Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams

Concerto for Cootie: The Life and Times of Cootie Williams

Bowie, Steven C.

Hardcover

Series: American Made Music

Biographies GeneralMusiciansJazz

ISBN10: 149685943X
ISBN13: 9781496859433
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: Oct 6 2025
Pages: 456
Weight: 1.79
Height: 1.13 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Jazz legend Cootie Williams left home to start his career as a professional musician at the age of fifteen. In 1940, after eleven years as one of the major soloists with the Duke Ellington orchestra, Williams was lured away to the band of Benny Goodman, one of the most popular bands in the country. At the time, it was a controversial move--it was still taboo for African Americans to share the bandstand with white people. Current references to the move usually reduce it to a song written by Raymond Scott, When Cootie Left the Duke. In reality, it was a seismic event. The Black press predicted Black bands would collapse from raids on their ranks. White musicians were afraid they would be put out of work. And the white press stirred up visions of Black musicians mixing with white women in the new landscape of integrated orchestras.

The twenty years trumpeter Williams spent as a band leader (1942-1962) have been covered in only the barest of details. His involvement in politics and the civil rights movement have not been detailed before. An astute talent scout, Williams and his band launched the careers of Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, Earl Bud Powell, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, and Pearl Bailey. He also was the first to record the music of a young Thelonious Monk, using two of Monk's compositions (Epistrophy and 'Round Midnight) as theme songs for his band.

Steven C. Bowie respectfully tells Williams's story, from his Alabama ancestry onward, including many new details rediscovered from the historical archives of the African American press and those gleaned from the author's interviews with his friends and colleagues.

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