Edgar Sampson

Edgar Melvin Sampson (born August 31, 1907 in New York City , † January 16, 1973 in Englewood , New Jersey ) was an American jazz musician ( composer , arranger , saxophonist and violinist ).

Act

Edgar Sampson started playing the violin at the age of six and added the saxophone to school. At the beginning of his professional career (1924) Sampson performed as a duo with Joe Colman (violin / piano). In the further course of the 1920s he played in many big bands , including those of Duke Ellington , Rex Stewart and Fletcher Henderson . In 1933 he joined the Chick Webb Band. During this time he composed his famous works Stompin'at the Savoy and Don't Be That Way . He left Webb's band in 1937 with a good reputation as a composer and arranger and worked as a freelance arranger with the bands of Benny Goodman , Artie Shaw , Red Norvo , Teddy Hill , Teddy Wilson and Chick Webb. In the 1940s he continued to play the saxophone and formed his own band (1948–1951). During the fifties he worked as an arranger for Latin American artists such as Marceino Guerra , Alberto Socarras , Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente, and in 1959 recorded an album under his own name - Swing Softly Sweet Sampson . Due to illness, he had to quit work in his late sixties.

Compositions

• Dark Rapture (Benny Goodman - Edgar Sampson - Manny Kurtz ),
• If Dreams Come True (Edgar Sampson - Benny Goodman - Irving Mills),
• Don´t Be That Way (Edgar Sampson - Benny Goodman)
• Lullaby in Rhythm (Edgar Sampson - Benny Goodman - Clarence Profit - Walter Hirsch),
• Mambo Inn (Mario Bauzá - Edgar Sampson - Bobby Woodlen)
• Stompin 'at the Savoy (Benny Goodman - Chick Webb - Edgar Sampson; Text: Razaf, Andy)

Lexical entry

• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
• Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler, Christian Pfarr: Reclam's Jazz Guide . 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-15-010355-X .