Bob Cats *Who's Who of Jazz *Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan *Billie's Blues - A survey of Billie Holiday's Career *The Song of the Hawk - The Life and Recordings of Coleman Hawkins *Sidney Bechet - the Wizard of Jazz *Who's Who of British Jazz

That biography says:

...Recording dates in November 1941 produced another early Jordan classic, "Knock Me A Kiss", which became a significant jukebox seller, although it did not make the charts. However Roy Eldridge subsequently recorded a version, backed by the Gene Krupa band, which became a hit in June 1942, almost a year after the Jordan recording came out; it was also covered by Jimmie Lunceford...

That biography says:

...For the next several years between the Condon tours, Johnny worked most of the jazz rooms around New York including The Embers, The Roundtable, Condon's Uptown (with Edmund Hall), The Metropole and many others. Musicians such as Henry "Red" Allen, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Bobby Hackett, Charlie Shavers, Jo Jones and Jonah Jones helped further his musical education.

That biography says:

...Steadily he created his own mode all the way through jazz’s history, accumulating lasting feelings from, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge and, in particular, Clifford Brown. Bergalli in his individual tender and pleasingly expressed performances it’s easy to recognize a melodious resonance of, Chet Baker or Miles Davis...

That biography says:

...In November 1944, Marmarosa joined Artie Shaw's combo, known as the Gramercy Five, that also featured guitarist Barney Kessel and fellow Pittsburgher, trumpet player Roy Eldridge....

That biography says:

...Later on, he recorded or performed with Frankie Newton, Hot Lips Page, Roy Eldridge, Trummy Young, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins. Between 1944 and 1951, he worked intermittently with Cab Calloway...

That biography says:

...Many of the names that made history in jazz signed with one of his labels, including Cannonball Adderley, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Louie Bellson, Benny Carter, Buck Clayton, Buddy DeFranco, Roy Eldridge, Tal Farlow, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Milt Jackson, Illinois Jacquet, Barney Kessel, Gene Krupa, Howard McGhee, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Charlie Parker, Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson, Flip Phillips, Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Art Tatum, Ben Webster and Lester Young...

That biography says:

...Witherspoon's style of blues - that of the "blues shouter" - became unfashionable in the mid-1950s, but he returned to popularity with his 1959 album, Jimmy Witherspoon at the Monterey Jazz Festival, which featured Roy Eldridge, Woody Herman, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines and Mel Lewis, among others. He later recorded with Gerry Mulligan, Leroy Vinnegar, Richard "Groove" Holmes and T-Bone Walker...
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