Cyrus St. Clair

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Cyrus "Cy" St. Clair (* 1890 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) , † 1955 in New York City ) was an American jazz musician ( tuba , double bass ). After Allmusic he is one of the top tubists of the 1920s.

Live and act

Cyrus St. Clair's father and uncle were tuba players. He first learned cornet as a child and played as a cornet player in a local band before switching to the tuba. After moving to New York, from 1925 he played with Wilbur De Paris , Bobby Lee's Cotton Pickers and in Charlie Johnson's Paradise Orchestra (“Don't Forget You'll Regret Day by Day”), and later with Clarence Williams (1926-37 ), with whom he also recorded and accompanied singers like Bessie Smith . He has also worked with Le Roy Tibbs and His Connie's Inn Orchestra, King Oliver , Cozy Cole and The Little Chocolate Dandies .

When the tuba went out of fashion in jazz in the late 1930s, St. Clair mostly worked outside the music business. In 1947 he was still involved in Rudi Blesh's radio program This Is Jazz . In the same year he entered the framework u. a. with Sidney Bechet , Wild Bill Davison , Muggsy Spanier , Hot Lips Page , George Brunies , Albert Nicholas , Art Hodes and Baby Dodds in the concert series World's Greatest Jazz Concert , with Bunk Johnson in New York's Town Hall. In the field of jazz he was involved in 83 recording sessions between 1925 and 1949, most recently as bassist with Tony Parenti and Knocky Parker .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Cf. Grove Music Online and Dennis Owsley: City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973 . 2006
  2. ↑ The Little Chocolate Dandies was a studio band with Rex Stewart (cnt), Leonard Davis (tp), JC Higginbotham (trb), Don Redman (cl, as, vcl), Benny Carter (as, vcl), Coleman Hawkins (ts) , Fats Waller (p, celeste), Bobby Johnson (bj), Cyrus St. Clair (tu), George Stafford (dr)
  3. ↑ In the episode For Your Approval with Punch Miller (tp, vcl), Max Kaminsky (tp), George Brunies (trb), Albert Nicholas, Mezz Mezzrow (cl), Luckey Roberts (p), Wellman Braud (kb), Baby Dodds (dr).
  4. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed August 28, 2015)
personal data
SURNAME St. Clair, Cyrus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES St. Clair, Cy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Cambridge, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH 1955
Place of death New York City